Researchers from Tongji University present a comprehensive review of emerging optical techniques for sorting and detecting chiral particles. The review highlights advances in engineered light fields, nanophotonic platforms, and artificial intelligence that enhance the sensitivity, selectivity, and efficiency of chiral analysis. By comparing optical sorting and detection strategies across diverse platforms, the work outlines current challenges and future directions, providing a valuable roadmap for developing practical, high-performance optical technologies for chemistry, biomedicine, and materials science.

Researchers at the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, have determined the molecular origin of line tension for a water nanodroplet on a surface. This tension is the force along the droplet edge where liquid, solid, and gas phases meet. Computational studies showed that at complete wetting, collapse of tetrahedral order in liquid water causes the line tension to change sign. An ice bilayer did not wet a hydrophilic surface, showing that local order can outweigh surface chemistry.

An international scientist team from China, US and Israel find that tropical convective clouds can reach much higher supersaturation than previously documented by comparable aircraft-based approaches.

Peatlands store vast amounts of carbon, but when they are drained for agriculture, they can become major sources of greenhouse gases. Restoring water levels can slow carbon dioxide emissions, yet overly wet peat can produce methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. This creates a difficult climate dilemma: how can peatlands be managed to protect soil carbon without triggering high methane release?

Paddy soils are living chemical reactors. Under flooded and drained conditions, microbes, minerals, oxygen, and organic matter constantly exchange electrons, shaping how pollutants move, transform, or disappear. A new study published in Biochar reports that a specially engineered form of biochar can redirect these electron flows, helping paddy soils generate more hydroxyl radicals, one of nature’s most powerful oxidants, and break down the antibiotic sulfamethoxazole more efficiently.

Microalgae have long been viewed as a promising source of renewable fuel. They grow quickly, capture carbon dioxide efficiently, and do not compete with food crops for farmland. Yet turning algae into usable liquid fuels remains difficult because algae-derived bio-oil often contains high levels of oxygen and nitrogen compounds, which can lower fuel quality, reduce stability, and create pollution concerns during combustion.