A new study provides evidence that extreme aridity in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert began approximately 45 million years ago, thus significantly earlier than previously assumed. The findings refine current models of desert formation and offer new perspectives on the long-term evolution of one of Earth’s most extreme environments.

An international team lead by the Max Born Institute has developed a new type of momentum microscopy to image magnons — the quanta of collectively excited spins — directly in two-dimensional reciprocal space using soft X-rays. Owing to its remarkable sensitivity, simplicity, and access to nanometer-scale wavelengths, this novel technique establishes a powerful and versatile platform for exploring nonlinear magnon interactions, which are promising for future computing schemes.

Charge noise arising from two-level fluctuators is considered to play a key role in causing qubit frequency shifts in silicon spin qubits, resulting in deteriorated gate fidelity. Higher temperatures can improve gate fidelity, but the microscopic origins of this effect and of qubit frequency shift have not yet been established. Now, using statistical simulations, researchers have clarified the parameter regimes under which gate fidelity can be improved and the potential origin of qubit frequency shifts.

How do waves spread, stall, or pile up in materials that are both messy and “open”—leaking energy to their surroundings? Researchers at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences have derived a compact mathematical rule, the universal Thouless relations (UTRs), that links two seemingly separate things: how densely energy levels populate the spectrum, and how strongly waves grow or decay across the system. The relations work for a broad family of one-dimensional disordered, non-Hermitian models, predict the boundary between two kinds of wave trapping without heavy computation, and uncover a new type of “half-localized, half-fractal” critical state with no counterpart in ordinary closed systems.

Seoul National University College of Engineering announced that a research team led by Prof. Jungwon Park of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, in collaboration with research teams led by Prof. Thomas F. Jaramillo of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Prof. Matteo Cargnello of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, and Dr. Frank Abild-Pedersen at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has developed a commercially viable hydrogen production technology by synthesizing uniform cluster catalysts controlled at the atomic level.

The development of atomic level molecular editing methods for metal clusters is an important avenue in synthetic chemistry that can expand the structure diversity and functionality of these compounds. In a new study, researchers have developed a novel, highly selective asymmetric synthesis approach to develop chiral optical metal clusters with photoluminescence. This approach can contribute to the development of chiral luminescent nanomaterials, benefiting several industries.

Over the last few decades, physical principles have been proposed to explain some biological processes and functions. However, biological principles remain elusive. A biological principle is a governing rule that guides the structure and functions of cells. Biological principles are built upon the laws of physics and chemistry, but they go beyond these laws and are unique to living matter. Here, we discuss what differentiates a biological principle from a physical principle and discuss candidates for biological principles. We review evidence from literature that regulation of cytoskeletal prestress (endogenous cytoskeletal pre-existing tensile stress) is essential for governing biological structures and functions of living cells. We propose that, in addition to the biological principles of Central Dogma and metabolism, cytoskeletal prestress homeostasis is a biological principle of a living cell across all domains of life. We propose that living cells regulate their stress and modulus to limit maximum strain on the cells. Homeostasis of endogenous energy-dependent, stress-supported systems that use cytoskeletal (CSK) prestress (the force of life) to stabilize structure represents a biological principle of a living cell that is not observed in inorganic systems, whereas other basic principles (e.g., self-assembly) are required for living systems but are also found in simpler nonliving systems. Leveraging biological principles of cells may have far-reaching implications in understanding the essence of cell life and designing effective interventions for therapeutics to advance medicine and enhance human health.

The research group of Associate Professor Yasutomo Segawa and Assistant Professor Takashi Harimoto at the Institute for Molecular Science (National Institutes of Natural Sciences) and the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI) has developed a new method for selectively synthesizing three-dimensional macrocycles,⁽¹⁾ in which four panels are arranged in a square, by connecting planar π-conjugated molecules⁽²⁾ at right angles.

This method is applicable to a wide variety of π-conjugated molecules and allows the size of the internal cavity to be designed. Furthermore, the resulting square macrocycles exhibit acid responsiveness, reversibly changing color under the action of a mild acid, while acid-mediated hydrolysis enables the starting monomers to be recovered in high yield—realizing a sustainable molecular synthesis that reverts to and regenerates the starting materials. The originality of this work lies in having a single imine bond⁽³⁾ play three roles: creating the shape, responding to stimuli, and reverting back.

These research results were published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, an international journal of the American Chemical Society, on Monday, June 1, 2026.

POSTECH Professor Sunmin Ryu’s team analyzes structural inhomogeneity in large-area thin films using interferometric SHG imaging.