To develop a practical fusion power system, scientists need to fully understand how the plasma fuel interacts with its surroundings. The plasma is superheated, which means some of the atoms involved can strike the wall of the fusion vessel and become embedded. To keep the system working efficiently, it’s important to know how much fuel might be trapped. “The less fuel is trapped in the wall, the less radioactive material builds up,” said Shota Abe, a staff research physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).  Abe is the lead researcher on a new study published in Nuclear ...

The electrochemical reduction of CO2 has been recognized as a promising strategy to convert ambient atmospheric CO2 into valuable products. Bismuth-based catalysts have garnered the widespread attention of researchers due to their cost-effectiveness, low toxicity, and high natural abundance. Significant progress has been made toward enhancing the reactivity of catalyst structures through innovative synthesis techniques and engineering. Advances include the use of flow cells and membrane electrode assembly (MEA) cells to attain high cathodic current densities of over 200 mA cm-2 with superior ...

Researchers in South Korea have developed an advanced liquid metal catalyst incorporating selenium (Se) to enhance the efficiency of turquoise hydrogen production. Turquoise hydrogen is generated via methane (CH₄) pyrolysis, producing hydrogen while yielding solid carbon as a byproduct, without emitting carbon dioxide (CO₂). A research team led by Dr. Seung Ju Han at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) has introduced selenium-doped molten metal catalysts (NiBi, CuBi) to significantly enhance methane pyrolysis efficiency. The technology demonstrates ...

A century of fire suppression, combined with global warming and drought, has led to increasingly destructive wildfires in the Western United States. Forest managers use tools like prescribed burns, thinning, mastication, and piling and burning to reduce fuel – live and dead trees, needles and leaves, and downed branches – that can feed intense wildfires. These methods aim to lower fuel levels, reduce crown density, and protect fire-resistant trees, fostering healthier, more resilient forests. However, prescribed burning efforts haven’t kept up with the rapid buildup of surface fuel, creating a “fire deficit” – the gap between the amount of fuel that has ...

CLEVELAND—Researchers at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and University Hospitals (UH) will use state-of-the-art medical technologies they invented—and licensed to Lucid Diagnostics Inc.—to detect esophageal precancer, specifically Barrett’s Esophagus (BE). BE is a change in the cellular structure of the esophageal lining typically caused by gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), also known as heartburn. The goal is to reduce the incidence of esophageal cancer (EAC). EAC is a rare type of cancer with a high-morality rate—the cause of 2.6% of all cancer ...

Insilico Medicine ("Insilico"), a clinical stage generative artificial intelligence (AI)-driven biotechnology company, today announced the publication of a novel series of orally available covalent CDK12/13 dual inhibitors, as a potential option against refractory and treatment-resistant cancers. Published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (IF=7.2), the study showcases the discovery of compound 12b, a potent, selective, and safe therapy targeting CDK12/13, empowered by Insilico’s proprietary generative AI platforms including PandaOmics and ...

For decades researchers have been exploring how to store data in glass because of its potential to hold information for a long time — eons — without applying power. A special type of glass that changes color in different wavelengths of light, called photochromic glass, holds promise for stable, reusable data storage. Now, researchers have developed a doped photochromic glass that has the potential to store rewritable data indefinitely, according to research published in ACS Energy Letters. Certain types of ...

Inspired by the humble deep-sea sponge, RMIT University engineers have developed a new material with remarkable compressive strength and stiffness that could improve architectural and product designs. The double lattice design was inspired by the intricate skeleton of a deep-sea sponge known as Venus' flower basket, which lives in the Pacific Ocean. Lead author of the latest RMIT study into the structure, Dr Jiaming Ma, said extensive testing and optimisation revealed the pattern's impressive combination of stiffness and strength, mixed with an ability to contract when compressed. It’s this last aspect – known as auxetic behaviour – ...

While we are remarkably capable of generating our own goals, beginning with child’s play and continuing into adulthood, we don’t yet have computer models for understanding this human ability.  However, a team of New York University scientists has now created a computer model that can represent and generate human-like goals by learning from how people create games. The work, reported in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, could lead to AI systems that better understand human intentions and more faithfully model ...

A pioneering study has revealed new insights into the role of gastric bacteria in stomach cancer development that could pave the way for a more effective treatment of pre-cancer according to a study published today in Helicobacter.   The Royal Society and Cancer Research UK-funded research led by Dr Amanda Rossiter-Pearson at the University of Birmingham identified a crucial interaction between Helicobacter pylori and non-H. pylori bacteria in the pre-cancerous stage of gastric cancer.   Gastric cancer is the fourth ...

Anemonefish, sometimes called clownfish, have been popular attractions in aquariums ever since Disney’s animated film Finding Nemo arrived in cinemas in 2003. Living symbiotically with sea anemones that shelter them from predators, the fish drive away organisms that nibble at their hosts. Anemonefish have also shown they will provide their hosts with the food given to them by humans, but does this happen in the wild? An Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Science team led by PhD student Yuya Kobayashi and Professor Satoshi Awata found evidence of this feeding behavior during field experiments. ...

A team of researchers from the University of Oxford, in collaboration with Thames Valley Police, the National Crime Agency, the John Radcliffe Hospital, Lurtis Ltd. and Cardiff University, has developed an advanced physics-based AI-driven tool to aid the forensic investigation of traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The study, published today (26 Feb) in Communications Engineering, introduces a mechanics-informed machine learning framework to help police and forensic teams accurately predict TBI outcomes based on documented assault scenarios. TBI is a critical public health issue, with severe and long-term neurological consequences. In forensic investigations, determining ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- About 60 percent of all cancer patients in the United States receive radiation therapy as part of their treatment. However, this radiation can have severe side effects that often end up being too difficult for patients to tolerate. Drawing inspiration from a tiny organism that can withstand huge amounts of radiation, researchers at MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the University of Iowa have developed a new strategy that may protect patients from this kind of damage. Their approach makes use of a protein from tardigrades, often also called “water bears,” which are usually less than a millimeter in ...

New double network hydrogel technology features automated self-strengthening that rapidly activates upon deformation of its polymer network. Hydrogels are soft materials consisting of polymer networks and water. They are permeable to substances smaller than their network mesh size and have applications in biomaterials, contact lenses, soft robots, and more. At the molecular level, the cleavage of chemical bonds causes a material to become mechanically weaker and can lead to its destruction. Mechanochemically ...

The symptoms of schizophrenia vary greatly from person to person. A new study shows how these differences manifest themselves in the structure of the brain. Schizophrenia is a complex mental health condition that affects perception, thought and emotions. This complexity is reflected in the individual manifestations of the disease: for some patients, perceptual disturbances are the main problem, while for others, cognitive impairments are more prevalent. “In this sense, there is not one schizophrenia, but many, each with different neurobiological profiles,” says Wolfgang Omlor, first author of the study and senior physician at the University Hospital of Psychiatry ...

Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) are growing in popularity but new peer-reviewed research, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, from the University of Bath, suggests they may not be as accurate as many believe. Originally designed to help people living with diabetes manage their blood sugar, these devices are now being used by the health-conscious to track how different foods affect their glucose levels. The study, from the University’s Centre for Nutrition, Exercise ...

Colorectal cancer, the second most common cause of cancer-related death, affects almost 2 million people worldwide every year. It is mainly treated with chemotherapy, but its effectiveness decreases over time due to the progressive resistance of tumor cells. A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has identified specific alterations in certain lipids in cancer cells resistant to chemotherapy. These lipid signatures could serve as prognostic markers for understanding resistance to treatment and pave the way for personalized, targeted strategies ...

New York, NY [February 26, 2025]— A new Mount Sinai study provides compelling evidence that exercise can significantly help the mental well-being of millions of women living with chronic pelvic pain disorders (CPPDs), such as endometriosis and uterine fibroids. The researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai found that activities like brisk walking or aerobic exercise can lead to measurable improvements in mental well-being, regardless of pain levels or history of anxiety or depressive disorders. Their findings were reported in the February 26 online issue of the Journal of Pain Research. CPPDs affect millions of women worldwide, leading to increased health care ...

A recent study shows that computer algorithms can be used to find molecules that can be developed into anti-inflammatory drugs. In the article, the researchers also describe how the same strategy can be used to search through 10 sextillion alternatives to identify the best drug candidate. One of the biggest challenges in drug development is finding the right candidates among the vast number of possible molecules. A new study published in Nature Communications shows that it is possible to identify drug molecules by modelling them using computer algorithms. “We use the computer models to search through databases containing billions of molecules. This method will be able ...

A low-energy challenger to the quantum computer that also works at room temperature may be the result of research at the University of Gothenburg. The researchers have shown that information can be transmitted using magnetic wave motion in complex networks. Spintronics explores magnetic phenomena in nano-thin layers of magnetic materials that are exposed to magnetic fields, electric currents and voltages. These external stimuli can also create spin waves, ripples in a material's magnetisation that travel with a specific phase and energy. The researchers ...

HERNDON, Va., February 25, 2025 -- One of the human impacts of natural hazards is household displacement.  Destructive floods, wildfires, earthquakes and hurricanes often force people to leave their homes -- some briefly, others for months or indefinitely. Most disaster risk assessments, used by insurance companies, government agencies, development banks, and academic researchers to predict the potential future impacts of natural hazards, fail to account for hardships incurred by household displacement. Instead, they focus on direct ...

In residential areas, where a growing number of older people live, the first- and last-mile mobility between their homes and bus stops has become a social problem. Older adults are encouraged to relinquish their licenses and rely on public transportation. Demand-responsive transport (DRT) has the potential to address this social problem. DRT is a mode of transportation that dispatches on demand to pick up and drop off passengers according to their needs. However, older adults’ lesser acceptance of digital solutions poses a challenge to this new system. Dr. Haruka Kato, a junior associate professor at Osaka Metropolitan ...

A world-first technology has been developed by introducing a roll-to-roll compatible flash process into secondary battery electrode manufacturing, significantly suppressing the performance degradation of thick electrodes. This breakthrough presents a new possibility of reducing battery costs by minimizing inactive materials and simplifying the manufacturing process while increasing energy density and capacity, making batteries smaller and lighter. The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Seog-Hyeon Ryu, hereinafter referred to as KIMM), an institute under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT, has developed an electrode activation technology utilizing an ...

Named LLM4SD (Large Language Model 4 Scientific Discovery), the new AI system is an interactive Large Language Model (LLM) tool which can carry out basic steps of scientific research i.e. retrieve useful information from literature and develop hypotheses from data analysis. The tool is freely available and open source.  When asked, the system is also able to provide insights to explain its results, a feature that is not available for many current scientific validation tools.  LLM4SD was tested with 58 separate research tasks relating to molecular properties across four different scientific domains: physiology, physical chemistry, biophysics and quantum mechanics.  Lead ...

Researchers from Japan and Taiwan reveal for the first time that helium, usually considered chemically inert, can bond with iron under high pressures. They used a laser-heated diamond anvil cell to find this, and the discovery suggests there could be huge amounts of helium in the Earth’s core. This could challenge long-standing ideas about the planet’s internal structure and history, and may even reveal details of the nebula our solar system coalesced from. If you’ve ever seen a volcanic eruption and wondered what might be coming ...