As use of wearable devices such as augmented reality (AR) glasses has slowly but steadily increased, so too has the desire to control these devices in an easy and convenient way. Ring controllers worn on the finger already exist, but usually have some drawbacks in their size, weight or power consumption. Researchers including those at the University of Tokyo developed picoRing, an ultralow-power, ring-based wireless mouse to solve this problem. It uses a novel method to communicate with devices giving it an incredibly long use period between charges.

Researchers at Harvard and Northwestern have developed a machine learning method that can design intrinsically disordered proteins with custom properties, addressing nearly 30% of all human proteins that are currently out of reach of AI tools like AlphaFold. The new approach uses automatic differentiation, traditionally a deep learning tool, to optimize protein sequences for desired properties.

Researchers from the Institute of Physics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have succeeded in creating three-dimensional skyrmions, so-called hybrid skyrmion tubes, in synthetic antiferromagnets and have demonstrated for the first time that these skyrmion tubes move differently than two-dimensional skyrmions.

Three researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have received National Science Foundation CAREER awards for their work developing molecules that facilitate pharmaceutical drug design and evaluation, designing phishing detectors and developing new materials for quantum technology.

Researchers from The University of Osaka have developed a polymeric adhesion system by introducing reversible bonds at the adhesion interface based on the formation and dissociation of host–guest complexes. The adhesive can be decomposed on demand using temperature or chemicals and reused multiple times. Visualization of the interface using neutrons revealed the mechanism underlying repeatable sticking and peeling. This technology can be used for sustainable material applications.

Researchers have for the first time measured the true properties of individual MXene flakes — an exciting new nanomaterial with potential for better batteries, flexible electronics, and clean energy devices. By using a novel light-based technique called spectroscopic micro-ellipsometry, they discovered how MXenes behave at the single-flake level, revealing changes in conductivity and optical response that were previously hidden when studying only stacked layers. This breakthrough provides the fundamental knowledge and tools needed to design smarter, more efficient technologies powered by MXenes.