This study focuses on lipid droplets (LDs), which are organelles responsible for storing neutral lipids and are found across various species. The excessive accumulation of these lipids in LDs is linked to several metabolic disorders. Zebrafish, with their transparent embryos, present a valuable model for studying LD biology, though previous research has been hampered by the absence of specific LD marker proteins and limitations in purification techniques.

Adipose triacylglycerol lipase (ATGL) is a dynamic lipid droplet-associated protein involved in cellular lipolysis, which is conserved from bacteria to humans. Recent methods that measure the enzymatic activity of ATGL in vitro are established using lipid emulsions. However, the lipid emulsion platforms contain various membranous structures which reduce the accuracy of enzymatic activity determination. Therefore, a new platform and corresponding method are required for accurate measurement of ATGL enzymatic activity that represents cellular lipid and energy homeostasis. Adiposomes are artificial lipid nanostructures mimicking lipid droplets. Employing adiposome as a platform, the authors have developed an assay to measure the enzymatic activity of ATGL in vitro. Here, a detailed protocol is described to explain how to measure the activity of ATGL using adiposomes. This method successfully proves the concept of lipid droplet-mimetic lipase activity determining platform and provides a tool to identify the active sites of lipases.

A team from EPCC proposed FLAPS, a fluctuation-aware power auction strategy to optimize data center power utilization. FLAPS reduces power overload by 9%–10% while maintaining high resource utilization.

In joint research with The University of Tokyo (UTokyo) and Nagoya University, National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) developed a new material "thermoelectric permanent magnet" exhibiting extremely high transverse thermoelectric conversion performance, and achieved transverse thermoelectric generation with a power density of 56.7 mW/cm² around room temperature in a thermoelectric-permanent-magnet-based module. When converted into a value per applied temperature gradient, this is not only the world’s highest power density among transverse thermoelectric modules, but a performance even comparable to commercial longitudinal thermoelectric modules. This achievement is expected to lead to thermal energy harvesting and management technologies that can be utilized everywhere magnets are used. This research result was published in Energy & Environmental Science on March 18, 2025.

Edible yeast Candida utilis can produce high-quality protein using DHA with 60.1% protein content at rapid growth rates, supporting sustainable feed and food supply.

A novel gas-lift reactor successfully improved the production efficiency of hydrogen oxidizing bacteria single cell protein, providing a new solution for sustainable biomanufacturing.

Researchers developed a continuous-flow synthesis method to precisely control the size of cerium oxide nanoparticles down to 1.3 nm. This enabled the first direct investigation of size effects in metal oxides, revealing structural distortions and unexpected Ce³⁺ states—insights that could advance the design of catalytic and electronic nanomaterials.