Pyrovanadates are deemed as an ideal class of potential Calcium ion storage hosts, owing to abundant confined species. However, the higher Coulombic hinderance brings about more sluggish diffusion kinetics of charge carriers. Therefore, an allelic reconfiguration is proposed for the activity-limited zinc sites, and a novel solid-solution phase copper/zinc pyrovanadate for calcium-ion host is prepared. Combining theoretical calculations with experiments, the feasibility of the solid solution phase host for high-performance reversible calcium-ion storage is clarified.

In a paper published in National Science Review, scientists present evidences that tidal forces have a significant impact on temporal variations in seismic velocity within fault fracture zones.

Philip Kurian, a theoretical physicist and founding director of the Quantum Biology Laboratory (QBL) at Howard University in Washington, D.C., has used the laws of quantum mechanics, the fundamental physics of computation, and the QBL’s discovery of cytoskeletal filaments exhibiting quantum optical features, to set a drastically revised upper bound on the computational capacity of carbon-based life in the entire history of Earth. Published as a single-author research article in Science Advances, Kurian’s latest work conjectures a relationship between this information-processing limit and that of all matter in the observable universe.

Murphy, a National Academy of Sciences member and Texas A&M University System Regents Professor, is Texas A&M’s third recipient of the SEC’s highest faculty honor.