There’s a farm in Arkansas growing soybeans, corn, and rice that is aiming to be the most scientifically advanced farm in the world. Soil samples are run through powerful machines to have their microbes genetically sequenced, drones are flying overhead taking hyperspectral images of the crops, and soon supercomputers will be crunching the massive volumes of data collected.

A growing network of lakes on the Greenland ice sheet has been found to drain in a chain reaction that speeds up the flow of the ice sheet, threatening its stability. 

Species living in coastal regions could face a significant future threat from reduced levels of oxygen in the marine environment, according to research published in Nature Scientific Reports.

UC Riverside researchers conduct first blind taste test of recycled wastewater

Astronauts who spend time aboard the International Space Station return to Earth with changes to the structure of their eyes which could impact their vision. NASA has studied the phenomenon, known as space flight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS), for several years, and now a University of Houston optometrist has quantified some of the changes using optical coherence tomography imaging, reporting his findings in JAMA Ophthalmology.

In late February, CBS News Denver reported that mountain lion sightings were on the rise in Colorado’s high country. Lion attacks on people in the state and around the world are rare, but the story referenced an attack on a 5-year-old boy in 2016 by a mountain lion near Aspen.

Scientists from Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) have linked the frequency of extreme winter weather in the United States to Arctic temperatures.

In winter, cold water masses in the North Atlantic sink from the sea surface into the deep ocean. This process, known as convection, is one of the key components of the large-scale ocean circulation. Based on long-term observations, scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel have now demonstrated the influence of increased surface freshening in summer on convection in the following winter. As the researchers write now in the international journal Nature Climate Change, enhanced surface freshening and warmer winters have significantly shortened the duration of ocean convection in the last decade.

There’s a lot more snow piling up in the mountains of North America than anyone knew, according to a first-of-its-kind study.

An international collaboration between researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Nagoya University and the University of Western Australia has resulted in a breakthrough in plant biology. Since 2014, the researchers have worked on identifying the genetic background for the improved flood tolerance observed in rice, wheat and several natural wetland plants. In a New Phytologist, article, the researchers describe the discovery of a single gene that controls the surface properties of rice, rendering the leaves superhydrophobic.