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New implant captures gut-brain signals in awake, moving animals

Scientists have been able to measure the electrical signals in the “second brain in our guts” for the first-ever time, giving renewed understanding to its interconnection with the brain.

Researchers from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CEB) and Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth have created a miniature device, thinner than the width of a hair, that can be placed between the layers of the colon to record these signals.

The device, a soft, flexible electronic implant, has been tested in rodents and pigs so far and works even in freely moving animals, detecting responses to various stimulants and physical pressure.

Carbon electrode enables 1-Wh-class stacked lithium-air battery with enhanced output and lifespan

A joint research team from NIMS and Toyo Tanso has developed a carbon electrode that enables stable operation of a 1-Wh-class stacked lithium-air battery, achieving higher output, longer life and scalability simultaneously.

The team created this electrode by combining manufacturing technology that Toyo Tanso developed for its “CNovel” porous carbon product with proprietary technology NIMS developed to fabricate self-standing carbon membranes.

This combination made it possible to scale up the battery cell size—a significant step toward practical, industrial-scale lithium-air batteries. The research was published online in Cell Reports Physical Science on September 18, 2025.

New AI language-vision models transform traffic video analysis to improve road safety

New York City’s thousands of traffic cameras capture endless hours of footage each day, but analyzing that video to identify safety problems and implement improvements typically requires resources that most transportation agencies don’t have.

Now, researchers at NYU Tandon School of Engineering have developed an artificial intelligence system that can automatically identify collisions and near-misses in existing traffic video by combining language reasoning and visual intelligence, potentially transforming how cities improve road safety without major new investments.

Published in the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention, the research won New York City’s Vision Zero Research Award, an annual recognition of work that aligns with the city’s road safety priorities and offers actionable insights. Professor Kaan Ozbay, the paper’s senior author, presented the study at the eighth annual Research on the Road symposium.

Unlocking the genome’s hidden half with new DNA sequencing technology

Cornell researchers have found that a new DNA sequencing technology can be used to study how transposons move within and bind to the genome. Transposons play critical roles in immune response, neurological function and genetic evolution, and implications of the finding include agricultural advancements and understanding disease development and treatment.

In a paper published in iScience, senior author Patrick Murphy, Ph.D. ‘13, associate professor of molecular biology and genetics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and co-authors demonstrate that a high-resolution genome mapping technique called CUT&Tag can overcome shortcomings in existing sequencing methods to enable study of transposons.

Once derided as “junk DNA,” transposons make up half the human genome and are descended from ancient viruses encountered by our evolutionary ancestors.

Symmetry simplifies quantum noise analysis, paving way for better error correction

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have achieved a breakthrough in quantum noise characterization in quantum systems—a key step toward reliably managing errors in quantum computing.

Their findings, published in Physical Review Letters, make important strides in addressing a long-standing obstacle to developing useful quantum computers.

Noise in quantum systems can come from traditional sources, like temperature swings, vibration, and electrical interference, as well as from atomic-level activity, like spin and magnetic fields, associated with quantum processing.

Genetic engineering reduces plant’s chromosome number without affecting its growth

Higher yields, greater resilience to climatic changes or diseases—the demands on crop plants are constantly growing. To address these challenges, researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) are developing new methods in genetic engineering.

In cooperation with other German and Czech researchers, they succeeded for the first time in leveraging the CRISPR/Cas molecular scissors for changing the number of chromosomes in the Arabidopsis thaliana model organism in a targeted way—without any adverse effects on plant growth. This discovery opens up new perspectives for plant breeding and agriculture. The results have been published in Science.

The CRISPR/Cas molecular scissors enabled the KIT researchers in recent years to alter not only genes, but also chromosomes. This way, it is possible to combine wanted traits or eliminate unwanted ones in plants in a targeted manner.

Physicists explore optical launch of hypersound pulses in halide perovskites

A German-French team of physicists from TU Dortmund University, University of Würzburg, and Le Mans Université has succeeded in launching shear hypersound pulses with exceptionally large amplitudes in metal halide perovskites using pulsed optical excitation.

This discovery is published in the journal Science Advances.

Whereas the material has been of high interest for photovoltaics so far, the new results turn it into a candidate to be used for optically driven devices capable of generating and detecting sound waves at sub-terahertz frequencies, with potential applications across electronic, photonic, magnetic, and biomedical devices.

Stunning Results: Revolutionary Retinal Chip Lets Patients With Severe Vision Loss Read Again

A wireless implant helped patients with severe macular degeneration regain usable vision. The results point toward a new future for vision restoration. A wireless retinal implant has been shown to restore central vision in people with advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to

If Quantum Computing Is Solving “Impossible” Questions, How Do We Know They’re Right?

A new Swinburne study is addressing a core paradox: if quantum computing is solving problems that cannot be checked by conventional methods, how can we be certain the results are correct? Quantum computing has the potential to tackle problems once thought unsolvable in areas including physics, me

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