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• March 26, 2024 | Primordial Fuel: Uncovering Hydrogen’s Role at the Origin of Life
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Biology March 26, 2024

Primordial Fuel: Uncovering Hydrogen’s Role at the Origin of Life

Hydrogen gas, dubbed the energy of the future, has been providing energy since 4 billion years ago. A recent study reveals how hydrogen gas, often…

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Technology March 25, 2024

Science Simplified: What Is Hydropower?

What Is Hydropower? The power of water has been used to perform work for thousands of years. Since flowing water has energy that can be…

Health March 25, 2024

The Future of Cancer Treatment? New Approach Uses the Zika Virus To Destroy Brain Cancer Cells

The scientists found that vaccine strains of the Zika virus eradicate brain tumor cells while sparing healthy ones. Scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS) have…

Biology March 25, 2024

Scientists Discover Strange Creature in a Seemingly Inhospitable Ecosystem

The discovery of this creature increases the total count of new species identified by researchers exploring these seemingly inhospitable ecosystems to 48. Greg Rouse, a…

Space March 25, 2024

Redefining Martian Hydrology: Surprising Insights About Debris Flows on Mars

Research pushes the presence of water on Mars further into the past. The period that liquid water was present on the surface of Mars may…

The Brain’s Secret Exit: Unlocking the Mysteries of Waste Drainage

The collaboration with NIH has implications for understanding the responses of the neural-immune system and the process of aging. In a recent study of the…

Vanishing Fat: Semaglutide’s Triumph Over HIV Liver Disease

A clinical trial demonstrated that semaglutide safely reduced liver fat by 31% in individuals with HIV and MASLD. This first study of its kind, conducted…

AI Made Easy: Create Cutting-Edge Solutions, No Coding Needed

Alumni-founded Pienso has developed a user-friendly AI builder so domain experts can build solutions without writing any code. As Media Lab students in 2010, Karthik…

Science March 25, 2024

Aellopobatis bavarica: Scientists Discover New 150 Million-Year-Old Species of Rays

A new species of fossil ray, Aellopobatis bavarica, has been discovered in Bavarica, Germany, dating back to the Late Jurassic period. In a new study…

Earth March 25, 2024

The Secret Keepers of Earth’s History: Zircons Reveal Billion-Year Geological Mysteries

A new study leverages detrital zircons to unveil the ancient geological processes shaping Earth, from crust-to-mantle recycling to the formation of supercontinents. The research was…

Autonomous robots help farmers prepare for world’s largest tulip bloom

The farming machines use a combination of cameras and AI models to find and remove diseased bulbs in an effort to ensure a healthy tulip season.

Maserati Grecale Folgore first drive: A luxury electric SUV that was worth the wait

While there’s no exotic combustion exhaust note, the SUV provides the driving excitement you’d expect from an Italian exotic like Maserati.

Whip up Easter savings with$80 off a KitchenAid mixer at Amazon—but act fast

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How Do Animals Respond to a Total Solar Eclipse?

Scientists are finally getting their hands on enough data to begin to understand how animals react to a total solar eclipse

Meghan Bartels

How a Rare Islamic Astrolabe Helped Muslims, Jews and Christians Tell Time and Read Horoscopes

Annie Melchor

How to Talk to Kids about Cancer

Riis Williams

How the Supreme Court’s Mifepristone Ruling Could Affect Abortion Access and Future Drug Approvals

Why Some Songs Make Everyone Want to Dance

Anna von Hopffgarten

Attacks on Diversity in Higher Education Threaten Democracy

Abby L. Ferber

Cement, Steel—And Pasta—Are About to Get Greener

Scott Waldman, E&E News

Wild Birds Gesture ‘After You’ to Insist Their Mate Go First

Olivia Ferrari

Wood Ink for 3D Printers Can Turn Old Scrap into New Parts

• Mind & Brain
• Environment
• Space & Physics
• Social Sciences

The Great American Solar Eclipse of 2024

How the Solar Eclipse Will Impact Electricity Supplies

Vahe Peroomian, The Conversation US

How Do Solar Eclipse Glasses Work?

Stephanie Pappas

Total Solar Eclipses Are Cosmic Coincidences That Won’t Last Forever

How the Eclipse Will Change Solar Science Forever

Rebecca Boyle

April 2024 Issue

Inside the AI Competition That Decoded an Ancient Herculaneum Scroll

Tomas Weber

Building Intelligent Machines Helps Us Learn How Our Brain Works

George Musser

God Chatbots Offer Spiritual Insights on Demand. What Could Go Wrong?

Webb Wright

AI Does Math as Well as Math Olympians

Manon Bischoff

Quantum Weirdness in New Materials Bends the Rules of Physics

Douglas Natelson

Families Find Ways to Protect Their LGBTQ Kids

Marla Broadfoot

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Science, Quickly Podcast

Magical Mucus: On the Benefits of Getting Slimed by a Hagfish

How artificial intelligence helped write this award-winning song.

Allison Parshall

Why Short Naps Are Good for You

Josh Fischman, Tanya Lewis, Lydia Denworth

The Great Debate: Could We Ever Travel through Time?

Clara Moskowitz, Lee Billings

The Science behind Humpback Whales ’ Eerie Songs

Devin Farmiloe

Popular Stories

Here Are the Best Places to View the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

Weather predictions and population statistics show the best spots to see the total solar eclipse over North America this April

Lava-Lit Lenticular Cloud Crowns Volcano in Spectacular Photo

These bizarre-looking clouds form in stable atmospheric eddies

Joanna Thompson

Earth Has More Than One Moon

Quirks of orbital mechanics make a cadre of sun-orbiting asteroids appear to be moons of Earth

How Much Vitamin D Do You Need to Stay Healthy?

Most people naturally have good vitamin D levels. Overhyped claims that the compound helps to fight diseases from cancer to depression aren’t borne out by recent research

Christie Aschwanden

A Dead Star Will Soon Spark a Once-in-a-Lifetime Display in Earth’s Skies

A nova called T Coronae Borealis spectacularly erupts every 80 years. Your only chance to see it will come any day now

Robin George Andrews

Banning TikTok Would Do Basically Nothing to Protect Your Data

Proposed restrictions on TikTok would be “security theater” in the face of the staggering amounts of data that foreign and domestic tech companies collect

Lauren Leffer

Latest News

Single enormous object left 2 billion craters on Mars, scientists discover

Sascha Pare published 26 March 24

An object that slammed into Mars roughly 2.3 million years ago created 2 billion smaller craters around the main Corinto impact crater, near the Red Planet's equator.

Physicists make record-breaking 'quantum vortex' to study the mysteries of black holes

Ben Turner published 26 March 24

Physicists created a 'quantum vortex,' which flows with 500 times less viscosity than water and could be used to study the space-time warping caused by black holes.

MIT scientists have just figured out how to make the most popular AI image generators 30 times faster

Keumars Afifi-Sabet published 26 March 24

Scientists have built a framework that gives generative AI systems like DALL·E 3 and Stable Diffusion a major boost by condensing them into smaller models — without compromising their quality.

Enormous explosions may be visible on the sun during the April 8 solar eclipse

Jamie Carter published 26 March 24

When the moon fully covers the sun on April 8, viewers will have a rare view of the sun's corona, and everything that explodes out of it.

'You could almost see and smell their world': Remnants of 'Britain's Pompeii' reveal details of life in Bronze Age village

Jennifer Nalewicki published 26 March 24

Archaeologists are studying a Bronze Age village built on stilts to better understand the lifestyles of the people who lived there.

Centuries-old Aztec texts detail history of their capital, conquests and fall to the Spanish

Owen Jarus published 25 March 24

Three codices from the 16th and 17th century describe historical details about the Aztecs and the area that is now Mexico City.

Planet Earth

Are kale, broccoli and Brussels sprouts really all the same plant?

By Marlowe Starling published 24 March 24

Have you ever heard of the plant Brassica oleracea?

Iceland volcano: Gigantic plume of toxic gas from latest eruption is moving across Europe, satellite data shows

By Harry Baker published 21 March 24

A massive column of sulfur dioxide that was pumped out by the erupting volcano on Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula is currently traveling across northern Europe. Scientists are concerned it could impact the ozone layer.

• 2 India's evolutionary past tied to huge migration 50,000 years ago and to now-extinct human relatives
• 3 Dying SpaceX rocket creates glowing, galaxy-like spiral in the middle of the Northern Lights
• 4 12 surprising facts about pi to chew on this Pi Day
• 5 1,900-year-old coins from Jewish revolt against the Romans discovered in the Judaen desert
• 2 Speck of light spotted by Hubble is one of the most enormous galaxies in the early universe, James Webb telescope reveals
• 3 8-hour intermittent fasting tied to 90% higher risk of cardiovascular death, early data hint
• 4 Beluga whales appear to change the shape of their melon heads to communicate, scientists discover
• 5 Brutal footage shows orca mom and son team up to drown another pod's calf

Hurry, the solar eclipse is fast approaching, but not a soon as the end of this excellent Unistellar deal

By Orla Loughran Hayes published 26 March 24

Deal Unistellar is offering 10% off all its products when you buy before the end of the month, just in time to watch the April 8 solar eclipse.

Why low-level clouds vanish during a solar eclipse

By Katherine Kornei, Eos.org published 25 March 24

Cumulus clouds rapidly dissipate as the land surface cools. This isn't just good news for eclipse chasers on April 8, but also has implications for sun-obscuring geoengineering efforts.

archaeology

4,300-year-old Egyptian tomb with stunning wall paintings was burial place of priestess and royal official

By Owen Jarus published 24 March 24

The ancient Egyptian tomb has colorful wall paintings depicting what life was like 4,300 years ago.

Ancient Chinese burials with swords and chariot cast light on violent 'Warring States' period

By Tom Metcalfe published 22 March 24

Researchers say the finds could help them understand the political and social changes going on in China during the Warring States period.

Up to 90% of tattoo inks in US may be mislabeled, chemistry researchers find in survey

By John Swierk published 24 March 24

Tattoo ink ingredients don't always match what's labeled on the bottle.

Popular weight-loss drug Wegovy now approved for heart disease. Here's what we know.

By Sara Reardon published 24 March 24

The FDA recently approved semaglutide (Wegovy) for preventing serious heart conditions in some people, but questions remain about how it works.

'We don't yet have the know-how to properly maintain a corpse brain': Why cryonics is a non-starter in our quest for immortality

By Venki Ramakrishnan published 23 March 24

In a new book, renowned biologist Venki Ramakrishnan explores the reasons why we die, and discusses unproven ways people hope to cheat death, such as cryogenics.

Eleonora's falcon: The raptor that imprisons birds live by stripping their feathers and stuffing them in rocks

By Megan Shersby published 23 March 24

One population of Eleonora's falcon is reported to keep little birds alive inside rocky prisons — a behavior not seen in any other raptor species.

Sperm whales drop giant poop bombs to save themselves from orca attack

By Jennifer Nalewicki published 22 March 24

A pod of sperm whales flung their poop at unsuspecting orcas to avoid a fatal attack.

'Kermit the Frog' creature that lived 270 million years ago looked like a 'stout salamander' with 'cartoonish' grin

Scientists found the ancient amphibian fossil in the collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

Human Behavior

Why do babies rub their eyes when they're tired?

By Ashley Hamer published 18 March 24

Babies usually rub their eyes when they're tired, but why?

Best movies about famous scientists that aren't Oppenheimer

By Erin Macdonald last updated 11 March 24

Oppenheimer cleaned up at the Oscars this year, so what better time to look back at the best biopics based on history's most influential scientists?

What's the difference between deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning?

By Alina Bradford, Mindy Weisberger, Nicoletta Lanese last updated 6 March 24

Deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning are easy to mix up. Learn what the difference is and see examples of each type of scientific reasoning.

Physics & Mathematics

Rare 'super-diamonds' may already exist on other planets, and could be made on Earth, study hints

By Stephanie Pappas published 21 March 24

A simulated form of carbon called BC8, or 'super-diamond', could be 30% tougher than normal diamonds, but synthesizing it on Earth won't be easy.

'Emergent gravity' could force us to rewrite the laws of physics

By Paul Sutter published 20 March 24

The idea of emergent gravity is still new and requires a lot of assumptions in its calculations to make it work. But if experimental evidence ever proves it real, we would need to totally rewrite the laws of physics.

Pi calculated to 105 trillion digits, smashing world record

By Harry Baker published 15 March 24

A U.S. computer storage company has calculated the irrational number pi to 105 trillion digits, breaking the previous world record. The calculations took 75 days to complete and used up 1 million gigabytes of data.

Bismuth is so strongly repelled from magnets, it levitates. How?

By Victoria Atkinson published 23 March 24

The element bismuth can "float" between magnets due to magnetic levitation. What's the science behind this phenomenon?

Best chemistry sets 2024: amazing at-home chemistry sets for kids and adults

By Jake Green last updated 15 March 24

Get the reaction you're looking for with the best chemistry sets for kids and adults.

Can static electricity cause a fire?

By Charles Q. Choi published 3 March 24

It's commonplace to get a jolt from static electricity. But does it have enough electrical charge to start a fire?

'White hat hackers' carjacked a Tesla using cheap, legal hardware — exposing major security flaws in the vehicle

By Nicholas Fearn published 23 March 24

Security researchers used a $169 Flipper Zero device and a Wi-Fi development board to obtain a driver's credentials, break into a Tesla Model 3 and drive away.

Scientists create AI models that can talk to each other and pass on skills with limited human input

By Roland Moore-Coyler published 22 March 24

Scientists modeled human-like communication skills and the transfer of knowledge between AIs — so they can teach each other to perform tasks without a huge amount of training data.

Hurry, 'arguably Panasonic’s greatest camera ever' is at its lowest price this year

By Orla Loughran Hayes published 21 March 24

Deal Amazon is selling the Panasonic Lumix S5 II along with a 35mm lens for $1,997.98 in a limited-time deal for the Amazon Big Spring Sale, and it’s highly regarded for shooting video.

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Why the Baltimore Bridge Collapsed So Quickly

Chris Baraniuk

Enjoy Your Favorite Wine Before Climate Change Destroys It

Large Language Models’ Emergent Abilities Are a Mirage

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Are You Noise Sensitive? Here's How to Tell

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Odysseus Marks the First US Moon Landing in More Than 50 Years

NASA’s New PACE Observatory Searches for Clues to Humanity’s Future

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Europe Is Struggling to Coexist With Wild Bears

Tristan Kennedy

The US Buried Nuclear Waste Abroad. Climate Change Could Unearth It

Anita Hofschneider

Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat

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A Discarded Plan to Build Underwater Cities Will Give Coral Reefs New Life

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Physics and math.

Never-Repeating Patterns of Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information

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You Can Count on Pi

There’s a New Theory About Where Dark Matter Is Hiding

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Is This New 50-Year Battery for Real?

Watch Neuralink’s First Human Subject Demonstrate His Brain-Computer Interface

A Pill That Kills Ticks Is a Promising New Weapon Against Lyme Disease

A New Headset Aims to Treat Alzheimer’s With Light and Sound

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AI Is Building Highly Effective Antibodies That Humans Can’t Even Imagine

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This Artificial Muscle Moves Stuff on Its Own

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Get Ready for 3D-Printed Organs and a Knife That ‘Smells’ Tumors

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Psychology and Neuroscience

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They Had PTSD. A Psychedelic Called Ibogaine Helped Them Get Better

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Climate Change Is Bad for Your Health, Wherever You Are

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Rampant Wildfires Are Threatening a Collapse of the Amazon Rainforest

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Selective Forgetting Can Help AI Learn Better

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Solar-Powered Farming Is Quickly Depleting the World's Groundwater Supply

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A teeny device can measure subtle shifts in Earth’s gravitational field

No bigger than a grain of rice, the heart of the instrument is the latest entrant in the quest to build ever tinier gravity-measuring devices.

An extinct sofa-sized turtle may have lived alongside humans

Peltocephalus maturin was one of the biggest turtles ever, but unlike similarly sized prehistoric freshwater turtles, it lived thousands of years ago.

By fluttering its wings, this bird uses body language to tell its mate ‘after you’

New observations suggest that Japanese tits gesture to communicate complex messages — a rare ability in the animal kingdom and a first seen in birds.

AI learned how to sway humans by watching a cooperative cooking game

New research used the game Overcooked to show how offline reinforcement learning algorithms could teach bots to collaborate with — or manipulate — us.

Dogs know words for their favorite toys

The brain activity of dogs that were expecting one toy but were shown another suggests canines create mental concepts of everyday objects.

Here’s what distorted faces can look like to people with prosopometamorphopsia

A patient with an unusual variation of the condition helped researchers visualize the demonic distortions he sees when looking at human faces.

These are the chemicals that give teens pungent body odor

Steroids and high levels of carboxylic acids in teenagers’ body odor give off a mix of pleasant and acrid scents.

Timbre can affect what harmony is music to our ears

The acoustic qualities of instruments may have influenced variations in musical scales and preferred harmonies.

American bullfrogs may be threatening a rare frog species in Brazil

A search for environmental DNA from critically endangered Pithecopus rusticus frogs turned up DNA from invasive American bullfrogs instead.

Human brains found at archaeological sites are surprisingly well-preserved

Analyzing a new archive of 4,400 human brains cited in the archaeological record reveals the organ’s unique chemistry might prevent decay.

Not all cultures value happiness over other aspects of well-being

Nordic countries topped the 2024 world happiness rankings. But culture dictates how people respond to surveys of happiness, a researcher argues.

50 years ago, superconductors were warming up

Superconducting temperatures have risen by about 250 degrees since the 1970s, but are still too cold to enable practical technologies.

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Europe space telescope's sight restored after de-icing procedure

The vision of the Euclid space telescope has been restored following a delicate operation that successfully melted a thin layer of ice that had been clouding its sight, the European Space Agency announced on Tuesday.

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Bio & Medicine

Artificial reef designed by engineers could protect marine life, reduce storm damage

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Researchers challenge the limits of molecular memory, opening the door to the development of molecular chips

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Transport of the future? Europe's longest hyperloop center opens

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Let’s learn about Godzilla and King Kong

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Artificial intelligence helped design a new type of battery

Explainer: sprites, jets, elves and other storm-powered lights, this frog is the world’s smallest known vertebrate, at last: how poison dart frogs ship defense toxins to their skin, word of the day.

Scientists Say: Megalodon

The extinct megalodon (Otodus megalodon) was the largest shark to ever prowl the oceans.

Analyze This!

Analyze This: Marsupial gliders may avoid the ground to dodge predators

It has been unclear why gliding evolved in marsupials. To search for clues, researchers strapped activity trackers to some of these cryptic creatures.

Experiment: Are we there yet? Test how migratory birds navigate

In this experiment, use real data to figure out how migratory birds navigate from their breeding grounds to their wintering grounds.

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Explainer: Earth — layer by layer

The science of ghosts

Get ready for the 2024 total solar eclipse

Top 10 tips on how to study smarter, not longer

Scientists Say: Periodic table

The ultimate blackout.

A total solar eclipse will race across North America on April 8, 2024, providing a rare opportunity for both scientists and casual observers.

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Maps of the April 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

By Jonathan Corum

On April 8, the moon will slip between the Earth and the sun, casting a shadow across a swath of North America: a total solar eclipse.

By cosmic coincidence, the moon and the sun appear roughly the same size in the sky. When the moon blocks the glare of the sun, the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, will be briefly visible.

Below are several maps of the eclipse’s path as well as images of what you might experience during the event.

Where Can I See the Total Eclipse?

The eclipse will begin at sunrise over the Pacific Ocean, then cut through Mexico and cross the United States from Texas to Maine. Most of North America will see a partial eclipse, but viewers within the deepest shadow — a band sliding from Mazatlán, Mexico, to the Newfoundland coast near Gander, Canada — will experience a total solar eclipse.

Percentage of

the sun obscured

during the eclipse

Indianapolis

Little Rock

San Antonio

Viewers inside the path of the total eclipse may notice a drop in temperature , a lull or shift in the wind , the appearance of bright planets in the sky, and the quieting of birds and other wildlife.

Many cities lie inside the path of the total eclipse, as shown below, the width of which varies from 108 miles to 122 miles.

20% partial eclipse

NEWFOUNDLAND

SASKATCHEWAN

Fredericton

Minneapolis

San Francisco

90% partial eclipse

Los Angeles

Mexico City

EL SALVADOR

Explore our interactive cloud outlook for eclipse viewing times and average cloud data at your location.

What Will I See?

A composite image of the 2017 solar eclipse over Madras, Ore.

Aubrey Gemignani/NASA

If the sky is clear, viewers in the path of the total eclipse should see a “diamond ring” effect a few seconds before and after the total eclipse, as the edge of the sun slips in and out of view.

The “diamond ring” effect during the 2017 solar eclipse.

Rami Daud/NASA, Alcyon Technical Services

The sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, is normally hidden by the sun’s glare. These tendrils and sheets of gas, heated to a million degrees Fahrenheit or more, are in constant motion and shaped by the sun’s swirling magnetic field.

The sun’s corona during the 2017 solar eclipse.

The sun is relatively active this year and is nearing the expected peak of its 11-year solar cycle . Researchers at Predictive Science are using data about the sun’s magnetic field to predict and model a dramatic corona for the April eclipse.

A prediction of how the sun’s corona might appear during the April 8 total eclipse.

Predictive Science

What Colors Should I Wear?

As the sky darkens, light-sensitive cells in human eyes become more sensitive to blue and green hues than to reds and oranges. This shift in color perception is known as the Purkinje effect , after a 19th-century Czech scientist, and is typically seen at twilight.

Watching the 2017 total eclipse at Southern Illinois University.

Andrea Morales for The New York Times

To take advantage of the Purkinje effect, wear green clothes or a contrasting combination of greens and reds. Blue-green colors (shorter wavelengths) will appear brighter, while red colors (longer wavelengths) will appear to recede into the darkness.

What If I Miss It?

The next two total solar eclipses in the United States won’t occur until 2044 and 2045 . But eclipse chasers might catch one in 2026 in Greenland, Iceland and Spain; 2027 along the coast of Northern Africa; 2028 in Australia and New Zealand; or 2030 across Southern Africa and Australia.

A Total Solar Eclipse Is Coming. Here’s What You Need to Know.

These are answers to common questions about the April 8 eclipse, and we’re offering you a place to pose more of them.

By Katrina Miller

What’s the Cloud Outlook for Eclipse Day? See if History Is on Your Side.

April 8 could be your best opportunity to see a total solar eclipse for decades. But if clouds fill the sky, your shot at seeing the spectacle could be lost.

By Josh Katz, K.K. Rebecca Lai and William B. Davis

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Farming can be a low-margin, high-risk business, subject to weather and climate patterns, insect population cycles, and other unpredictable factors. Farmers need to be savvy managers of the many resources they deal, and chemical fertilizers and pesticides are among their major recurring expenses.

Despite the importance of these chemicals, a lack of technology that monitors and optimizes sprays has forced farmers to rely on personal experience and rules of thumb to decide how to apply these chemicals. As a result, these chemicals tend to be over-sprayed, leading to their runoff into waterways and buildup up in the soil.

That could change, thanks to a new approach of feedback-optimized spraying, invented by AgZen, an MIT spinout founded in 2020 by Professor Kripa Varanasi and Vishnu Jayaprakash SM ’19, PhD ’22.

Over the past decade, AgZen’s founders have developed products and technologies to control the interactions of droplets and sprays with plant surfaces. The Boston-based venture-backed company launched a new commercial product in 2024 and is currently piloting another related product. Field tests of both have shown the products can help farmers spray more efficiently and effectively, using fewer chemicals overall.

“Worldwide, farms spend approximately $60 billion a year on pesticides. Our objective is to reduce the number of pesticides sprayed and lighten the financial burden on farms without sacrificing effective pest management,” Varanasi says.

Getting droplets to stick

While the world pesticide market is growing rapidly, a lot of the pesticides sprayed don’t reach their target. A significant portion bounces off the plant surfaces, lands on the ground, and becomes part of the runoff that flows to streams and rivers, often causing serious pollution. Some of these pesticides can be carried away by wind over very long distances.

“Drift, runoff, and poor application efficiency are well-known, longstanding problems in agriculture, but we can fix this by controlling and monitoring how sprayed droplets interact with leaves,” Varanasi says.

With support from MIT Tata Center and the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab , Varanasi and his team analyzed how droplets strike plant surfaces, and explored ways to increase application efficiency. This research led them to develop a novel system of nozzles that cloak droplets with compounds that enhance the retention of droplets on the leaves, a product they call EnhanceCoverage.

Field studies across regions — from Massachusetts to California to Italy and France —showed that this droplet-optimization system could allow farmers to cut the amount of chemicals needed by more than half because more of the sprayed substances would stick to the leaves.

Measuring coverage

However, in trying to bring this technology to market, the researchers faced a sticky problem: Nobody knew how well pesticide sprays were adhering to the plants in the first place, so how could AgZen say that the coverage was better with its new EnhanceCoverage system?

“I had grown up spraying with a backpack on a small farm in India, so I knew this was an issue,” Jayaprakash says. “When we spoke to growers, they told me how complicated spraying is when you’re on a large machine. Whenever you spray, there are so many things that can influence how effective your spray is. How fast do you drive the sprayer? What flow rate are you using for the chemicals? What chemical are you using? What’s the age of the plants, what’s the nozzle you’re using, what is the weather at the time? All these things influence agrochemical efficiency.”

Agricultural spraying essentially comes down to dissolving a chemical in water and then spraying droplets onto the plants. “But the interaction between a droplet and the leaf is complex,” Varanasi says. “We were coming in with ways to optimize that, but what the growers told us is, hey, we’ve never even really looked at that in the first place.”

Although farmers have been spraying agricultural chemicals on a large scale for about 80 years, they’ve “been forced to rely on general rules of thumb and pick all these interlinked parameters, based on what’s worked for them in the past. You pick a set of these parameters, you go spray, and you’re basically praying for outcomes in terms of how effective your pest control is,” Varanasi says.

Before AgZen could sell farmers on the new system to improve droplet coverage, the company had to invent a way to measure precisely how much spray was adhering to plants in real-time.

Comparing before and after

The system they came up with, which they tested extensively on farms across the country last year, involves a unit that can be bolted onto the spraying arm of virtually any sprayer. It carries two sensor stacks, one just ahead of the sprayer nozzles and one behind. Then, built-in software running on a tablet shows the operator exactly how much of each leaf has been covered by the spray. It also computes how much those droplets will spread out or evaporate, leading to a precise estimate of the final coverage.

“There’s a lot of physics that governs how droplets spread and evaporate, and this has been incorporated into software that a farmer can use,” Varanasi says. “We bring a lot of our expertise into understanding droplets on leaves. All these factors, like how temperature and humidity influence coverage, have always been nebulous in the spraying world. But now you have something that can be exact in determining how well your sprays are doing.”

“We’re not only measuring coverage, but then we recommend how to act,” says Jayaprakash, who is AgZen’s CEO. “With the information we collect in real-time and by using AI, RealCoverage tells operators how to optimize everything on their sprayer, from which nozzle to use, to how fast to drive, to how many gallons of spray is best for a particular chemical mix on a particular acre of a crop.”

The tool was developed to prove how much AgZen’s EnhanceCoverage nozzle system (which will be launched in 2025) improves coverage. But it turns out that monitoring and optimizing droplet coverage on leaves in real-time with this system can itself yield major improvements.

“We worked with large commercial farms last year in specialty and row crops,” Jayaprakash says. “When we saved our pilot customers up to 50 percent of their chemical cost at a large scale, they were very surprised.” He says the tool has reduced chemical costs and volume in fallow field burndowns, weed control in soybeans, defoliation in cotton, and fungicide and insecticide sprays in vegetables and fruits. Along with data from commercial farms, field trials conducted by three leading agricultural universities have also validated these results.

“Across the board, we were able to save between 30 and 50 percent on chemical costs and increase crop yields by enabling better pest control,” Jayaprakash says. “By focusing on the droplet-leaf interface, our product can help any foliage spray throughout the year, whereas most technological advancements in this space recently have been focused on reducing herbicide use alone.” The company now intends to lease the system across thousands of acres this year.

And these efficiency gains can lead to significant returns at scale, he emphasizes: In the U.S., farmers currently spend $16 billion a year on chemicals, to protect about $200 billion of crop yields.

The company launched its first product, the coverage optimization system called RealCoverage, this year, reaching a wide variety of farms with different crops and in different climates. “We’re going from proof-of-concept with pilots in large farms to a truly massive scale on a commercial basis with our lease-to-own program,” Jayaprakash says.

“We’ve also been tapped by the USDA to help them evaluate practices to minimize pesticides in watersheds,” Varanasi says, noting that RealCoverage can also be useful for regulators, chemical companies, and agricultural equipment manufacturers.

Once AgZen has proven the effectiveness of using coverage as a decision metric, and after the RealCoverage optimization system is widely in practice, the company will next roll out its second product, EnhanceCoverage, designed to maximize droplet adhesion. Because that system will require replacing all the nozzles on a sprayer, the researchers are doing pilots this year but will wait for a full rollout in 2025, after farmers have gained experience and confidence with their initial product.

“There is so much wastage,” Varanasi says. “Yet farmers must spray to protect crops, and there is a lot of environmental impact from this. So, after all this work over the years, learning about how droplets stick to surfaces and so on, now the culmination of it in all these products for me is amazing, to see all this come alive, to see that we’ll finally be able to solve the problem we set out to solve and help farmers.”

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Chemical Science

Ag1+ incorporation via zr4+-anchored metalloligand: fine-tuning the catalytic ag sites in zr/ag bimetallic clusters for enhanced eco2rr-to-co activity.

Attaining meticulous dominion over the binding milieu of catalytic metal sites remains an indispensable pursuit to tailor product selectivity and elevate catalytic activity. By harnessing the distinctive attributes of a Zr4+-anchored thiacalix[4]arene (TC4A) metalloligand, we have pioneered a methodology for incorporating catalytic Ag1+ sites, resulting in the first Zr-Ag bimetallic cluster, Zr2Ag7, which unveils a dualistic configuration embodying twin {ZrAg3(TC4A)2} substructures linked by an {AgSal} moiety. This cluster unveils a trinity of discrete Ag sites: a pair ensconced within the {ZrAg3(TC4A)2} subunits, and one located between the two units. Expanding the purview, we have also crafted the ZrAg3 and Zr2Ag2 clusters, meticulously mimicking the two Ag site environment inherent in the {ZrAg3(TC4A)2} monomer. The distinct structural profiles of Zr2Ag7, ZrAg3, and Zr2Ag2 provide an exquisite foundation for a precise comparative appraisal of catalytic prowess across the three Ag sites intrinsic to Zr2Ag7. Remarkably, Zr2Ag7 eclipses its counterparts in the electroreduction of CO2, culminating in an CO faradaic efficiency (FECO) of 90.23% at -0.9 V. This achievement markedly surpasses the performance metrics of ZrAg3 (FECO: 55.45% at -1.0 V) and Zr2Ag2 (FECO:13.09% at -1.0 V). Utilizing in situ ATR-FTIR, we can observe the reaction intermediates on the Ag sites. To unveil the underlying mechanisms, we employ density functional theory (DFT) calculations to determine the changes in free energy accompanying each elementary step throughout the conversion of CO2 to CO. Our findings reveal the exceptional proficiency of the bridged-Ag site that interconnects the paired {ZrAg3(TC4A)2} units, skillfully stabilizing *COOH intermediates, surpassing the stabilization efficacy of the other Ag sites located elsewhere. The invaluable insights gleaned from this pioneering endeavor lay a novel course for the design of exceptionally efficient catalysts tailored for CO2 reduction reactions, emphatically underscoring the novel vistas this research unshrouds.

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C. Liu, L. Li, W. Mu, Y. Tian, W. Yu, L. Li and J. Yan, Chem. Sci. , 2024, Accepted Manuscript , DOI: 10.1039/D3SC07005K

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• CAREER Q&A
• 26 March 2024

The beauty of what science can do when urgently needed

• Katherine Bourzac 0

Katherine Bourzac is a freelance journalist in San Francisco, California.

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Cultivarium chief scientific officer Nili Ostrov works to make model organisms more useful and accessible for scientific research Credit: Donis Perkins

Nili Ostrov has always been passionate about finding ways to use biology for practical purposes. So perhaps it wasn’t surprising that, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit during her postdoctoral studies, she went in the opposite direction from most people, moving to New York City to work as the director of molecular diagnostics in the Pandemic Response Lab, providing COVID-19 tests and surveilling viral variants. She was inspired by seeing what scientists could accomplish and how much they could help when under pressure.

Now the chief scientific officer at Cultivarium in Watertown, Massachusetts, Ostrov is bringing that sense of urgency to fundamental problems in synthetic biology. Cultivarium is a non-profit focused research organization, a structure that comes with a finite amount of time and funding to pursue ‘moonshot’ scientific goals, which would usually be difficult for academic laboratories or start-up companies to achieve. Cultivarium has five years of funding, which started in 2022, to develop tools to make it possible for scientists to genetically engineer unconventional model organisms — a group that includes most microbes.

Typically, scientists are limited to working with yeast, the bacterium Escherichia coli and other common lab organisms, because the necessary conditions to grow and manipulate them are well understood. Ostrov wants to make it easier to engineer other microbes, such as soil bacteria or microorganisms that live in extreme conditions, for scientific purposes. This could open up new possibilities for biomanufacturing drugs or transportation fuels and solving environmental problems.

What is synthetic biology and what drew you to it?

Synthetic biology melds biology and engineering — it is the level at which you say, “I know how this part works. What can I do with it?” Synthetic biologists ask questions such as, what is this part useful for? How can it benefit people or the environment in some way?

During my PhD programme at Columbia University in New York City, my team worked with the yeast that is used for brewing beer — but we asked, can you use these yeast cells as sensors? Because yeast cells can sense their environment, we could engineer them to detect a pathogen in a water sample. In my postdoctoral work at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, we investigated a marine bacterium, Vibrio natriegens . A lot of time during research is spent waiting for cells to grow. V. natriegens doubles in number about every ten minutes — the fastest growth rate of any organism.

Could we use it to speed up research? But using V. natriegens and other uncommon research organisms is hard work. You have to develop the right genetic-engineering tools.

How did the COVID-19 pandemic alter your career trajectory?

It pushed me to do something that I otherwise would not have done. During my postdoctoral programme, I met Jef Boeke, a synthetic biologist at New York University. In 2020, he asked me whether I wanted to help with the city’s Pandemic Response Lab, because of my expertise in DNA technology. I’m probably one of the only people with a newborn baby who moved into Manhattan when COVID-19 hit.

That was an amazing experience: I took my science and skills and used them for something essential and urgent. In a couple of months, we set up a lab that supported the city’s health system. We monitored for new variants of the virus using genomic sequencing and ran diagnostic tests.

Seeing what science can do when needed — it was beautiful. It showed me how effective science can be, and how fast science can move with the right set-up.

How did that influence what you’re doing now with Cultivarium?

COVID-19 showed me how urgently needed science can be done. It’s about bringing together the right people from different disciplines. Cultivarium is addressing fundamental problems in science, which is usually done in academic settings, with the fast pace and the dynamic of a start-up company.

We need to make progress on finding ways to use unconventional microbes to advance science. A lot of bioproduction of industrial and therapeutic molecules is done in a few model organisms, such as E. coli and yeast. Imagine what you could achieve if you had 100 different organisms. If you’re looking to produce a protein that needs to be made in high temperatures or at an extreme pH, you can’t use E. coli , because it won’t grow.

How is Cultivarium making unconventional microbes research-friendly?

It took my postdoctoral lab team six years to get to the point where we could take V. natriegens , which we initially didn’t know how to grow well or engineer, and knock out every gene in its genome.

At Cultivarium, we’re taking a more systematic approach to provide those culturing and engineering tools for researchers to use in their organism of choice. This kind of topic gets less funding, because it’s foundational science.

So, we develop and distribute the tools to reproducibly culture microorganisms, introduce DNA into them and genetically engineer them. Only then can the organism be used in research and engineering.

Developing these tools takes many years and a lot of money and skills. It takes a lot of people in the room: a biologist, a microbiologist, an automation person, a computational biologist, an engineer. As a non-profit company, we try to make our tools available to all scientists to help them to use their organism of choice for a given application.

We have funding for five years from Schmidt Futures, a non-profit organization in New York City. We’re already releasing and distributing tools and information online. We’re building a portal where all data for non-standard model organisms will be available.

Which appeals to you more — academic research or the private sector?

I like the fast pace of start-up companies. I like the accessibility of expertise: you can bring the engineer into the room with the biologists. I like that you can build a team of people who all work for the same goal with the same motivation and urgency.

Academia is wonderful, and I think it’s very important for people to get rigorous training. But I think we should also showcase other career options for early-career researchers. Before the pandemic, I didn’t know what it was like to work in a non-academic set-up. And once I got a taste of it, I found that it worked well for me.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00928-6

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Guidelines on the responsible use of generative AI in research developed by the European Research Area Forum

The Commission, together with the European Research Area countries and stakeholders, has put forward a set of guidelines to support the European research community in their responsible use of generative artificial intelligence (AI).

With the rapid spread of the use of this technology in all domains including in science, these recommendations address key opportunities and challenges. Building on the principles of research integrity, they offer guidance to researchers, research organisations, and research funders to ensure a coherent approach across Europe. The principles framing the new guidelines are based on existing frameworks such as the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and the guidelines on trustworthy AI .

AI is transforming research, making scientific work more efficient and accelerating discovery. While generative AI tools offer speed and convenience in producing text, images and code, researchers must also be mindful of the technology’s limitations, including plagiarism, revealing sensitive information, or inherent biases in the models.

Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President said:

We are committed to innovation of AI and innovation with AI. And we will do our best to build a thriving AI ecosystem in Europe. With these guidelines, we encourage the research community to use generative AI to help supercharge European science and its applications to the benefit of society and for all of us.

Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth said:

Generative AI can hugely boost research, but its use demands transparency and responsibility. These guidelines aim to uphold scientific integrity and preserve public trust in science amidst rapid technological advancements. I call on the scientific community to join us in turning these guidelines into the reference for European research.

Key takeaways from the guidelines include:

• Researchers refrain from using generative AI tools in sensitive activities such as peer reviews or evaluations and use generative AI respecting privacy, confidentiality, and intellectual property rights.
• Research organisations should facilitate the responsible use of generative AI and actively monitor how these tools are developed and used within their organisations.
• Funding organisations should support applicants in using generative AI transparently

As generative AI is constantly evolving, these guidelines will be updated with regular feedback from the scientific community and stakeholders.

Share your views

The widespread uptake of generative AI has triggered numerous institutional responses. While the EU is taking the global lead with its AI Act regulating AI products, many academic institutions and organisations across Europe have been developing guidelines on the use generative AI. The goal of the ERA Forum representatives, including Member States, Horizon Europe associated countries, and other research and innovation stakeholders, was to develop a guidance that could bring consistency across countries and research organisations.

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Like Kate Middleton, I had to tell my kids I had cancer. I let them ask questions and asked for their help so they felt included.

• When I got breast cancer, after processing my diagnosis for myself, I had to tell my four kids.
• I didn't want to keep it a secret, and I told them they could ask questions.
• Telling them allowed them to feel included in the process and brought us all closer. 

My four children were eight, six, four, and 10 months old when I learned I had breast cancer . I abruptly went from a mom to a mom with cancer. I knew that I would tell my kids the truth. The big question was, how?

The first thing I did was process the news for myself. My first response was denial and disassociation. These quickly gave way to panic. Like many who hear the news that they have cancer , I was fearful. What if I died, leaving my children motherless?

Related stories

Time doesn't heal all wounds, but it certainly can help. I went to many appointments, learned more about my breast cancer type and stage, and prepared to make the decision between getting a lumpectomy or a mastectomy . It was during this decision time that I revealed to my children that I had breast cancer.

I didn't want to keep my cancer a secret

Understandably, it was difficult for me to use the C-word. I'd been hearing it so much, and while I was learning to accept my diagnosis , I decided to use a rather childish term with my children to introduce the concept: boo-boo. I talked to each of them, calmly and confidently, and said that I had a boo-boo in my breast called cancer. I told them that the best thing to do was to remove it. I chose to have a bilateral mastectomy.

I knew it was best to be honest with my kids , both in that moment and with each future conversation. I believe that secrecy breeds fear. Instead, I wanted to foster an environment of safety and transparency.

My oldest had questions. My middle kids were quiet. The baby had no idea what was coming. I was heartbroken that there would be a solid month of not picking her up and cradling her in my arms, which my doctors told me was the recommended time to avoid lifting anything over five pounds. She wouldn't understand. We encouraged the kids to ask whatever they wanted, as well as told them they'd get to take turns hanging out with me in my room and watching movies.

Once we scheduled the surgery , I talked to my kids again. I explained to them that I was having a "bye-bye boobies" surgery and that I had to follow some rules after. I wanted them to feel included, but I would also need a few things about our daily lives to change during my recovery.

I told them that I would need them to be very careful and not be "silly" around me, which meant doing things like wrestling or jumping. I would also need them to be my "helpers" and grab a drink or food for me, for example. I wouldn't be allowed to pick up anything over a couple of pounds or lift my arms above my head, so I would need help from the older three to look after their baby sister.

I remember my oldest two kids drawing me pictures prior to my mastectomy , with messages written across the top. They wrote things like, "I love you, Mommy," and, "I hope you feel better." It was beautiful and hopeful to watch them process their feelings in this way.

As hoped-for and encouraged, after my surgery, the kids stepped in. They checked in on me often, as well as helped as much as they could. I think the ongoing communication brought them comfort and reassurance that I was going to be OK.

When I got cancer for a second time, I was honest with them again

Unfortunately, three and a half years later, I had a breast cancer recurrence in my chest wall. This time, I had three more surgeries, 12 weekly chemo infusions, 33 rounds of radiation, and 12 months of a targeted anti-cancer drug. Once again, I told my kids I had cancer, checked in with them often regarding their feelings, and made the process a family affair.

Cancer is a scary word, one no parent wants to discuss with their kids. However, I found that by being honest with my children, making sure they understood all feelings are welcomed and valid, and including them, we all came out of this journey stronger and more connected than ever.

Watch: The truth behind the experimental therapy that kids say starts with 'legalized kidnapping'

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