A flash of light lasting a fraction of a millisecond could help create better materials for solar energy. Researchers used ultra-fast heating at rates of up to 10 million degrees Celsius per second to rearrange the atoms inside a semiconductor, producing a version that generated up to 50 times more electrical current from light than the same material in its ordinary form. Because the flash heats only the semiconductor coating and not the surface it sits on, the method works on transparent conducting glass, the see-through conducting surface used in touchscreens and solar cells, which conventional furnaces would ruin. The method could eventually help improve solar technologies and other advanced electronic devices.

What if the secret to drought-resistant crops isn't how much water plants use, but when they use it? A new study identifies a daily window that could help breeders develop tomatoes that better withstand drought without sacrificing yield.

Landau quantization is a cornerstone of quantum Hall effects. However, controlling Landau-level spacing and the spatial profiles of Landau modes through complex-valued gauge fields has remained largely unexplored. Now, a collaborative team from Beijing Institute of Technology, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Exeter, and The University of Hong Kong, writing in Science Bulletin, demonstrates a mechanism for tuning Landau quantization. By constructing a real pseudo-magnetic field and an imaginary pseudo-electric field, the researchers enlarge the Landau-level spacing and enhance mode localization. These findings establish a versatile framework for tailoring non-Hermitian Landau levels and may advance applications in mode-selective filtering, field concentration, and wave-based sensing.

While soaring demand for lithium-ion batteries pushes prices higher, Flinders University experts are making headway in the development of a safe and more sustainable aqueous zinc-iodine rechargeable battery.

In their latest study, published in high-profile international journal Angewandte Chemie, the Flinders research team has designed an aqueous zinc-ion battery (AZIB) that can be charged and discharged over 60,000 cycles.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are increasingly being explored as biological delivery vehicles because they naturally transport proteins, lipids and nucleic acids between cells. Published on EXO - Beyond the Cell, the review is led by Prof. Ye Chen of Zhejiang University and examines how advances in EV engineering may expand their therapeutic role beyond delivering cargo to individual cells toward the coordinated remodeling of diseased tissue microenvironments.

AMHERST, Mass. — A new security loophole discovered by researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst can bring some expired credit cards back to life. If stolen, these “zombie credit cards” could leave cardholders vulnerable to fraudulent charges, according to the new study, presented at the conference USENIX Security 2026.

For sleep-deprived nursing moms, artificial intelligence may feel like a lifeline. In fact, a new national survey from Orlando Health reveals if women ages 18 to 44 had an urgent breastfeeding question or concern half (51%) of them would first turn to an AI chatbot, social media or a search engine.

While light scattering is widely utilized in optical metrology and measurement, it has long been regarded as detrimental in laser-material processing. Scientist in China proposed an interferometric scattering-based optical tomoslicing technology (i-SOT), which overturns this conventional view and kerf widths as narrow as 7 nm under an industrial standard efficiency were achieved. This unprecedented axial resolution enables nearly lossless laser wafering from ingots——with transformative potential for manufacturing laser crystals, photovoltaics, and microelectronic chips.