Researchers from Science Tokyo have discovered that bacterial swarms transition from stable vortices to chaotic turbulence through distinct intermediate states. Combining experiments with bacterial swarms, computer simulations, and mathematical modeling, the team clarified the intricate process by which orderly swirling turns to disordered turbulence as the free space available to bacteria increases. These findings provide new insights into active matter physics and could inform future applications in micro-robotics, biosensing, and active fluid-based micro-scale systems.

An Osaka Metropolitan University-led research team has developed a deep learning model that uses AI image recognition to efficiently and accurately detect bubble-like structures in the universe, including many previously unlisted in astronomical databases.

Michelin, the CNRS, Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble INP - UGA and Université Savoie Mont Blanc launched their new partnership on 14 March 2025. Over a period of four years, the research teams will strive to develop sustainable hydrogen production technology using water. The joint laboratory is the third LabCom pooling Michelin and CNRS expertise and deploying green hydrogen production technologies.

The seawater desalination based on solar-driven interfacial evaporation has emerged as a promising technique to alleviate the global crisis on freshwater shortage. However, achieving high desalination performance on actual, oil-contaminated seawater remains a critical challenge, because the transport channels and evaporation interfaces of the current solar evaporators are easily blocked by the oil slicks, resulting in undermined evaporation rate and conversion efficiency. Herein, we propose a facile strategy for fabricating a modularized solar evaporator based on flexible MXene aerogels with arbitrarily tunable, highly ordered cellular/lamellar pore structures for high-efficiency oil interception and desalination. The core design is the creation of 1D fibrous MXenes with sufficiently large aspect ratios, whose superior flexibility and plentiful link forms lay the basis for controllable 3D assembly into more complicated pore structures. The cellular pore structure is responsible for effective contaminants rejection due to the multi-sieving effect achieved by the omnipresent, isotropic wall apertures together with underwater superhydrophobicity, while the lamellar pore structure is favorable for rapid evaporation due to the presence of continuous, large-area evaporation channels. The modularized solar evaporator delivers the best evaporation rate (1.48 kg m⁻² h⁻¹) and conversion efficiency (92.08%) among all MXene-based desalination materials on oil-contaminated seawater.

A team of researchers led by Dr. Jong Min Kim, Center for Extreme Materials Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Dr. Sang-rok Oh, Center for Computational Science, Dr. Sang Soo Han, Center for Computational Science, Prof. Kwang-hyung Lee, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and Dr. Joonhee Moon, Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI), developed a highly efficient mesoporous catalyst that can effectively produce hydrogen peroxide even in air supply environments with low oxygen concentrations and neutral electrolytes by introducing mesopores into the carbon catalyst.

The Arctic is one of the regions most strongly affected by climate change. In recent decades, the temperature there has risen four times as fast as the global average. The ASCCI measurement campaign coordinated by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Goethe University Frankfurt is investigating why the Arctic is warming so much faster than the rest of Earth’s surface and what effects that will have. With measurement flights taking place in the region through early April, the researchers are working to gain a better understanding of the causes and effects of Arctic climate change.