Osaka Metropolitan University researchers have developed a new model that can explain why increasing ultrasound past a certain point hinders chemical reactions rather than continuing to boost them. Their simulations revealed that the interactions between ultrasound waves and cavitation bubbles create sounds that distort the acoustic field and reduce reaction efficiency.

Kyoto, Japan -- Dark matter's existence is all but certain -- astronomers believe it makes up about a quarter of the universe's total energy content -- yet its true identity has eluded us for decades. Two of the leading candidates for dark matter are the hypothetical particles ultralight axions and dark photons, which in the range studied here would be some 19 to 21 orders of magnitude lighter than the electron.

Conventional axion searches tend to involve converting them into photons with the help of strong laboratory magnets. However, research in a laboratory inherently limits the space over which such a field can be applied. A collaborative team of researchers from Kyoto University, Hiroshima University, and Nihon University realized that, by contrast, Earth's own magnetic field spans a scale no laboratory could match.

"We asked ourselves whether we could use the Earth itself as a giant detector in the search," says corresponding author Atsushi Taruya. "The Earth-ionosphere cavity acts as a natural resonator that amplifies electromagnetic waves right around the mass range we wanted to probe."

A collaborative research team led by Kazuyoshi Murata has discovered that virus-like particles (VLPs) of human norovirus genotype GII.3 are not structurally rigid, but can adopt two distinct conformational states, similar to those previously reported for murine norovirus. Using recombinant VLPs and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) at near-atomic resolution, the researchers found that the P domain, the protruding region on the viral surface responsible for host interactions, exists in two different conformations: a resting state, in which the P domain lies close to the underlying shell (S) domain, and a rising state, in which the P domain is elevated above the shell. They further demonstrated that this structural transition is accompanied by a substantial reorganization of the interaction network between neighboring capsid proteins. The study was published in International Journal of Molecular Sciences on July 24, 2026.

Lithium–oxygen batteries have great potential as next-generation energy storage devices; however, sluggish oxygen reactions have long hindered their commercial adoption. Researchers from Shibaura Institute of Technology developed a heterostructured lanthanum cobalt oxide-cobalt oxide composite that accelerates these reactions, achieving outstanding bifunctional catalytic performance with a record-low potential gap of just 1.14 V. The platinum-free catalyst could allow longer-range electric vehicles and extended-endurance drones, offering a cost-effective and sustainable path toward next-generation energy storage.

A new PET imaging study led by QST shows that tau, a protein closely linked to dementia, accumulates in diverse patterns in many people who first develop hallucinations or delusions in midlife or later. The findings could help doctors move toward more objective diagnosis, earlier intervention and future treatment strategies tailored to each patient’s underlying brain changes.