With growing urbanization worldwide, concerns for its effects on wildlife is also growing. Many species, however, are able to adapt to urban life by taking advantage of urban resources, like supplemental feeding. While supplemental feeding is considered to contribute to reproductive success of urban wildlife, the exact effects on mammalian reproduction remains unclear. Now, researchers provide evidence that supplemental feeding can boost reproductive conditions of squirrels in urban areas.

Slow earthquakes have been discovered to exhibit anomalously slow, long-lasting, and small slips, adjacent to regular earthquakes where we sometimes feel catastrophic vibration. However, no one knows the reason why they show such strange characteristics. In a study published in a scientific journal Nature Communications, researchers at The University of Osaka succeeded in experimentally reproducing the multiple features of slow earthquakes in the lab and suggested the grain-scale origin of them based on their direct observations.

Researchers at Okayama University of Science have launched a new AI-based system that can forecast the appearance of “seas of clouds” up to one week in advance. Developed by Professor Yuta Ohashi’s laboratory, the system analyzes meteorological data—such as wind speed, temperature, humidity, and precipitation—from the Japan Meteorological Agency to estimate the likelihood of cloud-sea formation. Previously, forecasts were limited to the following day; the expanded AI model now enables weekly predictions for locations including Bitchu Matsuyama Castle in Okayama and the Miyoshi Basin in Hiroshima. The website also provides forecasts of radiation fog and local wind phenomena such as the “Hijikawa River Fog” in Ehime Prefecture. The longer-range forecast is expected to support tourism planning, travel agencies, and local governments by improving scheduling around this popular natural spectacle.

Researchers from The University of Osaka created a reagent for important building-block molecules with an abundant main-group element, gallium. These early findings show that an organic gallium compound can display transition-metal-like reactivity under light irradiation. Using common main-group elements like gallium offers a new way to make sustainable catalysts that do not need expensive transition metals, which are environmentally damaging and vulnerable to supply disruption.

Denitrification is essential to remove toxic nitric oxide from industrial emissions and polluted water. So far, the industrial process has involved high temperatures. Professor Kitagishi’s group accidentally stumbled upon a new chemical mechanism of denitrification at room temperature and in aqueous solution. They report hemoCD-I/P supramolecules that bind nitric oxide and release nitrogen when in acidic glycine-containing solution. This pioneering finding will aid industrial denitrification and accelerate efforts to protect the environment.

Scientists have developed plant-based decomposable plastics using phenylpropanoids, compounds from essential oils. These high-biomass polymers are heat-resistant, durable and recyclable, capable of breaking down under mild conditions for use in chemical recycling or upcycling. They offer a sustainable alternative to conventional plastics, reducing environmental impact and supporting a circular economy.

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in ACS Nano the successful creation of artificial synaptic vesicles that can be remotely controlled by near-infrared (NIR) light. By embedding a phthalocyanine dye into lipid bilayers, the team achieved local heating that modulates membrane permeability, enabling precise release of neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine. These findings demonstrate that nanoscale heating can control communication between nerve cells. The work opens new avenues for non-genetic modulation of neuronal activity, with potential applications in neuroscience, drug delivery, and bioengineering.

A research group led by Associate Professor Islam MD Parvez and Professor Kenji Hato of the Graduate School of Agriculture at Ehime University has developed "Hort-YOLO," a real-time monitoring system for horticultural crops. This system is an advanced object detection network focused on accurate and context-aware analysis of crops, and simultaneously achieves a balance between annotation speed and scalability of supervised learning, making it practical for deployment in real-world environments.

A NIMS research team has developed a new experimental method capable of rapidly evaluating numerous material compositions by measuring anomalous Hall resistivity 30 times faster than conventional methods. By analyzing the vast amount of data obtained using machine learning and experimentally validating the predictions, the team succeeded in developing a new magnetic sensor material capable of detecting magnetism with much higher sensitivity. This research was published in npj Computational Materials on September 3, 2025.