Researchers at The University of Osaka have developed a groundbreaking energy-efficient and high-precision measurement system leveraging the inherent similarity between waveforms generated by the same type of signal source. Unlike black-box approaches such as generative AI, the system is built on the explicit theoretical framework of compressed sensing. This innovative approach drastically reduces the amount of data required for accurate signal reproduction, leading to significant energy savings. Demonstrated with an electroencephalogram (EEG) measuring system, the technology achieved world-leading energy efficiency using only commercially available electronic components, consuming a mere 72μW. This breakthrough paves the way for long-term, battery-powered wearable devices and self-powered, battery-free IoT devices that can operate on minimal energy harvested from the environment, with broad applications in healthcare, disaster prevention, and environmental monitoring.

Jellyfish cyborgs may sound like something straight out of science fiction. But harnessing jellyfishes’ natural locomotion provides an efficient and environmentally-friendly means to monitor coral reefs, track oil spills or observe climate change. Now,  a team from Tohoku University’s Department of Robotics has successfully modulated the swimming behavior of jellyfish using gentle electric pulses and generated a means of measuring it via AI. In doing so, they have created a gentle way to harness the powerful swimming mechanisms of jellyfish.

Certain 2D van der Waals bilayers, such as WTe₂ and h-BN, exhibit sliding ferroelectricity, yet its stability above room temperature remained unexplained. AIMR researchers developed a thermodynamic model linking this stability to monolayer stiffness. Their findings reveal a soft “sliding phonon” governing the phase transition, with implications for next-generation nanoelectronics.

A team of three Japanese researchers has conducted a survey of stakeholders to examine how patient voices impact decisions related to genetic testing for hereditary cancers. These stakeholders included patients, healthcare professionals, and ethicists attending a workshop in Hiroshima in early 2025.

Researchers from The University of Osaka have revealed that vision transformers can develop gaze patterns similar to humans, learning to prioritize faces without ever being taught what a face is. The findings suggest that self-supervised ViTs may serve as a practical tool in computer vision and a theoretical model for studying human visual processing. The research underscores the potential of biologically inspired AI systems to uncover the mechanisms of human cognition.

A gene that regulates the development of roots in vascular plants is also involved in the organ development of liverworts — land plants so old they don’t even have proper roots. The Kobe University discovery highlights the fundamental evolutionary dynamic of co-opting, evolving a mechanism first and adopting it for a different purpose later.

A research team has, for the first time, successfully replicated the formation of barred olivine—a unique crystalline texture found in chondrules from meteorites and asteroids—using numerical simulations. The results offer critical clues to the conditions in the early solar system and could reshape existing theories on planet formation.

The molecular pathways involved in antiviral defenses and counter-defenses in host-pathogen systems remain unclear. Researchers from Japan have used Neurospora crassa as a model organism to explore how RNA editing influences fungal antiviral responses. They identified two neighboring genes—an RNA-editing enzyme (old) and a transcription factor (zao)—that regulate virus-induced gene expression. Their findings show how the old-zao module controls both asymptomatic and symptomatic infections, providing new insight into conserved antiviral mechanisms in fungi.