’Mini earthquakes’ turn tiny chips into radio signal powerhouses

Chemists at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and Utrecht University have developed a new method to produce a promising chemical building block from biomass. This compound can serve as a precursor for useful products such as plastics, pharmaceuticals, and flavour and fragrance ingredients.

Some materials behave unexpectedly. They crack differently than expected, or react in ways that are hard to explain. The answer often lies in their atomic structure. Is it neatly arranged, as in a crystal, or disordered, as in glass? Researchers at the University of Twente have now created a material that is both simultaneously. In two directions it is disordered; in the third, perfectly ordered. Their findings have been published in Nature Communications .

People who witness a street conflict also experience tension and stress themselves. At the same time, they actively seek contact with others in order to feel a sense of closeness. This contact, in turn, reduces the tension experienced by bystanders, according to new research by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NSCR and the University of Turin.

In many parts of the world, including China, soil acidification is reducing agricultural yields. Recycling animal manure can help counteract this acidification and is therefore a key component of circular agriculture.