Tootfinder

First 3D-Printed Home Made Primarily From Soil is Built in Japan–Ditching Unsustainable Concrete https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/first-3d-printed-home-made-primarily-from-soil-is-built-in-japan/

First 3D-Printed Home Made Primarily From Soil is Built in Japan–Ditching Unsustainable Concrete
Collaborating with 3D printer manufacturers and robotics engineers, a Japanese company is building “homes of earth” made primarily from soil.

Unprecedented heat in North China: How soil moisture amplified 2023's record heat wave #China

Unprecedented heat in North China: How soil moisture amplified 2023's record heat wave
This summer, much of North China has endured widespread temperatures above 35°C. Even typically cooler, high-latitude summer retreats like Harbin in Northeast China—usually a refuge from the heat—saw temperatures soar past 35°C in late June and July. As climate change accelerates, extreme heat events will become increasingly frequent.

Soil Salinity Frequency-Dependent Prediction Model Using Electrical Conductivity Spectroscopy Measurement
Javad Jafaryahya, Rasool Keshavarz, Tarou Kikuchi, Negin Shariati
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03888

Soil Salinity Frequency-Dependent Prediction Model Using Electrical Conductivity Spectroscopy Measurement
Soil salinity is a critical factor influencing agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability, requiring precise monitoring tools. This paper focuses on developing a frequency-dependent model to predict soil salinity based on electrical conductivity (EC) and volumetric water content (VWC). A dataset of 40 soil samples with varying levels of salinity and moisture, consisting of two soil types (sandy and clayey), was experimentally measured for EC in the frequency range of 10 to 295 M…

🥮 Lunar soil could support life on the Moon, say scientists
#moon

Lunar soil could support life on the Moon, say scientists
Scientists have developed a technology that may help humans survive on the moon. In a study published in the journal Joule, researchers extracted water from lunar soil and used it to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and chemicals for fuel—potentially opening new doors for future deep space exploration by mitigating the need to transport essential resources like water and fuel all the way from Earth.

Characterising buried objects in metal detection
P. D. Ledger, W. R. B. Lionheart
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04450 https://arxiv.org/…

Characterising buried objects in metal detection
Current mathematical models for identifying highly conducting buried objects in metal detection assume that the soil is non-conducting and has the same permeability as free space. However, although the electrical conductivity of soil is low, it is not negligible and depends on factors such as soil type and salinity. Moreover, the magnetic permeability of soil varies with its iron content and is often described as uncooperative. Depending on the ground conditions, these soil's properties can inf…

Positive effects and mechanisms of simulated lunar low-magnetic environment on earthworm-improved lunar soil simulant as a cultivation substrate
Sihan Hou, Zhongfu Wang, Yuting Zhu, Hong Liu, Jiajie Feng
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03044

Positive effects and mechanisms of simulated lunar low-magnetic environment on earthworm-improved lunar soil simulant as a cultivation substrate
With the advancement of crewed deep-space missions, Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSS) for lunar bases face stresses from lunar environmental factors. While microgravity and radiation are well-studied, the low-magnetic field's effects remain unclear. Earthworms ("soil scavengers") improve lunar soil simulant and degrade plant waste, as shown in our prior studies. We tested earthworms in lunar soil simulant mixed with organic waste (from "Lunar Palace 365" experiment) under three magnet…

Workflow for High-Fidelity Dynamic Analysis of Structures with Pile Foundation
Amin Pakzad, Pedro Arduino, Wenyang Zhang, Ertugrul Tacirouglu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.05675 ht…

Workflow for High-Fidelity Dynamic Analysis of Structures with Pile Foundation
The demand for high-fidelity numerical simulations in soil-structure interaction analysis is on the rise, yet a standardized workflow to guide the creation of such simulations remains elusive. This paper aims to bridge this gap by presenting a step-by-step guideline proposing a workflow for dynamic analysis of structures with pile foundations. The proposed workflow encompasses instructions on how to use Domain Reduction Method for loading, Perfectly Matched Layer elements for wave absorption, s…

Ukraine, Denmark sign deal to launch Ukrainian military production on Danish soil: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/04/ukraine-denmark-sign-deal-to.html

Toward Alternative Earths' Habitability of Solar System Bodies at Earth's Orbit
Mohammed Abdel Razak
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06259 https://arxiv…

Toward Alternative Earths' Habitability of Solar System Bodies at Earth's Orbit
This paper presents the first structured evaluation of Solar System bodies hypothetically relocated to Earth orbit (1 AU) to assess their potential as alternative habitats. Using comparative criteria, planetary size and gravity, atmospheric retention, volatile accessibility, weather system potential, soil development feasibility, and orbital transfer cost. We find that most bodies are unsuitable. Mercury and the Moon lack volatiles and atmospheres, while gas and ice giants offer no solid surfac…

Moms want Trump's birthright citizenship order enjoined
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/children-born-on-us-soil-are-citizens-mothers-urge-court-to-issue-injunction-and-reject-trump-admin-arguments-in-birthright-citizenship-merits-case/

Dynamic Coupling of Infiltration-Soil Moisture Feedback:Emergent Vegetation Patterns in a Water-Vegetation Model
Juan Yan, Xiaoli Wang, Guohong Zhang, Yuan Yuan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01755

Dynamic Coupling of Infiltration-Soil Moisture Feedback:Emergent Vegetation Patterns in a Water-Vegetation Model
We present a modified water-vegetation model to investigate the mechanistic relationship between infiltration-soil moisture feedback and vegetation pattern in arid/semi-arid ecosystems. Employing Turing pattern formation theory, we drive conditions for diffusion-induced instability and analyze spatiotemporal dynamics near Turing-Hopf bifurcation points. Our key findings include: (i) The system exhibits rich dynamics including multiple stable equilibria, supercritical/subcritical Hopf bifurcatio…

In-Situ Soil-Property Estimation and Bayesian Mapping with a Simulated Compact Track Loader
W. Jacob Wagner, Ahmet Soylemezoglu, Katherine Driggs-Campbell
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22356

In-Situ Soil-Property Estimation and Bayesian Mapping with a Simulated Compact Track Loader
Existing earthmoving autonomy is largely confined to highly controlled and well-characterized environments due to the complexity of vehicle-terrain interaction dynamics and the partial observability of the terrain resulting from unknown and spatially varying soil conditions. In this chapter, a a soil-property mapping system is proposed to extend the environmental state, in order to overcome these restrictions and facilitate development of more robust autonomous earthmoving. A GPU accelerated el…

Human disturbances drive significant soil carbon loss in hyper-arid deserts, study reveals #desert

Human disturbances drive significant soil carbon loss in hyper-arid deserts, study reveals
A recent study led by Prof. Zeng Fanjiang from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has revealed concerning trends in soil organic carbon (SOC) loss due to prolonged human disturbance in hyper-arid desert ecosystems.

A bibliometric analysis on the current situation and hot trends of the impact of microplastics on soil based on CiteSpace
Yiran Zheng, Yue Quan, Su Yan, Xinting Lv, Yuguanmin Cao, Minjie Fu, Mingji Jin
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.01520

A bibliometric analysis on the current situation and hot trends of the impact of microplastics on soil based on CiteSpace
This paper aims to comprehensively grasp the research status and development trends of soil microplastics (MPs). It collects studies from the Web of Science Core Collection covering the period from 2013 to 2024. Employing CiteSpace and VOSviewer, the paper conducts in - depth analyses of literature regarding the environmental impacts of microplastics. These analyses involve keyword co - occurrence, clustering, burst term identification, as well as co - occurrence analysis of authors and institu…

Bison grazing in Yellowstone boosts grass nutrition and biodiversity while preserving soil health. Research shows the importance of restoring bison movement for ecosystem balance and cultural renewal. #climatechange #climatesolutions

Bison grazing boosts grass nutrition without harming soil
Bison in Yellowstone improve grassland health by boosting nutrients, biodiversity, and resilience through natural grazing.

Good Morning #Canada
The Dirt on Canadian Farming now enters Day #6, and we'll hang around the east coast today.
Nova Scotia is one of the most challenging regions for agriculture as it is limited by ocean, a rocky landscape, cool and wet climate, and acidic soil. Some of those conditions are ideal for blueberries and apples, and those farms have increased recently with the rise in fresh fruit prices. Grape growing and wine production is another sector increasing and difficult to keep bottled up. Wineries are French hybrid stock suitable for the local conditions. The rest of Nova Scotia's agriculture is made up of dairy, pigs, and maple syrup. Mink production, once a sizeable portion of the province's exports, has decreased significantly since fur coats have thankfully gone out of fashion.
#CanadaIsAwesome #Pies
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/96-325-x/2021001/article/00003-eng.htm

'Oreshnik will be on Belarusian soil,' Lukashenko says of Russian missile deployment by year-end: https://benborges.xyz/2025/07/02/oreshnik-will-be-on-belarusian.html

GOP/MAGA is growing in the fertile soil of an end-times religious cult.
Did you know that 4 out of 10 Americans believe we're living in the biblical end times?
Sure, they're not all in complete agreement about what that means
https://bsky.app/profile/arbiteriapetu

It's not your water bottle, honest. It's not your plastic storage containers. It's not the deli take out. It's not in the soil. (I mean, it is, but this isn't where so much of it gets into _us_.)
We breathe it.

I remember the claims from 30 or so years ago that only conventional high input agriculture could feed the world - support by data on yields of organic farming vs high input farming. And I remember the counter argument - that growing organic products on land that had been degraded, was bound to produce lower yields. (Organic certification required a several year transition phase.) And now I see:
"A critical challenge for many farms transitioning to regenerative farming is that …

I remember the claims from 30 or so years ago that only conventional high input agriculture could feed the world - support by data on yields of organic farming vs high input farming. And I remember the counter argument - that growing organic products on land that had been degraded, was bound to produce lower yields. (Organic certification required a several year transition phase.) And now I see:
"A critical challenge for many farms transitioning to regenerative farming is that …

Data-Efficient Excavation Force Estimation for Wheel Loaders
Armin Abdolmohammadi, Navid Mojahed, Shima Nazari, Bahram Ravani
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22579

Data-Efficient Excavation Force Estimation for Wheel Loaders
Accurate excavation force prediction is essential for enabling autonomous operation and optimizing control strategies in earthmoving machinery. Conventional methods typically require extensive data collection or simulations across diverse soil types, limiting scalability and adaptability. This paper proposes a data-efficient framework that calibrates soil parameters using force data from the prior bucket-loading cycle. Leveraging an analytical soil-tool interaction model, the fundamental earthm…

faculty_hiring_us: Faculty hiring networks in the US (2022)
Networks of faculty hiring for all PhD-granting US universities over the decade 2011–2020. Each node is a PhD-granting institution, and a directed edge (i,j) indicates that a person received their PhD from node i and was tenure-track faculty at node j during time of collection (2011-2020). This dataset is divided into separate networks for all 107 fields, as well as aggregate networks for 8 domains, and an overall network for …

It's #BandcampFriday, which means I still have no new music.
So here is a long thread about my *old* music, accompanied by tasting notes for the connoisseur between your ears.
I'll save you some time, though: I grew up with Joy Division/New Order, Dead Can Dance, Ministry and Franco Battiato so that's kind of the soil everything grew from, although each plant is un…

A Knowledge Graph Informing Soil Carbon Modeling
Nasim Shirvani-Mahdavi, Devin Wingfield, Juan Guajardo Gutierrez, Mai Tran, Zhengyuan Zhu, Zeyu Zhang, Haiqi Zhang, Abhishek Divakar Goudar, Chengkai Li, Virginia Jin, Timothy Propst, Dan Roberts, Catherine Stewart, Jianzhong Su, Jennifer Woodward-Greene
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10965

A Knowledge Graph Informing Soil Carbon Modeling
Soil organic carbon is crucial for climate change mitigation and agricultural sustainability. However, understanding its dynamics requires integrating complex, heterogeneous data from multiple sources. This paper introduces the Soil Organic Carbon Knowledge Graph (SOCKG), a semantic infrastructure designed to transform agricultural research data into a queryable knowledge representation. SOCKG features a robust ontological model of agricultural experimental data, enabling precise mapping of dat…

NordSpace is 30 minutes away from attempting their first Sub-Orbital rocket launch. This would be the first commercial rocket launch from Canadian soil!
#Space #Canada #Space
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oxDEKPSbF4

Restoration brings back fresh water, wildlife to degraded pšramos in Ecuador https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/restoration-brings-back-fresh-water-wildlife-to-degraded-paramos-in-ecuador/

Restoration brings back fresh water, wildlife to degraded páramos in Ecuador
When the sheep were removed, the páramo — high-altitude ecosystems in the Andes — started to heal. Without their waste, water quality improved. Without their hooves compacting the soil, plants began to grow again. Before long, shy white-tailed deer arrived, drawn by the grasses and shrubs for food and shelter. Not long after, pumas reappeared. […]

Im Mai 2025 erlebten große Teile Mittel- und Nordeuropas – darunter Südskandinavien, die #Ukraine und Teile Russlands – deutlich trockenere Bedingungen als im langjährigen Mittel.
#Niederschlag, #Bodenfeuchte

SpecBPP: A Self-Supervised Learning Approach for Hyperspectral Representation and Soil Organic Carbon Estimation
Daniel La'ah Ayuba, Jean-Yves Guillemaut, Belen Marti-Cardona, Oscar Mendez Maldonado
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.19781

SpecBPP: A Self-Supervised Learning Approach for Hyperspectral Representation and Soil Organic Carbon Estimation
Self-supervised learning has revolutionized representation learning in vision and language, but remains underexplored for hyperspectral imagery (HSI), where the sequential structure of spectral bands offers unique opportunities. In this work, we propose Spectral Band Permutation Prediction (SpecBPP), a novel self-supervised learning framework that leverages the inherent spectral continuity in HSI. Instead of reconstructing masked bands, SpecBPP challenges a model to recover the correct order of…

"Millions of litres of oil seeping into UK soil from ageing electricity cables"
#UK #UnitedKingdom #FossilFuels

Dem Bill Would Limit Deploying Troops On US Soil - Joe.My.God.
https://www.joemygod.com/2025/06/dem-bill-would-limit-deploying-troops-on-us-soil/

🌝 Solar powered moon brick factory could build future lunar cities
#space

Solar powered moon brick factory could build future lunar cities
Chinese scientists have developed a remarkable machine that could revolutionize how humans build structures on the moon. The device works like a 3D printer powered by concentrated sunlight, turning lunar soil (known as regolith) into strong construction bricks without needing any materials from Earth.

Advanced Printed Sensors for Environmental Applications: A Path Towards Sustainable Monitoring Solutions
Nikolaos Papanikolaou, Doha Touhafi, Jurgen Vandendriessche, Danial Karimi, Sohail Fatimi, Gianluca Cornetta, Abdellah Touhafi
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02067

Advanced Printed Sensors for Environmental Applications: A Path Towards Sustainable Monitoring Solutions
Printed sensors represent a transformative advancement in sensor technology, utilizing innovative printing techniques to create flexible, cost-effective, and highly customizable sensing devices. Their versatility allows integration into numerous applications across diverse fields such as monitoring a wide range of environmental factors e.g. air and water quality, soil conditions, and atmospheric changes among others. These sensors demonstrate high sensitivity and accuracy in detecting pollutant…

The Arctic island of Svalbard is so reliably frigid that humanity bet its future on the place.
Since 2008, the "Svalbard Global Seed Vault" — set deep in frozen soil known as permafrost — has accepted nearly 1.4 million samples of more than 6,000 species of critical crops.
⭐️ But, the island is warming six to seven times faster than the rest of the planet, making even winters freakishly hot -- at least by Arctic standards.
Indeed, in 2017, an access tunnel to the…

Troubling scenes from an Arctic in full-tilt crisis
The heat that hit Svalbard in February was so intense that scientists could dig into the ground with spoons, "like it was soft ice cream."

A Mathematical Model of Helminth Transmission Dynamics under WASH Program Interventions
Gonzalo Maximiliano Lopez, Juan Pablo Aparicio
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03482 https://

A Mathematical Model of Helminth Transmission Dynamics under WASH Program Interventions
We present a mathematical model to study the transmission dynamics of soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections and to assess the impact of community-based water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) program interventions. STH infections are a pressing public health issue in vulnerable populations, impairing children's growth and development. Our model explicitly incorporates WASH coverage and effectiveness as dynamic parameters, enabling analysis of their effects on the basic and effective reproduc…

Thanks to @…, TIL the word “petrichor!” More from Wikipedia:
❝Petrichor (/ˈpɛtrɪkɔːr/) is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. The word was coined by Isabel Joy Bear and Richard Grenfell Thomas from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra) 'rock' or πέτρος (pétros) 'stone' and ἰχώρ (ikhṓr), the ethereal fluid that is the blood of the gods in Greek mythology.❞
Heh, “god-blood of stones.” Completely unnecessary levels of linguistic badassery. I approve wholeheartedly. https://infosec.town/notes/aag9xttylpw0a9p8

Happy #caturday
A lost kitten rescued and now returned to it's mother 🧡
#catsofmastodon
@…

Please stand for the National Anthem:
Australians all, let us rejoice,
For we are young and free.
We've golden soil and wealth for toil
Our home is girt by sea.
Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare.
In history's page, let every stage
Advance Australia Fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia Fair.
Thank you. You may resume your seat.

MoistureMapper: An Autonomous Mobile Robot for High-Resolution Soil Moisture Mapping at Scale
Nathaniel Rose, Hannah Chuang, Manuel A Andrade-Rodriguez, Rishi Parashar, Dani Or, Parikshit Maini
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12716

MoistureMapper: An Autonomous Mobile Robot for High-Resolution Soil Moisture Mapping at Scale
Soil moisture is a quantity of interest in many application areas including agriculture and climate modeling. Existing methods are not suitable for scale applications due to large deployment costs in high-resolution sensing applications such as for variable irrigation. In this work, we design, build and field deploy an autonomous mobile robot, MoistureMapper, for soil moisture sensing. The robot is equipped with Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) sensors and a direct push drill mechanism for deplo…

Functional data decomposition reveals unexpectedly strong soil moisture-precipitation coupling over the Great Plains
Yifu Gao, Runze Li, Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, Jasper A. Vrugt
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13939

Functional data decomposition reveals unexpectedly strong soil moisture-precipitation coupling over the Great Plains
Soil moisture-precipitation coupling (SMPC) plays a critical role in Earth's water and energy cycles but remains difficult to quantify due to synoptic-scale variability and the complex interplay of land-atmosphere processes. Here, we apply high-dimensional model representation (HDMR) to functionally decompose the structural, correlative, and cooperative contributions of key land-atmosphere variables to precipitation. Benchmark tests confirm that HDMR overcomes limitations of commonly used corre…

🌭 In California, an invasive mustard is destabilizing desert plant communities
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/in-california-an-invasive-mustard-is-destabilizing-desert-plant-communities/

In California, an invasive mustard is destabilizing desert plant communities
In southern California’s Coachella Valley, pale sand dunes sprawl under the desert sun, shifting and re-forming in the wind. In dry years, lone shrubs dot the dunes. But the landscape bursts with color and greenery after a wet winter. That’s because seeds of desert plants may wait in the soil for years, even decades, for […]

Erosion studies from our morning hike yesterday, a ~500m long section of the valley exposing interesting structures and the fragility of life resting on the thin layer of top soil...
#Geology #Erosion #NaturePhotography

MicroDetect-Net (MDN): Leveraging Deep Learning to Detect Microplastics in Clam Blood, a Step Towards Human Blood Analysis
Riju Marwah, Riya Arora, Navneet Yadav, Himank Arora
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19021

MicroDetect-Net (MDN): Leveraging Deep Learning to Detect Microplastics in Clam Blood, a Step Towards Human Blood Analysis
With the prevalence of plastics exceeding 368 million tons yearly, microplastic pollution has grown to an extent where air, water, soil, and living organisms have all tested positive for microplastic presence. These particles, which are smaller than 5 millimeters in size, are no less harmful to humans than to the environment. Toxicity research on microplastics has shown that exposure may cause liver infection, intestinal injuries, and gut flora imbalance, leading to numerous potential health ha…

Maximizing plant-soil feedback can lead to sustainable agriculture practices. #climatechange #climatesolutions #climate

Empowering Digital Agriculture: A Privacy-Preserving Framework for Data Sharing and Collaborative Research
Osama Zafar, Rosemarie Santa Gonz\'alez, Mina Namazi, Alfonso Morales, Erman Ayday
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20872

Empowering Digital Agriculture: A Privacy-Preserving Framework for Data Sharing and Collaborative Research
Data-driven agriculture, which integrates technology and data into agricultural practices, has the potential to improve crop yield, disease resilience, and long-term soil health. However, privacy concerns, such as adverse pricing, discrimination, and resource manipulation, deter farmers from sharing data, as it can be used against them. To address this barrier, we propose a privacy-preserving framework that enables secure data sharing and collaboration for research and development while mitigat…

#SCOTUS majority supports #DJT admin efforts for Kristi Noem and friends to deport people they don't like from US soil to random countries with no notice.
Damning dissent issued by some robed gals in DC that no one will read...

SCOTUS allows Trump admin to deport people to random countries with no notice
Justice Sotomayor called the order a "gross ... abuse" of the court's authority. Also: Law Dork in the media.

With everything else that is going on, it is always nice to see things growing, like these radishes that I planted last week!
#Radishes #HomeGarden

I only read this to see if it was David Mitchell (author) or David Mitchell (comedian).
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/david-mitchell-convicted-for-covering-road-with-potatoes-and-silt

David Mitchell convicted for covering road with potatoes and silt
Huge loss of soil from potato field costs farmer over £40,000 for polluting river, with potatoes and silt escaping into the road.

Operational machine learning for park-scale irrigation to support urban cooling
Mesut Ko\c{c}yi\u{g}it, Bahman Javadi, Russell Thomson, Sebastian Pfautsch, Oliver Obst
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11700 …

Operational machine learning for park-scale irrigation to support urban cooling
Urban parks can mitigate local heat, yet irrigation control is usually tuned for water savings rather than cooling. We report on SIMPaCT (Smart Irrigation Management for Parks and Cool Towns), a park-scale deployment that links per-zone soil-moisture forecasts to overnight irrigation set-points in support of urban cooling. SIMPaCT ingests data from 202 soil-moisture sensors, 50 temperature-relative humidity (TRH) nodes, and 13 weather stations, and trains a per-sensor k-nearest neighbours (kNN)…

If you ask me, Putin being allowed to step foot on American soil unharmed *was* the worst case scenario.
So you know. That happened.
https://social.ahlroos.me/@yle_bot/115037523314207089

Coming to America -- Trump invites a war criminal to a meeting on U.S. soil (Dan Rather/Steady)
https://steady.substack.com/p/coming-to-america
http://www.memeorandum.com/250815/p17#a250815p17

Dynamic analysis of free-free Timoshenko beams on elastic foundation under transverse transient ground deformation
Gersena Banushi
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22850 https://

Dynamic analysis of free-free Timoshenko beams on elastic foundation under transverse transient ground deformation
Underground infrastructure, such as pipelines and tunnels, can be vulnerable to the effect of transient ground deformation (TGD) caused by different vibration sources, including earthquakes and traffic loads. Current design methods are based on simple analytical models that idealize the soil movement as a traveling sinusoidal wave, neglecting both the system's inertia and the relative displacement at the soil-structure interface. However, this assumption may not be valid for buried large diamet…

Soil Texture Prediction with Bayesian Generalized Additive Models for Spatial Compositional Data
Joaqu\'in Mart\'inez-Minaya, Lore Zumeta-Olaskoaga, Dae-Jin Lee
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07708

Soil Texture Prediction with Bayesian Generalized Additive Models for Spatial Compositional Data
Compositional data (CoDa) plays an important role in many fields such as ecology, geology, or biology. The most widely used modeling approaches are based on the Dirichlet and the logistic-normal formulation under Aitchison geometry. Recent developments in the mathematical field on the simplex geometry allow to express the regression model in terms of coordinates and estimate its coefficients. Once the model is projected in the real space, we can employ a multivariate Gaussian regression to deal…

Over 80,000 people flee severe flooding in southwest China https://phys.org/news/2025-06-people-severe-southwest-china.html
When rain, snow and soil align: The triple threat behind 2024's deadly central Asian floods

Over 80,000 people flee severe flooding in southwest China
Flooding in China's southwest has driven more than 80,000 people from their homes, state media said on Wednesday, as a collapsed bridge forced the dramatic rescue of a truck driver left dangling over the edge.

Wired Beneath, Scented Above: A Dual-Parameter Approach to Soil-Plant Interaction via Electrical Resistance and VOC Analysis
Mridul Kumar, Soami Daya Krishnananda
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16328

Wired Beneath, Scented Above: A Dual-Parameter Approach to Soil-Plant Interaction via Electrical Resistance and VOC Analysis
Plants, being sessile organisms, have evolved a variety of defense mechanisms to protect themselves from invaders such as pathogens, insects, and herbivores. One key strategy is the release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the air, which serve as warning signals to nearby plants, prompting them to activate their own defense mechanisms. Although plant communication through VOCs is well-documented, the interaction between VOC emissions and soil-released allelochemicals remains less under…

Koobaatoo Asparagus – Trinity of Wisdom
#noise

I’ve been doing an unholy amount of weeding recently and keep seeing these little spiders fleeing my progress. Many are carrying a tiny white ball and so I looked them up out of curiosity.
Apparently they are “Rabid Wolf Spiders”, which sounds like they themselves got to pick it out and sought something impressively terrifying so that humans would leave them alone. It’s certainly a misnomer since spiders cannot be rabid.
The white ball is an egg sac.

1,000-year-old Sword Decorated with Spiritual Symbols Found in Dutch River Goes on Display https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/1000-year-old-sword-decorated-with-spiritual-symbols-found-in-dutch-river-goes-on-display…

1,000-year-old Sword Decorated with Spiritual Symbols Found in Dutch River Goes on Display
The iron is barely corroded due to the oxygen-poor environment of the wet soil it was buried in, and traces of the wooden hilt are visible.

It’s sad it’s come to having to offer this as travel advice, but if you need to fly to the US and are apprehensive, pre clearance through at the US borders in Irish airports is a great idea. You arrive at a domestic terminal.
https://metro.co.uk/2025/06/06/a-us-border-dub…

"From restoring streams in desert valleys to helping prevent floods and wildfires, #beavers are quietly reshaping the American West. You'll discover how a species nearly driven to extinction is now being parachuted into remote wilderness, building dams that hydrate soil, raise water tables, and create lush habitats for fish, birds, and even deer. Scientists are uncovering how these animal…

Tyreik Taylor had barely wiped the oil from his hands when the sky behind him lit up.
Fifteen minutes after the 26-year-old drove home, a roar thundered from the plant where he helped mix chemicals for motor oil and had just punched out.
Fire consumed the air, the collapsing metal groaning and liquids hissing as they escaped into the surrounding water, soil, and air.

Black Louisiana Community Coated in Toxic Fallout After Explosion at Oil Plant
“We need help over here and we’re not getting it,” said a resident of the city where 90 percent of kids live in poverty.

"Green roofs shown to capture nearly all microplastics from rainwater"
#Microplastics #Plastic #Plastics

Green roofs shown to capture nearly all microplastics from rainwater
A small team of researchers at Tongji University, working with a colleague from the Shanghai Academy of Landscape Architecture Science and Planning, both in China, has found that growing plants on roofs can serve as an effective way to remove microplastics from the air. In their study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, the group measured the amounts of microplastics found on plants and the soil in which they grow.

Self-similarity in creeping salt crystallization
R. J. Wijnhorst, M. Prat, N. Shahidzadeh
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18779 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.18779…

Self-similarity in creeping salt crystallization
The self-amplifying creeping of salts can produce striking macroscopic structures, such as desert roses in arid regions and salt pillars near saline lakes. While these formations are visually remarkable, salt crystallization, often seen as efflorescence on surfaces, also poses significant challenges for cultural heritage conservation, materials science, and soil management. In this study, we investigate the mechanisms underlying self-organized crystallization within efflorescence deposits. Our …

Vladimir Putin Could Be Laying a Trap
"Foreign-policy experts—and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—are warning that Trump could be walking into a trap that the Russian leader is setting on American soil."
Darth #Trump
Darth #Putin

Vladimir Putin Could Be Laying a Trap
Donald Trump badly wants a deal to end the war in Ukraine. What is he willing to give up?

Holy fucksticks: watching the 1st and only season of #TheManWhoFellToEarth and we got a CIA operative flashing a badge while working in the UK. The purpose of a CIA spy is to fly under the radar and will never have any identifying objects on his person. Further more such a badge will have zero importance on UK soil. Rookie mistakes.

Multi-Waypoint Path Planning and Motion Control for Non-holonomic Mobile Robots in Agricultural Applications
Mahmoud Ghorab, Matthias Lorenzen
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.23350 h…

Multi-Waypoint Path Planning and Motion Control for Non-holonomic Mobile Robots in Agricultural Applications
There is a growing demand for autonomous mobile robots capable of navigating unstructured agricultural environments. Tasks such as weed control in meadows require efficient path planning through an unordered set of coordinates while minimizing travel distance and adhering to curvature constraints to prevent soil damage and protect vegetation. This paper presents an integrated navigation framework combining a global path planner based on the Dubins Traveling Salesman Problem (DTSP) with a Nonlin…

Strategy Evolution in the Adoption of Conservation Tillage Technology under Time Preference Heterogeneity and Lemon Market: Insights from Evolutionary Dynamics
Dingyi Wang, Ruqiang Guo, Qian Lu
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.15497

Strategy Evolution in the Adoption of Conservation Tillage Technology under Time Preference Heterogeneity and Lemon Market: Insights from Evolutionary Dynamics
The promotion of Conservation Tillage Technology (CTT) is critical for mitigating global soil degradation, yet their actual adoption rates remain substantially lower than anticipated targets. Existing research predominantly focuses on static factor analyses, failing to adequately capture the dynamic evolutionary mechanisms of farmer strategic interactions and the impacts of information asymmetries in agricultural markets. This study constructs an evolutionary game model integrating heterogeneou…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #AmbientFocus
Nailah Hunter:
🎵 Soil: Song From Silence
#NailahHunter
https://nailahhunter.bandcamp.com/album/soil-song-from-silence
https://open.spotify.com/track/1QvRfhVSjCli5o4o8mB1wN

STM32-Based IoT Framework for Real-Time Environmental Monitoring and Wireless Node Synchronization
Ahmed Faizul Haque Dhrubo, Sazid Hasan, Mohammad Abdul Qayum
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.17295

STM32-Based IoT Framework for Real-Time Environmental Monitoring and Wireless Node Synchronization
The fast pace of technological growth has created a heightened need for intelligent, autonomous monitoring systems in a variety of fields, especially in environmental applications. This project shows the design process and implementation of a proper dual node (master-slave) IoT-based monitoring system using STM32F103C8T6 microcontrollers. The structure of the wireless monitoring system studies the environmental conditions in real-time and can measure parameters like temperature, humidity, soil …

Digging deeper: deep joint species distribution modeling reveals environmental drivers of Earthworm Communities
Sara Si-moussi, Wilfried Thuiller, Esther Galbrun, Thibaud Deca\"ens, Sylvain G\'erard, Daniel F. March\'an, Claire Marsden, Yvan Capowiez, Micka\"el Hedde
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13568

Digging deeper: deep joint species distribution modeling reveals environmental drivers of Earthworm Communities
Earthworms are key drivers of soil function, influencing organic matter turnover, nutrient cycling, and soil structure. Understanding the environmental controls on their distribution is essential for predicting the impacts of land use and climate change on soil ecosystems. While local studies have identified abiotic drivers of earthworm communities, broad-scale spatial patterns remain underexplored. We developed a multi-species, multi-task deep learning model to jointly predict the distributi…

Using explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) as a diagnostic tool: An application for deducing hydrologic connectivity at watershed scale
Sheng Ye, Jiyu Li, Yifan Chai, Lin Liu, Murugesu Sivapalan, Qihua Ran
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.02127

Using explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) as a diagnostic tool: An application for deducing hydrologic connectivity at watershed scale
Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) methods have been applied to interpret deep learning model results. However, applications that integrate XAI with established hydrologic knowledge for process understanding remain limited. Here we present a framework that apply XAI method at point-scale to provide granular interpretation and enable cross-scale aggregation of hydrologic responses. Hydrologic connectivity is used as a demonstration of the value of this approach. Soil moisture and its move…

How Trump Is Expanding the Role of the American Military on U.S. Soil (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-national-guard-dc-military-role-3027c35e
http://www.memeorandum.com/250812/p5#a250812p5

And just to emphasize the point, we don’t use our car lightly.
We have gone on numerous road trips including from the Pacific to the Atlantic cross Canada in 2022. We have a hitch on the Kona that I use to pull a trailer for everthing from camping, to road trips, to hauling a yard of soil or rock.
We have certainly had some maintenance costs for the Kona. Some regular (brakes, after 150,000), checkups, 12V battery twice, etc. and some self inflicted (alignment and back shocks due to trailering). Visits to the dealer are your standard $500 to $2000 affair once a year. We have a second set of rims for the winter tires. We have bought 2 new sets of tires, one winter, one all season. The all seasons will be replaced after this summer.
The main battery was replaced under recall in February 2022 (before our road trip) at about 50,000km so we have a slightly newer battery than the car but not significantly, and we have not noticed any degradation in charge life.
On this day in 2022 we were visiting Wanuskewin, Saskatchewan just outside Saskatoon on our way back. We stopped to charge in Saskatoon, North Battleford, Lloydminster and Vegreville on the way to the West Edmonton Mall that day :)
#EV #ElectricCar #cost #electricity #bchydro #bcpoli #endfossilfuels

"Hungry bugs and disappearing bioplastics hold key to ending plastic waste crisis, say scientists"
#Plastic #Plastics #Environment

Hungry bugs and disappearing bioplastics hold key to ending plastic waste crisis, say scientists
Scientists are working with microbes found in Australia's unique ecosystem to create bioplastics which break down in land, soil and water. The research aims to tackle one of the most pressing global issues—single-use plastic food packaging: a significant feature of the plastic waste crisis and a special focus for Plastic Free July.

The Effect of Predation on the Dynamics of Chronic Wasting Disease in Deer
Cody E. FitzGerald, James P. Keener
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.00134 https://arx…

The Effect of Predation on the Dynamics of Chronic Wasting Disease in Deer
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a neurological disease impacting deer, elk, moose, and other cervid populations and is caused by a misfolded protein known as a prion. CWD is difficult to control due to the persistence of prions in the environment. Prions can remain infectious for more than a decade and have been found in soil as well as other environmental vectors, such as ticks and plants. Here, we provide a bifurcation analysis of a mathematical model of CWD spread in a cervid population, an…

Crosslisted article(s) found for cs.SC. https://arxiv.org/list/cs.SC/new
[1/1]:
- A Knowledge Graph Informing Soil Carbon Modeling
Mahdavi, et al.
https://…

Integrating Feature Selection and Machine Learning for Nitrogen Assessment in Grapevine Leaves using In-Field Hyperspectral Imaging
Atif Bilal Asad, Achyut Paudel, Safal Kshetri, Chenchen Kang, Salik Ram Khanal, Nataliya Shcherbatyuk, Pierre Davadant, R. Paul Schreiner, Santosh Kalauni, Manoj Karkee, Markus Keller
https://arxiv.org/abs/250…

Integrating Feature Selection and Machine Learning for Nitrogen Assessment in Grapevine Leaves using In-Field Hyperspectral Imaging
Nitrogen (N) is one of the most crucial nutrients in vineyards, affecting plant growth and subsequent products such as wine and juice. Because soil N has high spatial and temporal variability, it is desirable to accurately estimate the N concentration of grapevine leaves and manage fertilization at the individual plant level to optimally meet plant needs. In this study, we used in-field hyperspectral images with wavelengths ranging from $400 to 1000nm of four different grapevine cultivars colle…

Millions of litres of oil seeping into UK soil from ageing electricity cables https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/13/uk-electricity-firms-cables-leaking-oil-underground

Robotic Multimodal Data Acquisition for In-Field Deep Learning Estimation of Cover Crop Biomass
Joe Johnson, Phanender Chalasani, Arnav Shah, Ram L. Ray, Muthukumar Bagavathiannan
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22364

Robotic Multimodal Data Acquisition for In-Field Deep Learning Estimation of Cover Crop Biomass
Accurate weed management is essential for mitigating significant crop yield losses, necessitating effective weed suppression strategies in agricultural systems. Integrating cover crops (CC) offers multiple benefits, including soil erosion reduction, weed suppression, decreased nitrogen requirements, and enhanced carbon sequestration, all of which are closely tied to the aboveground biomass (AGB) they produce. However, biomass production varies significantly due to microsite variability, making …

Detecci\'on y Cuantificaci\'on de Erosi\'on Fluvial con Visi\'on Artificial
Pa\'ul Maji, Marlon T\'uquerres, Stalin Valencia, Marcela Valenzuela, Christian Mejia-Escobar
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.11301

Detección y Cuantificación de Erosión Fluvial con Visión Artificial
Fluvial erosion is a natural process that can generate significant impacts on soil stability and strategic infrastructures. The detection and monitoring of this phenomenon is traditionally addressed by photogrammetric methods and analysis in geographic information systems. These tasks require specific knowledge and intensive manual processing. This study proposes an artificial intelligence-based approach for automatic identification of eroded zones and estimation of their area. The state-of-the…

In an article entitled While the Media Chases Trump’s Distractions, Here’s the Story They’re Not Telling You,
Lev Parnas discloses that he hasn't slept in two days.
"I’ve been on the phone nonstop, speaking to sources across the globe" he said, noting that
"what the media isn’t reporting is even worse" than what journalists are currently disseminating.
They’re not asking the real question:
Why now?" he asked.
"They’re not ta…

Trump's former 'trusted operative' spills Iran story 'they're not telling you'
A man who was once Donald Trump's "trusted operative" spilled details he said you won't find on CNN or MSNBC.Author and former Trump insider Lev Parnas, who has reported on Trump's purported "humiliation" by Russia's Putin, on Sunday wrote about his take on Trump's military strike on Iran's soil.Par...

Development of a Smart Autonomous Irrigation System Using Iot and AI
Yunus Emre Kunt
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.11835 https://arxiv.o…

Development of a Smart Autonomous Irrigation System Using Iot and AI
Agricultural irrigation ensures that the water required for plant growth is delivered to the soil in a controlled manner. However, uncontrolled management can lead to water waste while reducing agricultural productivity. Drip irrigation systems, which have been one of the most efficient methods since the 1970s, are modernised with IoT and artificial intelligence in this study, aiming to both increase efficiency and prevent water waste. The developed system is designed to be applicable to differ…

🦠 The multitasking microbe that turns CO₂ into minerals
#microbes

The multitasking microbe that turns CO₂ into minerals
At more than 470 times the atmospheric concentration of CO₂, a humble soil bacterium does something extraordinary: it turns gas into stone.

TS-PIELM: Time-Stepping Physics-Informed Extreme Learning Machine Facilitates Soil Consolidation Analyses
He Yang, Fei Ren, Hai-Sui Yu, Xueyu Geng, Pei-Zhi Zhuang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08381

TS-PIELM: Time-Stepping Physics-Informed Extreme Learning Machine Facilitates Soil Consolidation Analyses
Accuracy and efficiency of the conventional physics-informed neural network (PINN) need to be improved before it can be a competitive alternative for soil consolidation analyses. This paper aims to overcome these limitations by proposing a highly accurate and efficient physics-informed machine learning (PIML) approach, termed time-stepping physics-informed extreme learning machine (TS-PIELM). In the TS-PIELM framework the consolidation process is divided into numerous time intervals, which help…

Healthy European peatlands require specific temperature and water level parameters #Europe

Healthy European peatlands require specific temperature and water level parameters
Efforts to enhance peat accumulation in European peatlands, which contain around half of Europe's soil carbon, will require a combination of warm temperatures and a specific depth of the water table, according to a study published in PLOS One by Graeme Swindles of Queen's University Belfast, U.K. and colleagues.

Towards NoahMP-AI: Enhancing Land Surface Model Prediction with Deep Learning
Mahmoud Mbarak, Manmeet Singh, Naveen Sudharsan, Zong-Liang Yang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.12919

Towards NoahMP-AI: Enhancing Land Surface Model Prediction with Deep Learning
Accurate soil moisture prediction during extreme events remains a critical challenge for Earth system modeling, with profound implications for drought monitoring, flood forecasting, and climate adaptation strategies. While land surface models (LSMs) provide physically-based predictions, they exhibit systematic biases during extreme conditions when their parameterizations operate outside calibrated ranges. Here we present NoahMP-AI, a physics-guided deep learning framework that addresses this ch…

Trump has ordered more troops to Los Angeles and Washington than he currently has stationed in Syria and Iraq combined.
He seems more willing to use the military against Americans than against Iranians.
He celebrates a show of force on U.S. soil even as he denounces “endless wars” outside its borders.

Trump Relishes Troops in American Streets While Shunning Conflict Overseas
The seemingly disparate postures of recent days speak to the president’s complicated relationship with the military.

"By Turning Themselves to Stone, These Remarkable Fig Trees Sequester CO2 Far Longer Than Normal"
#Trees #Environment #CarbonDioxide

By Turning Themselves to Stone, These Remarkable Fig Trees Sequester CO2 Far Longer Than Normal
The inorganic carbon in calcium carbonate typically has a much longer lifetime in the soil than organic carbon

Adding structure to generalized additive models, with applications in ecology
David L Miller, Ken Newman, Thomas Cornulier
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07915 https://

Adding structure to generalized additive models, with applications in ecology
Generalized additive models (GAMs) that connect a set of scalar covariates that map 1-1 to a response variable are commonly employed in ecological and other scientific disciplines. However, covariates are often inherently non-scalar, taking on multiple values for each observation of the response. They can sometimes have a temporal structure, e.g., a time series of temperature and precipitation measurements, or a spatial structure, e.g., multiple soil pH measurements made at nearby locations. Wh…

Purple and white Cosmos Flower with a very narrow depth of field that turns the background into a psychedelic field of green and brown smudges and white sparkles
#photo #photography #flowers

Carbon Cycle Extremes Accelerate Weakening of the Land Carbon Sink in the Late 21st Century
Bharat Sharma, Jitendra Kumar, Auroop R. Ganguly, Forrest M. Hoffman
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.19119

Carbon Cycle Extremes Accelerate Weakening of the Land Carbon Sink in the Late 21st Century
Increasing surface temperature could lead to enhanced evaporation, reduced soil moisture availability, and more frequent droughts and heat waves. The spatiotemporal co-occurrence of such effects further drives extreme anomalies in vegetation productivity and net land carbon storage. However, the impacts of climate change on extremes in net biospheric production (NBP) over longer time periods are unknown. Using the percentile threshold on the probability distribution curve of NBP anomalies, we c…

Three-Dimensional Porous Structures of CO$_2$-Induced Salt Precipitation Sustaining Halite Self-Enhancing Growth
Mohammad Nooraiepour, Mohammad Masoudi, Hannelore Derluyn, Pascale Senechal, Peter Moonen, Helge Hellevang
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.17241

Three-Dimensional Porous Structures of CO$_2$-Induced Salt Precipitation Sustaining Halite Self-Enhancing Growth
Salt precipitation during CO$_2$ storage in saline aquifers presents challenges for injectivity and containment, with broader implications for soil salinization and cultural heritage preservation. This study utilizes time-lapse X-ray and spectral micro-computed tomography, scanning electron microscopy, and deep learning-assisted image analysis to investigate halite crystallization and brine consumption in porous medium. We identified three-dimensional halite growth structures functioning as a s…

Good Morning #Canada
Yesterday, we upgraded our water filtration and, to ease the pain in my wallet, I thought I would share some facts on well water for those who care.
- approximately 11% of Canadians rely on non-municipal water sources.
- the vast majority of wells are drilled wells because they are safer, provide higher volume, and generally last longer.
- dug wells (like ours) are less common and are usually placed where there is a high water table. They are more susceptible to surface runoff.
- well water, although free, is not necessarily cheaper than municipal supply. There is a large upfront cost, which can vary greatly depending on soil conditions, but $25K for drilled and $10K for dug is not uncommon.
- a pump and filtration equipment can cost another $10K, depending on water treatment needed. We needed an additional Iron Filter due to high concentration. Sediment filters and UV treatment require annual maintenance, typically $400 .
#CanadaIsAwesome #Water #GlassHalfFull

Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Nanoscale Friction on Illite Clay: Effects of Solvent Salt Ions and Electric Double Layer
Ge Li, Astrid S. de Wijn
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14158

Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Nanoscale Friction on Illite Clay: Effects of Solvent Salt Ions and Electric Double Layer
Quick clay is a highly sensitive soil that transforms rapidly from solid to liquid under minor stress, as a result of long-term salt leaching that drastically reduces shear strength. Stabilizing it is both costly and carbon-intensive, significantly impacting construction emissions in regions like Norway. Developing greener stabilization methods is challenging due to limited understanding of the weakening mechanisms and the specific roles of different salts. In this study, we use molecular dynam…

Machine learning approaches for automatic cleaning of investigative drilling data
Fei Huang (Flinders University), Hongyu Qin (Flinders University), Masoud Manafi (Civil Group), Ben Juett (Civil Group), Ben Evans (Civil Group)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.14289

Machine learning approaches for automatic cleaning of investigative drilling data
Investigative drilling (ID) is an innovative measurement while drilling (MWD) technique that has been implemented in various site investigation projects across Australia. While the automated drilling feature of ID substantially reduces noise within drilling data streams, data cleaning remains essential for removing anomalies to enable accurate strata classification and prediction of soil and rock properties. This study employed three machine learning algorithms--IsoForest, one-class SVM, and DB…

Heat conduction with phase change in soils with macro-pores, snow, and cryoconite. Part I: unified model derivation and examples
Malgorzata Peszynska, Praveeni Mathangadeera, Madison Phelps, Forrest Felsch, Noah Unger-Schulz
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.05916

Heat conduction with phase change in soils with macro-pores, snow, and cryoconite. Part I: unified model derivation and examples
In this paper we extend models of thermal conduction with phase transition from micro- to macro-scale. Such models were previously developed for soils in permafrost regions from pore to Darcy scale, and the Darcy scale models compare well to empirical relationships. The new general model blends soil model with bulk water model and thus works well for the soils with macro-pores; it also applies to new context including modeling thermal conduction in the snow and in cryoconite, and it is consiste…