Tokyo, Japan – Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have re-engineered the popular Lattice-Boltzmann Method (LBM) for simulating the flow of fluids and heat, making it lighter and more stable than the state-of-the-art. By formulating the algorithm with a few extra inputs, they successfully got around the need to store certain data, some of which span the millions of points over which a simulation is run. Their findings might overcome a key bottleneck in LBM: memory usage.

Scientists have outlined an approach for interpreting how materials interact with polarized light, which could benefit biomedical imaging and advanced material design. Using an elliptical model to analyze how phase-shifting elements interact with polarized light, they offer an alternative, more physically plausible way to interpret polarization data from complex materials. Conventional methods usually assume that a material’s retarder properties can be represented as a two-layer model combining a circular and a linear retarder, which often leads to errors when the internal structure is unknown or highly layered. The elliptical model adopted by the authors captures a material’s full retarder properties with three parameters—elliptical axis orientation, degree of ellipticity, and elliptical retardance—without requiring assumptions about its internal structure. Tests on liquid crystal samples, including layered and nonlayered configurations, showed that this model avoids misinterpretations common with conventional models.

A Filipino-led team of international researchers has developed a physics-based algorithm that could train AI to greatly improve weather forecasts.

Powdery mildew poses a major threat to black currant production, yet some cultivars naturally withstand infection far better than others. This study reveals that resistant black currants deploy a multilayered defense system involving physical structures, specialized metabolites, and the assembly of protective microbial communities on leaf surfaces. By integrating metabolomics and phyllosphere microbiome profiling, the research identifies key leaf metabolites—such as salicylic acid, trans-zeatin, and griseofulvin—that help recruit beneficial bacteria and fungi linked to disease suppression. These metabolites also directly reduce pathogen growth. Together, these processes explain how resistant cultivars mount a coordinated defense that limits pathogen invasion and maintains plant health.

They enable high-precision measurements, define the unit of voltage, and form the heart of many quantum computers – the so-called Josephson junctions. However, the microscopic processes taking place in the superconductors are difficult to observe directly. Researchers at the RPTU University of Kaiserslautern-Landau have therefore implemented a quantum simulation of the Josephson effect: They separated two Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) by means of an extremely thin optical barrier, which is generated by a focused laser beam and moved periodically. The result is impressive: even in this atomic system, the characteristic Shapiro steps – voltage plateaus at multiples of the drive frequency – appeared, as they do in superconducting Josephson junctions. The research paper published in the journal Science thus provides a textbook example of quantum simulation.

Recently, Professor Fei Wang's research group at Nankai University developed an aromatic radical substitution reaction based on aniline protonation-induced polarity reversal, achieving the direct meta-selective amination of aromatic amines to synthesize m-phenylenediamine compounds. The authors transformed the amine group, originally an ortho/para directing group, into a strongly electron-withdrawing ammonium functional group with meta-directing effects through aniline protonation. Simultaneously, they combined this with aryl hydrocarbon amination mediated by highly reactive ammonium radical cations/pyridinium radicals, thus solving the challenge of meta-selective hydrocarbon amination of aniline compounds. The article was published as an open access communication in CCS Chemistry, the flagship journal of the Chinese Chemical Society.