Kyoto, Japan -- Close to a phase transition, very different materials can follow the same mathematical rules. The concept of universality, which groups seemingly distinct systems based on their common properties, was developed to describe this phenomenon. In magnetic systems, ferromagnets, ferrimagnets, and antiferromagnets fall into the same universality class when short-range interactions dominate and their spatial and spin dimensionalities coincide. However, this universality has not been established when long-range interactions dominate.

In insulating magnets, long-range coupling may originate from dipole-dipole interactions. However, dipolar-driven mean-field criticality has only been firmly established in ferromagnets, leaving the ferrimagnetic and antiferromagnetic cases unexplored. A collaborative team of researchers from Kyoto University, Tohoku University, and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), set out to bridge this gap.

"Near a phase transition, the microscopically strongest interaction is not always the one that sets the critical rules," explains corresponding author Yusuke Nambu. "Exchange interactions build the ferrimagnetic state, but because dipolar interactions reach much farther, they determine how the material approaches the transition."

Ryonosuke Akimoto, a graduate student at The University of Tokyo (who conducted this research at Aoyama Gakuin University), and Associate Professor Yuji Ogihara at Aoyama Gakuin University have revealed that the extraversion of Japanese people declined from 2010 to 2021 (Figure 1).

In Japanese media and social commentary, it has frequently been pointed out that Japanese people are becoming more "inward-looking." However, the extent to which it reflects an actual psychological shift in personality traits among the Japanese population has not been adequately examined. Therefore, an empirical examination was required.

In this study, we comprehensively collected previous research that measured the extraversion of Japanese participants. We statistically controlled for attributes such as participants' age and gender, and analyzed the trends over a 12-year period.

As a result, it became clear that the extraversion of Japanese people has consistently declined in recent years. This downward trend occurred equally in both men and women, and the extent of change was similar between them. Furthermore, we conducted an analysis limited to data up to 2019 to account for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis also confirmed a similar decline. These findings provide empirical evidence for the long-standing discourse of an "inward-looking" trend among Japanese people.

Finding new species in unassuming settings brings light to further exploration and conservation efforts to preserve the unique diversity in groundwater environments

Histone variants help establish DNA methylation at transposons (jumping genes) while preventing this epigenetic modification from spreading to essential genes in plants, reveals a study from Institute of Science Tokyo. By revealing how these chromosome-associated proteins guide the formation of precise epigenomic patterns, the findings provide new insights into the selective silencing of transposons, laying the groundwork for future epigenome-editing technologies for crop improvement and disease research.

Researchers at the University of Osaka, Shimane University, and Kyoto Sangyo University have now theoretically identified an unusual pattern of vibrations that emerges just before a crystal made of regularly arranged grains yields. Many vibrational modes soften simultaneously along particular directions, while long-wavelength waves travel more slowly than shorter ones. The findings reveal a possible physical precursor to failure in highly ordered particulate materials.

A research team led by Associate Professor Junji Konuma of Toho University, in collaboration with Nobuaki Nagata of the National Museum of Nature and Science and Professor Teiji Sota of Kyoto University, reconstructed the evolutionary and geographic history of this beetle species by combining genetic data from 170 individuals sampled at 70 sites with morphological data from 50 populations. These analyses suggested that body shape underwent adaptive divergence not only among islands—including Hokkaido and Sado Island—but also between regions within Honshu, the largest island of Japan.