Whether bismuth is part of a class of materials highly suitable for quantum computing and spintronics was a long-standing issue. Kobe University research has now revealed that the true nature of bismuth was masked by its surface, and in doing so uncovered a new phenomenon relevant to all such materials.

Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have discovered that Cepheid variable stars in our neighboring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud, are moving in opposing directions along two distinct axes. They found that stars closer to Earth move towards the northeast, while more distant stars move southwest. This newly discovered movement pattern exists alongside a northwest-southeast opposing movement that the scientists previously observed in massive stars.

Scientists from Kyushu University have identified the long-sought “orange gene” behind ginger fur in domestic cats—a deletion mutation in a gene on the X chromosome. This discovery explains why most orange cats are male while tortoiseshell and calico cats are female, and reveals a new genetic mechanism for orange coloring. The study solves a decades-old mystery in feline genetics, with their findings published in Current Biology on May 15, 2025.

Researchers from the University of Tokyo have found a way to observe clotting activity in blood as it happens — without needing invasive procedures. Using a new type of microscope and artificial intelligence (AI), their study shows how platelet clumping can be tracked in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), opening the door to safer, more personalized treatment.

A research team has unveiled a breakthrough in improving the performance of zinc-air batteries (ZABs), which are an important energy storage technology. This breakthrough involves a new catalyst that significantly boosts the efficiency of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), a crucial process in ZABs. The development could lead to more efficient, long-lasting batteries for practical applications.

A research team consisting of Kazumasa Uehara, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology, and Yuya Fukuda, a pre-doctoral candidate in the same department, demonstrated that scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) power modulation of 4–8 Hz theta oscillation, known as frontal midline theta (FMT), observed in the medial frontal cortex just before initiating a movement is likely a key neural indicator explaining individual differences in the speed of motor skill acquisition. Analysis of scalp EEG data during a motor learning task integrating vision and motor action revealed that subjects who learned more quickly exhibited higher FMT power just before movement onset. These findings would contribute to the future development of personalized learning support and training methods based on EEG. Such methods could be applied in physical education fields such as rehabilitation and sports training, which require motor learning, as well as in enhancing musical instrument performance skills. The results of this research were published online in Experimental Brain Research on May 15, 2025.

Charge transfer, or the movement of electrons, can occur either within a molecule or between two molecules. Combining the two types of charge transfer is challenging. Now, scientists from Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan, have developed a hybrid charge transfer crystal using a novel pyrazinacene molecule. This crystal is capable of reacting with naphthalene to produce a reversible color shift, from greenish-blue to red-violet. Such color-changing crystals can have various potential applications in materials science.

Agents, chatbots and other tools based on artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly used in everyday life by many. So-called large language model (LLM)-based agents, such as ChatGPT and Llama, have become impressively fluent in the responses they form, but quite often provide convincing yet incorrect information. Researchers at the University of Tokyo draw parallels between this issue and a human language disorder known as aphasia, where sufferers may speak fluently but make meaningless or hard-to-understand statements. This similarity could point toward better forms of diagnosis for aphasia, and even provide insight to AI engineers seeking to improve LLM-based agents.

Researchers from The University of Osaka have discovered the mechanism for supercurrent rectification, in which current flows primarily in one direction in a superconductor. By using a specific iron-based superconductor, they were able to observe this phenomenon over a broad range of magnetic and temperature fields. This understanding paves the way for the design and construction of superconducting diodes and other ultra-low energy electronics.

A research team from the Visual Perception and Cognition Laboratory and the Cognitive Neurotechnology Unit, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan, investigated whether human pedestrians exhibit a consistent tendency to move either left or right to avoid autonomous mobile robots during head-on encounters. The results showed no consistent directional preference among the participants; instead, individual differences were observed in the chosen direction of avoidance. However, the direction in which the pedestrians moved, either left or right, could be reliably predicted by analyzing the orientation of their waist during walking. To respond accordingly, the robots were equipped with a function that enabled them to detect human waist orientation and adjust their movement in real time. This study also examined whether the timing of the robots' avoidance behavior influenced pedestrians’ comfort during passing. Overall, the findings indicated that early avoidance behavior by the robots, based on the predicted direction of human movement, led to an improvement in the pedestrians’ perceived comfort during passing. This study was published online in the journal PLoS One on May 14, 2025.