(National Association of Science Writers) The National Association of Science Writers is pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 Science in Society Journalism Awards.

(GFZ GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Helmholtz Centre) Nearly 13,000 years ago, pines in southern France experienced a cold snap, which scientists have now reconstructed. The study about the consequences of a drastic climate change event in past and its implications for our future will be published tomorrow in Scientific Reports. The authors are from GFZ Potsdam, Berlin, the UK, Switzerland, and France.

(The University of Montana) University of Montana Professor Diana Six will receive the 2018 Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology Pioneer Award on Sept. 21 for seminal contributions to the understanding of bark beetles ecology, forest adaptations and climate change.

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) NASA's Aqua satellite provided an infrared look at powerful Super Typhoon Mangkhut early on Sept. 13 that revealed a large eye surrounded by a large area of powerful storms. Mangkhut is a Category 5 storm.

(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) A geologist, a microscopist and a doctor walk into a lab and, with their colleagues, make a discovery that overturns centuries of thought about the nature and composition of kidney stones. The team's key insight, reported in the journal Scientific Reports, is that kidney stones are built up in calcium-rich layers that resemble other mineralizations in nature, such as those forming coral reefs or arising in hot springs, Roman aqueducts or subsurface oil fields.

(Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) Climate conditions forecast for 2050 and 2070 will be potentially lethal to species less adapted to climate variation, according to Brazilian researchers.

(The Earth Institute at Columbia University) The end of a 52-year internal conflict could spell trouble for the second most biodiverse country in the world. A new study outlines a sustainable path forward.

(NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center) Typhoon Mangkhut had already strengthened into a Super Typhoon when NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite grabbed a visible image of the storm in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean on Sept. 11. It is forecast to intensify even more.

(Desert Research Institute) Low-severity wildland fires and prescribed burns have long been presumed by scientists and resource managers to be harmless to soils, but this may not be the case, new research shows. According to two new studies by a team from the University of California, Merced (UCM) and the Desert Research Institute (DRI), low-severity burns cause damage to soil structure and organic matter in ways that are not immediately apparent after a fire.

(Aarhus University) Toddlers aged just 1 1/2 years prefer individuals whom other people yield to. It appears to be deeply rooted in human nature to seek out those with the highest social status. This motive might have evolved because being close to high-ranking individuals has given people access to resources, territory and mates.

(Michigan Technological University) Researchers found that using bio-sequestration to capture carbon produced by US coal-fired plants even after carbon capture and storage would require using 62 percent of the nation's arable land for that process, or 89 percent of all US land with average forest cover. In comparison, offsetting the amount of carbon produced by manufacturing solar panels is 13 times less land, making it a far more viable option.

(Kanazawa University) Charophyceae are relatives of land plants, whose genomes have been envisioned to contain important information to understand how land plants evolved from their ancestors in the Paleozoic era. Here we report the draft genome of Chara braunii from Charophyceae, and its comparison to land plants, Klebsormidium nitens, and other green algae. The comparison revealed acquisition of genes before and after the divergence of Charophyceae in the lineage leading to land plants, as well within Charophyceae.

(University of Oklahoma) A University of Oklahoma research group, led by Mark Nanny, is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation grant in the amount of $396,778. The Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometer with Laser Ablation and Liquid Chromatography capabilities will enable collaboration among researchers at OU, Oklahoma State University and the University of Tulsa in specific areas of research and coordination with Oklahoma Tribal Nations in various research projects.

(University of Texas at Arlington) A UTA environmental engineer is devising a system that will allow easier cleanup of contaminated soil and water that the U.S. military has identified.

(New York Institute of Technology) Researchers from New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) have secured $426,621 in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the acquisition of a micro-computed tomography machine.

(University of Arizona) The Sonoran Desert is one of the world's most biodiverse deserts, thanks to the annual monsoon, which provide a source of moisture in addition to seasonal winter rains. UA researchers were able to access untapped clues about the monsoon's activity during the last ice age, about 20,000 years ago. Their findings help scientists predict how regional climates may respond to future conditions.