The demand for the widely used cancer drug Taxol is increasing, but it’s difficult and expensive to produce because it hasn’t been possible to do it biosynthetically. Until now, that is. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have cracked the last part of a code that science has struggled with for 30 years. The breakthrough could halve the price of the drug and make production far more sustainable.

Despite considerable health gains, lagging workforce participation among the diabetes population has not improved since the late 1990s, suggesting that medical progress alone may not be enough to boost economic prospects.

From fundamentals to applications: a review on femtosecond (fs) laser micro/nano processing, recently published online in the International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing. Dr. Le Gao and co-authors from University of Shanghai for Science and Technology present this comprehensive review on the development of fs laser micro/nano processing, including topics such as fundamentals and unique phenomena of fs-laser pluses and matter interactions, pulse-shaping and high throughput fabrication, fs-laser processing in transparent materials, 4D printing, heterogeneous integration and 3D functional micro devices manufactured by fs laser-powered processing technology. This review sums up the recent development of the technology and a perspective is proposed to explore the challenges and future opportunities for further betterment of fs laser micro/nano processing technology.

By building a game-theoretic model, researchers have found that a larger proportion of professional consumers can incentivize firms to adopt the buy-online-and-assemble-in-store (i.e., BOAS), while higher handling or traveling costs may lead firms to avoid its use. This study not only contributes to the existing literature, but also provides actionable insights for practitioners.