FAPESP-supported research simulated 30 million different routes and mapped out an itinerary requiring 58.80 meters per second less fuel consumption than the most economical one.

Physical task stress affects the coordination between breathing and speaking, and vocal pitch, intensity, and pause structure are all sensitive to changes in breathing and effort. Pitch and intensity both increase, while intensity also becomes less stable and speech rate slows down. Understanding exactly how physical stress causes changes to vocal patterns can help train speech recognition systems, which often struggle with speech that differs from the average. Zahra Omidi will present her work on this as part of the 190th ASA Meeting.

Amartya Bhattacharya loves the marimba but was motivated to find ways to make the instrument more accessible to all by finding a more cost-effective option. He first identified materials, both wooden and polymer-based, that could serve as replacements for Honduran rosewood for the marimba bars. Then he analyzed the density, loss factor, and Young’s modulus — all of which come together to determine the sound of the material. Hickory wood was the best alternative and significantly less expensive than rosewood.

Using a combination of acoustic analyses and listener studies, Jeanne Brown challenges the assumption that vocal fry is a hallmark of young women’s speech. By asking listeners to rate voices’ creakiness, she found that the primary marker for whether a voice sounded creaky was low pitch, not gender. In fact, men and older speakers exhibit more creak than young women, a massive disconnect between evidence and popular belief. Brown will present her work on rethinking vocal fry as part of the 190th ASA Meeting.

New research has revealed that water behaves differently when confined to spaces just one molecule thick. For the first time, scientists have directly measured the vibrational signatures of truly two-dimensional water. In a study published recently in Nature Communications, Manchester researchers used ultra-thin channels only a few angstroms high to trap water in isolated layers and probe how its hydrogen-bonding network changes under extreme confinement.

Kaleidocycles—rotating rings made from hinged tetrahedra, are of interest for origami engineering, controllable linkage systems, and mathematics education. However, proving their existence for an arbitrary number of units has remained a challenge. In a recent study, researchers at Kyushu University developed explicit mathematical formulae showing that Kaleidocycles can be successfully constructed from six or more connected tetrahedra, uniting origami mechanisms and geometry in one exact mathematical framework.

Electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NO₃RR) emerges as a sustainable approach for converting residual nitrate pollutants into valuable ammonia under ambient conditions, offering a promising alternative to the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process. Compared to single-metal-site electrocatalysts, dual-metal-site (DMS) electrocatalysts show synergistic effects between adjacent metal sites, effectively regulating the electronic state and enhancing the catalytic activity and selectivity for NO₃RR with multi-step proton and electron transfers. Further understanding on NO₃RR is of practical significance for design of efficient DMS electrocatalysts.

Understanding the structure–activity relationship of catalysts is crucial for addressing global energy and environmental challenges. A research team led by Professor Jiangwei Zhang from Inner Mongolia University presents a comprehensive review of advanced characterization techniques—including spectroscopy, microscopy, compositional analysis, and in-situ/operando methods—that enable atomic-level insights into catalytic systems. These techniques pave the way for intelligent catalyst design and real-time reaction monitoring.