Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s CODEX (Coronal Diagnostic Experiment) investigation have successfully evaluated the instrument’s first images, revealing the speed and temperature of material flowing out from the Sun. These images, shared at a press event Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, illustrate the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, is not a homogenous, steady flow of material, but an area with sputtering gusts of hot plasma. These images will help scientists improve their understanding of how the Sun impacts Earth and our technology in space.

As the world focuses on repairing damaged ecosystems, especially with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and new EU Nature Restoration law in place, a new study sounds a clear message: when it comes to restoring nature, one size doesn’t fit all. A team of scientists, led by the University of Göttingen and Freie Universität Berlin, found that even ecosystems that look similar on the surface can respond very differently to the same restoration methods. If we want to bring back nature in a way that helps absorb carbon, keep water in the ground, and recycle nutrients, policy makers need to think locally. The findings were published in the journal Ecography.

Clinical trials of an innovative inflatable pillow designed to make moving intensive care unit (ICU) patients safer, faster, and less labour-intensive for NHS staff have begun in Bath.

Co-developed by researchers at the University of Bath and clinicians at the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust (RUH), and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the Inflatable Prone Repositioning Device – known as the ‘BathMat’ – is a flat balloon-like pillow that can be inflated in sections, and is the first medical device of its kind.

The NEAL team at the University of South China has successfully developed HARMONY2.0, an upgraded version of their higher-order modes diffusion code HARMONY1.0. By adopting a hybrid two-step methodology combining MC(Monte Carlo) homogenization and deterministic higher-order modes calculation, this advancement addresses the limitations of deterministic methods in handling complex geometries and energy spectrum adaptation, while avoiding the computational inefficiency inherent to MC approaches. The integration of OpenMP-based parallel computing further accelerates the process, significantly enhancing the capability for reactor higher-order modes analysis. This progress provides critical technical support for key applications such as reactor reactivity measurements and online monitoring.

A team of Rice engineering students has designed an innovative space exercise harness that won this year's Technology Collaboration Center’s Wearables Workshop and University Challenge. Their design answered a challenge posed by the HumanWorks Lab and Life Science Labs at NASA and Johnson Space Center.