SA Young Scientists Head to Arizona
Three South African high‑school learners will represent the nation at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Phoenix from May 9‑15. Their projects span urban sustainability, gravitational‑wave detection, and AI‑driven organ‑transplant research, reflecting cutting‑edge applications of machine learning. The competition draws roughly 1,800 participants from over 80 countries, with prize pools approaching $9 million. The delegation follows medal‑winning performances at the Eskom Expo International Science Fair, underscoring South Africa’s growing STEM pipeline.
Solar-Assisted Air-Source Heat Pump for Radiant Floor Heating
Researchers at the University of Calgary have modeled an air‑source heat pump (ASHP) combined with an air‑based solar collector (SAC) to supply radiant floor heating in a typical Calgary bungalow. The hybrid system, simulated in TRNSYS, raised the coefficient of...
The Download: The North Pole’s Future and Humanoid Data
Scientists are drilling deep into the Arctic seabed to determine whether the ocean was ever ice‑free, a study prompted by unusually open water routes observed last year. Simultaneously, robotics firms are amassing massive datasets of everyday human movements to train...
RAAS Inhibitors Show Benefits in Pediatric CKD Vs. CCBs
A new comparative‑effectiveness study of 2,762 children with chronic kidney disease (CKD) found that renin‑angiotensin‑aldosterone system (RAAS) inhibitors significantly outperformed calcium‑channel blockers (CCBs) in preventing progression to dialysis or transplant. Over a two‑year follow‑up, RAAS users had a 42% lower...
Doubts Cast over 'Wild' Claim that Magnetic Control Can Turn on Genes
Researchers in South Korea announced a magnetically controlled switch that can turn on genes inside cells using an electromagnetic signal, a development touted as a potential breakthrough for non‑invasive therapies. The study appeared in a leading journal but has been...
Colossal Biosciences Plans to De-Extinct the Bluebuck Antelope
Colossal Biosciences announced a new de‑extinction project targeting the bluebuck, an antelope that vanished in the early 1800s. Using CRISPR‑based gene editing and cloned embryos, the company aims to reintroduce a living specimen within the next decade. The bluebuck joins...
Is This ‘De-Extinction’ Project Actually Onto Something?
Dallas‑based biotech startup Colossal, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars from venture capitalists, the CIA and Peter Thiel, continues its high‑profile “de‑extinction” agenda. After controversial dire‑wolf hybrids, the firm announced a bluebuck project that focuses on a novel “ovum pickup”...
Symptom Progression Slowed in Lewy Body Dementia with Zervimesine
Cognition Therapeutics reported that the oral, brain‑penetrant small‑molecule zervimesine slowed symptom progression in a phase 2 SHIMMER trial of 130 adults with mild‑to‑moderate dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). Over six months, patients receiving 100 mg or 300 mg daily showed 52‑86% slower decline...
Assessing the Impact of Drones on Whale Sharks
A Murdoch University team used biotelemetry tags on 13 whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef to compare swimming effort, tail movement and diving behavior with and without overhead drones. The drones were flown at altitudes ranging from 10 to 60 metres...
Women Who Measure the Universe and Chart the Skies
Sandrine J. Thomas, associate director for Summit Operations at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, will keynote the 42nd Coordinate Metrology Society conference, linking Earth‑based metrology to the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The LSST camera, a 3.2‑gigapixel instrument...
'Two Lives Hang in the Balance': Risky Surgery in the Womb Saved Baby From Deadly Disorder at Just 25 Weeks...
Doctors at Orlando Health performed the first ex‑utero intrapartum treatment (ExIT) at 25 weeks to rescue a fetus with congenital high airway obstruction syndrome (CHAOS). The team created a tracheal catheter, drained fluid‑filled lungs, and returned the baby to the...
Eating a Single Bag of This Food Might Make Your Attention Span Worse
A recent study of more than 2,100 Australian adults found that a 10 % increase in ultra‑processed food consumption – roughly the amount in a standard bag of chips – was linked to a 0.05‑point decline in attention scores and modestly...
Zn‐Na Alloy Interphase Engineering for Fast Kinetics and High Performance in Sodium‐Ion Batteries
Researchers have introduced a dual‑additive electrolyte that creates a NaZn13‑rich alloy interphase on hard‑carbon anodes, dramatically lowering sodium‑ion migration barriers. Zn(OTf)2 decomposes to form this conductive SEI layer, while NaSO2CF3 serves as a sacrificial sodium source that compensates irreversible capacity...
In Vitro Reconstruction of Axonal Heat Sensing with a Photothermal Nerve‐on‐a‐Chip
Researchers unveiled a photothermal nerve‑on‑a‑chip that couples graphene‑based microheaters with microelectrode arrays to deliver millisecond‑scale, localized heat to sensory axons while recording extracellular action potentials. The system captured rapid, reproducible heat‑evoked firing in rat dorsal root ganglion neurons and revealed...
Bionic Engineering Strategy for Preparing Flexible Carbon Paper From Waste Polypropylene: Excellent Electromagnetic Shielding Performance and Multifunctional Integration
Researchers have developed a flexible carbon paper (PP‑CP) from recycled polypropylene using a bionic “brick‑mortar” design. The heterogeneous swelling process creates an interpenetrating network that delivers a conductivity of 7,735 S m⁻¹. The material achieves an average electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness of...
Coordination‐Modulated MOF‐Derived Electrocatalysts for Enhanced C─C Coupling in CO2 to C2H4 and C2H5OH Conversion
The review outlines mechanistic pathways for electrochemical CO₂ reduction to ethylene and ethanol using MOF‑derived electrocatalysts. It integrates studies of *CO intermediates, in‑situ spectroscopy of dynamic active sites, and DFT calculations of energy barriers. Future directions include machine‑learning‑guided MOF screening,...
Ultra-Thin Optical Film Pushes Budget Resin Printers Toward Professional Precision
Researchers at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology have developed an ultra‑thin double‑sided optical film that collimates light in LCD‑based resin 3D printers. The film reshapes backlight rays, delivering 81% intensity uniformity and a beam divergence under 10°, rivaling...
The Built‐in Electric Field in Bimetallic System Promotes the Efficient Thermal Decomposition of Ammonium Perchlorate
Researchers have engineered a three‑dimensionally ordered macroporous (3DOM) CeO₂/Co₃O₄ catalyst that dramatically accelerates the thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate (AP). The optimal 3DCe/0.9Co composition lowers AP’s high‑temperature decomposition point by roughly 30 % and cuts the activation energy. Electron transfer from...
Sulfur‐Vacancy‐Derived Lewis Acid Sites in 3R‐Phase ZnIn2S4 Nanosheets for Efficient Uranium Extraction From Wastewater
Researchers engineered two‑dimensional 3R‑phase ZnIn2S4 nanosheets with abundant sulfur vacancies, creating Lewis‑acid sites that bind uranyl ions and accelerate charge separation. The resulting photocatalyst achieves an unprecedented uranium uptake of 1320 mg per gram of material in high‑concentration wastewater, far surpassing...
Doping‐Engineered Fe‐Co Tandem Sites Balance Hydrogen and Nitrite Intermediates for Efficient Nitrate to Ammonia Conversion at Low Potential
Researchers have developed an iron‑cobalt tandem electrocatalyst (FeCo/C‑0.5) that converts nitrate to ammonia with 98% selectivity and 89.7% Faradaic efficiency at just –0.33 V vs. RHE. The catalyst balances active hydrogen and nitrite intermediates, suppressing the competing hydrogen evolution reaction while...
Real World Applicability of Ivermectin vs Permethrin Trial for Scabies
A recent cluster‑randomised trial found oral ivermectin more effective than 5% permethrin cream for treating classic scabies under controlled conditions. The study, however, enrolled participants from well‑resourced health centres and excluded severe dermatological cases, raising questions about its relevance to...
Reliable Quantum Computation of Molecular Energies
Researchers at Quantinuum demonstrated a quantum computation of hydrogen's ground‑state energy using just 23 trapped‑ion qubits. By integrating continuous, real‑time error correction with partially fault‑tolerant gate implementations, the team achieved results that closely align with classical benchmarks, albeit at lower...
Ethiopia And Japan Strengthen Space Ties With MoU
Ethiopia’s Space Science Society (ESSS) and Japan’s Cross U platform have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to accelerate Ethiopia’s commercial space ecosystem. The agreement will connect Japanese space firms with local startups, enable technology transfer, and launch training programs for Ethiopian...
ADM Research Highlights Microbial Benefits for Psychological Symptoms
A randomized, double‑blind trial examined live and heat‑inactivated probiotic strains in healthy adults with self‑reported mild anxiety. The 12‑week live blend of Bifidobacterium longum CECT 7347 and Lactobacillus rhamnosus CECT 8361 failed to meet primary anxiety endpoints, though it preserved butyrate‑producing bacteria....
Baking a Parachute for Mars
ESA is dry‑heat sterilising the 35‑meter, 74‑kg parachute for the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover, ensuring it is at least 10,000 times cleaner than a smartphone. The parachute, made of nylon and Kevlar, will be the largest ever deployed beyond Earth and...
Givaudan Research: Zensera Lemon Balm Supports the Mind During Stress
Givaudan’s patented Zensera lemon‑balm extract (300 mg) was tested in a double‑blind, placebo‑controlled trial with 130 healthy adults under moderate stress. The study measured mood, heart rate, blood pressure and a battery of executive‑function tasks over five hours. Participants who took...
UK Researchers Develop Tool to Identify People Most at Risk of Obesity-Related Diseases
UK researchers have created Obscore, an AI‑driven risk score that predicts a 10‑year likelihood of 18 obesity‑related diseases using 20 health, lifestyle and demographic factors. Tested on nearly 200,000 UK Biobank participants and two external cohorts, the tool shows that...
South African Startup Scales Up Growth Factor for Low-Cost Cultivated Meat
South Africa’s biotech startup Immobazyme, in partnership with the government‑run CSIR, has successfully scaled production of fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF‑2) using a 50‑litre bioreactor. The protein, a costly growth factor essential for cultivated‑meat cell culture, was produced at commercial‑grade...
Buried in Soil, a 100-Million-Year-Old Bacterial Toxin Could Reshape Pest Control and Antibiotic Discovery
Researchers from McMaster, Harvard, Yale and European partners have identified a new class of insect‑killing proteins, SAIPs, produced by rare Streptomyces strains. These toxins, structurally distant from diphtheria toxin, target an insect‑specific surface protein called Flower, leaving humans unharmed. The...
5 Ways Chromatography Advances Digital Diagnostics
Chromatography innovations—high‑resolution columns, automated sample‑prep kits, advanced filtration, native software interfaces, and scalable setups—are strengthening the data foundation of digital diagnostics. By delivering cleaner, reproducible chemical data, these technologies enable AI models and electronic health record systems to generate reliable,...
How Epic Bio Is Leveraging CRISPR without Cutting DNA
Epic Bio, founded by Stanford professor Stanley Qi, is developing an epigenetic editing platform called GEMS that uses the smallest known Cas protein to modulate gene expression without cutting DNA. The system can be delivered in a single viral vector...
Re: Efficacy and Safety of VPM1002 and Immuvac in Preventing Tuberculosis: Phase 3 Randomised Clinical Trial (PreVenTB Trial)
The phase‑3 PreVenTB trial found that neither VPM1002 nor Immuvac reduced microbiologically confirmed tuberculosis, missing its primary efficacy endpoint. The authors of a BMJ rapid response highlight that the headline claim of 50% efficacy against extrapulmonary TB rests on only...
AI Learns to Work Around Metal 3D Printing Defects
Researchers at POSTECH and the Korea Institute of Materials Science unveiled an AI framework that predicts the yield strength of laser‑powder‑bed‑fusion Al‑Si‑Mg parts in seconds, even when internal voids are present. The model, built with a data‑selective learning approach, treats...
This AI Knew the Answers but Didn’t Understand the Questions
In July 2025 researchers unveiled Centaur, a large‑language model tuned with psychological data that reportedly mastered 160 cognitive tasks, sparking excitement about AI that could mimic human thought. A new study from Zhejiang University challenges those claims, arguing Centaur’s success...
AXIS: A Lab-in-the-Loop Machine Learning Method for Automating Crystal Screening
EMBL Grenoble’s Marquez Team unveiled AXIS, an AI‑driven crystal identification system that automates the screening of thousands of crystallisation images. Integrated into the Crystallographic Information Management System (CRIMS) as CRIMS‑AXIS, the tool uses a Vision Transformer model refined through a...
A Photon Was Teleported Across 270 Meters in Stunning Quantum Breakthrough
An international team led by Paderborn University has teleported the polarization state of a single photon between two independent quantum dots separated by a 270‑meter free‑space optical link. The experiment achieved a state‑fidelity of 82 % ± 1 %, well above the classical threshold....
Partnership to Track Barley Carbon Emissions From Paddock to Beer
Asahi Beverages has teamed with Charles Sturt University’s Cool Soil Initiative to quantify carbon emissions from barley grown by nine Victorian farms. The partnership collects soil, fertilizer and field‑operation data, delivering farm‑specific emissions reports that benchmark practices across the Wimmera...
Defect-Engineered Pt/Nb2O5 Boosts Radical-Driven Benzimidazole Production and Hydrogen Evolution Efficiency
Researchers have created a defect‑engineered Pt/Nb₂O₅ catalyst with abundant oxygen vacancies and platinum nanoparticles that dramatically improves photocatalytic benzimidazole synthesis and concurrent hydrogen evolution. The system delivers 4.0 mmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹ production of 2‑methylbenzimidazole and 10.2 mmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹ hydrogen under mild light, surpassing prior benchmarks....
Seals Boost Heart Rates to Detox Following Ocean Foraging Trips
A multinational study published in Frontiers in Physiology reveals that fur seals experience a pronounced rise in heart rate six to eight hours after returning to land, indicating a delayed metabolic recovery phase. The researchers tracked heart‑rate patterns in Cape...
Australia and Finland Explore Manufacturing Links in Quantum Technologies Collaboration
Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre and Australia’s CSIRO are exploring a joint effort to link research, development and manufacturing of quantum‑technology components under Finland’s “Quantum Leap” initiative. The partnership was discussed at the Quantum Australia Conference in Adelaide, where VTT...
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NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day highlights CG 30, a cluster of cometary globules about 1,300 light‑years distant in the Puppis‑Vela region. Ultraviolet radiation from nearby hot stars ionizes the bright rims, while the Vela supernova remnant appears to have sculpted...
Cold Plunges Under the Microscope: How Advanced Biomarker Testing and Wearable Technology Are Validating the Science of Cold Exposure
Cold plunges are shifting from anecdotal wellness trends to data‑driven interventions, thanks to wearable sensors and advanced biomarker testing. Wearables now capture heart‑rate variability, resting heart rate, and sleep patterns before, during, and after immersion, revealing how the autonomic nervous...
Perovskite Diode Sets Records as Both a Solar Cell and an LED
A collaborative team from the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Science and Technology of China has demonstrated a perovskite diode that delivers a certified 26.7% power‑conversion efficiency as a solar cell and about 31% external quantum efficiency...
Butterfly Wing Pattern Emerges From Hundreds of Fractional Quantum Hall States in Ultra-Cold Magnetic Fields
A new study in National Science Review maps roughly 100 fractional quantum Hall (FQH) states onto a striking butterfly‑wing pattern using polar coordinates that link filling factors to denominator size. The work relied on a cryogen‑free nuclear adiabatic demagnetisation refrigerator...
AI-Driven Design Tools Unlock New Capabilities in Flat Optical Devices
Researchers at Korea University have detailed how artificial intelligence is dismantling the design bottlenecks that have limited metasurfaces—ultra‑thin flat optical components—from lab prototypes to commercial products. AI‑driven surrogate models cut simulation time from weeks to milliseconds, while inverse design lets...
Harvard Team Achieves Milliwatt UV Light Generation On a Photonic Chip
Harvard researchers have built a chip‑scale ultraviolet light source on thin‑film lithium niobate that delivers 4.2 mW of on‑chip power at 390 nm, roughly 120 times more than prior demonstrations on the same platform. The device uses a frequency‑up‑conversion process that merges two...
Unraveling Mid-Latitude Winter Precipitation Uncertainties
A new Nature paper by Gu et al. disentangles thermodynamic and dynamic drivers of mid‑latitude winter precipitation from 1950‑2022. The study finds that climate models reliably reproduce the thermodynamic response—warmer air holding more moisture—but severely under‑represent the dynamic component linked to...
Single-Cell Sequencing Reveals Why some CAR-T Therapies Succeed While Others Fail
Researchers reviewed 44 single‑cell RNA sequencing studies covering about 500 patients to pinpoint cellular traits linked to CAR‑T therapy outcomes. The analysis identified exhaustion marker expression, low memory‑like cell fractions, and limited clonal diversity as hallmarks of relapse, while persistent,...
Unraveling Vineyard Pesticide Risks with Structural Modeling
A new study in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology uses structural equation modeling to map how pesticide drift, weather, topography, and home construction affect indoor pesticide residues in homes near vineyards. The analysis shows that buffer zones,...
Global Lassa Virus Research Reveals Critical Knowledge Gaps and Regional Disparities
A new global assessment of Lassa fever research highlights stark knowledge gaps and uneven investment across endemic regions. The report finds that only three of the seven high‑burden countries host active surveillance sites, and funding for Lassa studies trails behind...