Two years after the stratospheric flight of the Sunrise III solar observatory, the mission’s first results are released today. Sunrise III has captured observational data of unprecedented quality from the Sun’s visible surface and lower atmospheric layers. The data contain new information, such as on tornados in the solar plasma or on the processes occurring before and during a solar flare. During the flight, the Sun displayed its full repertoire: quiet regions, eruptions, sunspots, and more.

Researchers show how epithelial tissues exhibit slow-moving glass-like behaviour despite their fast-paced biological activity, resolving a long-standing mystery.

Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, have developed a new method that makes the oxidation of alcohols easier to control and more sustainable. Alcohol oxidation is important both for synthetic chemistry and for sustainable energy applications. Thermal processes are usually used for this purpose; in other words, the activation energy that must be overcome for the reaction is supplied in the form of heat, and oxidation takes place using oxygen under pressure. Together with the Max Planck Institute für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim, Germany, the Bochum team has now combined this approach with an electrocatalytic process that uses electricity from sustainable sources as an additional driving force. The group led by Prof. Dr. Martin Muhler, Prof. Dr. Ferdi Schüth and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schuhmann describes the method in the journal “Angewandte Chemie” on 18 June 2026.

Collaboration with the Max Planck Society: The Max Planck Society and its institutes have long-standing research partnerships in the field of quantum materials and engage in active collaboration with industry and startups.

Innovative AI platform: Alqem AI's platform combines extensive databases of material predictions with high-quality training data and laboratory synthesis to turn digital predictions into real materials.

Partnership with Alqem AI: Alqem AI is launching a project to identify new magnetic materials that do not contain rare earth elements. The company is receiving support for this subproject from Prof. Claudia Felser, director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids.

Helimagnetic q-orientation can be reversibly and polarity-selectively controlled by electric current in the presence of an applied magnetic field, report researchers from Institute of Science Tokyo. In Co_8.5Zn_8.5Mn₃, they combine symmetry analysis with in situ Lorentz transmission electron microscopy to show a new framework for electrically controlling complex magnetic orders, with potential implications for future magnetic memory and spintronic devices.

A new physics-informed machine-learning method could help researchers find two-dimensional materials with unusual electronic properties more quickly and with fewer calculations.

ETH Zurich physicist Yiwen Chu and her colleagues have developed a new approach to quantum computing. For the first time, it combines vibrating memory devices – known as mechanical resonators – with the central computing units; superconducting qubits. The computer architecture differs from previous quantum computing approaches. Information is stored in a working memory in the form of vibrations, thereby significantly increasing the system's storage capacity. Chu and her team also demonstrate that their approach can successfully perform both fundamental computational operations and more advanced quantum calculations. In so doing, they provide proof of feasibility and lay the groundwork for a fully programmable quantum computer that is, in principle, capable of carrying out any quantum computation.