While urbanization has restricted and fragmented the natural ecosystems, it also creates new and diverse environmental conditions within towns. A Kobe University research team now found that a plant species that successfully established itself throughout a megacity exhibited distinct and inheritable characteristics that have adapted to the diverse urban environments.

Superconductive materials can conduct electricity with no resistance, but typically only at very low temperatures. Realizing superconductivity at room temperature could enable advanced, energy-efficient electronics and other technologies. Now, an international research team is one step closer to such an achievement. The researchers made the first observation of a special electronic state known as a “nodal metal,” which provides more insight into electronic behavior at different temperatures, in a multilayer system comprising copper and oxygen.

A team at Tohoku University’s AIMR has developed an ultra-high-temperature temperature-programmed desorption method capable of heating carbon materials to 2,100 °C. Combined with mass spectrometry and model material design, the technique enables complete quantitative and qualitative analysis of nitrogen dopants, offering unprecedented insight into buried nitrogen environments in carbon materials.

Researchers from Japan have unveiled a comprehensive dataset detailing the psychological and social responses of Japanese adults to the COVID-19 pandemic. Spanning 30 survey waves from January 2020 to March 2024, the open dataset captures how Japanese adults’ risk perception, preventive behaviors, policy attitudes, views toward foreigners, and psychological distress evolved over more than four years of uncertainty. Published as a data paper in Data in Brief, this resource is now openly accessible to the global community.

The Nov. 5, 2025, issue of the Journal of Neuroscience features for the first time a cover concept that is not about what neuroscientists have done, but rather what neuroscience can do for humanity’s future. In their article titled “Neuroscience Needs Behavioral ‘Wind Tunnels’ for Real-Life Translation”, lead authors Mohammad Shehata, Charles Yokoyama and Michael Platt propose that the future of neuroscience depends on creating behavioral “wind tunnels”: controlled research spaces embedded in real-world environments that can generate the ecological, scalable data the field currently lacks. This new paradigm aims to accelerate both scientific progress and societal impact, enabling neuroscience to advance beyond its current bottlenecks.

White oval squid (Sepioteuthis lessoniana sp. 2), known locally as shiro-ika, are medium-sized squids naturally distributed in the Indian and western Pacific oceans, flittering in and out of a wide range of different habitats – from shallow seagrass beds, over coral reefs, to depths of 100m along coastal environments. In such biodiverse zones, the squids encounter predators of all sizes and shapes, from seabirds flying overhead to sharks, tuna, and other cephalopods prowling under the sea.

Such a variety of threats calls for a large repertoire of survival strategies. Researchers from the Okinawan Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have previously discovered how shiro-ika change color when moving between different shades of substrate – and now, the same team has painted a full picture of how the cephalopod employs a sophisticated range of camouflaging strategies to adapt to different environments and threats. “The wide variety of visual strategies used by the squid is surprisingly complex, especially considering that squid have traditionally been regarded as spending most of their lives in the open water column,” explains former OIST Visiting Researcher Dr. Ryuta Nakajima, “This discovery suggests that squid have a deeper behavioral relationship with the ocean floor than previously thought.”

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have revealed how a catalyst in a promising chemical reaction for industry helps make ammonia, a major ingredient in fertilizer. Copper oxide is a key catalyst in the electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction, a greener alternative to the existing Haber-Bosch process. They discovered that copper particles are created mid-reaction, helping convert nitrite ions to ammonia. This insight into the underlying mechanisms promises leaps forward in developing new industrial chemistry.

Researchers at the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo have precisely quantified “quantum tunneling” of hydrogen atoms in palladium at low temperatures, motion that is impossible for classical particles. Channeling nuclear reaction analysis revealed hydrogen hopping in palladium from less stable tetrahedral sites to more stable octahedral sites. The tunneling rate exhibited slight positive and negative temperature dependences, showing that phonons and electrons in palladium facilitated the tunneling process, respectively.