Turning Plastic Waste into Fuel

Ali Kamali, a doctoral candidate in chemical and biomolecular engineering, inspects a sample of liquid fuel created from plastics.
Photo Credit: Kathy F. Atkinson

Plastics are valued for their durability, but that quality also makes it difficult to break down. Tiny pieces of debris known as microplastics persist in soil, water and air and threaten ecosystems and human health. Traditional recycling reprocesses plastics to make new products, but each time this is done, the material becomes lower in quality due to contamination and degradation of the polymers in plastics. Moreover, recycling alone cannot keep pace with the growing volume of global plastic waste.

Now, a University of Delaware-led research team has developed a new type of catalyst that enhances conversion of plastic waste into liquid fuels more quickly and with fewer undesired byproducts than current methods. Published in the journal Chem Catalysis, the pilot-stage work helps pave the way toward energy-efficient methods for plastic upcycling, reducing plastic pollution and promoting sustainable fuel production.

“Instead of letting plastics pile up as waste, upcycling treats them like solid fuels that can be transformed into useful liquid fuels and chemicals, offering a faster, more efficient and environmentally friendly solution,” said senior author Dongxia Liu, the Robert K. Grasseli Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UD’s College of Engineering.

Mammograms may benefit women well into their 80s, UCLA study finds

UCLA Health radiologist Dr. Tiffany Chan reviews a mammogram.
Photo Credit: Milo Mitchell/UCLA Health

For many older women, the question of whether to continue breast cancer screening has been uncertain. While most guidelines recommend mammograms up to age 74, advice for women 75 and older has been less clear. Now, a new study from researchers at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center suggests that regular mammograms may still offer significant benefits for women in their 80s.

The study is published in the Annals of Surgical Oncology, found that women in their 80s who get regular mammograms are more likely to have breast cancer detected early, need less aggressive treatment and live longer.

“When cancer is found on screening, it is often early stage,” said Dr. Nimmi Kapoor, an associate professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and senior author of the study. “In postmenopausal women with the most common hormone-sensitive breast cancers, we can often omit sentinel lymph node biopsy, chemotherapy, and sometimes even radiation. Screening is especially important in this era of de-escalation because early detection allows us to safely reduce the intensity of treatment while still achieving excellent outcomes.”

Space-based nuclear detonation detection mission endures

Visual safety observers Debra Yzquierdo, left, and Naomi Baros watch the skies for aircraft atop an observation platform.
Photo Credit: Craig Fritz

Roughly 12,550 miles above Earth, a constellation of U.S. global positioning satellites orbits the planet. GPS satellites also carry a sophisticated system designed to detect above ground nuclear detonations anytime, anywhere.

The Global Burst Detection system, developed by Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories, carries a suite of sensors and instruments capable of identifying signals from nuclear detonations and providing real-time information to the U.S. military and government.

The final system in the current block of eight systems launched into space in May 2025. Meanwhile, the next series, scheduled for initial deployment in 2027, already has several units completed and ready to be integrated with host satellites.

This mission has endured for more than 60 years at the Labs. Teams of engineers, scientists and technologists work a decade ahead to develop new complex technologies that can withstand the harsh space environment while countering evolving threats.

Hostile hoots make robins eat less at night

At night, the little robin is extra vigilant
Photo Credit: Johan Nilsson

The sound of tawny owls makes young European robins eat less during their southward migration. A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows how the threat from nocturnal predators affects the birds’ behaviour – and by extension their survival.

When young robins embark on their first southward migration in the autumn, they make regular stops along the way to rest and replenish their energy reserves. However, each stop entails a risk – predators may be lurking nearby. 

In an article in the Journal of Animal Ecology, a research team has established that migrating birds are not only aware of threats around them, but also adapt their behaviour based on which predator calls they hear.

Boreal plants spread into the arctic tundra

The Grövelsjö mountains in the northern corner of Dalarna are home to the largest colonisation of boreal species on the bare mountains.
Photo Credit: Tage Vowles

A new international study involving researchers from the University of Gothenburg shows that vegetation in the Arctic is changing rapidly as species from nearby forests spread into the tundra. This change is occurring in half of the 1,100 areas studied and is mainly driven by species that already exist in the transition zone between forest and tundra.

In an increasingly warmer world, the Arctic tundra is becoming more forestlike. This process, known as borealisation, is particularly widespread in Eurasia and in Arctic mountain regions, where the distance to the boreal (northern) forest is shorter. Many species of grasses and shrubs that can live in both the tundra and the forest are gaining ground in the tundra. This is shown by a new large-scale study of 1,100 sampling sites across the entire Arctic biome.

New type of time crystals discovered

Time crystal 
Correlations between quantum particles result in a rhythmic signal – without the need for an external beat to set the tempo.
Image Credit: © TU Wien

Nature has many rhythms: the seasons result from the Earth's movement around the sun; the ticking of a pendulum clock results from the oscillation of its pendulum. These phenomena can be understood with very simple equations.

However, regular rhythms can also arise in a completely different way – by themselves, without an external clock, through the complex interaction of many particles. Instead of uniform disorder, a fixed rhythm emerges – this is referred to as a ‘time crystal’. Calculations by TU Wien (Vienna) now show that such time crystals can also be generated in a completely different way than previously thought. The quantum physical correlations between the particles, which were previously thought to be harmful for the emergence of such phenomena, can actually stabilize time crystals. This is a surprising new insight into the quantum physics of many-particle systems.

Ice dissolves iron faster than liquid water

When ice freezes and thaws repeatedly, chemical reactions are fuelled that can have significant impact on ecosystems. The photo was taken in Stordalen, Abisko.
Photo Credit: Jean-François Boily

Ice can dissolve iron minerals more effectively than liquid water, according to a new study from Umeå University. The discovery could help explain why many Arctic rivers are now turning rusty orange as permafrost thaws in a warming climate.

The study, recently published in the scientific journal PNAS, shows that ice at minus ten degrees Celsius releases more iron from common minerals than liquid water at four degrees Celsius. This challenges the long-held belief that frozen environments slow down chemical reactions.

“It may sound counterintuitive, but ice is not a passive frozen block,” says Jean-François Boily, Professor at Umeå University and co-author of the study. “Freezing creates microscopic pockets of liquid water between ice crystals. These act like chemical reactors, where compounds become concentrated and extremely acidic. This means they can react with iron minerals even at temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius.”

New tool makes generative AI models more likely to create breakthrough materials

The researchers applied their technique to generate millions of candidate materials consisting of geometric lattice structures associated with quantum properties. The kagome lattice, represented here, can support the creation of materials that could be useful for quantum computing.
Image Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT; iStock
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

The artificial intelligence models that turn text into images are also useful for generating new materials. Over the last few years, generative materials models from companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta have drawn on their training data to help researchers design tens of millions of new materials.

But when it comes to designing materials with exotic quantum properties like superconductivity or unique magnetic states, those models struggle. That’s too bad, because humans could use the help. For example, after a decade of research into a class of materials that could revolutionize quantum computing, called quantum spin liquids, only a dozen material candidates have been identified. The bottleneck means there are fewer materials to serve as the basis for technological breakthroughs.

Now, MIT researchers have developed a technique that lets popular generative materials models create promising quantum materials by following specific design rules. The rules, or constraints, steer models to create materials with unique structures that give rise to quantum properties.

“The models from these large companies generate materials optimized for stability,” says Mingda Li, MIT’s Class of 1947 Career Development Professor. “Our perspective is that’s not usually how materials science advances. We don’t need 10 million new materials to change the world. We just need one really good material.”

Mixing neutrinos of colliding neutron stars changes how merger unfolds

New simulations of neutron star mergers reveal that the mixing and changing of tiny particles called neutrinos impacts how the merger unfolds, including the composition and structure of the merger remnant as well as the resulting emissions. This image depicts the density of neutrinos within the remnant as varying textures, and the colors represent energy densities of different neutrino flavors.
 Image Credit: Provided by the Radice research group / Pennsylvania State University
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

The collision and merger of two neutron stars — the incredibly dense remnants of collapsed stars — are some of the most energetic events in the universe, producing a variety of signals that can be observed on Earth. New simulations of neutron star mergers by a team from Penn State and the University of Tennessee Knoxville reveal that the mixing and changing of tiny particles called neutrinos that can travel astronomical distances undisturbed impacts how the merger unfolds, as well as the resulting emissions. The findings have implications for longstanding questions about the origins of metals and rare earth elements as well as understanding physics in extreme environments, the researchers said.

The paper, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, is the first to simulate the transformation of neutrino “flavors” in neutron star mergers. Neutrinos are fundamental particles that interact weakly with other matter, and come in three flavors, named for the other particles they associate with: electron, muon and tau. Under specific conditions, including the inside of a neutron star, neutrinos can theoretically change flavors, which can change the types of particles with which they interact.

Greener rocket fuels on the horizon

SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch
Photo Credit: SpaceX

Studying safer, cheaper rocket and missile fuels that could reduce health and environmental risks is the focus of a new $800,000 grant awarded to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Chemistry by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The project will be led by principal investigator Professor Rui Sun with co-principal investigator Professor Ralf I. Kaiser.

The grant falls under a broader push toward green chemistry—designing chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate hazardous substances. Current propellants can be expensive and toxic, creating risks during manufacture, storage and transport. The research seeks to help lower costs for space exploration while reducing risks to workers and communities.

Lockheed Martin Vectis™: Best in CCA Class Survivability

Lockheed Martin Vectis
Artist rendering of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works® Vectis, a Group 5 survivable and lethal collaborative combat aircraft
Image Credit: Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works® introduces Vectis, a Group 5 survivable and lethal collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) to advance unparalleled air dominance for American and allied militaries.

Lockheed Martin Skunk Works' Vectis: highly capable, customizable and affordable agile drone framework.

This system embodies the company's pedigree in fighter aircraft, autonomous systems and open mission architectures. As the future of air power takes shape, Skunk Works is charting a critical path with Vectis to unlock new, integrated capabilities at an ultra-competitive speed and price point. 

"Vectis is the culmination of our expertise in complex systems integration, advanced fighter development and autonomy," said OJ Sanchez, vice president and general manager, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. "We're not simply building a new platform – we're creating a new paradigm for air power based on a highly capable, customizable and affordable agile drone framework."

Fossilized feces help bring prehistoric worlds to life — in molecular detail

Image Credit: Courtesy of Curtin University

An international research team led by Curtin University has used prehistoric feces to better understand how molecular fossilization works, offering a new window into what ancient animals ate, the world they lived in and what happened after they died.

Published in the journal Geobiology and funded by the ARC Laureate Fellowship program, the study examined 300-million-year-old fossilized droppings, or ‘coprolites’, mostly from the Mazon Creek fossil site in the United States.

The coprolites were already known to contain cholesterol derivatives, which is strong evidence of a meat-based diet, but the new research explored how those delicate molecular traces were preserved and survived the ravages of time.

Usually, soft tissues are fossilized due to phosphate minerals, but the study found molecules were preserved thanks to tiny grains of iron carbonate scattered throughout the fossil, acting like microscopic time capsules.

Sugary drinks may increase risk of metastasis in advanced colorectal cancer

Jihye Yun, Ph.D.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of University of Texas
MD Anderson Cancer Center

Preclinical study provides first direct evidence linking colorectal cancer metastasis to the glucose-fructose blend found in sugar-sweetened beverages

Metastasis is the leading cause of death among patients with colorectal cancer

The combination of glucose and fructose, found in most sodas and fruit juices, activates the SORD enzyme, fueling cancer cell migration and metastasis

Study suggests cutting back on sugary drinks could help slow cancer progression in patients with colorectal cancer and points to possible new treatment targets

A new study from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center shows that the glucose-fructose mix found in sugary drinks directly fuels metastasis in preclinical models of advanced colorectal cancer. The study was published today in Nature Metabolism.

Clownfish and Anemones Are Disappearing Because of Climate Change

A Red Sea clownfish (Amphiprion bicinctus) peers out of a bleached sea anemone (Radianthus magnifica) during a record-breaking heat wave in 2023.
Photo Credit: © Morgan Bennett-Smith

Scientific Frontline: "At a Glance" Summary

• Main Discovery: Extreme marine heat waves in the Red Sea have disrupted the mutualistic bond between clownfish and sea anemones, resulting in a near-total collapse of local clownfish populations.
• Methodology: Scientists monitored specific reef sites in the central Saudi Arabian Red Sea from 2022 to 2024, tracking the health and survival of Amphiprion bicinctus and Radianthus magnifica during a record-breaking 2023 heat wave, while conducting complementary laboratory experiments to analyze behavioral changes and biological mechanisms post-bleaching.
• Key Data: During the study period, researchers documented a mortality rate of 94 to 100 percent for clownfish and 66 to 94 percent for anemones, with the bleaching event persisting for approximately six months.
• Significance: This collapse challenges the long-held hypothesis that the Red Sea functions as a "thermal refuge" for marine life, demonstrating that even organisms adapted to high temperatures are exceeding their thermal thresholds due to accelerating climate change.
• Future Application: These findings will guide global conservation assessments and restoration strategies for coral reef mutualisms, with ongoing comparative research extending to populations in Papua New Guinea to understand broader evolutionary impacts.
• Branch of Science: Marine Biology and Evolutionary Ecology
• Additional Detail: Laboratory analysis suggests the high mortality stems from bleached anemones providing inadequate camouflage and reduced defense capabilities, leaving clownfish vulnerable to predation and increased intraspecific conflict.

Possible breakthrough in the development of effective biomaterials

Professor Dr. Shikha Dhiman from the Department of Chemistry of JGU
Photo Credit: © Ankit Sakhuja

When model cell membranes bind to biomaterials, it is not the binding strength but the speed of the receptors in the membranes that is crucial

Many hopes rested on so-called tissue engineering: With the help of stem cells, skin and other organs could be grown, thereby enabling better wound healing and better transplants. Although some of this is already a reality, the level expected around 20 years ago has not yet been achieved because the stem cells do not always bind to the required host material as they should in theory. An international research team led by chemist Professor Shikha Dhiman from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has now found the reason for this: "Whether an interaction between model cell membrane and matrix material occurs depends not only on the strength of the interaction but also on the speed at which the binding partner molecules move. The understanding of this interaction that we have now gained is crucial for the development of effective biomaterials," says Dhiman. The team's results were recently published in the renowned scientific journal PNAS.