Luna Labs has selected UNC Greensboro (UNCG) chemistry professor Nicholas Oberlies to lead a NASA-funded project exploring whether fungi can be grown into building materials for construction on the moon and Mars. The project will investigate whether certain fungi can be combined with regolith — loose rock and soil found on the surface of the moon and other planets — to create materials that could one day support construction in places other than Earth.

Dogs come in all shapes and sizes: from giant fluffy Newfoundlands to tiny short-haired Chihuahuas. And many furry companions like to spend their days inside near their humans. An initial study published in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology reports that dogs — both big and small — impact indoor air quality. The researchers found that small active dogs produced more airborne particles, but larger animals released more microbes into the air than people did.

Aromatic medicinal plants derive their therapeutic value from complex mixtures of volatile compounds, yet the genetic logic that shapes these chemical profiles has long remained elusive. 

A new catalyst strategy developed at Institute of Science Tokyo uses BaSi₂ as a support for nickel and cobalt to decompose ammonia at lower temperatures. By forming unique ternary transition metal–nitrogen–barium intermediates that facilitate nitrogen coupling, the system lowers the energy barrier for ammonia decomposition. This enables nickel- and cobalt-based catalysts to achieve high hydrogen-production activity at reduced temperatures, matching the performance of ruthenium while relying on Earth-abundant metals for cleaner hydrogen generation.

Diastereomers are molecules with identical structures that are not mirror images of each other, described as anti or syn for molecules without rings. Researchers at the University of Osaka developed a strategy for using a rigid cage-like molecule to produce an anti-diastereomer in high yield. This diastereomer can only be obtained as a minor byproduct by traditional methods. The strategy is expected to become a key technology for making medicines and other bioactive substances.

Soils surrounding large, ancient alerce trees in Chile accumulate a disproportionately high diversity of fungi, which help store more carbon and make the entire forest healthier, suggesting that protecting the biggest, oldest trees offers exceptionally outsized benefits.

With the speed at which technology advances, there is little room for suboptimal performance and out-of-date tech. Precise positioning is a field where advancement is needed, as many conventional applications feature tools that are much larger than the objects being worked upon, making high precision a difficult task. Additionally, those that are highly precise have a limited range of motion. Researchers did not want to compromise, and instead set out to create a highly precise machine with a wide range of motion, and were able to do so by developing a palm-sized, precise positioning robot making use of piezoelectric actuators.

Results were published in Advanced Intelligence Systems in January 2026.