How long have you been doing your current job? Have you ever thought about trying a new profession? How difficult does change seem to you? The current rapid transformation of the labor market is putting many workers to the test: they struggle to keep up and move into new roles, while at the same time companies are having difficulty finding qualified personnel. A new study has analyzed the French labor market using methods from statistical physics, and found that over 90% of jobs today function as bottlenecks: they are easily accessible, but once entered, they become traps from which it is hard to move elsewhere—even when other opportunities are available.

The study, conducted by Max Knicker, Karl Naumann-Woleske, and Michael Benzaquen of École Polytechnique in Paris, and published in the Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (JSTAT), provides a detailed mapping of accessibility and transferability characteristics within the French occupational network. It reveals strong structural rigidity in the overall labor system and offers a basis for understanding what kinds of interventions and policy decisions might help to break this deadlock.

 

Experimental studies under atmospheric conditions show two important reaction pathways in the hydroxyl radical-initiated degradation of isoprene, which form highly oxidised peroxy radicals with 8 or 9 oxygen atoms and may be of global importance for the production of organic aerosols.

Highly sensitive detection methods allow ever deeper insights into complex chemical processes in the atmosphere: Researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Leipzig found a series of new product channels in a detailed product study on the oxidative degradation of isoprene in the gas phase, which allows a better mechanistic understanding of this important process for atmospheric chemistry. The results were published in the journal Nature Communications.

Espaitec, the Science and Technology Park of the Universitat Jaume I, and the Multiphase Fluids Group (Spain) have implemented a demonstrator that allows the optimisation of the operation of water treatment plants through full-scale tests carried out at the facilities of the Research Centre in Robotics and Underwater Technology (CIRTESU). This technology is used to simulate processes that take place in a water treatment plant and is aimed both at technology companies that develop impellers and instrumentation for their characterisation, and at companies that manage water treatment plants and other sectors such as the chemical or maritime industry.

For the design of future materials, it is important to understand how the individual atoms inside a material interact with each other quantum mechanically. Previously inexplicable vibrational states between carbon chains (carbyne) and nanotubes have puzzled materials scientists. Researchers from Austria, Italy, France, China and Japan lead by the University of Vienna have now succeeded in getting to the bottom of this phenomenon with the help of Raman spectroscopy, innovative theoretical models and the use of machine learning. The results published in "Nature Communications" show the universal applicability of carbyne as a sensor due to its sensitivity to external influences.

Researchers from Aarhus University have developed MARTINIS – a portable, low-cost, automatic lab that monitors soil chemistry in real time using planar optodes. The system can track oxygen and pH levels in situ without disturbing the soil. It enables detailed analysis of soil dynamics, supports climate research, and may inform sustainable farming practices. The open-source technology has been field-tested and is now being further developed for broader application.

Researchers from the University of Malaga, led by Casado Cordón, and from the Complutense University, under the coordination of Professor Nazario Martín, have taken a step further and created an unprecedented molecular model of bilayer graphene that is capable of controlling rotation, which in turn allows controlling conductivity and achieving “potentially spectacular semiconducting properties”.