A new purple cooling fabric developed by Chinese and Australian researchers could help people stay cooler during scorching summer days without having to resort to wearing white.

-  Joint research team led by Professor Kang Taek Lee and Professor EunAe Cho uses a 3D digital twin to reveal localized degradation mechanisms during fast charging

- Study shows how the spatial distribution of binder and pore phase affects fast-charging performance and battery degradation

-  Findings provide a new electrode design strategy for faster-charging, longer-lasting lithium-ion batteries

Plasma bubbles in the ionosphere over equatorial and low-latitude regions are a common nighttime plasma density depletion structure that can cause severe scintillation interference on high-frequency communications, making them an important target of space weather monitoring. Traditional detection methods rely on statistical thresholds derived from temporal fluctuations in ion density; however, plasma bubbles exhibit significant variability in spatiotemporal scales (ranging from kilometers to hundreds of kilometers), and their occurrence frequency is strongly modulated by solar activity and seasonal factors. Consequently, fixed-threshold methods struggle to accommodate this diversity, with miss rates reaching up to 40% during periods of low solar activity. Although deep learning has demonstrated powerful capabilities in automatically extracting and recognizing complex waveform features in fields such as medical image segmentation and signal peak detection, its systematic application to ionospheric plasma bubble detection—and thus addressing the adaptability deficiencies of traditional threshold methods—remains underexplored.

A new study published in National Science Review reveals the dual effects of urban greenery on compound heat-ozone pollution risks across Northern Hemisphere cities. While urban greening is widely promoted as a nature-based method to cool overheated cities, complex interactions between urban meteorology and atmospheric chemistry can create important trade-offs for ozone control. The findings call for integrated urban greening strategies that jointly enhance climate resilience, air quality, and public health.

A Nankai University team designed azaphenanthrene-fused non-fullerene acceptors and tuned their central cores with fluorine, chlorine, or bromine. Increasing halogen size progressively enhanced crystallinity and packing order. The brominated acceptor CHNBr achieved a fill factor of 78.84%, enabling binary organic solar cells to exceed 20% power conversion efficiency.

Researchers report a programmable mid-infrared photothermoelectric detector based on a suspended nanometer-thick SrTiO₃ membrane. It responds in about 10 microseconds, reaches about 50 volts per watt through dual-gate control, and supports 40 measured response states. A 3-by-3 array further demonstrates programmable infrared image preprocessing and attention-guided thermal target enhancement.

Ag-modified In₂O₃ (Ag-3/In₂O₃) catalyst converts methane to methanol and formaldehyde with 100% liquid-product selectivity under mild photo–thermal conditions (150°C, Xe lamp irradiation). Producing 6544 μmol·g⁻¹·h⁻¹, it outperforms pure photocatalysis by 2.6 times. The catalyst’s unique band structure prevents formation of over-oxidizing hydroxyl radicals, while weak product adsorption avoids deep oxidation. This design eliminates CO₂ emission—a breakthrough for sustainable natural gas utilization.

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have used a theoretical framework to derive design rules for creating new thermoelectric materials. The efficiency of converting thermal energy to electricity is often determined by parameters which strongly depend on each other, making it difficult to identify ideal recipes. The team’s findings help lay out goals for optimizing “band structure,” a map showing what states electrons can take, promising a shift towards rational material design.

Heating, cooling, and ventilation account for a substantial share of energy use in buildings, creating growing demand for materials that can regulate temperature while maintaining a comfortable indoor environment. Now, researchers have developed a multifunctional membrane that combines food waste derived biochar, graphene, and a phase change material to simultaneously store thermal energy, improve heat transfer, and manage moisture.