This perspective article proposes a paradigm shift from single-discipline pathogen control to an integrated, cross-disciplinary approach that combines earth science and environmental engineering. Led by Zheng-Yang Huo from Renmin University of China, an research team outlines how geochemical insights and advanced disinfection technologies can work together to achieve full-chain assessment and control of waterborne pathogens, addressing a persistent threat that causes over 10 million deaths annually worldwide.

- Professor Young-Jin Kim’s team measured minute variations in battery electrode thickness—down to approximately one ten-thousandth the diameter of a human hair—using a non-contact, non-destructive method

- The combination of optical frequency comb and terahertz technologies is expected to become a key quality-control solution for next-generation all-solid-state battery production lines

A research team led by UCLA and the University of Rochester has demonstrated a promising evolution of an imaging system designed to capture details within “complex media,” which scatter light, from depicting structures inside body tissue to seeing obstacles through heavy fog. The system uses physics-based machine learning to improve upon an existing imaging technique. 

In tests with standard calibration images obscured by complex media, the new system more than doubled the signal-to-noise ratio compared to a previous generation of the technology. The system also created images in close to real time — thousandths of a second.

New research found that the century-old yardstick used across many industries to estimate air-conditioning and refrigeration energy demand — called cooling degree days — is missing something fundamental. The study reports a new, physics-based version of the metric — effective cooling degree days — that captures how temperature and humidity together impact the actual work a cooling system is required to do. Applying it across North America, they found that cooling efficiency has been quietly declining by 2–4% per decade since 1971, and that the old temperature-only metric misjudges how much cooling is required in different regions, overstating demand in some places and understating it in others.