For the first time, light itself has been sculpted into a toron—a 3D pinwheel-like chiral topology that marries skyrmion textures with paired synthetic magnetic monopoles. Using vector structured beams, the scientists create, image and continuously tune these “pinwheels of light,” and watch them morph into typical topologies such as hopfions and monopole pairs on demand. The platform promises topologically protected information channels in free space and new routes for light–matter interaction.

In a significant stride towards sustainable and cleaner energy, researchers from West Africa have conducted a comparative assessment of pollutant emissions between biofuel briquettes and charcoal.

Rechargeable metal–air batteries have gained significant interest due to their high energy density and environmental benignity. However, these batteries face significant challenges, particularly related to the air-breathing electrode, resulting in poor cycle life, low efficiency, and catalyst degradation. Developing a robust bifunctional electrocatalyst remains difficult, as oxygen electrocatalysis involves sluggish kinetics and follows different reaction pathways, often requiring distinct active sites. Consequently, the poorly understood mechanisms and irreversible surface reconstruction in the catalyst’s microenvironment, such as atomic modulation, nano-/microscale, and surface interfaces, lead to accelerated degradation during charge and discharge cycles. Overcoming these barriers requires advancements in the development and understanding of bifunctional electrocatalysts. In this review, the critical components of metal–air batteries, the associated challenges, and the current engineering approaches to address these issues are discussed. Additionally, the mechanisms of oxygen electrocatalysis on the air electrodes are examined, along with insights into how chemical characteristics of materials influence these mechanisms. Furthermore, recent advances in bifunctional electrocatalysts are highlighted, with an emphasis on the synthesis strategies, microenvironmental modulations, and stabilized systems demonstrating efficient performance, particularly zinc– and lithium–air batteries. Finally, perspectives and future research directions are provided for designing efficient and durable bifunctional electrocatalysts for metal–air batteries.

Label-free detection of biological events at single-cell resolution in the brain can non-invasively capture brain status for medical diagnosis and basic neuroscience research. We have developed a new label-free, multiphoton photoacoustic microscope (LF-MP-PAM) with a near-infrared femtosecond laser to observe endogenous NAD(P)H in living cells. We demonstrated the detection of endogenous NAD(P)H photoacoustic signals in brain slices to 700 μm depth and in cerebral organoids to 1100 μm depth.

Researchers from UNamur and Stanford have developed a compact, energy-efficient photonic device that steers light using twisted crystal layers. This innovation enables precise beam control, potentially revolutionizing satellite tracking, VR headsets, lasers, and quantum computing. The breakthrough uses fast simulations and machine learning to optimize design, offering a powerful new tool in light manipulation.

To address growing demands for efficient AI computing, scientists in China developed a reconfigurable integrated photonic chip that supports diverse neural network models within a unified hardware architecture. By co-designing algorithms and photonic hardware, the photonic chip enables in situ switching among fully connected, convolutional, and recurrent models powered by a soliton microcomb. It demonstrates the ability to process image, speech, and text information, marking a key step toward multifunctional photonic AI processors.

Introducing Sustainable Carbon Materials—a new peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to advancing fundamental and applied research on carbon-based materials! 

A research team co-led by Prof. WANG Faming from the South China Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with collaborators from University of Bremen and Harvard University, has discovered that heat can "awaken" this ancient carbon, converting it into a food source for microbes living far below the seafloor. Published in Science Advances on August 20, the findings reshape scientific understanding of both life in extreme environments and the deep Earth's carbon cycle.

Since the era of film photography, capturing and documenting high-speed dynamic processes has been a longstanding pursuit in science and engineering. With the rise of solid-state imaging technologies such as charge-coupled devices (CCD) and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) sensors, high-speed imaging has garnered increasing attention and become a cornerstone in fields such as aerospace, industrial inspection, and national defense.

Conventional imaging sensors primarily record two-dimensional (2D) image sequences that lack depth information. In recent years, the rapid progress in optoelectronic technologies has made 3D imaging and sensing one of the most dynamic and critical frontiers in optical metrology and information optics. Among these, Fringe Projection Profilometry (FPP) has emerged as a leading non-contact 3D surface measurement technique due to its high accuracy, flexible encoding, and wide applicability. Nevertheless, conventional structured-light 3D imaging techniques such as FPP always rely on a one-to-one synchronization between pattern projection and image acquisition, fundamentally limiting the system’s temporal resolution to the native frame rate of the imaging sensor. Current methods to increase speed often depend on high-refresh-rate hardware, which significantly increases system complexity and cost. This hardware bottleneck has become a major obstacle in advancing high-speed and ultra-high-speed 3D imaging.