Recently, a research team led by associate professor LI Xiangyan from the Institute of Solid State Physics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences, has uncovered how nano-voids evolve under irradiation and proposed a strategy to reduce helium damage in fusion reactor materials.

The research team from National University of Defense Technology systematically described the memory efficiency issues in the training process of large language models (LLMs) with Transformer architecture for scientific fields. As the scale of models continues to expand, memory requirements have become a key bottleneck restricting their applications in scientific fields such as biology, medicine, chemistry, and meteorology. The article systematically reviewed memory-efficient pre-training technologies at the algorithm level, system level, and software-hardware collaborative optimization, and combined with the AlphaFold 2 case, demonstrated how customized memory optimization methods can reduce storage overhead while maintaining prediction accuracy.

Solar interfacial evaporation has undergone rapid development in recent years, yet its overall performance has reached a plateau due to limited advances in solar-thermal materials. Herein, we propose a synergistic nano-confinement and physical-field–modulation strategy that enables concurrent acceleration of solar-driven evaporation of water and on-site remediation of organic pollutants. Implemented in hollow mesoporous carbon nanocages integrated with Fe–N₄ catalytic sites and inner wall plasmonic Au nanoparticles, the system couples mesoporous confinement with localized thermal and pressure perturbations to transform bulk water into thermodynamically activated intermediate states and substantially reduce the effective vaporization enthalpy. This integrated framework delivers high evaporation rates of 2.56 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ in planar devices and 6.84 kg m⁻² h⁻¹ in 3D architectures under one-sun irradiation, with a kinetic enhanced Hertz–Knudsen–Schrage–derived evaporation coefficient. Simultaneously, the Fe–N₄ sites enable non-radical peroxymonosulfate activation for ultrafast degradation of bisphenol A, achieving a rate of 182.5 L g⁻¹ min⁻¹. This work establishes an ingenious strategy for coupling water-state regulation and catalytic pollutant degradation to break the performance bottleneck of solar-thermal purification.

Photodynamic therapy is attractive but often compromised by tissue hypoxia. We report a photosensitizer homodimer fission mechanism that produces photosensitizer radical ion pairs without exogenous redox substrates. These pairs enable coupled water oxidation and oxygen reduction, establishing a self-oxygen-supplying reactive oxygen species (ROS) cycle. By sustaining ROS generation under hypoxia, this strategy offers a new route to overcome the longstanding oxygen limitation of conventional photodynamic therapy.

Researchers from Rutgers, IBM and collaborating institutions have shown that a quantum computer can check what is happening inside it and respond while it is running, repeatedly resetting parts of the system to bring chaotic behavior under control.

The advance is a critical step toward building larger, more reliable quantum computers. 

Today’s quantum computers operate according to the unusual rules governing atoms and other extremely small particles. They could one day solve problems beyond the reach of conventional computers — designing better batteries and cleaner industrial catalysts, simulating molecules and materials too complex for today’s computers, and running certain artificial intelligence programs.

In a study published in Nature Physics, researchers from Rutgers, International Business Machines Corp., and collaborating institutions showed that a quantum computer can repeatedly check and reset parts of itself while running. The experiment is among the largest demonstrations to date of real-time quantum feedback control, a capability considered essential for future quantum computers that will be fault tolerant. 

A team of engineers has designed a new line of multicolored tattoo inks that switch on and off with different kinds of light. Described in a study publishing October 9 in the Cell Press journal Matter & Light, the technology could one day help people hide their tattoos when they have an important business meeting. They could even doodle on their own skin using a simple laser pointer.   

A high-entropy lanthanoid oxide catalyst overcomes the challenges associated with oxidative coupling of methane (OCM), revealed Institute of Science Tokyo scientists. Using lanthanoid acetates and aspartic acid, they developed a high-entropy lanthanoid oxide, (LaSmEuGdDy)₀.₄O₃, via a sol–gel method. The high entropy catalyst was characterized by enhanced durability. The catalyst lowered OCM onset temperature and improved C2 hydrocarbon yield. Going beyond conventional catalysts, this finding may open a new avenue for selective heterogeneous catalysis.

In optical fibers, chips and other light-guiding devices, minor defects can scatter photons and disrupt their path. A new study demonstrates a way to reveal properties which, in certain systems, help light wave behavior withstand such flaws. The method could help speed up the search for new kinds of electronics and optical technologies, and contribute to more reliable quantum devices.