UC Davis researchers have stripped down LSD to the base features responsible for its hallucinogenic and therapeutic effects. 

A team led by researchers from Nagoya University in Japan has found a way to check for black hole hair using changes in ringdown waves. They found that hidden matter does not affect these waves uniformly; the frequency and fade-out speed of the waves respond differently. This difference may show us if hidden matter is present, and how its pressure is arranged around a black hole.  

For spinning black holes, hidden matter affects ringdown differently, depending on whether the waves move with or against the black hole’s spin. Published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, the study tells us what pattern in the gravitational wave signal would be a clue that hidden hair is present and may help future observations tell a hairy black hole apart from an ordinary one. 

 

Magnesium alloys are among the lightest structural metals available, but their poor corrosion resistance and electrically insulating surface films have limited their use in energy devices. Now, researchers have developed a low-temperature Steam-Assisted Solvothermal process combined with calcination that converts a magnesium hydroxide precursor into a robust, conductive MgFe₂O₄ spinel coating. The coating combines excellent corrosion resistance with electrical conductivity, making lightweight magnesium more suitable for polymer electrolyte fuel cells and other energy applications.

Polar wurtzite nitride semiconductors such as aluminum nitride and gallium nitride underpin high-power and high-frequency electronics. Researchers have now achieved the first epitaxial growth of niobium aluminum nitride (NbAlN) on GaN while preserving its polar crystal structure. Used as a barrier layer, NbAlN increased the interfacial two-dimensional electron gas density from 5.1 × 10¹² to 1.7 × 10¹³ cm⁻², opening new possibilities for polarization-based materials design in future GaN electronic devices.

A simple blending strategy used by researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo can give existing block copolymers the ability to visibly respond to mechanical stress. By selectively localizing a mechanophore-containing polymer within the hard domains of styrene–butadiene–styrene block copolymer, the team enabled reversible fluorescence during stretching while preserving the material’s mechanical properties. The approach offers a practical route to adding stress-sensing functions to existing polymer materials without modifying their chemical structure. 

A small change in a molecule can make a big difference in how it behaves in the human body. Researchers at the University of Vienna, CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Medical University of Vienna have now developed a simple and versatile way to make so-called “aminocyclopropanes” – compounds based on tiny, triangular structures to fine-tune the properties of biologically active molecules and future drug candidates. Their new method, published in Angewandte Chemie (DOI: 10.1002/anie.8092854) not only circumvents several limitations of conventional approaches, but also makes it easier to harness these triangles.

Scientists have turned a common blue pigment into a powerful tool for fighting climate change. Researchers at Tohoku University, Hokkaido University, and AZUL Energy created a copper phthalocyanine catalyst that converts carbon dioxide directly into methane fuel in a single step, reaching nearly 80% efficiency and sustaining performance for 80+ hours. The breakthrough could make carbon recycling more practical and scalable using an inexpensive, readily available material.