EurekAlert! News by Subject: Chemistry & Physics - News by Subject: Chemistry & Physics

Chemistry & Physics

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 22-Aug-2025 15:11 ET (22-Aug-2025 19:11 GMT/UTC)

Supercharged vaccine could offer strong protection with just one dose

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers generated a strong immune response to HIV with just one vaccine dose, by adding two powerful adjuvants to the vaccine. This strategy could lead to vaccines that only need to be given once, for infectious diseases including HIV or SARS-CoV-2.

Journal: Science Translational Medicine
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health, Koch Institute Support (core) Grant from the National Cancer Institute, Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Message in a bubble: using physics to encode messages in ice

Cell Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Inspired by naturally occurring air bubbles in glaciers, researchers have developed a method to encode messages in ice. Publishing June 18 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Physical Science, the paper explains how the team encoded frozen messages in binary and Morse code by manipulating the size and distribution of bubbles in ice. The method could be used to store short messages in very cold regions such as Antarctica and the Arctic, where conventional information storage is difficult or prohibitively expensive.

Journal: Cell Reports Physical Science
Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Beijing Municipal Commission of Science and Technology, Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park Management Committee, Department of Science and Technology of Hebei Province, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Key Laboratory of Icing and Anti/De-icing of Aircraft, Beijing Association for Science and Technology

Better images for humans and computers

ETH Zurich
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at ETH Zurich and Empa have developed a new image sensor made of perovskite. This semiconductor material enables better colour reproduction and fewer image artefacts with less light. Perovskite sensors are also particularly well suited for machine vision.

Journal: Nature

Mapping financial - new energy risks in China via multilayer networks

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Journal Center
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Abstract

Purpose – We investigate the interconnectedness between the financial sectors and new energy companies in China from the perspective of the multilayer network, and analyze the static and time-varying characteristics of the multilayer network at system and company levels, respectively.

Design/methodology/approach – We employ the multilayer network containing the realized volatility (RV here after) layer, the realized skewness (RS here after) layer and the realized kurtosis (RK here after) layer. The three realized indicators adopted to construct the multilayer network are generated by the intraday trading data from 2012 to 2022.

Findings – (1) Different layers have different characteristics, and can provide supplementary information. (2) Banks tend to play the role of risk transmitters on the whole, while the insurances and new energy companies tend to play the role of risk receivers on average. (3) The connectedness strength of financial sectors and new energy companies varies over time, and climbs sharply during the major crisis events. The roles of financial sectors and new energy companies may change from risk transmitters to risk receivers, and vice versa.

Originality/value – We adopt three realized indicators to construct the three-layer network, which provides a more comprehensive perspective for understanding the connectedness between the financial sectors and new energy companies in China.

Journal: China Finance Review International

Ear wax as a possible screening medium for Parkinson’s disease

American Chemical Society
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Most treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD) only slow disease progression. Early intervention for the neurological disease that worsens over time is therefore critical to optimize care, but that requires early diagnosis. Current tests, like clinical rating scales and neural imaging, can be subjective and costly. Now, researchers in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry report the initial development of a system that inexpensively screens for PD from the odors in a person’s ear wax.

Journal: Analytical Chemistry

Electricity from heat through “traffic jam of electrons”

Vienna University of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team at TU Wien has discovered a surprising new way to turn heat into electricity—using metals instead of traditional semiconductors. By creating a kind of “electron traffic jam,” they achieved an unusually strong thermoelectric effect, potentially unlocking a powerful new method for converting waste heat from industry into usable power. This unexpected twist on a centuries-old principle could mark a turning point in energy technology.

Journal: Physical Review X

How ubiquitous small particles turn harmful inside plants

University of California - Riverside
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new UC Riverside-led study reveals how common small particles produced by nature as well as human activities can transform upon entering plant cells and weaken plants’ ability to turn sunlight into food. The discovery offers a path to control this issue.

Journal: Nature Nanotechnology