The widely used diabetes drug metformin changes blood metal levels in humans. The Kobe University study is an important step in understanding the drug’s many actions and designing better ones in the future.

A clinical trial led by the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine was the first to show that a drug called lubiprostone – typically used for constipation – can treat patients with chronic kidney disease.

Child neglect—or the failure to provide care during early years—is the most prevalent yet understudied form of child maltreatment, often leaving no visible scars but causing long-term harm. Now, researchers from Japan have used advanced neuroimaging to examine the brain’s white matter in neglected children. They identified structural abnormalities in brain regions linked to emotion, behavior, and cognition, offering objective markers for early intervention and highlighting the profound impact of neglect on development.

Researchers from Tohoku University, NIMS, and JAEA have demonstrated for the first time the technological advantages of antiferromagnets. Their study, published in Science, shows that antiferromagnets enable faster, more efficient memory operations than conventional ferromagnets. 

This new crystal growth technology uses tungsten to create single crystals that can stand extreme temperatures - a new achievement in the field.

In Japan, emergency personnel are required to continue resuscitation efforts for cardiac arrest patients, even when there is no electrical activity. This is known as asystole. That policy has created an opportunity for scientists to assess how to treat the most difficult cases in resuscitation science. By analyzing outcomes from a large-scale national dataset, this study raises tough questions about the impact of pre-hospital life support procedures on outcomes in patients with asystole.

Researchers from Japan found that macro-heterogeneity (the presence of multiple cell types) and micro-heterogeneity (variability in cell behavior within a cell type) are crucial for muscle breakdown and rearrangement in the pupal stage of fruit fly development. Computational modeling of cell interactions suggested that designing heterogenous robot swarms based on similar principles could improve their ability to multitask.

A giant anomalous Hall effect (AHE) has been observed in a nonmagnetic material for the first time, as reported by researchers from Japan. This surprising result was achieved using high-quality Cd₃As₂ thin films, a Dirac semimetal, under an in-plane magnetic field. By modulating the material’s band structure, the team isolated the AHE and traced its origin to orbital magnetization rather than spin, challenging long-held assumptions in condensed matter physics.

Soft–hard composite materials can overcome the inherent trade-off between strength and toughness, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Recently, researchers from Japan and China developed a minimal three-dimensional composite model that eliminates nonlinear effects, isolating key design principles. This framework revealed how varying the mixing ratio of soft to hard materials leads to brittle-to-ductile transitions and identified the optimal ratio that maximizes toughness, offering insights for the development of next-generation structural and biomedical materials.

Conventional wearable sweat sensors utilize hydrophobic ion-selective membranes (ISMs) and require tight contact and adhesives to achieve signal stability. However, this can lead to user discomfort and skin-related diseases, necessitating the development of non-contact alternatives. In a new study, inspired by the self-cleaning behavior of rose petals, researchers developed novel ISM-based sweat sensors that feature enhanced signal stability and performance, avoid skin contact, and are reusable, making them practical for daily use.