Drought News

July 16, 2025

Top Headlines

The Secret Motor Protein That Slams Leaf Pores Shut—and Saves Crops

July 16, 2025 — Scientists have discovered that a protein once thought to be just a cellular "courier" actually helps plants survive drought. This motor protein, myosin XI, plays a critical role in helping leaves close their pores to conserve water. When it's ...

Bigger Crops, Fewer Nutrients: The Hidden Cost of Climate Change

July 10, 2025 — Climate change is silently sapping the nutrients from our food. A pioneering study finds that rising CO2 and higher temperatures are not only reshaping how crops grow but are also degrading their nutritional value especially in vital leafy greens ...

From Air to Stone: The Fig Trees Fighting Climate Change

July 6, 2025 — Kenyan fig trees can literally turn parts of themselves to stone, using microbes to convert internal crystals into limestone-like deposits that lock away carbon, sweeten surrounding soils, and still yield fruit—hinting at a delicious new weapon in ...

Extreme Weather Is Wiping out amphibians—Here’s Where It’s Worst

June 6, 2025 — Frogs, salamanders, and other amphibians are not just battling habitat loss and pollution they're now also contending with increasingly brutal heat waves and droughts. A sweeping 40-year study shows a direct link between the rise in extreme weather ...

Nitrogen Loss on Sandy Shores: The Big Impact of Tiny Anoxic Pockets

June 2, 2025 — Some microbes living on sand grains use up all the oxygen around them. Their neighbors, left without oxygen, make the best of it: They use nitrate in the surrounding water for denitrification -- a process hardly possible when oxygen is present. This ...

Research Shows How Solar Arrays Can Aid Grasslands During Drought

June 2, 2025 — New research shows that the presence of solar panels in Colorado's grasslands may reduce water stress, improve soil moisture levels and -- particularly during dry years -- increase plant growth by about 20% or more compared to open ...

'Future-Proofing' Crops Will Require Urgent, Consistent Effort

May 30, 2025 — A professor of crop sciences and of plant biology describes research efforts to 'future-proof' the crops that are essential to feeding a hungry world in a changing climate. Long, who has spent decades studying the process of photosynthesis and ...

Rock Record Illuminates Oxygen History

May 29, 2025 — A new study reveals that the aerobic nitrogen cycle in the ocean may have occurred about 100 million years before oxygen began to significantly accumulate in the atmosphere, based on nitrogen isotope analysis from ancient South African rock cores. ...

A New Technology for Extending the Shelf Life of Produce

May 21, 2025 — Researchers developed a way to extend the shelf life of vegetables by injecting them with melatonin using biodegradable ...

Cover Crops May Not Be Solution for Both Crop Yield, Carbon Sequestration

May 20, 2025 — People have assumed climate change solutions that sequester carbon from the air into soils will also benefit crop yields. But a new study finds that most regenerative farming practices to build soil organic carbon -- such as planting cover crops, ...

First-of-Its-Kind Global Study Shows Grasslands Can Withstand Climate Extremes With a Boost of Nutrients

May 19, 2025 — Fertilizer might be stronger than we thought. A new international study found that fertilizer can help plants survive short-term periods of extreme drought, findings which could have implications for ...

Artificial Intelligence and Genetics Can Help Farmers Grow Corn With Less Fertilizer

May 15, 2025 — Scientists are using artificial intelligence to determine which genes collectively govern nitrogen use efficiency in plants such as corn, with the goal of helping farmers improve their crop yields ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:13pm EDT

The Atmospheric Memory That Feeds Billions of People: Newly Discovered Mechanism for Monsoon Rainfall

May 7, 2025 — Across the globe, monsoon rainfall switches on in spring and off in autumn. Until now, this seasonal pattern was primarily understood as an immediate ...

Extreme Monsoon Changes Threaten the Bay of Bengal's Role as a Critical Food Source

May 4, 2025 — New research has revealed that expected, extreme changes in India's summer monsoon could drastically hamper the Bay of Bengal's ability to support a ...

Will the Vegetables of the Future Be Fortified Using Tiny Needles?

Apr. 30, 2025 — Researchers have shown they can inexpensively nanomanufacture silk microneedles to precisely fortify crops, monitor plant health, and detect soil ...

How Activity in Earth's Mantle Led the Ancient Ancestors of Elephants, Giraffes, and Humans Into Asia and Africa

Apr. 21, 2025 — What roils beneath the Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate ...

Nutrients Strengthen Link Between Precipitation and Plant Growth, Study Finds

Apr. 18, 2025 — A new study has investigated how the relationship between mean annual precipitation (MAP) and grassland biomass changes when one or more nutrients ...

Missing Nitrogen: A Dramatic Game of Cosmic Hide-and-Seek Deep Within Our Planet

Apr. 16, 2025 — Earth's rocky layers are mysteriously low in nitrogen compared with carbon and argon. A scientific team explored our planet's molten youth using ...

8 Million Years of 'Green Arabia'

Apr. 9, 2025 — A new study reveals the modern arid desert between Africa and Saudi Arabia was once regularly lush and green with rivers and lakes over a period of 8 million years, allowing for the occupation and ...

The Lush Past of the World's Largest Desert

Apr. 7, 2025 — The vast desert of the Arabian Peninsula was not always an arid landscape. A recent study reveals that this region was once home to a vast lake and river system. These favorable conditions fostered ...

Human Urine, a Valuable Resource as Fertilizer for Sustainable Urban Agriculture, Study Concludes

Mar. 28, 2025 — The reuse of human urine would allow for the production of sustainable fertilizers for urban agriculture, with significant environmental benefits, a ...

How Elephants Plan Their Journeys: New Study Reveals Energy-Saving Strategies

Mar. 26, 2025 — A new study has revealed that African Elephants have an extraordinary ability to meet their colossal food requirements as efficiently as possible. ...

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (With Carnivores)

Mar. 17, 2025 — A new study has found that fortified enclosures also benefit nearby livestock keepers by preventing carnivore ...

Study: 'Sustainable Intensification' on the Farm Reduces Soil Nitrate Losses, Maintains Crop Yields

Mar. 13, 2025 — A nine-year study comparing a typical two-year corn and soybean rotation with a more intensive three-year rotation involving corn, cereal rye, soybean and winter wheat, found that the three-year ...

New Species of Killifish from Kenya Already Critically Endangered

Mar. 12, 2025 — A critically endangered new species of killifish sampled from an ancient forest in Kenya in 2017 and 2018 has now been described. Nothobranchius sylvaticus, from the Latin meaning 'pertaining to ...

Want to Preserve Biodiversity? Go Big

Mar. 12, 2025 — Large, undisturbed forests are better for harboring biodiversity than fragmented landscapes, according to recent research. Ecologists agree that habitat loss and the fragmentation of forests reduces ...

World's Critical Food Crops at Imminent Risk from Rising Temperatures

Mar. 4, 2025 — A new study offers a more precise picture of exactly where and how warming will affect our ability to grow ...

Ideal Nitrogen Fertilizer Rates in Corn Belt Have Been Climbing for Decades

Mar. 3, 2025 — The amount of nitrogen fertilizer needed to maximize the profitability of corn production in the Midwest has been increasing by about 1.2% per year for the past three decades, a trend driven by ...

Discovery of a Common 'Weapon' Used by Disease-Causing Fungi Could Help Engineer More Resilient Food Crops

Feb. 27, 2025 — The discovery of a powerful 'weapon' used by many disease-causing fungi to infect and destroy major food crop staples, such as rice and corn, could offer new strategies to bolster global ...

Unexpected Discoveries in Study of Giraffe Gut Flora

Feb. 24, 2025 — The gut bacteria of giraffes are not primarily determined by what they eat, but by the species they belong to. This is shown in a new study in which researchers have analyzed the link between diet ...

Research Provides New Detail on the Impact of Volcanic Activity on Early Marine Life

Feb. 24, 2025 — New analysis of ancient fossilized rocks known as stromatolites, preserved in southern Zimbabwe, suggests strong links to hydrothermal nutrient recycling, 'meaning that early life may in part ...

Nitrogen Fixation on Marine Particles Is Important in the Global Ocean

Feb. 19, 2025 — Nitrogen is essential for all life on Earth. In the global oceans, however, this element is scarce, and nitrogen availability is therefore critical for the growth of marine life. Some bacteria found ...

Animals as Architects of Earth: First Global Study Reveals Their Surprising Impact

Feb. 17, 2025 — Animals are not just inhabitants of the natural world -- they are its architects. A new study has revealed how hundreds of species shape the landscapes we depend on, from vast termite mounds visible ...

Scientists Identify Heat-Resistant Kelp Strain

Feb. 10, 2025 — Kelp is being negatively impacted by climate change. Warming ocean temperatures have led to shorter growing and harvesting seasons, including for sugar kelp, one of the most commonly farmed kelp ...

Research Contrasts Drought Sensitivity of Eurasian and North American Grasslands

Jan. 29, 2025 — Grasslands in Asia and North America differ in their responses to drought, according to a new article. The findings show that differences in the dominant grasses and lower species diversity in the ...

Complexity of Tree-Planting Schemes

Jan. 28, 2025 — Research with smallholder farmers in Kenya shows that tree-planting schemes must account for complex local issues and ...

Scientists Predict What Will Be Top of the Crops in UK by 2080 Due to Climate Change

Jan. 23, 2025 — While climate change is likely to present significant challenges to agriculture in coming decades, it could also mean that crops such as chickpeas, soyabeans and oranges are widely grown across the ...

Solving the Evolutionary Puzzle of Polyploidy: How Genome Duplication Shapes Adaptation

Jan. 23, 2025 — Scientists have developed a theoretical model that uncovers the dual role of polyploidy -- organisms carrying extra genome copies -- in evolution. Their findings reveal that polyploidy can stabilize ...

Camel Milk Udderly Good Alterative to Traditional Dairy

Jan. 23, 2025 — In addition to being hypoallergenic, camel milk could potentially protect the gut from harmful enzymes and create healthier ...

Being a Ladies' Man Comes at a Price for Alpha Male Baboons

Jan. 23, 2025 — There's a downside to being a powerful alpha male -- at least if you're a baboon. Studies show that despite their high rank, the No. 1 males in baboon society are also some of the most ...

Stronger Stress Response in Monkeys Helps Them Survive

Jan. 23, 2025 — Researchers used the environmental circumstances and fecal samples collected from the six years prior to the severe El Ni o drought in Costa Rica to study the relationship between the endocrinologic ...

Three Million Years Ago, Our Ancestors Were Vegetarian

Jan. 17, 2025 — New research reveals that our early ancestors, the Australopithecus, lived almost entirely on plants and likely didn’t eat meat at all. By analyzing the nitrogen isotopes in their fossilized tooth ...