A healthy global food supply requires healthy soil, which requires fertilizer to replace and or enhance the nutrients found in the soil. Many farmers use synthetic fertilizers, which are produced from petroleum and fossil fuels. The lack of fertilizer threatens global food security, in addition to making growing food cost-prohibitive for small scale farmers.

Nick Sokol, a member of the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Lab, founded Algaeo, whose technology enables farmers to efficiently grow organic fertilizers on-site from microalgae, making the entire experience of farming easier and less labor intensive while also producing healthy and good-quality food.

Until now, carbon capture has focused largely on removing greenhouse gases at their source, such as the emissions of power plants, refineries, concrete plants and other industries. But University of Cincinnati Professor Joo-Youp Lee said the Golden Fleece of carbon capture is drawing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, which is much, much harder.

An interdisciplinary hub at the University of Rochester has been renamed to reflect its deep expertise encompassing two rapidly growing fields of research—data science and artificial intelligence.

The year 2025 has been proclaimed the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology by the United Nations, recognizing 100 years since the initial development of quantum mechanics. Now, Jefferson Lab, MIT and Sputnik Animation unveil “Visualizing the Nucleus,” a new animation of the particles and forces that dominate the quantum world and an accompanying website exhibit featuring the visualization of the structure of matter throughout history.

Researchers have finished equipping the Subaru Telescope with a new special “compound eye,” culminating several years of effort. This new eye is an instrument featuring approximately 2,400 prisms scattered across the extremely wide field of view available at the Subaru Telescope’s primary focus, allowing for simultaneous spectroscopic observation of thousands of celestial objects. This unrivaled capability will help researchers precisely understand the formation and evolution of galaxies and the Universe. Among 8-meter-class telescopes, the Subaru Telescope is the most competitive with the largest survey capability in the world. This instrument, the Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS), will be ready to begin scientific operations in February 2025.