Heteroepitaxial growth technology has made it possible to create larger diamond substrates, opening new opportunities for industrial-scale production of diamond quantum sensors. A research team led by Institute of Science Tokyo in collaboration with Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, successfully fabricated large-area (111)-orientated diamond crystal substrates on heterogeneous (non-diamond) substrates, demonstrating the potential for industrialization of precise, noise-resistant current measurements for electric vehicle battery monitoring.

Gas sensors are essential for personal safety and environmental monitoring, but traditional sensors have limitations in sensitivity and energy efficiency. Now, researchers from Japan have developed an improved gas-sensing technology by treating graphene sheets with plasma under different conditions, creating structural and chemical defects that enhance ammonia detection. These functionalized graphene sheets exhibited superior sensing performance compared to pristine graphene, potentially paving the way for wearable gas detection devices for everyday use.

A new study led by Dr. Yoshinori Takei and Dr. Atsushi Sugiyama of the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Toho University, along with Dr. Akira Hirasawa of the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyoto University, and Dr. Yoko Amagase of the Faculty of Pharmacy, Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University, reveals a novel connection between aging of visceral adipose tissue and brain health. These findings were published online on February 13, 2025, in GeroScience, the official journal of the American Aging Association.

A new study has revealed key factors limiting the efficiency of photoelectrochemical water splitting using a titanium dioxide photoanode for clean hydrogen production. Researchers combined intensity-modulated photocurrent spectroscopy with the distribution of relaxation times analysis to analyze charge carrier dynamics. They identified distinct behaviors related to light intensity and recombination at different applied potentials and discovered a previously unreported "satellite peak," offering new insights for improving material design and hydrogen production efficiency.

The research team at the University of Electro-Communications has introduced "HikingTTE," a deep learning model that accurately predicts hiking travel times. Traditional methods typically use slope-speed relationships but fail to account for individual ability and accumulated fatigue. HikingTTE integrates a modified Lorentz-based slope-speed function with LSTM and attention modules, adapting to each hiker’s walking data. Experiments showed a 12.95 percentage point reduction in Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) compared to established models and an additional 0.97 point improvement over other deep learning approaches. By enabling safer, more accurate planning, it has the potential to reduce mountain accidents and revolutionize hiking time estimation.

Primates scratch their skin or fur in a stressful situation (Figure 1). By using this self-scratching behaviour as a behavioural indicator of stress, our study on wild female Japanese macaques provided a novel and counter-intuitive finding: females exhibit higher stress levels when a closely related female is nearby. This pattern was found only during foraging but not resting, suggesting that food-related competition among relatives is a cause of their elevated stress. This unexpected finding provides new insight into the complex social dynamics of primates and their stress responses.

A Japanese version of the U.S. Esophageal Hypervigilance and Anxiety Scale questionnaire to investigate the psychological impact on esophageal symptoms has been developed and validated by Osaka Metropolitan University researchers.

　Led by Assistant Prof. Kou Li, a research group in Chuo University, Japan, has developed an all-printable device fabrication strategy to resolve the existing technical limitations of multi-functional image sensor sheets for non-destructive inspections, with a recent paper publication in Small Science.

Researchers at University of Tsukuba have investigated the structure and light energy transfer efficiency of a protein complex crucial to the photosynthesis of purple sulfur bacteria thriving in high-salt, high-alkaline environments. Cryo-electron microscopy observation and computer analysis revealed that this unique protein complex significantly enhances energy conversion ability.