When seawater penetrates concrete in road tunnels, a biofilm is formed that breaks down the concrete. This can lead to high costs and the risk of damage if stone and concrete drop from the tunnel roof.  In a new study, led by a team of researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, research reveals the mechanisms behind the degradation, and its unexpectedly rapid progression.

Researchers have developed a machine learning workflow to optimize the output force of photo-actuated organic crystals. Using LASSO regression to identify key molecular substructures and Bayesian optimization for efficient sampling, they achieved a maximum blocking force of 37.0 mN—73 times more efficient than conventional methods. These findings could help develop remote-controlled actuators for medical devices and robotics, supporting applications such as minimally invasive surgery and precision drug delivery.

Extreme cosmic events such as colliding black holes or the explosions of stars can cause ripples in spacetime, so-called gravitational waves. Their discovery opened a new window into the universe. To observe them, ultra-precise detectors are required. Designing them remains a major scientific challenge for humans. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) have been working on how an artificial intelligence system could explore an unimaginably vast space of possible designs to find entirely new solutions. The results were recently published in the journal ›Physical Review X‹.

In a paper published in National Science Review, an international team of scientists reports dramatic, reversible p-n switching during the semiconductor-to-semiconductor phase transition of BiI₃ under pressure. They propose a novel method for determining carrier polarity based on the self-driven photocurrent dominated by the photothermoelectric effect. The study further reveals the correlation between the switching of positive and negative photoconductivity and the carrier type under high pressure.