Researchers have learned how stingrays adjust for negative lift near the seafloor - being sucked downwards - and the discovery could help build smarter underwater robots that avoid disastrous ground collisions. 

Important everyday products—from plastics to detergents—are made through chemical reactions that mostly use precious metals such as platinum as catalysts. Newly identified methods to harness the properties of tungsten carbide could yield viable substitutes for platinum.

Physicists have used a new optical centrifuge to control the rotation of molecules suspended in liquid helium nano-droplets, bringing them a step closer to demystifying the behaviour of exotic, frictionless superfluids. It’s the first demonstration of controlled spinning inside a superfluid—researchers can now directly set the direction and frequency of the molecule’s rotation, which is vital in studying how molecules interact with the quantum environment at various rotational frequencies.

Scientists have created 3D printed surfaces featuring intricate textures that can be used to bounce unwanted gas particles away from quantum sensors, allowing useful particles like atoms to be delivered more efficiently, which could help improve measurement accuracy.

Scientists in Scotland have shown that a type of laser already similar to the one currently used in routine eye surgery could one day help surgeons remove unwanted tissues, such as tumours, with unprecedented accuracy.

A new study by researchers and students at the University of Plymouth has shown that living walls – structures housing flowers and plants fitted to the outside of new and old buildings – can significantly enhance the biodiversity within urban environments

Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have developed a method which gives access to the valuable raw materials formate and hydrogen from the waste product glycerol. Formates are the salts of formic acid and are widely used in the chemical industry, while hydrogen can serve, for example, as an energy carrier to power vehicles. The new method can be operated with sustainable electricity and does not produce CO₂. The results of the research have been recently published by the team in the journal Advanced Energy Materials.