Post Scientist

  Nature is, of course, the master engineer—been there, seen it, solved it. While we struggle to design buildings that don't overheat or feel like concrete cages, nature has been perfecting comfortable living structures for ages. Now scientists are borrowing from the natural world again; this time, to build a swarm of interconnected mini-robots that could lead to buildings with dynamic facades that respond to sunlight and the people inside. Scientists from Princeton University and Northwestern University were motivated by the frustration that buildings are essentially static boxes that don't move. Yet in nature, some structures are constantly changing, such as ants linking their bodies to form a bridge that changes shape with the terrain. The team's idea was to use swarm intelligence (the collective behavior of self-organized systems such as schools of fish moving as one) to create a "living" skin for buildings. The paper is published in the journal ...

  Scientists from China have developed a new way to recycle lithium batteries that is a triple win for the planet. It not only extracts nearly all the lithium for reuse but also traps carbon dioxide and converts the remaining metal waste into high-performance catalysts for generating green energy. Global battery crisis Lithium-ion batteries are increasingly used in everything from smartphones and laptops to electric vehicles and renewable energy storage grids. But spent batteries that aren't recycled properly are an environmental concern because they can leak toxic metals and flammable chemicals into soil and water. The global volume of these used batteries has been projected to reach 381 million metric tons by 2050. Current recycling methods are problematic. Traditional heat-based methods use massive furnaces, but they consume a lot of energy, and much of the lithium is lost in the process. Other methods rely on harsh acids and chemicals to dissolve the metals, but th...

Detecting concealed explosives and chemical threats constitutes a critical challenge in global security, yet current technologies often face significant operational limitations. While X-ray scanners and millimeter-wave imaging can efficiently identify suspicious shapes, they frequently lack chemical specificity. Conversely, precise chemical sensors—such as mass spectrometry or trained canine units—require close proximity to the target, creating safety risks and logistical bottlenecks in crowded or volatile environments. Terahertz spectroscopy has long been viewed as a promising solution to this dilemma, offering the ability to penetrate opaque materials such as clothing, paper, and plastic without causing ionization damage. However, conventional terahertz methods often struggle in real-world conditions, where the spectral fingerprints of chemicals are easily distorted by packaging materials, surface roughness, and environmental scattering. In an article published in Ligh...

A dome-fronted submersible sinks beneath the waves off Indonesia, heading down nearly 1,000 meters in search of new species, plastic-eating microbes and compounds that could one day make medicines. This month, AFP boarded one of two submersibles belonging to OceanX, a non-profit backed by billionaire Ray Dalio and his son that brings scientists onto its OceanXplorer ship to study the marine world. The ship boasts labs for genetic sequencing, a helicopter for aerial surveys and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) capable of descending up to 6,000 meters (19,700 feet) under the ocean surface. Its two submersibles have everything from hydraulic collection arms and suction tubes to high-definition cameras, allowing them to uncover the improbable life found in some of the harshest conditions on Earth. The ship's latest mission focuses on a seamount chain off Indonesia's Sulawesi island that scientists on board mapped last year. A new team of Indonesian scientists is now s...

  For the first time, physicists have generated and observed stable bright matter-wave solitons with attractive interactions within a grid of laser light. In the quantum world, atoms usually travel as waves that spread out, but solitons stay concentrated in one spot. They have been created before in open space, but this is the first time they have been stabilized inside a repeating laser structure using attractive forces. This development gives scientists a new way to hold and guide clusters of atoms, a key requirement for developing future quantum technologies. The research is published in a paper in Physical Review Letters . To create these solitons, the researchers used a cloud of cesium atoms cooled to temperatures near absolute zero (a Bose–Einstein condensate). They placed the atoms in an optical lattice that they created with lasers. This grid of light acted as a container, holding the atoms in specific, repeating positions. The researchers then used magnetic ...

  Quantum computers, systems that process information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, will require faster and energy-efficient memory components, which will allow them to perform well on complex tasks. Superconducting memories are promising memory devices that are made from superconductors, materials that conduct electricity with a resistance of zero when cooled below a critical temperature. These memory devices could be faster and consume significantly less energy than existing memories based on superconductors. Despite their potential, most existing superconducting memories are prone to errors and are difficult to scale up to create larger systems containing several memory cells. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently developed a new scalable superconducting memory that is based on nanowires, one-dimensional (1D) nanostructures with unique optoelectronic properties. This memory, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronic...

Scientists from A*STAR Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (A*STAR IMCB) have identified why certain lung cancer cells become highly resistant to treatment after developing mutations in a key gene called EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor). In a study published in Science Advances , the researchers reveal a previously unknown survival mechanism and demonstrated that disrupting it can shrink tumors in laboratory models. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths globally. Many cases are driven by mutations in the EGFR gene, which causes cells to grow and divide uncontrollably. In Southeast Asia, these mutations are found in up to 40–60% of a common type of lung cancer called adenocarcinoma. While targeted drugs initially work well against these cancers, nearly all patients eventually stop responding. Scientists have long puzzled over why the faulty proteins produced by mutant EGFR are so stable—while normal proteins are recycled via degradation, these mutant...

  Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are technologies that allow users to immerse themselves in digital worlds or enhance their surroundings with computer-generated filters or images, respectively. Both these technologies are now widely used worldwide, whether to experience video games and media content in more engaging ways or improve specific training and assist professionals in their daily tasks. To date, VR and AR have primarily focused on what users see and hear, primarily improving the quality of digital experiences from a visual and auditory standpoint. The sense of touch, on the other hand, has been in great part overlooked. Researchers at Sungkyunkwan University, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and Istanbul Technical University recently developed a new wearable devic...

As a self-driving car cruises down a street, it uses cameras and sensors to perceive its environment, taking in information on pedestrians, traffic lights, and street signs. Artificial intelligence (AI) then processes that visual information so the car can navigate safely. But the same systems that allow a car to read and respond to the words on a street sign might expose that car to hijacking attacks from bad actors. Text placed on signs, posters, or other objects can be read by an AI's perception system and treated as instructions, potentially allowing attackers to influence an autonomous system's behavior through the real world. New research led by UC Santa Cruz Professor of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Alvaro Cardenas and Assistant Professor of CSE Cihang Xie presents the first academic exploration of these threats, called environmental indirect prompt injection attacks, against embodied AI systems. The study shows that misleading text in an environmen...

 A new portable reactor based on a solid oxide fuel cell solves thermal management and safety issues, as reported by researchers from Japan. This miniaturized reactor can start up rapidly within five minutes at room temperature and demonstrate electric power generation. Featuring an innovative structural design with high thermal insulation and a multilayered insulation system, this microreactor design could be used to power a wide variety of edge devices. Growing need for portable power As the digital age progresses, humanity is witnessing a massive increase in the number of edge devices, from smartphones and drones to compact robotics and artificial intelligence hardware. These technologies often require portable power sources with high energy density—a demand that conventional battery technologies are ill-prepared to fulfill. Lithium-ion batteries, for example, are already hitting their theoretical limits, yet they still cannot sustain long drone flights. To overcom...

Demand for lithium is skyrocketing as factories across the world churn out electric vehicles and the massive batteries that make wind turbines and solar panels reliable sources of energy. Unfortunately, current methods for producing lithium are slow and require high-quality feedstocks that are found in relatively few locations on the planet. Ironically, the environmental costs are also significant: refining the mineral behind clean energy requires large amounts of land and pollutes water supplies that local communities depend on. In a new paper, researchers from Columbia Engineering describe a new method for extracting lithium that could dramatically shorten processing time, unlock reserves that existing methods can't tap, and reduce environmental impact. Their technique uses a temperature-sensitive solvent to extract lithium directly from the brines found in deposits across the world. Unlike current technologies, this approach can efficiently extract lithium even when...

  The ubiquity of smart devices—not just phones and watches, but lights, refrigerators, doorbells and more, all constantly recording and transmitting data—is creating massive volumes of digital information that drain energy and slow data transmission speeds. With the rising use of artificial intelligence in industries ranging from health care and finance to transportation and manufacturing, addressing the issue is becoming more pressing. A research team led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst aims to address the problem with new technology that uses old-school analog computing: an electrical component known as a memristor. "Certainly, our society is more and more connected, and the number of those devices is increasing exponentially," says Qiangfei Xia, the Dev and Linda Gupta professor in the Riccio College of Engineering at UMass Amherst. "If everyone is collecting and processing data the old way, the amount of data is going to be exploding. We canno...

  Smartwatches with both PPG and ECG functionality improve the detection of atrial fibrillation in comparison with standard care. Researchers from Amsterdam UMC have analyzed the data from 437 patients and detected heart arrhythmia four times more often in those who wore an Apple Watch. These results are published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology . "Traditionally, monitoring takes place with other ECG devices, but patients can find them a bit irritating, and most of them can only monitor for two weeks at a time," says Michiel Winter, cardiologist at Amsterdam UMC. Atrial fibrillation is the arrhythmia associated with stroke. Irregular atrial beating can lead to the formation of clots. If these clots travel to the brain, they can cause a stroke. "Wearables that track both your pulse and heart's electrical activity by combining PPG and ECG functions have been around for a while now. However, how well this technology works for the scree...

  Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Gaps in the U.S. stroke transfer system are drastically reducing survivors' chances of receiving critical treatment and increasing the likelihood that they will leave the hospital with a disability, according to a study published in The Lancet Neurology . The paper is titled "Door-in-door-out times and outcomes in patients with acute ischaemic stroke transferred for endovascular therapy: a retrospective US cohort study" Around one-third of ischemic stroke patients are eligible for endovascular thrombectomy, an effective intervention that changed the landscape of stroke treatment more than a decade ago. More than 40% of people who receive endovascular therapy initially arrive at hospitals that don't offer the treatment. These patients require transfer to more advanced facilities capable of delivering thrombectomy. Previous analyses showed that the vast majority of stroke patients face hours of wait time between initial...

  Most electronics are built on flat, stiff boards, which makes it incredibly difficult to fit them onto curved and irregular shapes we find in the real world, such as human limbs or curved aircraft wings. While flexible electronics have made some progress, they are often not durable enough or are too complex to manufacture for everyday use. But now scientists from Tianjin University and Tsinghua University in China have developed a way to integrate high-performance circuits into irregular 3D surfaces. Their findings are published in the journal Nature Electronics . Shrink to fit The solution the researchers developed is a simple heat-shrinking method. First, they printed a circuit onto a common thermoplastic that shrinks when heated, so it can snugly wrap around objects. Then, instead of copper wires that could snap when the plastic shrinks, they used a semi-liquid metal. This mixture of gallium, indium and copper is thick enough to stay exactly where it is printed and...

In a recent study, researchers from China have developed a chip-scale LiDAR system that mimics the human eye's foveation by dynamically concentrating high-resolution sensing on regions of interest (ROIs) while maintaining broad awareness across the full field of view. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications . LiDAR systems power machine vision in self-driving cars, drones, and robots by firing laser beams to map 3D scenes with millimeter precision. The eye packs its densest sensors in the fovea (sharp central vision spot) and shifts gaze to what's important. By contrast, most LiDARs use rigid parallel beams or scans that spread uniform (often coarse) resolution everywhere. Boosting detail means adding more channels uniformly, which explodes costs, power, and complexity. The team's design achieves "beyond-retinal" angular resolution of 0.012° in ROIs—twice as sharp as the eye's approximate 0.017° limit. This means the system can...