Physicist Ben Crider selected for prestigious $1.35 million Moore Foundation Investigator Award
Grant and Award Announcement
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 1-Nov-2026 11:16 ET (1-Nov-2026 16:16 GMT/UTC)
Mississippi State Professor Benjamin Crider has been selected as a 2026 Experimental Physics Investigator by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Measuring vitamin B12 in food usually means bringing the sample to the laboratory. A new fluorescent sensor could help move part of that process onto something much simpler: a paper strip or cotton swab. A new study published in Biomedical Analysis describes a fluorescence-based strategy for portable vitamin B12 (VB12) detection in food samples. Researchers at Liaocheng University developed boron- and nitrogen-co-doped carbon dots (B, N-CDs) that emit bright blue fluorescence under ultraviolet light but become markedly dimmer when VB12 is present. By transferring this sensing chemistry from a liquid assay onto filter-paper strips and a specially designed cotton-swab sensor, the team created two simple formats intended to make the detection step faster, cheaper, and easier to use outside conventional instrument-heavy workflows.
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has put the HoreKa 2 Supercomputer into operation. The new system will support researchers in their efforts to address complex scientific issues, such as climate, new materials, particle physics, energy, and mobility as well as AI research, more quickly. For this purpose, it combines powerful high-performance computing and modern AI technologies. The total cost of the facility amounts to EUR 17 million.
Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science at The University of Tokyo used advanced instruments to watch small crystals on a scale of about one millionth of a meter as they soaked up chloroform. Parts of these crystals were found to work together to change shape, and some crystals began to move. Understanding these effects could lead to the design of new high-tech devices, such as sensors for pollutants.