University of Tennessee, Knoxville Nuclear Engineering Department Head Brian Wirth has been elected a 2025 Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Some people flip off the lights the moment they leave a room, while others rarely think twice about saving energy. According to the most comprehensive analysis of people’s sentiments toward household energy savings to date, publishing October 10 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Sustainability, people’s attitudes and moral sentiments about their energy usage—rather than income or knowledge of how to conserve power—determine whether they take action at home.  

Researchers have demonstrated a new and sustainable way to make the chemicals that are the basis of thousands of products – from plastics to cosmetics – we use every day.

In a new paper published today in Chem, a team of Columbia chemists has identified how to combine matter and light to get the best of both worlds: polaritons with strong interactions and fast, wavelike flow. These distinctive behaviors can be used to power optical computers and other light-based quantum devices.

Engineers and scientists, as well as artists, have long been inspired by the beauty and functionality of nature’s designs. Japan designed high-speed trains to cut through the air as smoothly as the kingfisher cuts through water, for example, but useful designs can also be found at a microscopic level. The study of biology in combination with materials science is called biomateriomics. An Italian research team sees great potential in the application of generative artificial intelligence to this already interdisciplinary field. They have described this potential, and the associated limitations and challenges, in an open access review article titled “Generative Artificial Intelligence for Advancing Discovery and Design in Biomateriomics,” published May 1 in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal.

Ben Jones, associate professor of physics at The University of Texas at Arlington, has been named to the 2025 cohort of Experimental Physics Investigators, a distinguished group of mid-career researchers pushing the boundaries of experimental physics.