For thousands of years, the concept of food‑medicine homology (FMH) has guided health practice in Traditional Chinese Medicine, yet its underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly defined. A new opinion piece puts forward the “5R Principle” framework and outlines how multiple chemistry disciplines can transform empirical ancient wisdom into precise, testable molecular‑level health strategies, bridging traditional experience with modern quantitative science.

Chinese medicinal cuisine, known as yao shan, has long‑standing cultural roots in Traditional Chinese Medicine. A multi‑disciplinary Perspective puts forward a falsifiable systems‑science framework for its modernisation. Rather than simply adding modern technologies to old practices, the work converts traditional TCM concepts into testable scientific hypotheses, establishes causal research chains, separates quality‑safety‑efficacy evidence, and delivers a four‑stage roadmap to advance reproducible, internationally comparable yao‑shan research and application.

Polycrystalline ferroelectric ceramics can provide strong piezoelectric and electro-optic responses, but pores, grain boundaries and ferroelectric domains scatter light, making transparency difficult to combine with functionality. A new review systematically connects these optical-loss mechanisms with densification, grain and domain engineering, phase tuning and defect control in lead-based PMN–PT and lead-free KNN ceramics. It evaluates five coupled functions—piezoelectricity, electro-optic modulation, energy storage, photoluminescence and photochromism—and distinguishes ceramic devices from single-crystal, thin-film and glass benchmarks. The authors outline a roadmap based on machine learning, texture engineering, high-Curie-temperature design, additive manufacturing and system-level integration.

With the Railway and Infrastructure Laboratory, TU Graz is expanding its railway research facilities to include a state-of-the-art testing laboratory. Here, the entire track system can be tested under realistic conditions.

A new manufacturing method could help move the production of nanoscale sensors from specialized fabrication facilities to conventional semiconductor manufacturing plants.

Indonesia’s policies on oil palm cultivation within state forest zones have shifted from gradual rehabilitation to stricter enforcement. However, a Hasanuddin University study finds that neither approach addresses the underlying drivers of forest conversion effectively. Drawing on field observations, stakeholder engagement, and policy analysis, the researchers identify gaps between forest restoration and smallholder livelihoods. The study calls for integrated governance that strengthens land rights and balances ecological protection with economic and social needs.

Enhancing low-light images with machine learning-based techniques becomes increasingly difficult as resolution rises. To address this challenge, researchers from China have developed LL-Refiner, a novel framework that first performs coarse enhancement at low resolution before progressively refining details at multiple scales. Tests on real-world datasets show that LL-Refiner achieves state-of-the-art image quality while also improving performance in computer-vision tasks such as depth estimation. 

Dynamic scene reconstruction is challenging because real-world scenes contain diverse types of motion, and no single motion representation consistently performs best across all scenarios. Researchers from Pusan National University developed a Mixture-of-Experts approaches that combine complementary dynamic representations to better capture diverse motions in dynamic 3D scenes. These approaches improve reconstruction quality while exploring different trade-offs between model flexibility, performance, and efficiency.