Solid electrolytes are promising materials for safer, more compact all-solid-state batteries, but producing smooth thin films with high ionic conductivity remains challenging. In a recent study, researchers from Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan, developed a multilayer method using lithium borohydride and lithium iodide to create high-iodine thin films. Their approach improved iodine incorporation, maintained relatively smooth surfaces, and produced good room-temperature ionic conductivity, opening new possibilities for thin-film solid electrolytes.

Synthetic dyes in industrial wastewater can threaten aquatic ecosystems and human health. Researchers at Doshisha University, Japan, developed a green, single-step co-pyrolysis method that converts bullrush agricultural waste into a zero-valent copper nanoparticle-enhanced bullrush activated carbon (ZVCu@BAC) composite. The material removed both cationic and anionic dyes in laboratory tests, while its preliminary production cost of ~¥1,800 JPY/kg and regeneration performance highlight its potential for sustainable wastewater treatment.

Osaka Metropolitan University researchers found that participation in community gathering places was associated with lower long-term care costs among older adults requiring support or exhibiting mild functional decline.

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) has discovered molecular mechanism of synaptic facilitation, instantaneous strengthening of synaptic transmission, which may be physiological basis of instantaneous memory. Synaptic facilitation has been known for a long time and studied by major physiologists. However, its mechanism and its biological meaning still remain ambiguous. This study revealed that intramolecular interaction of a calcium binding protein, Synaptotagmin 7 (Syt7) functions for synaptic facilitation, and the interaction between Syt7 domains is required for memory. This study using a fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, which is a model animal for genetic analysis, provides an insight for general mechanism of memory, which may suggest new designs of future ICT. Since this is the first elucidation of molecular mechanism of Syt7, this study has the potential in the future to be applied to diseases, which has been reported to be related to Syt7.

This achievement appeared in the “Calcium sensing by C2A domain of Synaptotagmin 7 is required through the linker for both synaptic facilitation and memory”, in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America on September 21, 2026.

Humans stand apart from other great apes: we walk on two legs, carry unusually large brains, and have slender, distinctively shaped skeletons. Yet which changes in our DNA produced these features has remained one of biology’s great open questions. Human and chimpanzee genomes are more than 98% identical, and the genes themselves, the blueprints for proteins, barely differ. The changes that make us human are thought to hide instead in the DNA that controls when and where genes switch on.

A team led by Associate Professor Fumitaka Inoue and researcher Yizhi Yan at Kyoto University’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (WPI-ASHBi), together with Principal Investigator David Gokhman and Nadav Mishol at the Weizmann Institute of Science, has now built the world’s first functional atlas of the human-specific gene-control changes behind our skeleton. Combining two powerful techniques (massively parallel reporter assays, or MPRA, and human-ape hybrid cells), they discovered that a family of molecules called glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), which cushion and maintain our cartilage, has been dialed down over the course of human evolution. The finding offers a new window onto how the human skeleton took its shape, and onto why we are so uniquely susceptible to skeletal disease.

The work will be published in Nature on 23 September 2026 at 11:00 EST.

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have used an evolutionary algorithm to identify optimal shapes for ultra-thin, bio-inspired corrugated airfoils, the two-dimensional cut-throughs of wings. Lightweight membrane-like wings are a strong contender for use in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in thin atmospheres, like on Mars, and in UAV miniaturization. By using a “zero-thickness” model, they were able to focus on the effect of the airfoil corrugation pattern without the influence of a wing’s leading-edge thickness and shape. They discovered designs which were optimized for minimal drag or maximal lift.

Plasticorals, the latest type of plastiglomerate to be described, is created when polymers from household plastic melt and seep into the skeletal pores of coral rubble. Found on beaches throughout the subtropical island of Okinawa, Japan, including within a protected natural park, they are a lasting reminder of human interaction with these threatened ecosystems and may pose a distinct chemical and physical threat to corals and their reef habitats.

Nighttime light exposure may worsen sleep in people with schizophrenia, according to a study of 225 outpatients. Researchers at Fujita Health University found that higher nighttime illuminance was linked to lower sleep efficiency and total sleep time, as well as longer time to fall asleep and more nighttime wakefulness. The associations were detected using objective sleep measurements, while patients’ self-reported sleep quality showed no significant relationship with nighttime light exposure during sleep.