Diapers are not what you'd think about first when you consider recycling. The CBC estimates the number at billions of disposable diapers entering landfills in North America. With this much waste, recycling these absorbent plastics might seem like a good idea. The super-absorbent material inside diapers is made up of long-chain polymers. Unfortunately, they don't get put into recycling bins because the composition of these materials is too complex to break down and recycle traditionally. The problem with diapers is that we haven't found a way to recycle them into something useful. At least, until now.

One of the things that scientists rely on to accurately predict climate change is the amount of carbon sequestered underground. Carbon dioxide in the air leads to increased global warming, exacerbating climate change. When plants have a lot of access to carbon dioxide, they photosynthesize more. Scientists have assumed for a long time that this led to a high concentration of carbon sequestered under the ground. As plants took in this carbon dioxide, they transformed it into compounds and organic structures such as roots and leaves, which would add to the amount of carbon stored underground.

When one thinks about chemistry, one doesn't usually consider quantum mechanics to play a part. Yet it does. When it boils down to it, all matter is a combination of a handful of subatomic particles and the forces holding them together. Chemistry, is in essence, applied physics. For decades, scientists have been trying to determine how to follow a chemical reaction from its initial state through all of its quantum states to its products. The hope was that, by doing so, researchers could understand the quantum dynamics that drive these reactions. Until now, it has mostly been speculation. However, a recent paper published in Nature by Liu et al. suggests that this may be possible.