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Nearby ‘Super Earth’ may be a better candidate for life than previously thought

Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory, astronomers have taken a closer look at a nearby exoplanet and discovered it may be more Earth-like than previously thought. The planet, known as GJ 3378b, orbits a small, cool star called a red dwarf. Just 25 light-years from Earth in the direction of the northern constellation Camelopardalis, it lies in its star’s “habitable zone”—the region where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist—making it a candidate to host life.

“Our mantra is ‘follow the water,’” explained Paul Robertson, an astronomer at the University of California, Irvine, and lead author on the new study of GJ 3378b published in The Astrophysical Journal. “It’s the one thing every known living thing on Earth needs, so that’s the first thing we look for when trying to find environments that could sustain life.”

Reddwarfs are the coolest group of stars in existence. They are much smaller and dimmer than our sun and often appear reddish, hence their name. They are the most common stars in our galaxy, making them an important target in the search for life outside our solar system.

3D-printed battery electrolyte could let devices store power in almost any shape

Researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso have developed a way to 3D-print an essential battery component in nearly any shape. Their innovation could free engineers from the constraints of standard rechargeable battery sizes and allow energy storage to be built directly into the devices the batteries power.

The work, detailed in a study published in Communications Engineering, centers on gel polymer electrolytes, the material inside a battery that carries the ions (the particles that carry the electrical charge) between the electrodes—the two terminals where chemical reactions occur and electricity enters or leaves the battery.

From liquid limits to printable gel Conventional electrolytes are liquids that must be sealed inside rigid casings, a design that limits battery shapes and raises safety concerns about leaks. The UTEP team instead created a printable gel by combining a light-curable resin with a lithium-based liquid electrolyte, then hardening it layer by layer using a technique called vat photopolymerization.

The Future Will Be Shaped By Accelerated Technological Development And Visionary Leadership

Chuck Brooks is the president of Brooks Consulting International and one of Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Experts.

We are on the brink of a transformative era where rising technologies are colliding to create unparalleled innovation. artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and quantum technologies are transforming research and development, expediting prototyping and disrupting various industries.

This convergence, propelled by exponential processing power, molecular precision and intelligent systems, promises trillions in economic value while posing significant concerns in security, ethics and labor preparedness.

Harvard University hosts the world’s largest conference dedicated to longevity biotechnology

The 13th Aging Research & Drug Discovery (ARDD) Meeting, the world’s largest conference dedicated to longevity biotechnology, will take place from October 1–3, 2026, at the David Rubenstein Treehouse at Harvard University. Marking the high-profile launch of Boston Longevity Week, this landmark event is officially organized by Insilico Medicine, which also anchors the conference as a Tier 1 sponsor alongside Eli Lilly.

As longevity science rapidly transitions from theoretical concepts to multi-billion-dollar therapeutic pipelines, ARDD 2026 stands as the premier global nexus connecting basic science, clinical research, big pharma, and institutional investors. Moving the conference to Boston-the global epicenter of biomedical innovation-reflects the field’s evolution into mainstream medicine.

Building on the massive momentum of previous years-including ARDD 2025 in Copenhagen, where leadership from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk discussed the profound longevity potential of GLP-1 receptor agonists in Nature Biotechnology-the 2026 conference solidifies aging research as a core pillar of healthcare. Top-tier pharmaceutical companies are now actively developing commercial programs targeting fibrosis, immunology, CNS, cardiometabolic diseases, anti-muscle wasting, and cellular rejuvenation.

New method brings single-particle quality control to nanocrystal manufacturing

Nanocrystals are already used in millions of devices, including televisions, laptops and displays, and are considered key materials for the next generation of quantum, sensing and solar technologies. However, they have not yet fully realized their potential. One major reason is their inherent heterogeneity: A single solution contains billions of nanocrystals whose properties can differ substantially. Although these particles can be characterized, important quality parameters are typically accessible only as average values across the entire sample.

“For their function in devices, these average values are insufficient,” says Professor Emiliano Cortés, who conducts research at LMU’s Nano-Institute. “Each individual nanoparticle can behave differently—for example, in its size or in how efficiently it emits light, meaning how effectively it converts absorbed energy back into light.”

China supercharges AI with 100-fold faster optical chip breakthrough

A PERSONAL SUPER COMPUTER “MACRO-CHIP” WITH PHOTONIC INTERCONNECTS:

This will soon become possible by the cheap nano-imprinting of hundreds of smaller microchips, without the need for laser lithography, onto a single monolithic wafer, with these chips’ communicating with each other at light speed as a single system via silicon photonics. A team at Peking University has set this race in motion in a major way by developing an optical system to boost AI speeds 100-fold by optical interconnects between individual microchips. The next step will be placing all of those chips onto a single monolithic wafer with a similar communication system between them. Nano-imprinting at large node-scale of 15 or 20 nm will make it possible to mass produce wafer scale systems that combine all the best types of computing features, from logic gates to optical AI accelerators in one compact package on a single wafer. Consumers will not care if the computer chips in their computers are not 14-mm wide 2-nm node chips printed by expensive extreme ultraviolet lithography, but are, instead, 8-inch or 12-inch wide super computer “macro-chips” that give 1,000 times the computing power and speed of the best Nvidia computer on the market today, whereon the distance of the individual chiplets on the wafer from the central optical multiplexer becomes part of the ingrained clock feature of the chip, replacing the traditional clock-time limit. The mother boards, GPUs and CPUs of these systems will all exist on the same wafer and communicate at light speed, with the equivalent of something like 1,000 VRAM of unified memory.

These developments come as the shrinking of traditional silicon microchips is facing a final limit. In the same way that the Personal Computer became the game-changer in the 1980’s, it appears that Personal Super-Computers will become the new kid on the block in the 2030’s.

Peking University researchers develop new all-optical interconnect system linking standard electronic chips with specific algorithms.

Light Can Act as a Quantum Brake to Slow Movement in The Nanoworld, Scientists Discover

The fundamentals of light continue to fascinate scientists and reveal new secrets – including how its effects can be counterintuitive.

Conventional wisdom suggests that light adds energy to heat up particles or set them in motion.

But scientists just caught light doing the opposite: acting as an invisible brake at scales almost too small to imagine.

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