Marking the 50th anniversary of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), a multidisciplinary Chinese research team presents a comprehensive Perspective in Nano Research, highlighting the paradigm shift toward rationally designed semiconductor substrates. The article details key enhancement strategies—including energy-level customization, amorphization, quasi-metallization, and morphology control—that enable ultrasensitive, molecule-selective detection. These advances have unlocked transformative applications in virus identification, food safety monitoring, gas sensing, and early cancer diagnosis. The authors emphasize that overcoming standardization challenges through multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential to bridge the lab-to-market gap and establish semiconductor SERS as a core platform for next-generation sensing and diagnostics.

This study investigates how hunter-gatherer populations in the southern Caucasus survived and adapted between 57,000 and 27,000 years ago. Drawing on archaeological, geological, and environmental, evidence, the researchers reconstructed patterns of mobility, population density, and social interaction across a vast and environmentally diverse region. Uniquely, the study moves beyond the traditional focus on climate and stone tools to examine how social networks functioned as a survival strategy. The findings reveal that despite living in small prehistoric communities, dispersed populations, maintained long-distance connections through the exchange of knowledge, technology, and social ties—networks that may have been just as important as environmental adaptation in helping people endure periods of profound change.

Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have found that how quickly an older adult can execute a voluntary step—especially when distracted (concurrently performed cognitive task)—may serve as a valuable clinical predictor of survival. The explorative study suggests that dynamic balance assessments capture an integration of neuromuscular vitality and central cognitive processing, offering a window into an individual's long-term functional health.