A new study out of York University has found that the amount of atmospheric trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), the tiniest forever chemical, significantly declined in Toronto during COVID in 2020, which researchers say is good news for the world’s ability to mitigate it in the future. “When we turned off the tap, so to speak, and we all went home and stopped normal activities, we saw a really quick response, a dramatic reduction of TFA. But the real surprise is that the results point to TFA being formed from short-lived chemical precursors emitted into the atmosphere,” says York University atmospheric chemist Professor Cora Young, senior author of the paper published today.

E-cigarettes are attracting growing numbers of users, including teenagers, yet their health effects remain poorly understood. Researchers at Kyushu University found that e-cigarette vapor—regardless of nicotine content—released carcinogens, such as formaldehyde, and disrupted gut microbiome stability in zebrafish, reducing certain beneficial bacteria while increasing xenobiotic degradation-associated microbes. Exposed fish also showed impaired behavioral responses. The findings raise concerns about inadequately disclosed e-cigarette ingredients and highlight the need for greater transparency and evidence-based regulation.

Researchers in Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Department of Chemical Engineering and at The University of Akron have published research in Chemical Engineering Journal about a new technology that seeks to solve long-standing challenges in plastic recycling that limit the overwhelming majority of plastics to a single use and contribute to the accumulation of plastic waste.

A team of researchers at Penn State including Joseph Najem, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, Dor Tillinger, doctoral candidate of mechanical engineering and Wonbae Lee, doctoral candidate of engineering science and mechanics, used a state-of-the-art fabrication method to layer multiple types of hydrogels in a specific pattern that mimics the ionic processes electric eels use to generate electrical bursts. Their approach produces power sources with higher power densities than other hydrogel-based designs, while remaining flexible, support-free, environmentally stable and biologically compatible.

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA – SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, has joined other leaders in the publishing community to become a signatory to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Publishers Compact. The UN SDGs are a collection of 17 goals that highlight urgent aspects of sustainability that impact people and the planet. The SDG Publishers Compact was designed by the UN in collaboration with the International Publishers Association in order to encourage publishers worldwide to take action to achieve these goals. The compact is a voluntary commitment that acknowledges the responsibility of the publishing industry to help create a sustainable future for everyone. Several of the goals are already actively supported by SPIE’s mission as well as by the research that the organization showcases in its publishing arm, the SPIE Digital Library.

The Einstein–de Haas effect, which links the spin of electrons to macroscopic rotation, has now been demonstrated in a quantum fluid by researchers at Science Tokyo. The researchers observed this effect in a Bose–Einstein condensate of europium atoms, showing that a change in magnetization causes the coherent transfer of angular momentum from atomic spins to fluid motion, thereby experimentally demonstrating that angular momentum is conserved at the quantum level.

With an increasing use of ultrasonography-based diagnosis, there is a need to develop affordable alternatives to conventional ultrasound gel, ensuring patient comfort. A team of researchers from Japan has recently developed a reusable, solid ultrasound gel pad composed of tamarind seed gum. This gel pad demonstrated improved patient satisfaction compared to conventional gel, eliminating discomfort such as stickiness or tickling, while showing no degradation in image quality.

For decades, families in communities around Johannesburg have been living close to huge gold mining waste dumps. For many residents the dust that is released there is just part of everyday life – but it can contain natural uranium compounds that come to the surface with the mined rock. A new study in the journal Environmental Geochemistry and Health (DOI: 10.1007/s10653-025-02874-2) reveals how this exposure is reflected in children’s hair. An international research team headed by the South African Medical Research Council and involving the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), VKTA – Strahlenschutz, Analytik & Entsorgung Rossendorf e. V. as well as the Wismut GmbH has examined samples of hair and linked them to analyses of soil samples, the test subjects’ body measurements and the evaluation of questionnaires on their living conditions.