To see if a fish is fresh, people recommend looking at its eyes and gills or giving it a sniff. But a more accurate check for food quality and safety is to look for compounds that form when decomposition starts. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Sensors have developed a simple, effective electronic device that quickly measures one of these compounds. The prototype sensor can determine how fresh a fish is in less than two minutes.

Researchers at Okayama University have developed a novel photochemical macrolactonization that converts hydroxyaldehydes into macrolactones (ring sizes 7–21) using in-situ generated acyl bromide intermediates under purple LED light. This radical light-driven method bypasses conventional activating agents and opens a versatile, efficient pathway for constructing complex natural product frameworks—a promising advance for drug discovery and macrolide synthesis.

In International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, researchers from Tsinghua University proposed a novel tip-based vibration carving processing method for shape-customized convex microstructures for the first time. Their work combined the advantages of tip-based machining and vibration texturing, showing great potential in the convex microstructure processing of customized functional surfaces. Such method will significantly expand the design boundaries of functional surfaces to address the challenges in thermal, electrical, acoustic, and optical fields.

Silicon anodes can greatly boost the energy density of all-solid-state batteries, but their large volume changes often cause contact loss with solid electrolytes. Using operando synchrotron X-ray micro- and nano-computed tomography, researchers at Ritsumeikan University directly visualized the 3D evolution of the silicon–electrolyte interface during charge and discharge cycling. They found that even as silicon expands and shrinks, the thin, solid-electrolyte layers remain adhered, preserving partial ion pathways and enabling stable operation.