A new study co-authored by University of Notre Dame researcher Mohammad Rashidujjaman Rifat shows how AI can help homeschooling parents build culturally responsive lesson plans that incorporate family heritage and cultural norms alongside age-appropriate educational standards.

It is common for solar panels to be shaded by trees, clouds, birds or buildings. For thin-film solar technologies, however, such shading can cause the shaded areas to develop reverse bias stress (negative voltage), which can reduce power-generation efficiency and even damage the modules of the solar cell. A research team at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has successfully developed a new generation of perovskite–organic tandem solar cells (POTSCs) that not only deliver high power-generation efficiency but also effectively resist the damage caused by negative voltage. Even under an extreme reverse-bias of –40 V, the tandem devices retain more than 90% of their initial power-generation efficiency, far surpassing all existing thin-film solar technologies — marking a key step towards the practical application of thin-film solar technology.

A breakthrough at the University of Missouri transforms how Rocky Mountain spotted fever is diagnosed. The new method detects the deadly tick-borne disease in just 40 minutes — a leap that could help patients get lifesaving treatment sooner.

With the long-term on-orbit operation of the China Space Station, using nanosatellite swarms for cooperative observation of its external structures has become an important technical direction for enhancing in‑orbit monitoring capabilities. However, the space station itself has a non‑spherical complex geometry (e.g., protruding structures such as modules and docking ports) and may perform attitude maneuvers (e.g., sun‑pointing) during orbital flight, making it a dynamic obstacle with both intricate shape and rotational motion relative to the nanosatellites. Traditional artificial potential field obstacle avoidance methods mostly simplify obstacles as spheres or ellipsoids, which cannot accurately characterize the composite geometric features of the space station, and usually ignore the obstacle's own rotational motion. This leads to difficulties in constructing the repulsive potential field, limited maneuvering space, and, more critically, a lack of rigorous theoretical proof to guarantee closed-loop system stability and collision avoidance. Therefore, developing a nanosatellite formation control method that can handle rotating non‑spherical obstacles while providing strict stability guarantees is of significant theoretical importance and engineering value for ensuring safe fly-around and efficient cooperative observation in the vicinity of the space station.

Researchers who combine machine learning and economics are studying the social impact of algorithms that determine payouts on digital marketplaces. In a recently published study, the team highlights the structural imbalance in digital labor markets and provides a blueprint for fairer market with better working conditions for gig workers.

To address the long-standing trade-off between high uniformity and system complexity in conventional lithographic illumination, a team led by Academician Shaohua Yu at Peng Cheng Laboratory and Prof. Zizheng Cao at Zhejiang University proposes a fundamentally new solution: a lensless monitoring and uniform lithographic illumination system based on asymmetric diffusion metasurfaces.