Researchers have traced the journey of a plastic bottle cap recovered near the waters of southern Japan by combining data from the label, chemical clues in tiny shells, and ocean current simulations. They found 307 organisms, including a polychaetae worm not found in Japanese waters before. The findings, published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, show that when species that significantly shape their environments (ecosystem engineers) colonize plastic debris, entire micro-communities can be transported over extended periods, with implications for invasive species risk and marine biodiversity conservation. 

Large bored piles are widely used to support bridges, high-rise buildings, and transport infrastructure, but estimating their capacity in weathered rock remains uncertain. Researchers from Shibaura Institute of Technology analyzed 20 instrumented static load tests on piles socketed in weathered siltstone and sandstone. Their findings provide field-calibrated adhesion factors and weathering-adjusted shaft-resistance correlations, enabling safer, more economical foundation designs while reducing unnecessary concrete and steel use.

Quasicrystals are neither conventional crystals nor amorphous solids, and their magnetic behavior remained a mystery. Researchers have now created the first bulk, annealable ferromagnetic quasicrystals and uncovered an unexpected form of magnetic critical behavior. The results show that the quasicrystal magnetism is controlled by both quasiperiodic structure and spin symmetry, establishing new design principles for magnetic quasicrystalline materials. These materials can form the foundation for new magnetic and quantum functional materials.

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are important therapeutic targets for numerous diseases. However, developing highly selective drugs for GPCRs remains a challenge. Researchers have now developed a new platform termed extracellular vesicle (EV)-Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment, which uses EVs to efficiently isolate potent DNA aptamers. Using this method, they identified an analgesic aptamer that targets µ-opioid receptor to mimic morphine-like activity, demonstrating the platform’s potential in accelerating drug discovery for GPCR-related conditions

The evolutionary paths that created snatching forelimbs in insects multiple times moved in a similar direction but didn’t end up at a single solution. The Kobe University research is a pioneering study of how organs with similar functions evolve, providing a new analytical approach to identify evolutionary dynamics quantitatively.

Understanding nanoparticle morphology is essential for elucidating their physical behavior and functional performance. Such morphological characterization of nanoparticles is important for understanding structure–function relationships in colloidal and bionano systems. Here, we present a deep-learning-based framework that enables nanoparticle morphology classification from standard nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) data by integrating features derived from single-particle Brownian-motion trajectories and temporal fluctuations in scattered-light intensity. The combined feature representation consistently improved binary (two-category) classification performance across all particle-type combinations, reducing the low-accuracy cases observed in single-feature models and achieving accuracies exceeding 0.82 with 100-frame data. For three-class classification, the per-class correctness averaged approximately 80%. The integrated approach maintained stable performance even with limited particle counts or short data lengths (down to ∼20 frames), underscoring its robustness for practical scenarios such as biomedical diagnostics, rare-material analysis, and environmental nanoparticle monitoring. These capabilities highlight its practical relevance for applications such as extracellular vesicle characterization and nanomedicine quality control. By integrating complementary trajectory- and scattering-intensity-based descriptors, this framework offers a reliable and practical route to scalable, morphology-resolved nanoparticle analysis in liquid media using standard NTA measurements.

In most materials, heat absorption and heat emission are linked, meaning a surface that absorbs thermal radiation well from a particular direction will also emit it in the same way. A team from OMU in Japan has designed a reconfigurable device that breaks this symmetry, enabling heat to be absorbed and emitted differently depending on the direction of absorption. This technology could eventually lead to smarter thermal-management systems and infrared sensors.

Soft robotic grippers can safely handle fragile objects, making them promising for applications such as food handling, nursing, and household services. However, giving soft grippers a sense of touch remains a major engineering challenge. Now, researchers from Japan have developed EleTac, an elephant trunk-inspired soft gripper that combines gentle grasping with tactile sensing using a single internal camera. The system can accurately estimate contact location, force applied, object shape, and the position of its fingers.

Tokyo, Japan – The research group of Professor Kotohiro Nomura, Tokyo Metropolitan University, in cooperation with the research groups of Senior Researcher Hiroshi Hirano and Director Seiji Higashi, Osaka Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology, and Associate Professor Hiroki Takeshita, The University of Shiga Prefecture, has developed biobased poly(ester amide)s from inedible bio-renewables, which can be easily chemical recyclable and exhibit better mechanical (tensile) properties in film than commodity plastics.

Colorless carotenoids have attracted growing interest as naturally derived ingredients for food and cosmetic applications, but their individual geometric isomers have remained difficult to isolate and study. Researchers have now purified high-purity phytoene and phytofluene isomers and comprehensively characterized their structures, ultraviolet absorption, antioxidant properties, isomerization behavior, and skin-related biological activities. Their findings reveal multifunctional properties that may support next-generation skincare, nutricosmetics, and healthy aging products across the food, cosmetic, healthcare, and wellness industries.