Systems that may appear similar at first glance can behave very differently near a tipping point. Their behavior depends on microscopic details, according to a new study by the Complexity Science Hub—findings that could impact risk assessments in economics and society.

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, entered its 25^th and final year of operations, smashing together the nuclei of gold atoms traveling close to the speed of light.

Reliable access to clean water is a basic human right and a central objective of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Thus, securing technologies that can remove pollutants from water bodies is an essential step toward sustainability. Among several existing methods, harnessing solar energy represents an attractive option for water remediation without increasing carbon emissions.

Researchers at TU Delft (The Netherlands) and Brown University have developed scalable nanotechnology-based lightsails that could support future advances in space exploration and experimental physics. Their research, published in Nature Communications, introduces new materials and production methods to create the thinnest large-scale reflectors ever made. ‘This is not just another step in making things smaller; it’s an entirely new way of thinking about nanotechnology,’ explains Dr. Richard Norte, associate professor at TU Delft. ‘We’re creating high-aspect-ratio devices that are thinner than anything previously engineered but span dimensions akin to massive structures.’

MIT scientists used light to control how a starfish egg cell jiggles and moves during its earliest stage of development. Their optical system could guide the design of synthetic, light-activated cells for wound healing or drug delivery.

The research team led by Professor Aiwen Lei and Hong Yi from Wuhan University developed a tandem electro-thermal synthesis strategy to synthesize trivalent phosphorus compounds. By utilizing a TBAI-DMAP adduct as the catalytic system and employing white phosphorus and weakly nucleophilic reagents as starting materials, they successfully synthesized trivalent phosphorus transfer reagents with certain stability under high current density conditions. These reagents were then converted into various electron-rich trivalent phosphorus compounds through thermochemical transformation.