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Controlling magnetism in a device is not easy; unusually large magnetic fields or lots of electricity are needed, which are bulky, slow, expensive and/or waste energy. But that looks soon to change, thanks to the recent discovery of altermagnets. Now scientists are putting forth ideas for efficient switches to manage magnetism in devices.

Magnetism has traditionally come in two varieties: ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism, based on the alignment (or not) of in a material. Early last year, physicists announced experimental evidence for a third variety of magnetism: altermagnetism, a different combination of spins and crystal symmetries. Researchers are now learning how to tune altermagnets, bringing science closer towards practical applications.

We’re all familiar with ferromagnetism (FM), like a refrigerator magnet or compass needle, where magnetic moments in atoms lined up in parallel in a crystal. A second class was added about a hundred years ago called antiferromagnetism (AFM), where magnetic moments in a crystal align regularly in alternate directions on differing sublattices, so the crystal has no net magnetization, but usually does at low temperatures.

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Humans like to think that being multicellular (and bigger) is a definite advantage, even though 80% of life on Earth consists of single-celled organisms—some thriving in conditions lethal to any beast.

In fact, why and how multicellular life evolved has long puzzled biologists. The first known instance of multicellularity was about 2.5 billion years ago, when marine cells (cyanobacteria) hooked up to form filamentous colonies. How this transition occurred and the benefits it accrued to the cells, though, is less than clear.

A study originating from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) presents a striking example of cooperative organization among cells as a potential force in the evolution of multicellular life. Based on the fluid dynamics of cooperative feeding by Stentor, a relatively giant unicellular organism, the report is published in Nature Physics.

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Over the past year, AI researchers have found that when AI chatbots such as ChatGPT find themselves unable to answer questions that satisfy users’ requests, they tend to offer false answers. In a new study, as part of a program aimed at stopping chatbots from lying or making up answers, a research team added Chain of Thought (CoT) windows. These force the chatbot to explain its reasoning as it carries out each step on its path to finding a final answer to a query.

They then tweaked the to prevent it from making up answers or lying about its reasons for making a given choice when it was seen doing so through the CoT window. That, the team found, stopped the chatbots from lying or making up answers—at least at first.

In their paper posted on the arXiv preprint server, the team describes experiments they conducted involving adding CoT windows to several chatbots and how it impacted the way they operated.

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Researchers from the Chair of Optics and Photonics of Condensed Matter led by Prof. Dr. Carsten Deibel at the Chemnitz University of Technology and other partner institutions are currently working on solar cells made from novel organic semiconductors that can be produced using established printing processes. The scientists are collaborating interdisciplinarily to fundamentally understand these photovoltaic cells in order to further improve them.

“Organic solar cells can be produced very easily and cheaply using printing processes,” says Deibel. In contrast to established made of , however, the current flow in is very slow.

“Due to the production of the solar cells from a kind of ink, the organic, light-absorbing layers are very disordered. Therefore, the current flow is very slow,” explains Deibel. A consequence of the slow transport of light-generated electrons and holes is the so-called transport resistance, which reduces the fill factor of the solar cells and thus the power.

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Like a bumblebee flitting from flower to flower, a new insect-inspired flying robot created by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, can hover, change trajectory and even hit small targets. Less than 1 centimeter in diameter, the device weighs only 21 milligrams, making it the world’s smallest wireless robot capable of controlled flight.

“Bees exhibit remarkable aeronautical abilities, such as navigation, hovering and pollination, that artificial flying robots of similar scale fail to do,” said Liwei Lin, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UC Berkeley. “This flying robot can be wirelessly controlled to approach and hit a designated target, mimicking the mechanism of pollination as a bee collects nectar and flies away.”

Lin is the senior author of a new paper describing the robot that was published on Friday, March 28 in the journal Science Advances.

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A research team has identified a previously unknown degradation mechanism that occurs during the use of lithium-ion batteries. Their findings are published in Advanced Energy Materials.

The team includes researcher Seungyun Jeon and Dr. Gukhyun Lim, led by Professor Jihyun Hong from the Department of Battery Engineering at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology), in collaboration with Professor Jongsoon Kim’s group at Sungkyunkwan University.

Lithium-ion batteries, which are essential for , typically use nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) ternary cathodes. To reduce costs, recent industry trends have favored increasing the nickel content while minimizing the use of expensive cobalt. However, higher nickel content tends to shorten the overall cycle life of the battery.

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The last time a new class of antibiotics reached the market was nearly three decades ago—but that could soon change, thanks to a discovery by researchers at McMaster University.

A team led by researcher Gerry Wright has identified a strong candidate to challenge even some of the most drug-resistant bacteria on the planet: a called lariocidin. The findings were published in the journal Nature on March 26, 2025.

The discovery of the all-new class of antibiotics responds to a critical need for new antimicrobial medicines, as bacteria and other microorganisms evolve new ways to withstand existing drugs. This phenomenon is called antimicrobial resistance—or AMR—and it’s one of the top global public health threats, according to the World Health Organization.

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CD163 might not be the most exciting name in the world, but behind it lies one of the body’s most important defense receptors, which steps in when red blood cells break down and release harmful hemoglobin. Now, researchers at Aarhus University are the first in the world to have mapped how CD163 functions. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.

When infections such as malaria take hold in the body, can be severely affected and risk breaking down. When that happens, hemoglobin is released into the bloodstream, potentially causing oxidative damage.

The damage occurs because cells are exposed to reactive oxygen molecules, which form in the bloodstream when oxygen comes into contact with free hemoglobin. If the body is exposed to excessive , it can cause blood vessel damage, , inflammation, and in vital organs.

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Most job candidates know to dress nicely for Zoom interviews and to arrange a professional-looking background for the camera. But a new Yale study suggests they also ought to test the quality of their microphones.

A tinny voice caused by a cheap mic, researchers say, could sink their chances.

Through a series of experiments, the study demonstrates that tinny speech—a thin, metallic sound—during video conferences can have surprisingly deep social consequences, leading listeners to lower their judgments of a speaker’s intelligence, credibility, and romantic desirability. It can also hurt an individual’s chances of landing a job.

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University of Melbourne hydrology professor Dongryeol Ryu and his collaborator Ki-Weon Seo were on a train to visit Ryu’s family when they found something startling. Stopped at a station for technical issues, Seo had pulled out his computer to pass the time with some work when a result popped up in their data that Ryu could hardly believe: It suggested a “remarkable” amount of Earth’s water stored on land had been depleted.

“At first we thought, ‘That’s an error in the model,’” Ryu said.

After a year of checking, they determined it wasn’t.

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