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In a breakthrough that could help revolutionize wireless communication, researchers unveiled a novel method for manipulating terahertz waves, allowing them to curve around obstacles instead of being blocked by them.

While cellular networks and Wi-Fi systems are more advanced than ever, they are also quickly reaching their bandwidth limits. Scientists know that in the near future they’ll need to transition to much higher communication frequencies than what current systems rely on, but before that can happen there are a number of — quite literal — obstacles standing in the way.

Researchers from Brown University and Rice University say they’ve advanced one step closer to getting around these solid obstacles, like walls, furniture, and even people — and they do it by curving light.

An integrated plant that will remove 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year and create new freshwater from salty seawater is planned in the Daesan Industrial Complex in South Korea. When ready, this will be the world’s first such facility.

As countries work on their promises to go carbon neutral in a few decades, there is a strong push for innovative approaches that capture and utilize carbon. Carbon capture facilities work onsite to help reduce the release of carbon into the atmosphere. In contrast, direct air capture (DAC) technology focuses on removing the released carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

POSTECH researchers have created a technique for controlling polaritons, which could lead to advancements in optical displays and various optoelectronic devices.

A research team consisting of Professor Kyoung-Duck Park and Hyeongwoo Lee, an integrated PhD student, from the Department of Physics at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) has pioneered an innovative technique in ultra-high-resolution spectroscopy. Their breakthrough marks the world’s first instance of electrically controlling polaritons—hybridized light-matter particles—at room temperature.

Novel Characteristics of Polaritons.

The next innovation in cancer treatment could be to test all possible drugs on thousands of miniature versions of a person’s tumour, grown in the lab, to see which works the best. The technique, sometimes called drug sensitivity testing, may have already helped a few children with advanced cancer live for longer than the standard approach.

It could eventually become routinely used for everyone with cancer, says Diana Azzam at Florida International University in Miami. “I would say it will help guide treatments in any [cancer], whether it’s aggressive or not.”