Social hierarchies are everywhere—think of high school dramas, where the athletes are portrayed as most popular, or large companies, where the CEO makes the important decisions. Such hierarchies aren’t just limited to humans, but span the animal kingdom, with dominant individuals getting faster food access, higher mating priority, and bigger or better territories. Whilst it’s long been thought that winning or losing can influence the position of an individual within a social hierarchy, the brain mechanisms behind these social dynamics have remained a mystery. In iScience, researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) investigate the neurological basis of social hierarchy in male mice, pinpointing the neurons they believe crucial in determining these social hierarchy dynamics.

Cells all require the transport of materials to maintain their function. In nerve cells, a tiny motor made of protein called KIF1A is responsible for that. Mutations in this protein can lead to neurological disorders, including difficulties in walking, intellectual impairment and nerve degradation. It’s known that mutations in KIF1A also result in a weakened motor performance, but this has been difficult to measure so far. Researchers including those from the University of Tokyo and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan have measured changes in the force of KIF1A using a nanospring, a tiny, coiled structure, made of DNA which could lead to improved diagnosis of diseases related to the protein’s mutations.

Kanazawa gold leaf, one of the world’s thinnest metallic foils and a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, owes its brilliance and durability to an unusual deformation mechanism. A team led by Professor Yoshifumi Oshima at JAIST discovered that non-octahedral {110}–<110> slip systems, normally inactive in gold, are activated during the traditional hammering process. This finding provides a scientific foundation for sustaining cultural heritage while inspiring new approaches to advanced nanomaterials and ultrathin metallic films.

Four-limbed vertebrates, known as tetrapods, have two enlarged regions in their spinal cords. Meanwhile, it was long thought that fish had no enlarged areas in their spinal cords due to the absence of limbs. However, a recent study by scientists from Nagoya University in Japan has revealed that zebrafish, in fact, have enlarged areas in their spinal cords.

The most common first diagnosis of Alport syndrome in Japan is during the universal age-3 urine screening. In 60% of these children, the disease had already progressed far enough to qualify for treatment. Therefore, universal early-age urinalysis may be an apt means for both better prognoses and reduced costs of medical care.

Every year as the announcement of the Nobel Prize approaches, expectations for potential candidates rise. SAGAWA Masato, the inventor of the world’s strongest permanent magnet, the neodymium magnet, has been often mentioned. His invention is used in a wide range of products, including smartphones, air conditioners and electric vehicles, and is considered a key breakthrough for today’s IT society. How did the idea come about? What drove his research? In January 2025, we talked with Sagawa on the occasion of a lecture at his alma mater, Kobe University.

A new method of taking microscopic images of a live mouse’s retina through the eye allows to record the reaction of brain cells to disease and treatment. The Kobe University development is more easily applicable than previous methods and promises to advance research on and treatment of vision-related diseases.

A new metal–organic framework (MOF), APF-80, enables the crystalline sponge method to capture and analyze nucleophilic compounds. Alkaloids, a diverse group of biologically active compounds, usually damage MOF crystals and resist study. By incorporating multiple structural motifs, these guests are encapsulated inside APF-80, which allows high-quality crystallographic data collection. This development opens new possibilities for structural analysis, advancing drug development and biochemistry.

As use of wearable devices such as augmented reality (AR) glasses has slowly but steadily increased, so too has the desire to control these devices in an easy and convenient way. Ring controllers worn on the finger already exist, but usually have some drawbacks in their size, weight or power consumption. Researchers including those at the University of Tokyo developed picoRing, an ultralow-power, ring-based wireless mouse to solve this problem. It uses a novel method to communicate with devices giving it an incredibly long use period between charges.

An international research team revealed how we could use Germanium-Tin (GeSn) in highly efficient semiconductors – which could benefit a plethora of everyday technologies.