Scientists have created a fingertip‑scale spectrometer‑on‑a‑chip that brings lab‑grade hyperspectral sensing into the near‑infrared range long considered out of reach for silicon. By engineering photon‑trapping textures onto silicon photodiodes and using a neural network to decode their combined signals, the device accurately reconstructs spectra from 640 to 1100 nanometers—well beyond the limits of conventional silicon spectrometers. Despite its tiny 0.4‑mm footprint, the chip delivers ~8‑nm resolution, maintains high accuracy with fewer than 16 detectors, and remains stable even under heavy electronic noise. The team also demonstrated precise hyperspectral imaging of a butterfly dataset, highlighting the technology’s potential for compact biomedical, environmental, and remote‑sensing tools.

A UCLA-led, multi-institution research team has discovered a metallic material with the highest thermal conductivity measured among metals, challenging long-standing assumptions about the limits of heat transport in metallic materials. Thte team reported that metallic theta-phase tantalum nitride conducts heat nearly three times more efficiently than copper or silver, the best conventional heat-conducting metals. The study was published in Science.

One of the primary challenges with prosthetic hands is the ability to properly tune the appropriate grip based on the object being handled. In Nanotechnology and Precision Engineering, researchers in China have developed an object identification system for prosthetic hands to guide appropriate grip strength decisions in real time. Their system uses an electromyography sensor at the user’s forearm to determine what the user intends to do with the object at hand.

The presence of small plastic pellets on the beaches of Donostia and Orio has drawn attention to a little-studied source of pollution: leakage of industrial microplastics that reach the sea through stormwater drainage networks. Researchers in the Materials + Technologies Group at the EHU have identified two control parameters that would enable early detection of these losses to be made, and have proposed containment measures that can be easily incorporated into discharge regulations.  

The scale-up of rhamnolipid production using waste glycerol was successfully demonstrated under a constant impeller tip speed, increasing yield by ~22% without compromising cell viability or product quality.

Both 3D and 0D rare-earth perovskites with high crystal structural rigidity are demonstrated as high-temperature scintillators, showing the X-ray imaging technique used in extreme environments.