Researchers identify a genetic mechanism that coordinates flower development and fruit formation, paving the way toward tomato varieties with more reliable winter harvests.

Chemical composition and stoichiometry have long been regarded as the primary determinants of a material’s electronic properties. Yet in layered materials, atomic stacking can play an equally important role. Writing in National Science Review, researchers from China demonstrate that van der Waals materials can reconfigure into adaptive hetero-phase superlattices through coordinated interlayer and intralayer sliding. The resulting structural reconfiguration produces distinct superconducting states without altering chemical composition or stoichiometry, establishing stacking engineering as a powerful route for designing emergent quantum phases.

A new semiconductor integration platform developed at Institute of Science Tokyo combines advanced chip packaging with high-density interconnects and improved thermal management. This combination of three complementary technologies helps overcome the key challenges in building high-performance artificial intelligence (AI) hardware. By enabling more precise chip placement, faster communication, and efficient cooling, the technology paves the way for more powerful and energy-efficient AI accelerators and high-performance computing systems.

The inability of most therapies to penetrate the blood–brain barrier is a major obstacle contributing to the poor prognosis of glioblastoma. A new review examines next-generation nanomedicines, including stimuli-responsive, biomimetic nanoparticles, that are being engineered to transport therapeutics directly into brain tumors. The authors discuss advances in brain-targeting strategies, externally activated therapies, and biomimetic platforms while outlining the challenges that must be overcome before these technologies can achieve widespread clinical use. 

A new Perspective in Science Bulletin argues that the persistent gap between climate science and climate action stems from a conceptual blind spot: treating climate and social systems as separate domains rather than as one integrated, co-evolving entity. The authors introduce the Climate-Social Coupling System (CSS) paradigm and, by re-contextualizing the classic Environmental Kuznets Curve, sort national trajectories into “strong,” “weak,” and “de-coupling” states, showing that governance is the decisive, reversible steering mechanism that determines a country’s climate future.

A review published in Smart Construction examines how reinforcement learning (RL) could help optimize steel structures by learning design strategies that may be reused across related structures. Focusing on section selection in steel moment-resisting and braced frames, the review compares RL-based approaches with traditional and surrogate-assisted methods and emphasizes that practical use will require robust code-compliance assurance, manageable computational cost, validated cross-structure generalization, and independent engineering verification.