Guaiazulene is a compound that gives off a beautiful blue colour, and it is often found in topical creams for skincare. It has also been touted as a potential food coloring agent. Yet this has been stymied because of its poor water solubility and color degradation under acidic conditions. A group of researchers overcame this common stumbling block by introducing guaiazulene into a hydrophilic poly(allylamine). 

Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, have discovered the importance of the microscopic structural ordering of water in ice nucleation, in which an ice crystal forms and grows near a solid surface. The nucleation pathway depends strongly on surface hydrophilicity, with intermediate values of hydrophilicity corresponding to the highest nucleation rates. These findings demonstrate how surfaces can be used to control crystallization, which could have profound industrial applications.

Attosecond light sources serve as advanced optical tools that are crucial for investigating electron dynamics at the subfemtosecond scale in quantum systems. However, generating high-intensity isolated X-ray pulses remains a significant scientific challenge. X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) are advanced light sources based on linear accelerators, capable of generating ultrashort and ultra-intense laser pulses. Enhanced Self-Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ESASE) serves as an effective method for producing ultrashort pulses in FELs by locally enhancing the peak current of electron beams. However, obtaining isolated current spikes has remained a critical challenge for ESASE, which directly determines the signal-to-noise ratio of ultrafast FEL pulses.

Neuromorphic computing, inspired by the human brain, offers a path to faster and more efficient AI. In a pioneering breakthrough, Chinese scientists demonstrate the first use of perovskite microcavity exciton-polariton as a platform for neuromorphic computing, achieving 92% accuracy in digit recognition with single-step training. Operating at room temperature and driven by strong optical nonlinearity, the system enables ultrafast and power-efficient computation—paving the way for next-generation light-based intelligent hardware.

When a water-based polymer solution dries, the liquid surface splits in uneven, unpredictable ways—a phenomenon called symmetry breaking. Using a natural polymer in a controlled drying setting, researchers from JAIST, Japan, identified that the irregular patterns in symmetry breaking don’t just form by chance but follow hidden physical rules. This discovery offers new insight into how asymmetric patterns in nature form and could impact fields from material design to biological development.

A Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) research team led by Prof. SUN Jianwei and Prof. LIN Zhenyang from the Department of Chemistry has developed a catalytic enantioselective type II [5 + 2] cycloaddition method to address the challenges of synthesizing chiral bridged polycyclic structures, particularly those with a bridged seven-membered subunit. This innovative approach utilizes 3-oxidopyrylium ylides to create the desired complex shapes, paving the way for more applications in the rapid synthesis and diversification of other valuable complex molecules, including important natural products and drug molecules.

Most stars in the Universe exist in binary or multiple star systems, where the presence of close-in companion stars in such systems can adversely influence the formation and orbital stability of planets around one of the stars. An international team of astrophysicists led by Professor Man Hoi LEE from the Department of Earth Sciences and the Department of Physics at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Mr Ho Wan CHENG, an MPhil student in his team, has confirmed the existence of a planet in an unprecedented retrograde orbit (moving in the opposite direction to the binary’s orbit) in the nu Octantis (nu Octantis) binary star system and revealed the role of binary star evolution in the origin of this planet. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.