A research team from the Cognitive Neurotechnology Unit and the Visual Perception and Cognition Laboratory, Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology, investigated human behavior and comfort when handing over a package to an autonomous mobile delivery robot while walking—an interaction envisioned for logistics in future smart cities. The results showed that people tend to feel more comfortable when the robot approaches them more closely, whereas they tend to feel discomfort when the robot stays farther away. This tendency was particularly pronounced when the package being carried was heavy. On the other hand, when the robot came close, participants often slowed down their walking speed and sometimes stopped momentarily, exhibiting brief hesitation. These findings suggest that humans may perceive robots as “helpful partners” rather than mere machines, and that appropriate approach distances and motion designs are essential for achieving comfortable human–robot collaboration. The study was published online in the International Journal of Social Robotics on October 20, 2025.

Motor imagery electroencephalography (MI-EEG) is crucial for brain-computer interfaces, serving as a valuable tool for motor function rehabilitation and fundamental neuroscience research. However, decoding MI-EEG signals is extremely challenging, and traditional methods overlook dependencies between spatiotemporal features and spectral-topological features. Now, researchers have developed a new topology-aware method that effectively captures the deep dependencies across different feature domains of EEG signals, ensuring accurate and robust decoding, paving the way for more brain-responsive technology.

Virtual reality (VR) use is often linked to reduced blinking, raising concerns about dry eye. This study examined the ocular surface during a 30-minute VR gaming session using a compact imaging system to observe the tear film in real time. Over the session, the tear film’s lipid-layer interference grade increased, indicating thickening of the lipid layer. Under these experimental conditions, this change may be associated with a lower likelihood of dry eye during VR use.

A newly developed mouse model enables real-time visualization of RNA Polymerase II (RNAP2) during DNA transcription, as reported by researchers from Science Tokyo. The team engineered mice to produce a fluorescent antibody that binds specifically to RNAP2 during active transcription. Their approach enabled super-resolution imaging of transcription sites in living cells, revealing differences in gene expression dynamics across cell types and developmental states.

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), together with 11 international research partners, has demonstrated a record-breaking 430 terabits per second (Tb/s) optical transmission using a novel approach that extends the capacity of standard-compliant cutoff-shifted optical fibers well beyond the original design.

The technology introduces a novel method that multiplies the usable capacity of certain spectral regions by up to three times. This approach exploits the properties of standard-compliant cutoff-shifted optical fibers based on the ITU-T G.654 recommendation, which have been originally designed to operate with light at relatively long wavelengths, in the C and L bands of transmission bands. By using light with shorter wavelengths, in the O-band region, researchers were able to realize three-mode transmission instead of the traditional single-mode transmission. This effectively extended the optical fiber capacity well beyond the intended design by combining single-mode transmission in the E/S/C/L bands with three-mode transmission in the O band. The team achieved a new optical transmission record of 430 Tb/s in international-standard-compliant optical fibers, surpassing the previous our record of 402 Tb/s, which was also set in 2024. Remarkably, the new result was obtained using nearly 20% less overall bandwidth, resulting in a simpler system that demonstrates how existing infrastructure can be pushed even further without costly upgrades.

The new technology builds on standard-compliant cutoff-shifted optical fiber technology and has the potential to be applied to metropolitan area networks and inter-datacenter links, where high-capacity connections are increasingly in demand, and standard-compliant cutoff-shifted optical fibers are already installed. The combination of high throughput, reduced complexity, and compatibility with existing infrastructure points to a more scalable and energy-efficient future for optical communications.

This achievement was reported as a post deadline paper at the 51st European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) 2025 on Thursday Oct. 2, 2025, at the Bella Center, Copenhagen, Denmark, and was partly supported by the Japan-Germany Beyond 5G/6G collaboration initiative.

Cell growth is the most fundamental process in organisms, yet the way in which metabolism determines its rate has long remained unclear. To decipher this mystery, researchers from Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI), Japan, uncovered a new “global constraint principle,” which unites two classical biological laws—Monod’s law for microbes and Liebig’s law for plants. The study demonstrates that as nutrients increase, other cellular resources start to run short, revealing a universal law of biological growth.

Researchers compared MRI scans of the brain before and after treating Alzheimer's disease with the amyloid-targeting drug lecanemab. They found no significant short-term changes in waste clearance, highlighting the complexity of the disease.