Scientists studying a promising quantum material have stumbled upon a surprise: within its crystal structure, the material naturally forms one of the world’s thinnest semiconductor junctions—a building block of most modern electronics. The junction is just 3.3 nanometers thick, about 25,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper.

Proteins are among the most studied molecules in biology, yet new research from the University of Göttingen shows they can still hold surprising secrets. Researchers have discovered previously undetected chemical bonds within archived protein structures, revealing an unexpected complexity in protein chemistry. These newly identified nitrogen-oxygen-sulphur (NOS) linkages broaden our understanding of how proteins respond to oxidative stress, a condition where harmful oxygen-based molecules build up and can damage proteins, DNA, and other essential parts of the cell. The new findings were published in Communications Chemistry.

Scientists from The University of Texas at Arlington are among the researchers worldwide recognized with the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for their contributions to the ATLAS Experiment. The $1 million award honors the team’s groundbreaking work at the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization of Nuclear Research, known as CERN—the world’s largest particle physics laboratory—which led to the discovery of the Higgs boson, often called the “God particle” for its key role in explaining the existence of mass in the universe.

Artificial intelligence tools can assist emergency room physicians in accurately predicting disease but only for patients with typical symptoms, West Virginia University scientists have found.

Structural inequalities, including wealth inequality and social segregation, not only make certain groups more vulnerable during public health crises but also accelerate the spread of infectious diseases through society, according to a team of international researchers. 

A research team led by Prof. Pavel Jungwirth at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague) has uncovered a previously unknown phenomenon that emerges during the transformation of a liquid from a nonmetal to a conductive metal. In this transition, they observed a distinct phase in which the system spontaneously and rapidly flips between metallic and nonmetallic states – without settling in either for any meaningful length of time. This newly proposed theory is grounded in high-level molecular modeling. The study, carried out in collaboration with the University of Oxford, the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University, and the J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry of the CAS, has been published in and highlighted by Nature Communications.

Researchers demonstrated a way to to manipulate electrons using pulses of light that last less than a trillionth of a second to record electrons bypassing a physical barrier almost instantaneously - a feat that redefines the potential limits of computer processing power.