The ability of bacteria to remove pollutants from soil, water, mine waste and other environments could be supercharged by a ‘friendly’ compatible virus, according to a study led by Flinders University.

The new insights, published in Communications Biology, suggests phage virus ‘bioaugmentation’ offers a compelling new direction for environmental biotechnology, by harnessing the ecological roles of lysogenic phages to enhance microbial function in polluted soils.

The rapid evolution of modern warfare toward distributed, intelligent, and global stealth has posed severe energy supply and information perception bottlenecks for combat nodes. Traditional energy supply strategies are unable to meet the strategic needs of long-range stealth operations and extreme environmental survival. Triboelectric nanogenerators provide a disruptive path for constructing self-sustaining military microsystems with high-efficiency and zero-power-sensing characteristics. This review establishes a comprehensive framework that systematically evaluates recent technological advances across an escalating hierarchy, encompassing individual soldier combat platforms, unmanned combat systems, strategic aerospace equipment, and special tactical scenarios. Crucially, moving beyond generic laboratory demonstrations, this review adopts a rigorous defense engineering perspective by conducting an integrated failure mode analysis to evaluate device degradation under severe battlefield stressors. Furthermore, it critically analyzes the primary engineering bottlenecks currently hindering military adoption, such as inherent impedance mismatch and scalable manufacturing barriers, and proposes targeted mitigation strategies. To systematically validate these solutions, we explicitly propose a concise evaluation framework strictly aligned with established military testing protocols. Ultimately, this review outlines several forward-looking strategic priorities, thereby constructing a highly actionable roadmap to accelerate the practical deployment of self-driven intelligent technologies.

Proton-exchange-membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) is a leading technology for green hydrogen production, yet its performance and durability at high current densities are increasingly constrained by transport and interfacial losses within the porous transport layer (PTL). Positioned between the flow field and the catalyst layer, the PTL governs coupled two-phase water/oxygen transport, electronic conduction, heat dissipation, and mechanical support under harsh anodic conditions. In particular, the counter-current flow of liquid water and evolved oxygen, bubble nucleation and detachment dynamics, interfacial contact resistance, and corrosion-induced degradation collectively dictate cell efficiency and lifetime. This review summarizes recent advances in the development of high-performance Ti-based PTLs for PEMWE. Key thermal/electrical conduction and mass-transport mechanisms in PTLs, together with their influence on cell performance, are discussed. PTL performance can be improved through rational control of substrate microstructure, protective coatings, and surface modification. Two-phase transport can be enhanced by tuning pore architecture and wettability, while PTL–CL contact and catalyst utilization can be improved by introducing a microporous top layer. In addition, various PTL fabrication and processing strategies are comparatively discussed to highlight their respective advantages, limitations, and roles in enabling highperformance PEMWE operation.

- A KAIST–Sungkyunkwan University joint research team demonstrates a two-dimensional semiconductor structure in which electricity flows without obstruction

- Expected to serve as a key source technology for reducing power loss in AI semiconductors and ultra-low-power semiconductors