Scientists long assumed that the aluminum oxide surface should be highly reactive and capable of splitting water molecules. In experiments, however, this behavior is barely observed. At TU Wien, researchers have found an answer. It's the geometry: Instead of a smooth and regularly ordered surface, the outermost atoms are arranged in an irregular way, which dramatically changes chemical properties of the surface.

Core-collapse supernovae are thought to be powered by neutrino-driven energy transport. Now, researchers in Japan have shown that neutrino fast flavor conversion can either enhance or suppress supernova explosions depending on the progenitor star. Using advanced multiangle neutrino radiation hydrodynamics simulations, the team demonstrated that the mass accretion rate is the key factor governing this bifurcated behavior, offering new insight into the evolution and death of massive stars.

An international research team led by a researcher at the University of Bern has modeled 1,000 years of earthquake history along the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults in Southern California. The result: stresses in the crust are higher today than at any time in the last millennium – and a critical fault junction near Los Angeles could decide how big the next major earthquake will be.

The ranking, compiled by Isidro F. Aguillo at the Cybermetrics Lab of the Institute of Public Goods and Policies of the Spanish National Research Council (IPP-CSIC), aims to increase the visibility of women researchers through open-access platforms such as Google Scholar, ORCID and OpenAlex, which provide broader coverage than other bibliometric sources, including subscription-based databases. It also seeks to promote open infrastructures through the wider use of personal ORCID identifiers and institutional ROR identifiers.

The 2026 edition of the ranking includes a total of 12,110 researchers ranked according to the global impact of their research, 122 of whom belong to the public university of Castelló. The full ranking can be consulted in the author’s publication.

Drug delivery and diagnostic imaging often lack specificity, but a new “TRACE” method lets specially‑caged compounds stay inert until a target cell’s enzymes quickly remove the cage, potentially allowing for more precise drug delivery and sharper diagnostic imaging.

Researchers have developed a facile water-based synthetic route for constructing fused azole–pyrimidine energetic materials, producing compounds with high thermal stability, strong detonation performance, and low mechanical sensitivity. The study demonstrates how eco-friendly aqueous synthesis can simultaneously improve safety, thermal resistance, and energetic performance in next-generation heat-resistant explosives.

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed a new method to recycle mixed plastic packaging without using harmful chemical solvents – an approach that could make one of the world's most difficult waste streams significantly easier to handle.

This study demonstrates the gram-scale synthesis of water-stable M-Gallate (M = Mg, Ni, Co) metal-organic frameworks from inexpensive raw materials, and their application in harvesting water vapour from ultra-low humidity air. The optimal Mg-Gallate MOF achieves a record-high atmospheric water capture capacity of 170.0 mg/g at 0.2% relative humidity (RH) and 25 °C, surpassing all previously reported porous adsorbents under equivalent conditions.