Chemists have confirmed a 67-year-old theory about vitamin B1 by stabilizing a reactive molecule in water — a feat long thought impossible. The discovery not only solves a biochemical mystery, but also opens the door to greener, more efficient ways of making pharmaceuticals.

Honeybees are essential pollinators for agriculture and natural ecosystems. Stressors like climate change, habitat loss and pesticide exposure threaten their ability to forage for pollen, a critical resource for colony survival. Researchers in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology demonstrate that an artificial intelligence (AI)-based monitoring system combined with a computer model can link the exposure of neonicotinoid pesticides on individual honeybees to the health of the whole colony. 

What roils beneath the Earth’s surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate patterns, and even animal activity and evolution. In fact, scientists believe that a plume of hot rocks that burst from the Earth’s mantle millions of years ago could be an important part in the story of human evolution.

In a paper published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, a team of researchers employed systematic archaeobotanical flotation and AMS radiocarbon dating at two sites in Romania: Baia-În Muchie and Dobrovăț. It provides valuable data on the chronology of millet cultivation in the SW Eastern European Plain and enhances our understanding of early East-West exchanges and their impact on human-environment interactions in critical regions.