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Zoning out could be beneficial—and may actually help us learn faster

Aimlessly wandering around a city or exploring the new mall may seem unproductive, but new research from HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus suggests it could play an important role in how our brains learn.

By simultaneously recording the activity of tens of thousands of neurons, a team of scientists from the Pachitariu and Stringer labs discovered that learning may occur even when there are no specific tasks or goals involved.

Published in Nature, the new research finds that as animals explore their environment, neurons in the visual cortex—the brain area responsible for processing —encode visual features to build an internal model of the world. This information can speed up learning when a more concrete task arises.

A universal sleep pattern could help strengthen and separate memories

Although we know sleep is essential to our physical and mental well-being, it remains an incredibly enigmatic behavior, scientifically speaking. Researchers at the University of Michigan, however, may have developed a new hypothesis to account for one of sleep’s looming mysteries.

Every living thing that sleeps appears to follow the same basic pattern. From wakefulness, organisms transition to a repeating cycle of sleep with low followed by a stage where our brains are harder at work, among other things, generating vivid dreams. Humans’ eyes also dance around behind our eyelids during that high-activity stage, which is why it’s referred to as (REM) sleep.

Although there are a few notable exceptions—including people with narcolepsy and people who haven’t slept in days—this repeating non-REM to REM sleep cycle is remarkably prevalent across the .

Physicists confirm elusive quantum spin liquid in new study

An international team of scientists led by Rice University’s Pengcheng Dai has confirmed the existence of emergent photons and fractionalized spin excitations in a rare quantum spin liquid. Published in Nature Physics on June 19, their findings identify the crystalline compound cerium zirconium oxide (Ce₂Zr₂O₇) as a clear 3D realization of this exotic state of matter.

Long a subject of theoretical intrigue, quantum spin liquids offer promise for revolutionary technologies, including and dissipationless energy transmission. By refusing to conform to traditional magnetic behavior, these materials realize emergent quantum electrodynamics via highly quantum-entangled motions of magnetic moments at temperatures near absolute zero.

“We’ve answered a major open question by directly detecting these excitations,” said Dai, the Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics and Astronomy. “This confirms that Ce₂Zr₂O₇ behaves as a true quantum spin ice, a special class of quantum spin liquids in three dimensions.”

Near-perfect defects in 2D material could serve as quantum bits

Scientists across the world are working to make quantum technologies viable at scale—an achievement that requires a reliable way to generate qubits, or quantum bits, which are the fundamental units of information in quantum computing.

The task has so far remained elusive, but one of the materials that has garnered a lot of attention as a possible qubit platform is (h-BN), a 2D material that can host solid-state single-photon emitters (SPEs). Like the name indicates, SPEs are atomic structures in solid materials that can produce individual photons.

In a new study published in Science Advances, researchers at Rice University and collaborators at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Technology, Sydney report the first demonstration of low noise, room-temperature quantum emitters in h-BN made through a scalable growth technique.

Photo-switchable DNA condensates enable remote-controlled microflow systems

Remote-controlled microflow using light-controlled state transitions within DNA condensates has been reported by scientists from the Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan. By switching between ultraviolet light (UV) and visible light irradiation, the researchers demonstrated that the novel DNA motifs containing azobenzene can dissociate or reassemble. Furthermore, localized photo-switching within a DNA liquid condensate generated two distinct directional motions. This study can fuel the development of innovative fluid-based diagnostic chips and molecular computers.

Advancements in micro-and nano-scale fabrication technologies have given rise to diverse micrometer-sized entities such as microgels and liposomes, which are widely utilized in therapeutic formulations and microfluidic sensors. The precise control of the structure and function permits the adoption of micro-scale objects in various applications. However, the remote controllability of miniaturized fluidic objects has not yet been realized.

A recent study by scientists from the Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo), Japan, represents a significant step toward the development of remotely controllable microfluidic objects that are capable of performing mechanical actions. The research team comprised Professor Masahiro Takinoue and Specially Appointed Assistant Professor Hirotake Udono, both from the Department of Computer Science, along with Associate Professor Shin-ichiro M. Nomura from the Department of Robotics, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University. Their research findings were published online in Nature Communications on May 14, 2025.

Novel yet simple model provides smooth answer to friction mystery

Atoms slip against one another, eventually sticking in various combinations. Tectonic plates do the same, sliding across each other until they stick in a stationary state. Everything from the tiniest particles to unfathomably large landmasses possesses this fundamental stick and slip characteristic, but only now are scientists beginning to understand the mechanics of the friction underpinning this property.

“The intermittent motion in sliding systems is termed stick-slip since the two surfaces in contact seem to repeat the stick and slip states. However, several have found that extremely slow slip occurs in even apparently stick states before every stick-to-slip transition,” said Toshiki Watanabe, doctoral student in Yokohama National University’s Graduate School of Environmental and Information Sciences, who recently co-authored a paper describing a new model to explain the puzzling switch.

“This strange phenomenon, termed the static paradox, has remained an unsolved problem for decades.”

Topological insulators boost ultra-thin magnet strength by 20% for next-gen electronics

A team of international researchers led by the University of Ottawa has made a breakthrough in the development of ultra-thin magnets—a discovery that could lead to faster, more energy-efficient electronics, quantum computers, and advanced communication systems.

The study, led by Hang Chi, Canada Research Chair in Quantum Electronic Devices and Circuits, & Assistant Professor of Physics at uOttawa’s Faculty of Science, demonstrates a new way to strengthen magnetism in materials just a few atoms thick. This is a critical step toward making these practical for real-world technologies.

The paper is published in the journal Reports on Progress in Physics.

Universal embezzlers naturally emerge in critical fermion systems, study finds

Embezzlement of entanglement is an exotic phenomenon in quantum information science, describing the possibility of extracting entanglement from a resource system without changing its quantum state. In this context, the resource systems play the role of a catalyst, enabling a state transition that would otherwise be impossible, without being consumed in the process. For embezzlement of entanglement to be possible, the resource state needs to be highly entangled.

The term “universal embezzler” refers to the idea of a bipartite quantum system where every state is sufficiently entangled to make possible. So far, it seemed highly questionable that physical systems exhibiting such strong entanglement properties could exist in the first place.

Yet researchers at Leibniz University Hannover have now shown that universal embezzlement emerges in all critical fermion chains, meaning one-dimensional fermion systems at quantum phase transitions. While their paper, published in Nature Physics, is merely theoretical, it could open new possibilities for the study of many-body physics and for the development of quantum technologies.

Glass nanostructures reflect nearly all visible light, challenging photonics assumptions

A research team led by SUTD has created nanoscale glass structures with near-perfect reflectance, overturning long-held assumptions about what low-index materials can do in photonics.

For decades, glass has been a reliable workhorse of optical systems, valued for its transparency and stability. But when it comes to manipulating light at the nanoscale, especially for high-performance optical devices, glass has traditionally taken a backseat to higher refractive index materials. Now, a research team led by Professor Joel Yang from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) is reshaping this narrative.

With findings published in Science Advances, the team has developed a new method to 3D-print glass structures with nanoscale precision and achieve nearly 100% reflectance in the . This level of performance is rare for low-refractive-index materials like silica, and it opens up a broader role for glass in nanophotonics, including in wearable optics, integrated displays, and sensors.