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.

A research team from Bielefeld University investigates how inclusive academic conferences really are and offers concrete recommendations to promote participation and diversity.

Researchers at the University of Sharjah have developed an innovative technology capable of capturing carbon dioxide emissions from industrial processes.

As use of wearable devices such as augmented reality (AR) glasses has slowly but steadily increased, so too has the desire to control these devices in an easy and convenient way. Ring controllers worn on the finger already exist, but usually have some drawbacks in their size, weight or power consumption. Researchers including those at the University of Tokyo developed picoRing, an ultralow-power, ring-based wireless mouse to solve this problem. It uses a novel method to communicate with devices giving it an incredibly long use period between charges.

Researchers at Harvard and Northwestern have developed a machine learning method that can design intrinsically disordered proteins with custom properties, addressing nearly 30% of all human proteins that are currently out of reach of AI tools like AlphaFold. The new approach uses automatic differentiation, traditionally a deep learning tool, to optimize protein sequences for desired properties.