Heatwaves across Europe and South Asia have dominated the news recently. But these events are really a surface expression of more fundamental changes affecting our planet: Earth itself is accumulating heat faster than ever before.

We lead a large international team of scientists who come together every year to provide an update on the state of the climate system. This year, we find that Earth’s energy imbalance—the difference between the amount of energy entering and leaving the planet—has doubled in recent decades and is now at record levels.

This extra heat is a key indicator of the pace and scale of human-caused climate change. In a climate unaffected by human greenhouse gas emissions, Earth’s energy imbalance would be zero...

The critical minerals that power lithium-ion batteries are in high demand and short supply, especially for the U.S., which must rely on importing resources such as nickel and cobalt to manufacture the technology.

Cornell researchers have now developed a more efficient and cost-effective way to recover almost the full life of these batteries after they are spent. By using an electrochemical solution to regenerate their electrodes, the recycled batteries can regain up to 95% of their original power and last longer when reused, the researchers demonstrated.

The process could also slash current recycling costs by 56% and would be more environmentally friendly than current methods.

The findings were published in Energy & Environmental Science...

The mysterious Amaterasu particle may not be a proton at all. New research suggests that some of the most extreme cosmic rays could be ultraheavy atomic nuclei, heavier than iron, which are better able to retain their energy while traveling through space...

The first human clinical trial of a universal Sarbeco coronavirus vaccine, developed by the University of Cambridge and spin-out DIOSynVax (DVX) Ltd, has shown that the vaccine is safe and has no significant side effects.

The trial, involving 39 healthy volunteers, tested a vaccine designed to provide protection against multiple Sarbeco coronaviruses—the large group of viruses that occur in nature including SARS-CoV-2, which caused the COVID pandemic.

The vaccine triggered immune responses in the volunteers not only to SARS-CoV-2 and SARS, but to related bat viruses that could potentially jump from animals to humans and cause future pandemics.

This trial proves the safety of an entirely new way of designing vaccines...