Human cognition relies on the seamless integration of multiple senses, allowing the brain to associate, infer, and even imagine across modalities. Replicating this capability in artificial systems has long remained a challenge, particularly under strict energy constraints. This study presents a bioinspired multisensory framework that integrates vision, touch, hearing, smell, and taste within a self-powered architecture. By enabling cross-modal association and adaptive reconfiguration, the system allows one sensory input—such as touch or sound—to trigger corresponding representations in other sensory domains. Beyond conventional recognition, the framework demonstrates higher-level cognitive functions, including inference and generative pattern creation. These advances point toward a new generation of intelligent machines capable of human-like perception and cognition.

Achieving both high efficiency and high selectivity remains a central challenge in catalytic hydrogenation reactions, as rapid reactant activation often leads to overly strong binding of intermediates and unwanted over-reduction. A new photocatalytic strategy now demonstrates how this long-standing trade-off can be overcome. By harnessing nonequilibrium charge carriers generated under visible light, the system promotes efficient hydrogen dissociation while steering the reaction toward selective semihydrogenation. Active hydrogen species migrate away from their formation sites to neighboring catalytic surfaces, where product formation and desorption are energetically favored. This spatial separation of reaction steps enables near-complete conversion under ambient conditions while maintaining excellent selectivity, offering a powerful new design principle for advanced catalytic systems.

Hydrogen peroxide is a widely used chemical essential to water treatment, disinfection, and green manufacturing, yet its conventional production relies on energy-intensive and centralized processes. Recent research highlights an emerging electrochemical route that generates hydrogen peroxide directly from oxygen and water under ambient conditions. Central to this approach is the use of noble metal-free single-atom electrocatalysts, where isolated metal atoms embedded in nitrogen-doped carbon precisely steer oxygen reduction toward the desired two-electron pathway. By combining atomic-scale catalyst design with advanced reactor engineering, this strategy offers a cleaner, safer, and more flexible way to produce hydrogen peroxide on demand, opening new possibilities for decentralized and sustainable chemical manufacturing.

This study demonstrates an experimentally feasible scheme to achieve robust strong coupling between a single quantum dot and a plasmonic nanocavity integrated with a one-dimensional photonic crystal cavity. A Rabi splitting exceeding 170 meV is observed in dark-field scattering spectra. We further demonstrate that the stronger localized electric field within the hybrid cavity not only enhances the coupling strength but also, owing to the more uniform field distribution, reduces the sensitivity of the coupling strength to the quantum dot position within the cavity, thereby improving the uniformity of the device's coupling performance. The robustness of such a strongly coupled system will advance the development of room-temperature quantum devices based on single emitters for potential applications.

Confronting the central challenge of how necroptosis reconciles high sensitivity to stimuli with robustness against intrinsic noise in complex living systems, this study systematically dissect the underlying design principles that govern cell-fate decisions. By integrating biophysical modelling with large-scale topological screening, we resolve the intricate biochemical reaction network into a minimal set of organizing rules. Our analysis identifies the incoherent feedforward loop (IFFL) as the core functional motif driving the observed dynamics. This topology endows the system with a distinctive bell-shaped input–output response, scale invariance, and the capacity to switch precisely between apoptotic and necrotic fates. Beyond elucidating the dynamical logic of cell death signalling, this work reveals, from a physics-informed perspective, a unifying “complexity-to-simplicity” design principle that may underlie the evolutionary construction of sophisticated signalling networks. It further provides a conceptual framework for understanding how dysregulation of cell-fate decisions contributes to pathological processes such as inflammation and tumorigenesis.

A new review shows how PEDOT:PSS, a flexible conductive polymer, enables tactile sensors that mimic human touch. These sensors detect pressure, strain, and temperature, opening doors for smarter healthcare monitoring, robotics, and wearable electronics.

Liver organoids, three-dimensional structures derived from stem cells or hepatic progenitors, have emerged as a transformative technology. Unlike traditional two-dimensional cultures or animal models, organoids faithfully recapitulate the complex architecture and functionality of native liver tissue. This review summarizes recent advancements in liver organoid technology, detailing their development, classification, and key applications.

For the first time, researchers have shown through simulation that a novel X-shaped sleeper enhances trackbed stability under impact loading by redistributing loads through a denser, more uniform network of force chains, reducing stress concentrations and improving energy dissipation.