In South Asia, a region facing rapid economic growth, immense population pressure, and high climate vulnerability, the circular economy (CE) has become a critical imperative for sustainable development. This study provides a comparative overview of the CE landscape across eight South Asian countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The analysis reveals the CE transition is nascent region-wide, though India has advanced its policy landscape through a comprehensive suite of rules and missions and Pakistan is developing a national policy. The primary focus remains on waste management, evidenced by programs like Bhutan’s ‘Zero Waste by 2030’ vision, the Maldives’ Single-Use Plastic Phase-Out Plan, and Sri Lanka’s Clean Sri Lanka Programme. While Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is emerging for plastics and e-waste in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, a significant “policy-practice gap” persists, undermined by weak enforcement and governance fragmented across priority sectors like plastics, food systems, and textiles. Most major CE initiatives are catalyzed by international development partners, with regional programs playing a key role in funding innovation. Finally, while the informal sector is the backbone of material recovery, ensuring a just transition that improves working conditions and secures livelihoods remains a critical challenge. The absence of a cohesive regional framework limits collaboration. Scaling the circular economy in South Asia requires integrated national strategies, prioritizing a just transition for the informal sector, and establishing a regional platform for policy harmonization to create self-sustaining system through multi-sectoral involvement, including the business sector.

Booking for the EIG 2026 Conference in Liverpool is now open: https://www.eigconferences.com/ There will be the usual plenary opening session, including an introduction to the geology of North West England by Professor Peter Burgess, University of Liverpool, and the Ansel Dunham Memorial Lecture by Fiona McEvoy of NWS. This will be followed by parallel sessions, from a variety of geotechnical and quarry design case studies and overviews of professional practice to prospecting, geomorphological quarry restoration, low carbon resources and the water environment. Conference programme can be downloaded here: https://www.eigconferences.com/s/EIG-2026-Liverpool-Programme-May6th.pdf Delegate booking, trade stands and sponsorship opportunities are here: https://www.eigconferences.com/2026-conference NB Delegate Early Bird deadline 30th June 2026.

Pharmaceutical residues enter the environment worldwide through excretion after use and improper disposal and can cause significant ecotoxicological effects while also contributing to the pollution of water resources used for drinking water production and food production. Although pharmaceuticals are indispensable for public healthcare, their environmental impacts are rarely considered during prescribing or dispensing. A newly developed Environmental Pharmaceutical Index (EPI) aims to integrate environmental information systematically into pharmaceutical and medical decision-making. The objective is to balance therapeutical needs and environmental impacts by supporting the selection of therapeutically equivalent medicines with lower environmental impacts without compromising patient care. A practical environmental information, classification and dissemination system The proposed Environmental Pharmaceutical Index consists of three interconnected components: an environmental information system, an environmental classification system, and a dissemination system. The information system is designed to collect substance-based environmental information, primarily from Environmental Risk Assessments (ERA) conducted during the European marketing authorisation process. The authors propose using the German Environment Agency's ChemInfo database as the central information platform. Based on the outcomes of the ERA risk assessment and hazard assessment, the system introduces a practical traffic light classification with the categories red, yellow, green and grey. This classification enables healthcare professionals to compare active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) within the same indication group and to identify substances of environmental concern while maintaining transparency regarding the underlying scientific evidence. International experience informed the German concept The concept builds on an evaluation of existing environmental information and classification systems in Sweden, Finland and Scotland. The study combined scoping literature reviews, qualitative stakeholder interviews, expert panel meetings, stakeholder workshops, and a feasibility analysis. The results demonstrate that environmental information is most effective when it is integrated directly into existing therapeutic decision-making processes rather than requiring additional information searches during routine clinical practice. Accordingly, the proposed dissemination strategy includes integration into pharmacy and doctors' office management software, therapeutic guidelines, formularies, and other established healthcare information systems to support environmentally informed prescribing and dispensing. Supporting eco-directed pharmaceutical prescribing The Environmental Pharmaceutical Index is intended to complement established therapeutic decision-making rather than replace it. Environmental aspects should only influence the choice of treatment where multiple therapeutically equivalent treatment options are available. Therapeutic efficacy, patient safety and clinical appropriateness remain the primary considerations. In the long term, the authors identify opportunities to integrate environmental information into market authorisation, reimbursement decisions, discount agreements of health insurance companies, labelling, and therapeutic guidelines. By combining a scientifically robust environmental information system with practical dissemination approaches, the proposed concept aims to facilitate eco-directed pharmaceutical prescribing and reduce the environmental burden of pharmaceuticals in Germany. The study "Environmental Pharmaceutical Index – a practical information, classification and dissemination system for medication in Germany" was carried out by researchers from Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, the German Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt, UBA), the Ecologic Institute, and Augsburg University.

Abstract Soils are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, home to staggering amounts of small organisms. Many of these organisms are not known to science. This biodiversity ‘dark matter’ remains largely unexplored because identifying small soil organisms requires either specialized taxonomic expertise or expensive molecular methods, creating a throughput bottleneck that restricts ecosystem-scale monitoring. To explore this dark matter, we developed a high-throughput digital phenotyping approach using multispectral flow cytometry to create digital ‘fingerprints’ of soil organisms. Analyzing 2318 organisms spanning nematodes, collembola, mites, and tardigrades, we show that these digital fingerprints distinguish taxonomic groups with high accuracy and capture phylogenetic signal that explains 91% of variance in DNA barcode relationships. Machine learning alignment enables us to assess genetic similarity based solely on digital fingerprints, allowing prediction of relationships without sequencing. Smart sampling strategies guided by these projections achieve 6-fold improvements in species discovery efficiency compared to traditional approaches, with advantages that compound as sampling increases. Our smart sampling approach has applications across domains and provides a scalable pathway for rapid biodiversity assessment with immediate applications in agriculture, conservation, and ecosystem monitoring. Similar content being viewed by others Archived natural DNA samplers reveal four decades of biodiversity change across the tree of life Article Open access 01 August 2025 Global sampling decline erodes science potential of natural history collections Article Open access 20 October 2025 Soil biodiversity effects on ecosystems Article 12 January 2026 Acknowledgements Larry W. Duncan assisted with reference nematode specimens and provided helpful feedback on early iterations of experimental design. Funding The authors received funding from the California Institute for Biodiversity to support this work. Author information Authors and Affiliations Department of Biology, University of North Carolina Asheville, Asheville, NC, 28803, USA Camila C. Filgueiras Union Biometrica, Holliston, MA, 01746, USA Yongwoon Kim California Institute for Biodiversity, Berkeley, CA, 94709, USA Daniel Gluesenkamp Department of Applied Ecology, North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies, NC State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA Denis S. Willett SOIL, Asheville, NC, 28803, USA Camila C. Filgueiras & Denis S. Willett Authors Camila C. Filgueiras View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Yongwoon Kim View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Daniel Gluesenkamp View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Denis S. Willett View author publications Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar Corresponding author Correspondence to Camila C. Filgueiras. Ethics declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Rights and permissions Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Reprints and permissions About this article Cite this article Filgueiras, C.C., Kim, Y., Gluesenkamp, D. et al. Digital phenotyping accelerates soil biodiversity discovery. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-61754-6 Download citation Received: 12 February 2026 Accepted: 07 July 2026 Published: 22 July 2026 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-61754-6 Share this article Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Copy shareable link to clipboard Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative Keywords Smart soil organism detector Smart SOD Nematodes Subjects Biological techniques Computational biology and bioinformatics Ecology

Fast Facts We testified on federal efforts to increase access to broadband internet. Our testimony, given before the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, Committee on Energy and Commerce, is primarily based on Broadband: National Strategy Needed to Guide Federal Efforts to Reduce Digital Divide Broadband Programs: Agencies Need to Further Improve Their Data Quality and Coordination Efforts We also discuss recommendations we've made. GAO Testimony to Congress written next to an image of the U.S. Capitol. Skip to Highlights Highlights What GAO Found Federal broadband efforts are fragmented, with over 100 programs administered by 15 agencies, as GAO reported in May 2022. Some programs support broadband as their main purpose, while others support broadband as one possible purpose (see figure). The Mosaic of Federal Programs with Broadband as a Main Purpose as of November 2021, by Purpose Category GAO has found that a national strategy, continued interagency coordination, and better mapping data could strengthen federal broadband efforts. National Strategy. Strategies to coordinate programs that address issues of broad national need can help mitigate the negative effects of fragmented federal programs, but no national strategy exists for federal broadband efforts. In May 2022, GAO recommended creating such a strategy to synchronize these efforts. Interagency Coordination. With or without a national strategy, effective coordination among agencies that administer broadband programs is also important. In April 2025, GAO reported that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and the Treasury coordinate to administer the bulk of federal broadband funding and have mechanisms in place to do so. GAO recommended improvements to further strengthen those efforts. Agency officials reported taking steps to implement these recommendations, but have not yet fully addressed them, as of July 2026. Mapping Data. Agencies rely on FCC’s National Broadband Map—which displays where broadband is already available—to target tens of billions of dollars in federal broadband funding, but the accuracy of the map’s availability data is uncertain. In April 2025, GAO recommended FCC document and evaluate the effectiveness of its processes for ensuring the map’s data quality. Not doing so could increase the risk of inaccurate data on the map, which could jeopardize agencies’ ability to make effective funding decisions. FCC has not yet addressed the recommendations as of July 2026, but officials reported taking steps to do so. Why GAO Did This Study Access to broadband is critical for employment, education, health care, and other daily activities. The federal government has invested tens of billions of dollars over the past decade across a myriad of broadband-related programs managed by different agencies. Yet millions of Americans lack broadband access. Information on where broadband is already available is key to expanding access. Coordination among the federal agencies that administer the various federal programs is also key, particularly since U.S. broadband efforts are not guided by an overarching national strategy. This testimony discusses findings from GAO’s previous reports on (1) a national broadband strategy and interagency coordination efforts, and (2) FCC’s efforts to ensure the quality of data in its National Broadband Map. It is primarily based on GAO’s May 2022 and April 2025 reports. Recommendations In May 2022, GAO recommended that the Executive Office of the President develop a national broadband strategy. The Executive Office of the President did not take a position on the recommendation. In April 2025, GAO recommended that FCC, NTIA, USDA, and Treasury strengthen aspects of their coordination; and that FCC strengthen aspects of its processes for ensuring the quality of the National Broadband Map's data. FCC, NTIA, and Treasury agreed with these recommendations; USDA did not take a position. GAO will continue to monitor the agencies’ progress in implementing the recommendations. Full Report View Full Report Online Highlights Page (1 page) Full Report (9 pages)