According to the 36th annual State of the Climate report, greenhouse gas concentrations, global sea level, and ocean heat content all reached record highs in 2025. The State of the Climate in 2025 features contributions by 625 scientists in 60 countries. The report is published annually in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

In January 2024, physicists at TU Dortmund University demonstrated a continuous time crystal in a semiconductor whose oscillations remained stable for hours. In a new study published in Nature Communications, Prof. Alex Greilich and his team show that many such time crystals can form in the same material and synchronize their electron-nuclear spin oscillations.

University of Waterloo researchers have developed an AI-powered system that uses data from experimental house fires to better understand how modern homes burn and produce toxic smoke. The technology could help improve evacuations, inform building codes and support emergency responders by predicting dangerous changes in fire behaviour.

It has long been recognized that chiral materials can selectively transport electron spins, yet their role in electrochemical energy storage remained unclear. Now, writing in National Science Review, researchers led by Prof. Hongsen Li at Qingdao University demonstrate that regulating the chiral asymmetry factor enhances spin polarization at catalytic sites, accelerates sulfur redox reactions, and significantly improves the electrochemical performance of lithium–sulfur batteries.

Soft, shape-changing materials are attracting growing interest in applications ranging from robotics to wearable devices, but conventional 3D printing methods are limited to a single actuation mode in each printed component. A new study demonstrates the first 3D-printable smectic liquid crystal elastomer ink that can switch molecular alignment during printing, allowing the same filament to either elongate or contract when heated. The advance could enable more versatile soft robots, adaptive surfaces, and minimally invasive biomedical devices.

Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) are promising, safer, and lower-cost alternatives to lithium-ion batteries. Recently, scandium (Sc) has been shown to be a promising dopant material for sodium-based cathodes, aimed at improving durability of SIBs. In a new study, researchers investigated how Sc doping and coating improves cycling performance of sodium-based electrodes. The study uncovers the underlying mechanisms and offers practical design guidelines for developing next-generation, long-lasting SIBs. 

Researchers at JGU have visualized the interaction of magnetic vortices and shown that antiferromagnetic skyrmions move in line with an applied current