A research team at Saitama University has developed a sustainable strategy for converting polyamide microplastics into defect-engineered carbon quantum dots and incorporating them into poly(vinyl alcohol) films for food-packaging applications. The resulting transparent, flexible, luminescent composite films showed tunable optical properties, strong UV-blocking performance, good photostability, and the ability to reduce fruit weight loss during grape storage tests.

Researchers at the University of Osaka developed chiral hole-transport materials that selectively conduct electrons according to spin. Across three classes of materials, molecular handedness consistently determined the direction of spin polarization. The homochiral material also showed nearly threefold higher hole mobility and improved charge extraction and surface passivation in perovskite solar cells, highlighting new possibilities for controlling spin, charge transport, and interfaces through molecular design.

A research team has uncovered fundamental molecular mechanisms governing the formation of tendons and ligaments, which are essential for musculoskeletal integration. Understanding these mechanisms could pave the way for the regeneration of tendons, ligaments, and their attachment sites, known as entheses, which have limited capacity for functional repair after injury because of their poor vascularization.

Complex mathematical problems, such as combinatorial optimization problems, have wide-ranging industrial applications and require extensive computational resources to solve. Slime molds represent a promising avenue for developing new, efficient computing paradigms to mitigate this issue. However, their physical implementation is still challenging. Now, researchers have developed a new, simpler amoeba-inspired computing model that enables physical implementation across diverse materials and physical phenomena, without compromising optimization performance.

Researchers at the University of Osaka and the Osaka Institute of Public Health found that pertussis-associated DNA in wastewater increased weeks before reported cases, with the main analysis showing a 10-week lead. The findings suggest that wastewater monitoring could complement clinical surveillance by detecting changes in community transmission earlier, although further research is needed before it can be used as a validated forecasting tool.

Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology developed DCA2MC, a divide-and-conquer approach for model checking linear temporal properties. The method splits large verification problems into smaller, independently checkable tasks to address state-space explosion and improve performance through parallelization. A supporting tool is implemented in Maude and provides an environment integrating with external model checkers such as Spin, while a semi-automated method helps select effective layer configurations. Case studies demonstrated improved verification of larger state spaces.

Kyoto, Japan -- When you look at someone, you usually look at their face. It serves as one of the most important sources of social information in primates, so the evolution of face perception has attracted considerable scientific attention. While an abundance of this research has centered on humans and other great apes, very little has focused on gibbons.

Gibbons were the earliest to diverge from the line leading to humans 17 million years ago, and they have developed a distinct social system characterized by small family groups and long-term pair bonding. They provide a particularly valuable model for investigating the relationship between social organization and the evolution of social cognition, motivating a team of researchers at Kyoto University to give gibbons the attention they deserve.

"Understanding the evolutionary origins of the human mind requires comparative studies across the ape lineage," says first author Makiko Uchikoshi. "Despite their evolutionary importance, gibbons remain one of the least studied ape groups in cognitive research."

A research team at The University of Tokyo has succeeded in an atomic-scale double-slit experiment that treats neighboring atoms as “two slits,” and demonstrated that it is possible to read out the vibration of atoms from the fringe pattern formed by electrons. Applying this method to research and development of semiconductor materials may make it possible to investigate, at the atomic level, regions where heat accumulates or flows inefficiently.

The brain sends signals to the body, and the body sends signals to the brain. Focusing on the latter system, researchers at Tohoku University found that stimulating the vagus nerve can promote lasting motor learning. 

Associate Professor OHNISHI Ayumi of the Graduate School of Engineering wants to make people’s lives better using wearable devices, a goal which she pursues through her research. She’s currently working to develop a device to detect fatigue in its wearer and provide support for the five senses, like vision and hearing. Ohnishi attracted attention in 2022 when she was named one of MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 Japan. We sat down to hear more about the current state and prospects of her research, as well as the possibilities of wearable devices.