St Petersburg university tests seed coating that boosts wheat yields
Russian chemists have developed a chitosan and glyoxal treatment that, in the laboratory, raised wheat productivity more than 1.5-fold and lowered the risk of disease.
Science
19 storiesDiscoveries, inventions and advances that make life better.
UCLouvain finds glowing shark uses its belly light to hunt unseen
UCLouvain researchers have shown that the kitefin shark, the largest known luminous vertebrate, erases its own silhouette to approach prey swimming below it.
Four-winged dinosaur fossil found in China challenges single origin of flight
Norellraptor barsboldi, about 100 million years old, suggests flight arose independently in several dinosaur lineages.
Vesuvius eruption that destroyed Pompeii helps refine dating of Earth’s history
A study involving the University of Padua used the eruption of AD 79 to make a geological dating method about twice as precise.
Japan’s Kenso Soai shares Nobel Prize in Chemistry for unravelling the mystery of mirror-image molecules
The 76-year-old Japanese chemist shares the prize with Frenchman Henri Kagan for work on molecules that exist in two mirror-image versions, essential for manufacturing many medicines.
German optogenetics pioneers Hegemann and Nagel receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine
Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel, former researchers at the Max Planck Society, have been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Embrapa becomes the FAO’s first reference centre for planted forests
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has chosen Embrapa Florestas to support countries around the world in this field.
New species of freshwater mosasaur discovered in Aix-en-Provence
French palaeontologists have identified a reptile around 85 million years old showing that mosasaurs did not live only in the seas.
Researchers in Luxembourg point to new ways of treating aggressive brain tumours
A scientific review by the LIH proposes exploiting a weakness in glioblastoma cells to make chemotherapy and immunotherapy more effective.
Flemish physicist Francis Halzen wins the Nobel Prize in Physics for his study of neutrinos
The 82-year-old researcher, a native of Tienen, is only the second Belgian to win the Nobel Prize in Physics, honoured for his pioneering work on so-called “ghost particles”.
CSIC researchers create zinc-air batteries up to 80% more powerful
A Barcelona team has shown that small loose conductive pieces inside the battery reduce internal resistance, overturning an idea accepted for decades.
Barcelona opens Spain’s most advanced facility for quantum chips
The new quantum nanofabrication area at CSIC's IMB-CNM received more than €6 million and features the most advanced electron-beam lithography system in the country.