New research finds that double cropping — planting two crops in a field in the same year — is associated with positive signs of economic development for rural Brazilians. The research focused the state of Mato Grosso, the epicenter of an agricultural revolution that has made Brazil one of the world’s top producers of soybeans, corn, cotton, and other staple crops. That Brazil has become an agricultural powerhouse over the last decade or so is clear.

The Dean of the College office is pleased to announce the 21st cohort of Brown Mellon Mays Undergraduate scholars. Edward Cleofe, Patricia Ekpo, G. Maris Jones, G. Emilio Leanza, Keil Oberlander, and Ana Ramirez will conduct research under the guidance of faculty mentors, and receive stipends during their junior and senior years to support their research and preparation for graduate school.

A select cohort of undergraduates was inducted into the Society of Royce Fellows at Brown University President Christina H. Paxson's home on April 10, 2013. These research fellowships, given through the generosity of Charles (Chuck) Royce ’61, P’92, P’94, P’08, enable students to carry out independent research projects of their own design, regularly engage with their peers, and share their new-found knowledge with the wider world.

A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the way carbon moves from within a planet to the surface plays a big role in the evolution of a planet's atmosphere. If Mars released much of its carbon as methane, for example, it might have been warm enough to support liquid water.

Large impacts on the Moon can form wide craters and turn surface rock liquid. Geophysicists once assumed that liquid rock would be homogenous when it cooled. Now researchers have found evidence that pre-existing mineralogy can survive impact melt.