ITU Member States and the global digital development community will meet in Baku, Azerbaijan to chart a course for universal and meaningful connectivity

A new metal–organic framework (MOF), APF-80, enables the crystalline sponge method to capture and analyze nucleophilic compounds. Alkaloids, a diverse group of biologically active compounds, usually damage MOF crystals and resist study. By incorporating multiple structural motifs, these guests are encapsulated inside APF-80, which allows high-quality crystallographic data collection. This development opens new possibilities for structural analysis, advancing drug development and biochemistry.

Arsenic leaking from abandoned gold mines can harm forest ecosystems by entering soils and affecting soil organisms. In a recent study, researchers tested forest soils with different chemical properties to see how they influence arsenic mobility and toxicity in springtails. Results showed juveniles were more sensitive to mobile arsenic, while adults responded to total arsenic. These findings highlight the importance of soil chemistry and life stage in arsenic risk assessment.

A game-changing instrument is set to improve the detection and direct imaging of planets outside our Solar System by harnessing the power of liquid crystals. The Programmable Liquid-crystal Active Coronagraphic Imager for the DAG telescope (PLACID) was installed earlier this year at the 4m-diameter telescope of the newly-built Eastern Anatolian Observatory (DAG) observatory in Eastern Turkey. Now in the integration and validation phase, the first on-sky observations of PLACID are expected in the first quarter of 2026. 

A world-first study incorporating both technical analysis and research into diaries and correspondence sheds new light on the ill-fated Endurance expedition and famed explorer Ernest Shackleton himself. Not only did the ship have structural weaknesses that made it notably less robust than other early polar vessels but also, remarkably, Shackleton was well aware of them before he set sail.