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Pilot system couples seawater desalination with hydrogen production

Seawater holds enormous potential for green hydrogen production, but realizing that potential remains far from straightforward. Direct seawater electrolysis can damage electrodes, whereas conventional freshwater electrolysis loses much of its energy as low-grade waste heat. Researchers have now found a way to harness this otherwise wasted heat, using it to desalinate seawater and produce fresh water alongside hydrogen.

In a study published in Nature Energy on Sept. 15, a team led by Prof. Deng Dehui and Associate Prof. Liu Yanting from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) proposed a “seawater to hydrogen and fresh water (STHW)” route that couples alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) with low-temperature vacuum distillation desalination.

The STHW process uses waste heat generated during AWE to drive low-temperature seawater desalination, producing fresh water for electrolysis and external use. The resulting concentrated brine can also be used for resource recovery, including salt, uranium and bromine.

Open-source benchmark tests whether AI agents can engineer working robots

With the rapid rise of artificial intelligence in daily life, software coding has become increasingly automated, with powerful AI systems known as coding agents able to write and revise computer programs almost autonomously. But what happens when an AI agent must contend not just with digital command lines, but with the physical world of robotics?

Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Georgia Tech School of Computational Science and Engineering are taking a systematic approach to finding out.

A team led by Na Li, the Winokur Family Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics at Harvard SEAS, and Bo Dai, assistant professor at Georgia Tech, have developed an evaluation tool known as a benchmark that tests how well AI coding agents can perform the challenging task of engineering an actual, physical robot. The team includes Harvard graduate student Haitong Ma and Chenxiao Gao and Rushi Qiang at Georgia Tech.

An extremely stable quantum gas offers a new lens on strongly interacting systems

Molecular gases are a new form of artificial quantum matter. However, when these molecules collide, they are often lost extremely rapidly. Researchers from Radboud University and Columbia University have been able to suppress this collisional loss, paving the way for strongly interacting quantum matter. This new artificial quantum matter allows researchers to study quantum behavior relevant to electrons in real materials. Their results are published in Science.

Quantum gases of molecules are created by cooling to nanokelvin temperatures, only 0.000000001° above absolute zero. Under these conditions, quantum effects dominate, and the molecules behave collectively, forming a Bose-Einstein condensate in which many molecules share the same quantum state. This new artificial quantum matter acts as a controllable model material that allows researchers to study quantum behavior relevant to electrons in real materials.

New Membrane Removes Nearly 100% of Ammonia From Wastewater in Minutes

A new electrically powered filter can strip nearly all ammonia nitrogen from wastewater in just over a minute while also breaking down carbon-based pollution.

Researchers have developed an electro-filtration process that uses chlorine oxide radicals (·ClO) generated inside a specialized membrane to remove nitrogen and organic contaminants simultaneously. Reported in Engineering, the technology could provide a faster and more efficient way to treat complex wastewater without adding chemical precursors.

Wastewater treatment plants often rely on separate biological, chemical, and physical steps to control different pollutants. Ammonia can damage aquatic ecosystems by consuming oxygen and promoting excessive algal growth, while organic contaminants contribute to the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of discharged water.

Computer Scientist Pushes a 1996 Algorithm Beyond Its Longstanding Limit

A new algorithm solves a blind spot that has challenged computer scientists since 1996, improving distance estimates for nearby points in massive networks.

Navigation apps usually solve one route at a time, such as finding the fastest way from a hotel to an airport. Computer scientists face a far larger version of that challenge: calculating the shortest distance between every possible pair of locations in a network.

Known as the All-Pairs Shortest Paths (APSP) problem, this task applies to far more than road maps. A graph can represent computers connected by data links, stations joined by rail lines, proteins interacting inside a cell, or neurons communicating in the brain. The points are called vertices, and the connections between them are edges.

Google Gemini Broke Into Real Company Systems After Security Test Domain Mix-Up

Google’s Gemini model has become the latest artificial intelligence (AI) system to access the internet and break into other companies during a cybersecurity evaluation. The development was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The incidents occurred in May 2026 as part of a test run conducted by Israeli company Irregular. The evaluation partner was also involved in similar hacks disclosed by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta.

According to the Journal, the model gained access to a protected system after repeatedly guessing its password. Two other cases related to the model finding credentials in a public repository, allowing it to obtain unauthorized access to protected systems.

Fake LastPass Authenticator GitHub repos push new Rapuncel infostealer

An ongoing malware campaign uses SEO-optimized GitHub repositories to impersonate well-known software firms to push a previously undocumented information stealer called Rapuncel.

LastPass and Delphos Labs uncovered the campaign, which they report impersonates the password manager brand and at least 39 other companies.

Alongside the Rapuncel infostealer, the repositories deliver a Microsoft-signed kernel driver that can disable 145 antivirus and endpoint detection and response (EDR) products.

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