Behind the Paper
The real stories behind the latest research papers, from conception to publication, the highs and the lows
Filtered by: Earth & Environment
How small earthquakes hint at Japan’s next megaquakes
Japan is known for its great earthquakes, but our new study asks what the countless small events can tell us. By treating them as a stress meter, we find different futures for offshore Tohoku and Hokkaido in terms of long-term megaquake hazard.
Where Can Hyperscale Data Centers Still Be Built in the United States?
The rapid expansion of hyperscale data centers is straining power systems, land, and climate-sensitive infrastructure. Where can additional capacity still be built under present-day physical and infrastructural constraints? In this piece, I quantified that using large-scale geospatial data.
When Missing Data Can Change the Story
This paper was born from a simple question that kept coming back during our own work on ionospheric trends: how much do data gaps really matter?
Turning waste into ceramic performance
Can ceramic tiles be made from mining waste? We show that diatom-rich marl discarded in Spanish quarries can be transformed into synthetic wollastonite, lowering firing temperatures and reducing imports, costs and environmental footprint.
When a borehole becomes a stress sensor
Can a simple borehole deformation replace costly hydrofracturing tests? Our study shows that ovalization measurements may predict in-situ stresses in soft rocks with surprising accuracy, offering a faster and more affordable alternative for underground engineering.
From Crystal to Collapse
How a rare transparent gypsum turned a small Roman city into a mining powerhouse and how a simple technological shift made the entire industry collapse. Segóbriga’s lapis specularis reveals how geology can build economies and innovation can erase them.
When an archive becomes an instrument: reading solar history in tree rings
Blog behind the paper "Patterns in solar activity over the first millennium CE", written by Ronny Friedrich and Michael See, edited by Jian Wang
How to distinguish a good socialist country from a bad one
Measuring biased representation on the world
Improving Watershed Models with Tile and Rotation-Enhanced Cropland (TREC) dataset
Land-use maps drive ecohydrologic modeling and water-quality estimates. In the U.S. Midwest, nitrate and water movement depend on crop rotation and tile drainage, but most national datasets do not fully capture these factors. Our TREC map captures both to improve the realism of the watershed model.
Dynamic stretching beyond electron transfer in a homointerpenetrated MOF for enhanced Fenton-like reactions
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-68917-z
Behind the Paper "Smart Water for Sustainable Agriculture Through Climate Resilient Assessment and Integrated Soil Water Crop Management"
Water quality is a key determinant of sustainable irrigation under climate variability. Integrating soil, water, and crop interactions with climate resilient assessment approaches is essential to support productive agroecosystems and long term water security.
Extraordinarily long duration of Eocene geomagnetic polarity reversals
Earth’s magnetic field reversals were long thought to finish within about 10,000 years, but new evidence shows two reversals around 40 million years ago lasted 18,000 and 70,000 years, indicating far greater variability in their durations.
