Medications are designed to treat diseased tissues while sparing healthy ones, often by attaching the drug to something that helps guide it directly to its target. But drugs also need time to work, which means they need to stay near the diseased tissues long enough. Now, scientists reporting in ACS Central Science have developed a drug carrier that physically anchors itself to cancer cell membranes, improving drug retention and thereby effectiveness in animal trials. 

Quantum geometry is a mathematical tool that describes how quantum states change with the parameters of a system. This abstract geometric description helps researchers, for example, to better understand the properties of quantum materials or to improve the fundamental limits on measurement precision in quantum metrology. A German-Japanese research team involving the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) in Erlangen and the Advanced Institute for Materials Research at Tohoku University in Sendai has applied quantum geometry to photonic systems and, with their new method, expanded the toolkit for topological photonics. Their results were published in Physical Review Research.

The behavior of battery electrode slurries under coating-like shear conditions influences the electrical connectivity, resistance, and cycle stability of the final electrode. A new study from Tokyo University of Science uses a method called rheo-impedance spectroscopy to analyze slurry behavior under different shear conditions that simulate real manufacturing. It identifies an intermediate shear rate that disperses particles evenly while preserving conductive networks, leading to lower electrode resistance and better cycle stability.

anti-Markovnikov hydration of alkenes has remained a long-standing challenge in chemistry due to limitations of conventional catalysts. Researchers have now demonstrated that photoexcited copper(II) complexes can achieve this transformation via single-electron oxidation under mild conditions. This approach enables the synthesis of valuable alcohols from a wide range of alkenes, including less reactive aliphatic substrates. The study introduces a new strategy for photoredox catalysis using earth-abundant metals, offering a sustainable alternative to precious metal-based systems.

 Researchers have developed a microwave‑assisted hydrothermal method for growing dense, uniform NaA zeolite coatings on silicon carbide (SiC) foams. The strong microwave absorption of SiC induces localized overheating, directing crystal growth onto the support surface while suppressing unwanted nucleation in the solution. A silica sol pretreatment effectively addresses support dissolution and enables rapid construction of a dense zeolite layer, achieving a mass variation of 1.11 after only five cycles. The resulting coating exhibits excellent adhesion, with a minimal mass loss of 0.62 % under rigorous ultrasonic and solvent‑flushing tests. In aldehyde‑ketone condensation reactions, the structured catalyst maintains a high yield (>90 %) over three cycles, offering a promising route to reduce raw material consumption.

Researchers have provided the first quantitative characterization of coalescence between a sessile droplet (attached to a fiber) and a pendant droplet (suspended in the continuous phase) – an asymmetric configuration prevalent in industrial fiber coalescers for oily wastewater treatment. Using high‑speed imaging and a Mask R‑CNN deep‑learning model, the study identified three distinct stages. The liquid bridge expansion (Stage I) is governed by capillary pressure difference, insensitive to droplet size ratio. In the oscillation decay stage (Stage II), fiber adhesion rapidly dissipates energy. Crucially, increasing the sessile‑to‑pendant radius ratio to 1.5 significantly reduces the size of secondary droplets generated during neck rupture, offering a direct strategy to improve separation efficiency.

Fiber coalescers are widely used to separate oil from water in petrochemical and other industries. Their performance depends on how dispersed oil droplets merge on fiber surfaces. Most previous studies focused on symmetric coalescence of two sessile droplets sitting on a fiber. In real industrial conditions, however, a more common event is the interaction between a sessile droplet already attached to a fiber and a pendant droplet suspended in the flowing continuous phase. This asymmetric configuration introduces gravity orientation and different kinematic freedom, yet it has remained largely unexplored.

In a study published in ENGINEERING Chemical Engineering, researchers from East China University of Science and Technology used a highspeed camera at 20,000 frames per second and trained a Mask RCNN neural network to automatically segment droplet boundaries and extract morphological parameters with high precision (mean relative error for liquid bridge width only 1.12 %). They systematically investigated coalescence for sessiletopendant radius ratios of 1, 1.25, and 1.5, with water droplets in isooctane under conditions where inertia dominates over viscosity.

The coalescence process comprises three stages. In Stage I (liquid bridge formation), upon contact a liquid bridge expands. The bridge width grows in proportion to the square root of time, confirming the classical capillaryinertial scaling. The driving capillary pressure difference is nearly independent of the droplet size ratio, showing that the initial dynamics are locally controlled by curvature rather than global dimensions.

Stage II (oscillation decay) shows unique behavior. In contrast to symmetric sessilesessile systems where periodic oscillations persist over many cycles, the pendantsessile configuration exhibits rapid energy dissipation because the fiber strongly suppresses oscillations through contact line damping. The amplitude of the capillary wave on the pendant droplet side increases with the size ratio. Neck rupture at the needle tip and fiber junction causes abrupt energy loss, eliminating distinct periodicity and leading to quick equilibrium.

Stage III (stable morphology formation) involves secondary droplet generation from pinchoff of neck filaments. The upper neck (needle side) evolves through hourglass, conical, and dropletformation stages, producing multiple secondary droplets. The lower neck (fiber side) is suppressed by fiber adhesion, generating only a single tiny droplet. Increasing the radius ratio to 1.5 systematically reduces secondary droplet sizes and completely eliminates fiberside breakup.

These findings provide direct guidance for controlling polydisperse droplet emissions in industrial fiber coalescers, enhancing oilwater separation efficiency.

Researchers propose a groundbreaking theoretical concept—equivalent potential—that bridges quantum mechanics with fluid behavior under microwave irradiation and interfacial confinement. This unified framework explains how microwave fields and solid surfaces jointly reshape fluid molecular arrangements, leading to ordered or disordered cluster structures. The work provides a fundamental principle for designing external-field-enhanced chemical processes, from CO₂ capture to catalytic conversion, and opens a pathway toward rational regulation of fluid structures at the nanoscale.