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Despite all we’ve learned about the natural world, there’s still plenty of mystery out there. That applies especially to rice, a global staple.

A group of researchers from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) dialed into an important puzzle that could facilitate more sustainable agriculture. They sought to answer how and why the crop can thrive in some areas without fertilizer, while requiring copious quantities in others.

Their multiyear study was published in Plant and Cell Physiology, and the team summarized their results in a press release. The scientists’ starting point was the importance of plant root microbes in aiding plant health in areas with poor soils.

Those microbes form symbiotic relationships, but many of the details with rice are currently unknown. The scientists chose an ideal canvas to discover insights by comparing and contrasting two fields in close proximity.

One of the fields had 70 years of rice growth without added fertilizers or pesticides. Despite the lack of chemical inputs, the field produced 60-70% of the output of a fertilized field, per the researchers.

The other nearby field was conventionally fertilized. Over a period of one to four years, the scientists took samples during the growing season and dove into the microbial DNA in the roots of the Japanese rice cultivars.

The research uncovered a number of insights. One was that, as the plants mature, microbial diversity ramps up. In the unfertilized field, nitrogen-fixing bacteria appeared to take the place of conventional fertilizer by taking atmospheric nitrogen and making it into a usable form.

Another takeaway was that, in the roots of rice from the unfertilized field, a gene responsible for nitrogen fixation was found in greater numbers. Lastly, the scientists learned about the differing types of bacteria in the growing stage.

While anaerobic bacteria were prominent in the early stages, aerobic and microaerophilic bacteria took on a greater role in the reproductive and maturation stages. The researchers connected that phenomenon to soil oxygen availability, which is impacted by growing practices like draining water.

“These results provide valuable insights into the assembly of the rice root microbiome in nutrient-poor soil,” the researchers declared.

The team’s work comes at a critical time for rice, as the crop faces a host of climate challenges. Malaysia is just one of many countries dealing with rice shortages, as rising temperatures and unpredictable weather wreak havoc on the crop. Disease is also posing a major threat to the crop in India.

Unsurprisingly, there are multiple efforts to bolster the crop. One includes putting zinc oxide nanoparticles to help the rice withstand higher temperatures. Another effort takes on the exact opposite problem, addressing rice’s resilience in cold temperatures. The team is also not alone in looking into the genomes of rice to try to generate crop improvements.

The NAIST team believes their work could eventually boost rice’s sustainability.

“Looking ahead, isolating these beneficial bacteria and utilizing them in customized microbial blends could pave the way for sustainable rice farming,” said study leader Yusuke Saijo.

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Satellites, including those used for GPS and communications, will face greater risks in coming decades during solar-triggered geomagnetic storms because of the effect climate pollution has on Earth’s atmosphere, a new study found.

The increasing volume of planet-warming carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere is likely to make the air less dense, while geomagnetic storms have the opposite effect: The ensuing rapid changes in density as a result could cause serious troubles for satellite operations.

This study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, comes at a time when the world is growing more dependent on satellite networks for everything from internet access to navigation, as well as military applications.

Geomagnetic storms occur when charged particles from the Sun interact with the Earth’s upper atmosphere. Their most visible impact is the auroras that light up the sky with green, purple and pink light. But strong storms can wreak havoc on satellite operations and communication.

They can increase how dense the air is in these thin upper layers, making it difficult for satellites to maintain their speed and altitude and potentially make them sink, cutting down on their operational lifetimes.

Geomagnetic storms later this century that are of similar intensity to those today will cause bigger spikes in atmospheric density because Earth’s upper atmosphere will be less dense overall, the researchers found, using a supercomputer to model changes in the entirety of Earth’s atmosphere.

“For the satellite industry, this is an especially important question because of the need to design satellites for specific atmospheric conditions,” lead author Nicholas Pedatella of the National Center for Atmospheric Research told CNN.

A less dense atmosphere means satellites in the future would experience less drag, and that could lengthen their lifespan — and would also exacerbate the problem of more space junk in low Earth orbit, Pedatella said.

Scientists already knew that the upper atmosphere is likely to become less dense as the climate warms, with a lower concentration of non-ionized particles such as oxygen and nitrogen. It’s partly because of how higher concentrations of carbon dioxide affect temperatures in the upper atmosphere, which in turn affects the density of the air.

But this study breaks new ground by showing how much the atmosphere’s density could change during strong geomagnetic storms.

The researchers used last May’s strong geomagnetic storm as a case study. At that time, a series of powerful coronal mass ejections from the Sun interacted with the Earth’s atmosphere, disrupting and even damaging satellites and leading to brilliant displays of the Northern Lights unusually far south.

The scientists analyzed how the atmosphere would respond to the same event in different years: 2040, 2061 and 2084.

To perform the experiment, they used a supercomputer that can simulate the entirety of the Earth’s atmosphere, including the thinner, upper layers, to show how changes in the composition of the lower levels can alter the characteristics at much higher altitudes.

The researchers found that by later this century, the upper atmosphere would be 20% to 50% less dense at the peak of a solar storm similar to the 2024 event. The relative change would be greater, going from a doubling of density during such an event to a potential tripling.

Such a rapid throttling up of atmospheric density could damage critical satellite networks and thereby cause problems for society at the Earth’s surface.

The bigger the spike, the bigger the impact on a satellite’s orbit, Pedatella told CNN: “If you have a really big increase in density, then the satellite kind of comes down closer to Earth.”

The satellites being designed today need to take these climate change-related impacts into account, rather than basing their engineering on historical calculations, he added.

“You would think, ‘Okay, for this magnitude of a (geomagnetic) storm, I would expect this density response.’ But in 30 years from now, that magnitude of storm will have a potentially different magnitude of response,” Pedatella said.

Representative fauna of cold-seep sites in the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench and western Aleutian Trench.

Nature.com, Creative Commons License

This Deep-Sea discovery is so new it’s rewriting the map of life on Earth and it could reshape our understanding of the climate system. More than 9,000 meters below the Pacific Ocean, scientists have uncovered a 2,500-kilometer stretch of extraordinary life that doesn’t depend on sunlight at all — it runs on methane.

Between Russia and Alaska, in the deep-sea of the Kuril–Kamchatka and Aleutian trenches, clams, red-tipped tube worms, and invisible microbes thrive on gases seeping from cracks in the seafloor. These are the deepest methane-fueled ecosystems ever recorded — and they may be doing far more than surviving. They might be helping regulate our climate.

“What makes our discovery groundbreaking is not just its greater depth – it’s the astonishing abundance and diversity of chemosynthetic life we observed”

The study area, situated in the northwest Pacific, is demarcated by a white rectangle in the inset. Orange dots represent dive sites where chemosynthesis-based communities were observed and sampled and crosses indicate dive sites lacking such communities.

Nature.com, Creative Commons License

The discovery, published July 30 in Nature by a team led by geochemist Mengran Du of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, challenges the assumption that the hadal zone — the deepest part of the ocean — is barren mud. Instead, it appears to be a vibrant biogeochemical engine.

The Deep-Sea Climate Link

Deep in the sediments, microbes produce methane by breaking down buried organic matter. That methane is a potent greenhouse gas — more than 80 times stronger than CO₂ at trapping heat over a 20-year period.

But here’s the twist: other microbes — many living inside the clams and worms — consume methane, using it to make food before it can escape into the ocean or atmosphere. This process, called chemosynthesis, supports entire food webs in the absence of sunlight.

These trenches also lock away carbon in the sediments. Studies suggest hadal zones can bury up to 70 times more carbon per square meter than the average seafloor. Though trenches make up only about 1% of the ocean floor, they could store tens of millions of tonnes of CO₂ each year — making them small in area but potentially significant in climate impact.

What If the Deep-Sea Is a Methane Source, Not a Sink?

Some readers might wonder: if this system releases more methane than it consumes, why not simply remove it?

The problem is that physical disturbance could make things far worse:

• Sediments store centuries or millennia of methane and carbon. Disrupting them could release a sudden, massive pulse into the water column — and eventually the atmosphere.
• Methane flux in these environments changes with earthquakes, currents, and seasonal cycles; a single measurement won’t reveal the full pattern.
• These microbes could hold medical, industrial, or ecological value beyond methane cycling. Once lost, they’re gone forever.

In other words: without long-term monitoring, destroying the system would be like opening a sealed vault without knowing what’s inside — and possibly triggering a much larger release.

Deep-Sea Mining Moves In Before the Science Is Done

While scientists race to understand these ecosystems, deep-sea mineral extraction is moving closer to reality. Governments and companies are eyeing the ocean floor for cobalt, nickel, rare earths, and other high-value resources used in industries from electronics to defense. A 2024 Forbes analysis, “Deep-Sea Mining, ‘Dark Oxygen’ and Diplomatic Leadership,” notes that the scramble for ocean minerals is as much a diplomatic contest as an environmental gamble — underscoring the tension between economic ambitions and the unknown risks to fragile deep-sea ecosystems.

The International Seabed Authority (ISA) — the UN body that regulates mineral activity in international waters — is still debating rules for commercial deep-sea mining, and has not yet approved any mining operations, only exploration contracts.

Some nations are nonetheless moving forward in their own waters. In January 2024, Norway’s parliament voted to open a vast Arctic seabed area to mineral exploration, despite strong warnings from scientists and environmental groups. Later that year, political pressure forced the government to pause licensing plans, though companies remain poised to resume if approvals restart.

The United States, while not a voting member of the ISA because it has never ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, signaled clear political support for seabed mining in April 2025. President Trump issued an executive order directing U.S. agencies to expedite permits for offshore critical mineral projects — including in areas beyond national jurisdiction — a move criticized by the ISA as potentially undermining international governance.

Deep-Sea Scars That Last for Generations

Decades of research warn that deep-sea mining leaves a long and damaging footprint. In the Clarion–Clipperton Zone of the Pacific, a small test carried out in 1979 left the seabed scraped bare of polymetallic nodules. When scientists revisited the site more than 40 years later, the scars were still sharply visible, and the disturbed areas remained largely devoid of the sponges, corals, and starfish that had once lived there. Mining doesn’t just scar the seafloor where it happens — it can also generate sediment plumes that drift for tens or even hundreds of kilometers, carrying fine particles that smother distant habitats and clog the feeding apparatus of filter-feeding animals. And because many deep-sea organisms grow and reproduce extremely slowly — with some corals living for millennia — the collapse of such communities may take centuries to recover, if they recover at all.

How This Deep-Sea discovery Compares to Other Methane Systems

Methane seeps are not new to science — they have been documented in shallower waters off California, New Zealand, and in the Gulf of Mexico, and methane is also released when Arctic permafrost thaws. Most known methane seeps occur at depths of 500 to 5,000 meters, but the newly discovered hadal system plunges to more than 9,000 meters — almost twice as deep as any previously studied. It is vast in scale, forming a continuous 2,500-kilometer stretch along the Kuril–Kamchatka and Aleutian trenches. And unlike most methane systems, which tend to be either net producers or net consumers, this one appears to play a dual role — both generating and potentially consuming methane, while also locking away exceptional amounts of carbon.

Why This Deep-Sea Discovery Matters

This ecosystem is entirely new to science — a world more than 9,000 meters down that we didn’t even know existed a year ago. It may be quietly helping slow climate change, acting as a vast methane sink and carbon store. Or it may be a net source of methane, whose effects ripple far beyond the trenches. The truth is, we simply don’t know yet.

What we do know is that once such a system is disturbed or destroyed, it cannot be rebuilt. If it turns out to be a methane sink, protecting it could safeguard an irreplaceable natural climate service. If it turns out to be a source, disrupting it could trigger an even larger release of greenhouse gases — undoing centuries of natural storage in moments.

This discovery forces a choice: exploit the deep ocean in ignorance, or pause long enough to measure, understand, and decide with full knowledge. These hadal trenches may be one of Earth’s most powerful hidden climate tools, and we stand at the edge of deciding their fate.

In the end, this is why science matters. It is our only way to reveal the invisible systems quietly sustaining life on our planet — and our only defense against dismantling them before we even realize what we’ve lost. The deep-sea still holds secrets that can shape the climate future for every living thing. The question is whether we’ll listen before it’s too late.