The fight for survival in the forest is fierce: light, water and nutrients are all limited. This is particularly true in “mast years” – times when trees and shrubs produce an unusually large crop of fruits, nuts, or seeds. Then the race for growth is really on. But can differences in height between trees in their first year of life make a difference to their future, even if these differences are just one or two centimetres? Researchers at the University of Göttingen have now shown that beech seedlings which are slightly taller than their immediate neighbours at the end of their first year of life have a higher chance of survival two decades later. The results were published in the Journal of Ecology.

A research team led by Prof. Haruki WATANABE, Professor in the Department of Physics and the HKUST Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), in collaboration with Prof. Yukitoshi MOTOME and graduate student Sena WATANABE from the University of Tokyo, has developed a unified theory that predicts when two states of matter are genuinely distinct and when they are secretly the same. The breakthrough provides a general framework for classifying phases across magnetic systems with different spin values and resolves a long-standing debate surrounding the behavior of water ice under extreme pressure. The paper titled "Topological phase transitions and their thermodynamic fate in arbitrary-𝑆 classical pyrochlore spin ice" was published in Physical Review X.

Researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) have built a computational framework that captures the full optical cycle of spin defects, including the prediction of internal conversion, a process particularly hard to model. Their results, published in Physical Review Letters, shed light on how to use the defects in the design of quantum materials and could also be applied to a different class of systems used in renewable energy conversion and storage. 

A University of Toronto-led research team is developing OpenPep, a new AI-powered platform that could transform how scientists discover peptide-based medicines. Supported by $2.3 million USD from Google.org, the initiative will address a critical gap in drug discovery by creating an open-access database of peptide-protein interactions, enabling researchers worldwide to predict promising therapeutic candidates and accelerate the development of potential new treatments.

The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2026 Sagol Network GerOmic Award for Junior Faculty: Erika Cyphert, PhD, Assistant Professor of Shu Chien-Gene Lay Bioengineering Department, Jacobs School of Engineering, University of California San Diego. Established in 2020, the Sagol Network GerOmic Award for Junior Faculty is a one- to two-year award of $160,000 given to junior faculty (MDs and PhDs) to conduct aging-related Omics (GerOmics) research.

A former social worker and a researcher in a new study reports social service agencies need to establish guidelines for how AI is used. In the study, the researcher recommends that agencies keep people involved in decisions, regularly check AI systems for discrimination, and leverage AI to connect vulnerable people with needed resources and services. The study is published in the journal Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research.

Researchers from UC Santa Barbara, Caltech, and the Air Force Research Laboratory have developed a CMOS-compatible, chip-scale optical ring-laser gyroscope capable of measuring rotation speeds as low as 37 degrees per hour. This represents a nearly 2,000-fold sensitivity improvement over prior silicon nitride Brillouin gyroscopes (72,000 deg/h) and approaches Earth's rotation rate (15 deg/h).