New research demonstrates a simple, eco-friendly method to break down Teflon® – one of the world’s most durable plastics – into useful chemical building blocks.

In her book “Sonic Socialism: Crisis and Care in Pandemic Hanoi” (University of California Press, 2025), Christina Schwenkel, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, explores how the Vietnamese government used both old and new media technologies to inform, regulate, and connect people during the pandemic.

University of Houston researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery in thermal conductivity, overturning an existing theory that boron arsenide (BAs) couldn’t compete with the heat conduction of a diamond.

In APL Bioengineering, researchers develop a system that uses optical spectroscopy to measure blood flow noninvasively. Using speckle contrast optical spectroscopy, the device can target different depths to distinguish between blood flow to the scalp and blood flow to the brain. The team demonstrated its use by temporarily blocking blood flow to the scalp at the superficial temporal artery and isolating its blood dynamics.

Seaweed species aren’t just crucial parts of marine ecosystems. They also provide numerous health benefits for humans and have been dubbed a superfood. In Biointerphases, an AVS journal published by AIP Publishing, researchers from Oregon State University found yet another use for seaweed as a cheap, vegan, and eco-friendly tissue scaffold. The researchers found that all their seaweed scaffolds had excellent biocompatibility with the cardiomyocytes, showing a promising future for this line of research. Not only will these scaffolds decrease animal testing at the preclinical phase, but they are a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative to synthetic scaffolds.

Dust that grows inside glowing plasma may sound like science fiction, but Auburn physicists have shown it’s real—and controllable. Their new research reveals that weak magnetic fields can act like steering wheels for electrons, dramatically changing how tiny carbon nanoparticles form and grow. The findings open the door to new plasma-based methods for building advanced nanomaterials, while also offering clues to how cosmic dust evolves in space.

Farmers handle a wide range of responsibilities to keep operations running — and a routine but often overlooked duty is safely disposing of dead livestock. Left unattended, carcasses can spread disease and jeopardize entire herds or flocks.