Discontinuous Deformation Analysis (DDA), a powerful tool for simulating the mechanical behavior of rock masses and discontinuous systems, has seen remarkable progress in recent 40 years. This article reviews DDA's evolution and explores how its integration with artificial intelligence (AI) could enhance simulation accuracy and computational efficiency.

Magnetization components perpendicular to an applied electric field can be reversed efficiently in multiferroic materials, as reported by researchers from Institute of Science Tokyo. This challenges their previous finding that the electric field and magnetization reversal must align. Using BiFe_0.9Co_0.1O₃ thin films with a specific crystallographic orientation, they demonstrated that a parallel electric field can induce perpendicular magnetization reversal, enabling more flexible designs of energy-efficient magnetic memory devices.

A new avenue for targeted drug delivery has been proposed by researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Their findings, published in Materials Today Bio, report the first successful application of metabolic labeling in platelets. 

A research study led by Oxford University has developed a powerful new technique for finding the next generation of materials needed for large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computing. This could end a decades-long search for inexpensive materials that can host unique quantum particles, ultimately facilitating mass production of quantum computers. The results have been published today (29 May) in the journal Science.

Researchers from the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik present new experimental and theoretical results for the bound electron g-factor in lithium-like tin which has a much higher nuclear charge than any previous measurement. The experimental accuracy reached a level of 0.5 parts per billion. Using an enhanced interelectronic QED method, the theoretical prediction for the g-factor reached a precision of 6 parts per billion.

Inspired by the suckerfishes-shark motion behavior, they designed and prepared a kind of NIR light-propelled micro@nanomotor with weak acid-triggered release of H₂O₂-driven nanomotor. By the coordinated bond interaction, a large amount of Janus Au-Pt nanomotors with hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂)-driven capacity, analogous to suckerfishes, were attached onto immovable yolk-shell structured polydopamine-mesoporous silica (PDA-MS) micromotor as the host to create two-stage PDA-MS@Au-Pt micro@nanomotor. PDA-MS@Au-Pt micro@nanomotor moved directionally by self-thermophoresis under the propulsion of NIR light with low power density. When the PDA-MS@Au-Pt entered into the weak acidic environment formed by a low concentration of H₂O₂, most small Au-Pt nanomotors were detached from the surface of PDA-MS due to the weak acidic sensitivity of the coordinated bond, and then performed self-diffusiophoresis in the environment containing a low concentration of H₂O₂ as a chemical fuel.