A ‘wasteful’ plant process makes a key prenatal vitamin. Climate change may reduce it.

MSU scientists uncover the hidden link between plant metabolism, climate change and a vitamin essential for healthy pregnancies

Michigan State University

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Michigan State University researcher Berkley Walker measures how much CO2 a plant takes in by clamping its leaves in an infrared gas analyzer.

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Credit: Finn Gomez

New research from Michigan State University reveals that photorespiration – long considered a wasteful process – is essential for producing a crucial nutrient for preventing birth defects.

For the first time, scientists have measured how much carbon flows through photorespiration to make folates, a class of compounds that includes vitamin B9 – known for its importance as a prenatal vitamin. According to the study, led by MSU researcher Berkley Walker, about 6 percent of the carbon absorbed by plants is used to make folates. That number plummets by fivefold when photorespiration is suppressed.  

These findings, published in Nature Plants, could help scientists engineer plants to boost production of the nutrient important for human health. They also shed light on how a high-carbon dioxide world caused by climate change could make plants less nutritious.

“In cultures where the bulk of their calories come from rice, it’s a pretty big deal if that rice is less nutritious,” said Walker, an associate professor in the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory and the Department of Plant Biology. “The way plants respond to changing climates is complicated. Understanding how they might adapt can help us plan better for the future.”

Plants are like factories, using the raw materials of sunlight, water and carbon dioxide, or CO2, to make sugar they use for food. The foreman of this factory is an enzyme called rubisco, which grabs CO2 and feeds it into the production line.

But sometimes, rubisco gets sloppy on the job and accidentally grabs oxygen, clogging up the assembly line and producing a toxic byproduct called phosphoglycolate. That’s when a recycling crew springs into action. In a process called photorespiration, plants neutralize the toxic waste and salvage it into useful compounds.

Scientists have long suspected that photorespiration supported processes like making folates. Until now, it was unclear how much carbon photorespiration contributed to making that vitamin.

To crunch the numbers, Walker and his lab tested a common model plant, called Arabidopsis thaliana. They measured the plant under conditions with or without photorespiration and measured how much CO2 the plant took in by clamping its leaves in an infrared gas analyzer. Then, they sprayed the leaves with liquid nitrogen while still clamped to freeze them immediately. This helped them understand what the leaf was doing while being measured.

Walker’s team used mass spectrometry to examine the leaf’s chemicals and how they incorporated CO2 over time. Then, they repeated the process for several months, measuring chemical content at different points before plugging the measurements into a computational analysis.

The results provide a stark look at how plant nutrition could change. As the CO2 in the air increases, plants need photorespiration less often. MSU’s study found that in those circumstances, the carbon flow to produce vitamin B9 dropped from nearly 6 percent to about 1 percent. That’s significant, as vitamin B9 is important during pregnancy to reduce the risk of neural tube defects.

“Understanding how nature makes this vitamin will help us engineer plants fortified with this nutrient,” Walker said. “That may become necessary especially in cultures where people can’t simply take a multivitamin to make up for less nutritious plants.”

The Walker lab’s next step is conducting similar experiments with crop plants grown outdoors. They want to know whether the same trends inside the lab are true for plants grown out in the field.

The National Science Foundation-funded project is another example of critical research that lays the foundation for the future.

“We need this knowledge about plants in order to engineer them for the future,” Walker said. “If we don’t have that foundation, we’ll never to get to the application.”

By Bethany Mauger

Michigan State University researcher Berkley Walker used liquid nitrogen to freeze plant leaves while they were still being measured by an infrared gas analyzer.

Michigan State University researcher Berkley Walker pours liquid nitrogen to flash-freeze plant leaves while still being measured by an infrared gas analyzer.

Credit

Finn Gomez

Journal

Nature Plants

DOI

10.1038/s41477-025-02091-w 

Article Title

Metabolic flux analysis in leaf metabolism quantifies the link between photorespiration and one carbon metabolism

Article Publication Date

3-Sep-2025

 SPACE/COSMOS

Solar flares over 6 times hotter than previously thought

University of St. Andrews

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A solar limb flare with a comparatable scale of Earth 

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Credit: Created by Alexander Russell (University of Andrews) using the open-source SunPy Python package and data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory space telescope via NASA EPIC Team

New research from the University of St Andrews has proposed that particles in solar flares are 6.5 times hotter than previously thought and provided an unexpected solution to a 50-year-old mystery about our nearest star. 

Solar flares are sudden and huge releases of energy in the Sun’s outer atmosphere that heat parts of it to greater than 10 million degrees. These dramatic events greatly increase the  solar X-rays and radiation reaching Earth and are hazardous to spacecraft and astronauts, as well as affecting our planet’s upper atmosphere. 

The research, published today in Astrophysical Journal Letters, looked at evidence of how flares heat solar plasma to greater than 10 million degrees. This solar plasma is made up of ions and electrons. The new research argues that solar flare ions, positively charged particles that make up half of the plasma, can reach over 60 million degrees. 

Looking at data from other research areas, the team, led by Dr Alexander Russell, Senior Lecturer in Solar Theory from the School of Mathematics and Statistics, realised that solar flares are very likely to heat the ions more strongly than the electrons. 

Dr Russell, said: “We were excited by recent discoveries that a process called magnetic reconnection heats ions 6.5 times as much as electrons. This appears to be a universal law, and it has been confirmed in near-Earth space, the solar wind and computer simulations. However, nobody had previously connected work in those fields to solar flares.” 

 “Solar physics has historically assumed that ions and electrons must have the same temperature. However, redoing calculations with modern data, we found that ion and electron temperature differences can last for as long as tens of minutes in important parts of solar flares, opening the way to consider super-hot ions for the first time.” 

“What’s more,” he added, is that the new ion temperature fits well with the width of flare spectral lines, potentially solving an astrophysics mystery that has stood for nearly half a century.” 

There has been a long-standing question since the 1970s about why flare spectral lines, bright enhancements in the solar radiation at specific “colours” in extreme-ultraviolet and X-ray light, are broader than expected. Historically, it was believed that this could only be due to turbulent motions, but that interpretation has come under pressure as scientists have tried to identify the nature of the turbulence. After nearly 50 years, the new work argues for a paradigm shift where the ion temperature can make a large contribution to explaining the enigmatic line widths of solar flare spectra. 

Solar flares

Credit

Created by Alexander Russell (University of Andrews) using the open-source SunPy Python package and data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory space telescope via NASA EPIC Team

Journal

The Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI

10.3847/2041-8213/adf74a 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Solar Flare Ion Temperatures

Article Publication Date

3-Sep-2025

SwRI-proposed mission could encounter and explore a future interstellar comet like 3I/ATLAS up close

Development study sets mission objectives and trajectory of journey to interstellar comet, as well as probability of success in locating a target

Southwest Research Institute

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Upper left panel: Comet 3I/ATLAS as observed soon after its discovery. Upper right panel: Halley’s comet’s solid body as viewed up close by ESA’s Giotto spacecraft. Lower panel: The path of comet 3I/Atlas relative to the planets Mercury through Saturn and the SwRI mission interceptor study trajectory if the mission were to be launched this year. The red arc in the bottom panel is the mission trajectory from Earth to interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.

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Credit: NASA/ESA/UCLA/MPS

SAN ANTONIO — September 3, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has completed a mission study detailing how a proposed spacecraft could fly by an interstellar comet, providing remarkable insights into the properties of bodies originating beyond our solar system. The internally funded SwRI project developed the mission design, scientific objectives, payload and key requirements based on previous interstellar object (ISO) detections. Using the recent discovery of 3I/ATLAS, the team validated the mission concept, determining that 31/ATLAS could have been intercepted and observed by the proposed spacecraft.

In 2017, the object designated 1I/‘Oumuamua became the first interstellar comet (ISC) detected in the solar system. Its identification and naming nomenclature starts with the number 1, because it’s the first such object to be discovered, followed by an “I” for interstellar, and “ʻOumuamua,” which is the object’s given name — a Hawaiian word meaning “a messenger from afar arriving first.” Its discovery was soon followed by the discovery of the second interstellar comet, ISC 2I/Borisov in 2019, and now this year, ISC 3I/ATLAS, which made worldwide headlines as it became the third officially recognized interstellar object to cross into our solar system. As new astronomical facilities like the National Science Foundation’s Vera Rubin Observatory develop new surveys and those capabilities expand, astronomers expect to discover many more ISCs over the next decade.
“These new kinds of objects offer humankind the first feasible opportunity to closely explore bodies formed in other star systems,” said SwRI Associate Vice President Dr. Alan Stern, a planetary scientist who led the study project. “An ISC flyby could give unprecedented insights into the composition, structure and properties of these objects, and it would significantly expand our understanding of solid body formation processes in other star systems.”

Scientists estimate that numerous interstellar objects of extrasolar origin pass inside Earth’s orbit each year, and that as many as 10,000 pass inside the Neptune’s orbit in any given year. The SwRI-led internal research study tackled the unique design challenges and defined the costs and payload needs associated with an ISC mission. The mission concept could be later proposed to NASA. The hyperbolic trajectories and high velocities of these objects preclude orbiting them with current technology, but the SwRI study showed that flyby reconnaissance is feasible and affordable.

“The trajectory of 3I/ATLAS is within the interceptable range of the mission we designed, and the scientific observations made during such a flyby would be groundbreaking,” said SwRI’s Matthew Freeman, the study’s project manager.” The proposed mission would be a high-speed, head-on flyby that would collect a large amount of valuable data and could also serve as a model for future missions to other ISCs.”

SwRI scientists and their external collaborators in the study established the major, comprehensive scientific objectives for a mission to an ISC. Determining the physical properties of the body would offer insights to its formation and evolution. Examining the ISC composition could help explain its origins and interpret how evolutionary forces have affected the comet since its formation. Yet another objective is to thoroughly investigate the nature of the object’s coma, the escaping atmosphere emanating from its central body.

To develop mission trajectory options, SwRI developed software that generated a representative, synthetic population of ISCs then calculated a minimum energy trajectory from Earth to the path of each comet. The software’s calculations showed that a low-energy rendezvous trajectory is possible, and in many cases would require less launch and in-flight velocity change resources than many other solar system missions. SwRI orbital mechanics expert, Dr. Mark Tapley, used this software to calculate the trajectory that the proposed spacecraft could have taken from Earth to intercept 3I/ATLAS. He found that the mission designed by SwRI’s study could have reached 3I/ATLAS.

“The very encouraging thing about the appearance of 3I/ATLAS is that it further strengthens the case that our study for an ISC mission made,” said Tapley. “We demonstrated that it doesn’t take anything harder than the technologies and launch performance like missions that NASA has already flown to encounter these interstellar comets.”

For more information, visit https://www.swri.org/markets/earth-space/space-research-technology.

 

Countries’ carbon budget math is broken

How flawed calculations let high-polluting countries off the hook, and how courts can hold them accountable

Utrecht University

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The figure shows how national climate pledges (NDCs) compare with global pathways that would limit warming to between 1.5°C and 4°C. Under the approach as proposed in the research, global emissions are divided up in a way that reflects fairness and equity. The colors show whether a country’s pledge is strong enough to match a 1.5°C pathway or instead lines up with weaker pathways (2°C, 3°C, or 4°C).

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Credit: Yann Robiou du Pont, et al., Nature Communications.

Climate action is falling behind on the goals as stated in the Paris Agreement. To meet those goals, countries must act according to their ‘fair share’ targets. However, researchers from Utrecht University found a bias in how ambition and fairness assessments were calculated until now: “previous studies assessing countries climate ambition share a feature that rewards high emitters at the expense of the most vulnerable ones.” This finding influences climate change mitigations globally. The research, led by Yann Robiou du Pont, was published on 3 September in Nature Communications.

The researchers argue that previous fairness and ambition assessments were biased, as they start from shifting goalposts of rising emissions. Their proposed method avoids delaying the obligation to reduce emissions and calculates the immediate ambition gap that can be filled by climate measures and international finance. As negotiated climate targets are still insufficient, this work underscores the growing role of courts in ensuring that climate and human rights obligations are met. The study highlights that high-emitting countries, most notably G7 countries, Russia, and China, need to do more given the very different historical responsibility and financial capability of countries.

An approach based on historical responsibility needed

Fair-share emissions allocations distribute the global carbon budget among countries based on principles like historical responsibility, capability, and development needs, aiming to assign each country a ‘fair share’ of allowable emissions. Under the Paris Agreement, these allocations indicate what each country should commit to in order to collectively limit global warming to 1.5°C and staying well below 2°C. 

By calculating each ambition and fairness assessment from the present situation, we increasingly let major polluting countries off the hook. This pushes a heavier burden onto countries that have done the least to cause the crisis, or more realistically brings the world towards catastrophic levels of global warming. Therefore, the authors propose calculating fair-share emissions allocations immediately based on each country’s historical contributions to climate change and their capacity to act. Accounting for immediate responsibilities sets a new baseline. It would cause some countries’ emission paths to suddenly and drastically change instead of following a smooth decline. This approach would demand steep, immediate cuts mostly from wealthier, high-emitting countries. Since the cuts needed from these countries are too large to achieve locally, it requires substantial financial support for additional mitigation in poorer countries. Importantly, removing the systemic reward for inaction affects the ranking of countries’ gap between their current pledges and fair emissions allocations, even within the group of high-income countries. Then, the USA, Australia, Canada, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have the greatest gap, requiring the most additional effort and finance. Much of equity discussions is about developed versus developing countries, but this paper is particularly relevant for developed countries being rewarded for inaction compared to other and more ambitious developed countries.

Role in climate litigation

Fair-share studies like this one are increasingly used in climate litigation, such as the KlimaSeniorinnen case before the European Court of Human Rights. The court recognised that insufficient national climate action constitutes a breach of human rights and that countries must justify how their climate pledges are a fair and ambitious contribution to the global objectives. Courts rely on these assessments to evaluate whether national emissions targets are sufficient and equitable. Biases in the assessments therefore have real-world impact: they can shape legal rulings, influence policy commitments, and inform public opinions. Courts are thus emerging as a key force in ensuring accountability and indirectly promoting cooperation when political and diplomatic negotiations fall short. In a landmark advisory opinion issued on July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice affirmed that countries have a legal obligation under international law to prevent significant harm to the climate system, emphasising the duty to act collectively and urgently. “This strengthens and underscores the growing role of courts in enforcing climate justice,” says Robiou du Pont.

Paying the debt

Solving the climate crisis is a moral imperative long identified by climate justice activists and scholars. Practically, we are observing that the lack of fair efforts by countries with the greatest capacity and responsibility to act and provide finance, results in insufficient action globally. A fairer allocation of effort is likely to results in more ambitious outcomes globally. This study explains how immediate climate efforts and finance are key to align with international agreements to limiting global warming.

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-62947-9 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Effect of discontinuous fair-share emissions allocations immediately based on equity.

Article Publication Date

3-Sep-2025

Safe, practical underground carbon storage could reduce warming by only 0.7°C – almost 10 times less than previously thought

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

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A new IIASA-led study for the first time maps safe areas that can practically be used for underground carbon storage, and estimates that using them all would only cut warming by 0.7°C. The result is almost ten times lower than previous estimates of around 6°C, which considered the total global potential for geological storage, including in risky zones, where storing carbon could trigger earthquakes and contaminate drinking water supplies. The researchers say the study shows geological storage is a scarce, finite resource and warn countries must use it in a highly targeted way.

Storing carbon deep underground has been presented as an almost limitless solution to the climate crisis. The study led by IIASA researchers in collaboration with an international team of colleagues and published in Nature, shows that the reality is far more limited than previously thought. The team has estimated a prudent global limit of around 1,460 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) that can be safely stored in geologic formations – an amount almost ten times smaller than estimates proposed by industry that have not considered risks to people and the environment.

Carbon storage is widely seen as essential for achieving climate goals, whether by capturing emissions from factories and power plants or removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. According to lead author Matthew Gidden, a senior researcher in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program and at the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland, USA, the study’s findings highlight the need for caution:

“With this study, we can conclude that carbon storage should be treated as an exhaustible, intergenerational resource, requiring responsible management. Hard choices must be made about which countries, which sectors, and even which generations are able to utilize it. It’s critical that countries make clear in their climate action plans how they plan to use carbon storage in order to collectively achieve long-term climate goals while minimizing harm to human health, biodiversity, and sustainable development.”

The researchers first analyzed total global geological storage by mapping sedimentary basins – underground rock formations where layers of sand, mud, and other materials have built up over millions of years. These basins are prime locations for both fossil fuel deposits and potential carbon storage. The team assessed their suitability for carbon storage by considering risks such as CO₂ leaking back into the atmosphere, the possibility of triggering earthquakes during the storage process, contamination of groundwater supplies, and proximity to population centers or protected areas. Sites that were too close to the surface to store carbon reliably, too far underground, or at ocean depths that make storage too expensive and risky, were also ruled out.

When these factors are taken into account, the global storage capacity shrinks dramatically from industry estimates of around 14,000 gigatonnes.

The team also examined what these storage limits mean for the planet’s ability to cool down after overshooting temperature goals, finding that if the total available geological storage capacity would be exclusively used for CO2 removal and no further emissions would be produced by other activities at that point, a maximum 0.7°C warming reversal is possible before available safe storage sites are exhausted.

Larger engineering and industry estimates have suggested much deeper temperature drawdowns of 5°C to 6°C – and even higher in some studies – but those assessments failed to factor in risks to people and the environment and allow for much more extensive and riskier storage potential.

The authors emphasize that such comparisons highlight the stark difference between what is technically possible and what can be safely achieved. They also caution that removing carbon may not reduce warming in the same way that emitting it causes warming, and that the climate system might not return to its earlier state even if global temperatures are brought back down.

“This study should be a gamechanger for carbon storage. It can no longer be considered an unlimited solution to bring our climate back to a safe level. Instead, geological storage space needs to be thought of as a scarce resource that should be managed responsibly to allow a safe climate future for humanity. It should be used to halt and reverse global warming and not be wasted on offsetting on-going and avoidable CO2 pollution from fossil electricity production or outdated combustion engines,” explains coauthor Joeri Rogelj, Director of Research at the Grantham Institute and PM senior research scholar at IIASA.

Fossil fuel producing countries such as the United States, Russia, China, Brazil and Australia have the most potential safe storage as disused mines are the most efficient type of geological storage. The countries with the lowest risks include Saudi Arabia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kazakhstan, while countries that see large decreases in potential storage space due to high risks include India, Norway, Canada and countries in the European Union. About 70% of all storage is onshore, with the remaining 30% at offshore sites.

“There are still many unknowns around geological carbon storage. The technology has been around for close to 30 years, but it still hasn’t been scaled to the levels needed to bring warming down. Identifying storage sites is a laborious process that needs to characterize very local geological properties to understand how much storage is actually possible. Previous research identified sites that can carry serious risks to humans and the environment and make rosy assumptions about how much carbon can be stored there. Our study asks and answers the opposite question: how much of the storage is actually safe and realistic to use?” Gidden says.

The team’s work also highlights questions of fairness and responsibility. Countries with the largest fossil fuel industries often have the greatest storage potential but also bear the greatest historic responsibility for emissions.

“This is not just a technical issue. It is about justice across generations and across nations. Countries that have historically contributed the most to emissions also have the most practical storage space available and must show leadership in using this resource responsibly. Decisions today will determine whether storage is used wisely or wasted,” notes coauthor Siddharth Joshi, research scholar in the Integrated Assessment and Climate Change Research Group at IIASA.

By showing carbon storage is a finite global resource, the study calls for international cooperation and careful planning. The authors identify that some scenarios used to guide policymaking assessed by the IPCC would breach this global limit before 2100, and project that almost all scenarios would do so by 2200, highlighting the difficult tradeoffs facing energy and climate planners. Policymakers will need to decide how to balance the competing demands of ongoing fossil fuel use with the need to remove carbon from the atmosphere to protect future generations.

“Carbon storage is often portrayed as a way out of the climate crisis. Our findings make clear that it is a limited tool. With current trends suggesting warming up to 3°C this century, using all of the safe geological storage wouldn’t even get us back to 2°C. Our study is a call for nations serious about meeting the Paris Agreement – they need to be clear, prudent, and practical about how they plan to use carbon storage to do so. Used strategically in conjunction with fast and deep emissions reductions, it will help us meet climate goals. But used carelessly while allowing fossil fuels to continue to proliferate, it could close off options for future generations,” says Gidden.

The authors highlight that while carbon storage remains an important part of climate solutions, it should be treated like any scarce resource – with transparency, fairness, and a long-term vision.

The team has developed an interactive website that allows policymakers, researchers, and the public to explore the findings in detail. The platform provides country-level visualizations of safe, practical carbon storage potential, helping users understand the tradeoffs and risks involved in different regions. This tool is designed to support evidence-based decision making and international cooperation on the prudent use of geological storage. Explore the story, data, and interactive maps here: https://cdr.apps.ece.iiasa.ac.at/story/prudent-carbon-storage [NOTE: Due to the embargo, the link will not be accessible until 3 September 2025 at 16:00 BST/17:00CEST/11:00am ET]

Reference
Gidden, M.J., Joshi, S., Armitage, J.J., Christ, A-B., Boettcher, M., Brutschin, E., Köberle, A.C., Riahi, K., Schellnhuber, H.J., Schleussner, C-F., Rogelj, J. (2025). A prudent planetary limit for geologic carbon storage. Nature DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09423-y [NOTE: Due to the embargo, the link will not be accessible until 3 September 202 at 16:00 BST/17:00CEST/11:00am ET]

 

About IIASA:
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. www.iiasa.ac.at

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-09423-y 

Article Title

A prudent planetary limit for geologic carbon storage

Article Publication Date

3-Sep-2025