Topological photonics has emerged as a powerful paradigm for achieving robust light transport that is immune to imperfections, disorder, and structural defects. By harnessing principles from condensed matter physics, topological photonic systems support edge modes that guide light along boundaries without backscattering — a feature that has significant implications for resilient optical communication and information processing. However, most demonstrations of topological photonics have been confined to linear and static settings, where the transport pathways are fixed once the device is fabricated. This rigidity presents a major limitation for practical ...

As fast-charging lithium-ion batteries race toward sub-zero markets, the anode bottleneck—graphite plating risk and Li4Ti5O12 capacity ceiling—intensifies. Now, researchers from Harbin Institute of Technology, led by Prof. Yan Zhang and Prof. Shuaifeng Lou, unveil an Sb/Nb co-doped TiNb2O7 (TNO) anode that unlocks 140 mAh g-1 at 20 C and 500 stable cycles at −30 °C. Published in Nano-Micro Letters, the work delivers a practical pouch cell delivering 1.14 Ah at 17 C with 93.8 % retention ...

While lithium–sulfur batteries (LSBs) promise 2600 Wh kg⁻¹, the sluggish liquid-solid conversion of polysulfides keeps practical capacities far below theory. Now, researchers at Northwestern Polytechnical University, led by Prof. Yibo He, report a free-standing PPy@N-TiO2/Carbon-Cloth photocathode that harvests sunlight to co-drive sulfur redox, delivering 1 653 mAh g-1 (98.7 % of theory) and 333 mAh g-1 after 5 h of pure photo-charging. Published in Nano-Micro Letters, the work realizes dual-mode energy harvesting in a single cell. Why Photo-Assisted Strategy Matters Polysulfide ...

Agricultural soils are one of the world’s largest sources of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a century. New research suggests that a common agricultural byproduct may offer a powerful and practical solution. A study published in Biochar shows that straw-derived biochar, when applied using region-specific strategies, could reduce nitrous oxide emissions from China’s croplands by as much as 50 percent. Nitrous oxide is primarily released from soils treated with nitrogen fertilizers. While biochar, a carbon-rich material produced by heating crop residues under low oxygen conditions, has long been ...

A research team led by Hiroshima University and Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have proposed a neuroendocrine mechanism in bony fish that signals ovulation from the ovaries to the brain, using the medaka fish as a model; the first step to elucidate the neural circuits for facilitation of sexual receptivity in female teleosts.  Bony fish (teleosts) are one of the most diverse groups of vertebrates, inhabiting a wide variety of aquatic environments. Females of many species are sexually receptive only when eggs have developed in the ovaries and are ready for spawning. In other words, sexual ...

Rising trade frictions over the past decade have sparked urgent questions about their long-term impact on global economies. The U.S. now applies tariffs of 66.4% on Chinese exports, which is higher compared to the average rate of 19.3%, while China retaliates with a 58.3% import tariff on U.S. exports, higher than the average rate of 21.1%. These frictions not only disrupt regular trade flow, but also have long-term economic impacts. The geographical location of the market involved also plays an important role and is often influenced ...

Mental trauma, including specific phobias and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), succeeds 1 in 7 dog related injuries, while over half of cases result in the need for time off work and/or loss of earnings, suggests a study of personal injury claims data for England and Wales, published online in the journal Injury Prevention. As most of these claims involved unrestrained dogs in non-residential locations, mandating lead use on highways and in public spaces should now be explored to boost public safety, urge the researchers. The latest ...

Breastfeeding may lower mothers’ later life risks of depression and anxiety for up to 10 years after pregnancy, suggest the findings of a small observational study, published in the open access journal BMJ Open.   The observed associations were apparent for any, exclusive, and cumulative (at least 12  months) breastfeeding, the study shows.   Breastfeeding is associated with lower risks of postnatal depression and anxiety, but it’s not clear if these lowered risks might persist in the longer term, say the researchers.   To find out, they tracked the breastfeeding behaviour ...

The worldwide prevalence of obesity has more than doubled in the last three decades, bringing with it an increase in weight-related diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancers. This public health crisis strains global healthcare systems and economies, but a new study co-led by investigators from Mass General Brigham could inform strategic programs to make GLP-1 medications part of the solution. Mass General Brigham researchers and collaborators from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis ...

As millions of us embark on New Year pledges to eat better, exercise more and learn something new, research published today suggests hobbies could do more than improve your personal life, they could make you better at work.  The study by researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Erasmus University Rotterdam explored how ‘leisure crafting’ - intentionally shaping your free time through goal setting, learning and connection - does not just boost well-being outside the office but can spill over into creativity, engagement, and meaning at work, especially for ...

A new UCLA study reveals that a widely used federal hospital safety metric is fundamentally flawed when applied to emergency stroke care, potentially creating incentives that may discourage hospitals from performing lifesaving procedures for the sickest patients. The research, published in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery, examined Patient Safety Indicator 04 (PSI 04), a "failure-to-rescue" measure developed by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to track deaths ...

About one in nine adults suffer from chronic insomnia and its residual effects like drowsiness, cognitive issues, and irritability as well as increased health risks like diabetes and heart risks if left untreated.  While many treatments are available, the challenge lies in determining how well a medication or other sleep aid works in individual patients. Now a new study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine has found using real-time smartphone-based assessments can help to determine the effectiveness of sleep medications ...

HOUSTON – (Jan. 8, 2026) – Diseases that disrupt memory, movement and cognition remain among the most difficult challenges in modern medicine, in part because the brain is still one of the least understood organs in the human body. That challenge is driving new collaborations at Rice University, where the Rice Brain Institute has announced the first research awards issued under its new umbrella. The institute is funding four collaborative projects that unite Rice faculty with clinicians and scientists across the Texas Medical Center. The Rice and TMC Neuro Collaboration ...

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have led the first clinical trial in the world to show that cancer drug treatments can be safely and effectively personalized based on the unique DNA of a patient’s tumor. The study results, published in the January 8, 2026 online edition of Journal of Clinical Oncology found that individualizing multi-drug treatments to each patient’s specific tumor mutations using molecular testing can significantly enhance treatment success. “Every patient and every cancer is unique, and so should how we treat for them,” said Jason Sicklick, MD, senior author of the study, professor of surgery and pharmacology ...

Seattle Public Library, or SPL, is the only U.S. library system that makes its anonymized, granular checkout data public. Want to find out how many times people borrowed the e-book version of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” in May 2018? That data is available.  The hitch is that the library’s data set contains nearly 50 million rows, and a single title can appear variously. Morrison’s “Beloved,” for instance, is listed as “Beloved,” “Beloved (unabridged),” “Beloved : a novel / by Toni Morrison” and so on.  To track trends in the catalogue over the last 20 years, ...

By Maddie Johnson University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — With an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the United States’ food supply ending up as waste, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, food science and horticulture experts teamed up to study if it could lay the foundation for growing the next bunch of crops.  “It’s capturing food waste that would otherwise go to landfill and produce greenhouse gases and cause harm to the environment in some capacity,” said Matt Bertucci, assistant professor of sustainable fruit and vegetable ...

UCLA has received four grants totaling $7.3 million from the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) to support research on a broad range of topics, from the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids to the cardiovascular risks of cannabis use and strategies for addressing California's unregulated cannabis market. The funding will support research by faculty from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the UCLA College of Letters and Science and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.  “This ...

Self-administered injectable contraceptives have been available in the United States for more than two decades, yet a new study has found only about a quarter of reproductive health experts prescribe it — and many are unaware it’s even an option.  Researchers surveyed 422 clinicians who regularly prescribe birth control and found that only about a third of those who were aware of the option prescribe it. The providers said they were concerned about their patients’ ability to self-inject, the medication’s ...

When a house catches on fire, we assume that a smoke alarm inside will serve one purpose and one purpose only: warn the occupants of danger. But imagine if the device could transform into something that could fight the fire as well.  In a new study in today’s issue of Science, a multi-institutional team lead by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine has shown in mice that the body’s “pain alarms” ― sensory neurons ― actually have such a dual function. In the event ...

UC Irvine astronomers found an unexpectedly large stream of super-heated gas at nearby galaxy. The team used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories. Project funding was provided by NASA and the National Science Foundation. Irvine, Calif., Jan. 8, 2026 —University of California, Irvine astronomers have announced the discovery of the largest-known stream of super-heated gas in the universe ejecting from a nearby galaxy called VV 340a. They describe the discovery in Science. The super-heated gas, detected by the researchers in data provided by NASA’s ...

Pioneering research led by Brazilians describes the immune system’s reactions in detail in the first living patient to receive a genetically modified pig kidney transplant. This paves the way for the search for therapies that can prevent organ rejection. The study demonstrates the feasibility of this type of graft but indicates that controlling initial rejection alone is insufficient. This is because even with immunosuppressants, continuous activation of innate immunity – the body’s first line of defense, especially macrophages, which react to any threat – can compromise ...

A recent study led by Colgate Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Cosmin Ilie, in collaboration with Jillian Paulin ’23 at the University of Pennsylvania, Andreea Petric of the Space Telescope Science Institute, and Katherine Freese of the University of Texas at Austin, provides answers to three seemingly disparate, yet pressing, cosmic dawn puzzles. Specifically, the authors show how dark stars could help explain the unexpected discovery of “blue monster” galaxies, the numerous early overmassive black hole galaxies, and the “little red dots” in images ...

According to a new study by researchers at Yale and the University of Missouri, chemical catalysts containing manganese — an abundant, inexpensive metallic element — proved highly effective in converting carbon dioxide into formate, a compound viewed as a potential key contributor of hydrogen for the next generation of fuel cells. The new study appears in the journal Chem. The lead authors are Yale postdoctoral researcher Justin Wedal and Missouri graduate research assistant Kyler Virtue; the senior authors are professors Nilay Hazari of Yale and Wesley Bernskoetter of ...

A group of “gifted word learner” dogs can learn new words that label objects by overhearing their owners talking with each other, according to a new study by Shany Dror and colleagues. These dogs can map a new word to a new object even when the word and object are not presented simultaneously. Together, these abilities put these special dogs at the same word-learning level as 18 to 23-month-old children, Dror et al. conclude. Their findings suggest that humans are not the only animals that can learn new labels by overhearing third-party interactions. The researchers ...

In topological condensed matter physics, where major discoveries could hold big implications for fields like information technology, the reliability of such discoveries could be greatly enhanced by taking several steps, like presenting larger sets of data, say Sergey Frolov and colleagues. Their insights are based in part on four original experiments they did that correspond to either theory predictions or published work. “Overall,” write the authors, “although replication crises are typically perceived to be a problem in fields less quantitative than physics, the overemphasis on smoking- gun claims has the potential to affect the reliability of findings irrespective of field.” ...