Since the first discovery of planets beyond the solar system in 1995, more than 6,000 exoplanets have been identified. Many of these planets have properties that differ significantly from the eight planets in our solar system. How are such diverse exoplanets formed and evolved, and which of them could potentially become Earth-like planets capable of supporting life?

Graphene is an extraordinary material—a sheet of interlocking carbon atoms just one atom thick that is stable and extremely conductive. This makes it useful in a range of areas, such as flexible electronic displays, highly precise sensors, powerful batteries, and efficient solar cells.

Two-dimensional nanomaterials only a few atoms thick are being explored for a range of critical applications in biomedicine, electronics, nanodevices, energy storage and other areas, especially to enhance performance in extreme environments and ultra-demanding conditions.

Imagine a clock that doesn't have electricity, but its hands and gears spin on their own for all eternity. In a new study, physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have used liquid crystals, the same materials that are in your phone display, to create such a clock—or, at least, as close as humans can get to that idea. The team's advancement is a new example of a "time crystal." That's the name for a curious phase of matter in which the pieces, such as atoms or other particles, exist in constant motion.

The Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE), a major environmental upheaval occurring approximately 183 million years ago during the Mesozoic Era, stands as one of the most severe perturbations to Earth's carbon cycle in geological history.

A research team led by Prof. Huang Diying from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) has identified three species of Jurassic orthopterans—an insect group that includes grasshoppers, crickets and katydids—with forewing patterns nearly identical to the leaves of bennettitales, an extinct, cycad-like seed plant.

A study published in the journal Science Advances, indicates how the heating in North America can trigger remote effects in Asia—this could be further exacerbated by anthropogenic global warming and human modification of the North American land surface.

An internationally binding treaty known as the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) has made it harder for vessels fishing outside national waters to avoid port inspections for illegal catches, but inconsistent standards across foreign versus domestic fleets could undermine its effectiveness, according to a new study.

Chemists at the University of Copenhagen have developed a method to convert plastic waste into a climate solution for efficient and sustainable CO2 capture. This is killing two birds with one stone as they address two of the world's biggest challenges: plastic pollution and the climate crisis.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the solar system. As a source of clean energy, hydrogen is well-suited for sustainable development, and Earth is a natural hydrogen factory. However, most hydrogen vents reported to date are small, and the geological processes responsible for hydrogen formation—as well as the quantities that can be preserved in geological settings—remain unclear.