Working Group 3 (WG3) researchers of Aakash project*, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) in Japan and India surveyed 2,202 households in Punjab to examine perceptions of air pollution from stubble burning and its health risks. While many residents recognized severe air pollution in Delhi, fewer acknowledged the impact of local stubble burning on their own health. Households with existing health issues were more aware of the risks. The findings highlight the need for targeted environmental health communication.

Researchers have developed a new method to more accurately analyze small microplastics in the ocean. They collected seawater from 12 ocean layers across 4 regions in the North Pacific Ocean to find that the concentrations of small microplastics ranged from 1,000 to 10,000 particles per cubic meter of seawater. Additionally, small microplastics enter the ocean by either reaching near-neutral buoyancy to drift at specific depths or rapidly sink to the seafloor.

Using catalytic chemistry, researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo have achieved dynamic control of artificial membranes, enabling life-like membrane behavior. By employing an artificial metalloenzyme that performs a ring-closing metathesis reaction, the team induced the disappearance of phase-separated domains as well as membrane division in artificial membranes, imitating the dynamic behavior of natural biological membranes. This transformative research marks a milestone in synthetic cell technologies, paving the way for innovative therapeutic breakthroughs.

AI and human-movement research intersect in a study that enables precise estimation of hand muscle activity from standard video recordings. Using a deep-learning framework trained on a large, comprehensive multimodal dataset from professional pianists, the researchers introduce a system that accurately reconstructs muscle activation patterns without sensors. This advancement provides a low-cost, non-invasive method for analyzing fine motor control, optimizing rehabilitation strategies, enhancing performance training, and informing future developments in human-machine interaction.

With growing urbanization worldwide, concerns for its effects on wildlife is also growing. Many species, however, are able to adapt to urban life by taking advantage of urban resources, like supplemental feeding. While supplemental feeding is considered to contribute to reproductive success of urban wildlife, the exact effects on mammalian reproduction remains unclear. Now, researchers provide evidence that supplemental feeding can boost reproductive conditions of squirrels in urban areas.

Slow earthquakes have been discovered to exhibit anomalously slow, long-lasting, and small slips, adjacent to regular earthquakes where we sometimes feel catastrophic vibration. However, no one knows the reason why they show such strange characteristics. In a study published in a scientific journal Nature Communications, researchers at The University of Osaka succeeded in experimentally reproducing the multiple features of slow earthquakes in the lab and suggested the grain-scale origin of them based on their direct observations.