POSTECH develops a magnetic-field battery technology that prevents explosions and delivers four times the capacity.

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have successfully traced the mechanism behind how an industrially important “superbase” catalyst is synthesized in a faster, microwave-assisted reaction. They took measurements using X-rays while the reaction occurred, uncovering how small precursor molecules were formed first before they clustered to create the final product. Their insights promise finer control over a promising technology for speeding up chemical synthesis in industry.

A research team at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is the first ever to observe a beta-delayed neutron emission from fluorine-25, a rare, unstable nuclide. Using the FRIB Decay Station Initiator (FDSi), the team found contradictions in prior experimental findings. The results led to a new line of inquiry into how particles in exotic, unstable isotopes remain bound under extreme conditions. Led by Robert Grzywacz, professor of physics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), the team included Jack Peltier, undergraduate student at UTK, Zhengyu Xu, postdoctoral researcher at UTK, Sean Liddick, professor of chemistry at FRIB and interim chairperson of MSU’s Department of Chemistry, and Rebeka Lubna, scientist at FRIB. The team published its results (“The evidence of N = 16 shell closure and β-delayed neutron emission from ²⁵F”) in Physics Letters B.

- University of Leicester engineers have developed a design framework for a magnetic cloak

- Designed to hide objects from magnetic fields, effectively making them ‘invisible’ to magnetic detection

- Allows magnetic cloaks to be created for objects of any shape for the first time