Where there’s water, there are waves. But what if you could bend water waves to your will to move floating objects? Nanyang Technological University, Singapore co-led a team of international researchers to achieve this with physics.

The scientists developed a technique to merge waves in a water tank to produce complex patterns, such as twisting loops and swirling vortices. Some patterns acted like tweezers or a “tractor beam” to hold a floating ball in place. Other patterns made the ball spin and move precisely in a circular path.

In the future, the technique could be scaled down to precisely move particles the size of cells for experiments, or scaled up to guide boats along a desired path on the water.

Physicists developed simplified formulas to quantify quantum entanglement in strongly correlated electron systems. Their approach was applied to nanoscale materials, revealing unexpected quantum behaviors and identifying key quantities for the Kondo effect. These findings advance understanding of quantum technologies.

This study shows that there is a complex and close interaction between plants and the root microbiota in nutrient utilization. Environmental nutrient conditions and plant nutrient-related genes jointly regulate the composition and assembly of the root microbiota, while the root microbiota significantly affects the plant's nutrient utilization efficiency by improving nutrient availability and regulating plant hormones.

This study introduces a Semantic Structure-Aware model to enhance Class Activation Mapping for image classification, achieving state-of-the-art performance in weakly-supervised tasks without extra training.

University of Texas at Arlington physics Professor J. Ping Liu has won the 2025 Hill Prize in Physical Sciences for pioneering new ways to design magnets that power high-tech devices. Awarded by the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology (TAMEST) and Lyda Hill Philanthropies, the prize recognizes groundbreaking innovations with the potential for real-world impact. Dr. Liu shares the award as co-principal investigator alongside James Chelikowsky, a professor of physics and chemical engineering at UT Austin.