The global shortage of freshwater has become a critical challenge. Conventional water treatment relies heavily on fossil fuels and associated infrastructure, which can make it unsuitable for remote and harsh regions. In contrast, solar thermal evaporation is a promising alternative, but its application is limited by material performance and production constraints.
Now, researchers from the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Shenzhen University have developed a new three-dimensional (3D) photothermal structure that greatly improves solar evaporation efficiency.
The new structure tightly integrates polymer chains with hollow multishelled structures (HoMS), yielding a record evaporation rate of 38.14 kg m-2 h-1 —a figure 8.5 times higher than rates previously reported for two-dimensional membrane systems.
Many conditions that cause vision loss share a common feature: the gradual breakdown of the retina, the light-sensing tissue at the back of the eye. Although scientists know some of the structural changes that ensue as this damage progresses, less is understood about the molecular signals that shape how the retina copes with disease.
Now, a team at Scripps Research, in collaboration with UC San Diego and the Lowy Medical Research Institute, has found that a naturally occurring molecule called erucamide plays a role in how cells communicate in the retina. Their study, published in Nature Neuroscience, found that while erucamide levels drop as light-sensing cells known as photoreceptors begin to die, restoring the molecule activates cellular responses that support retinal stability. These findings suggest that erucamide may be part of a natural protective response in the retina and could offer a new way to slow the progression of diseases that lead to vision loss.
“The retina doesn’t simply deteriorate; in fact, it actively responds to injury,” says senior author Martin Friedlander, a professor at Scripps Research. “Our work identifies erucamide as a signaling molecule that helps coordinate that response.”
Your brain is not processing the world in isolation.
A new Science article highlights a growing idea in neuroscience: the heartbeat may subtly shape how the brain processes information. Every heartbeat sends signals through the body and brain, creating heartbeat-linked neural activity that can influence perception, attention, and even self-related processing.
This does not mean the heart “controls” thought. The point is more subtle: internal body rhythms may change the brain’s moment-to-moment state, making certain signals easier or harder to detect depending on timing.
That matters for neuroscience research. Many experiments treat heartbeat, breathing, and other physiological rhythms as noise or artifacts. But if these rhythms affect neural excitability and perception, they may be hidden variables that help explain trial-to-trial variability in EEG, MEG, fMRI, and behavioral studies.
The bigger takeaway: cognition is embodied. The brain is constantly integrating external information from the world with internal information from the body. Understanding perception, attention, emotion, and consciousness may require studying the brain and body as one coupled system—not as separate machines.
In neuroscience, the “background” physiology may be part of the signal.
The British Science Association has announced Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, Dame Wendy Hall, as its new President for 2026–27.
NASA astronauts will venture outside the International Space Station on Tuesday, June 30, to replace a wrist joint on the orbital complex’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at approximately 8:35 a.m. EDT.
Experts from NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) will preview the upcoming spacewalk during a news conference at 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 25, on the agency’s YouTube channel. The briefing will take place at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Starfall is SpaceX’s mass-produced reentry vehicle designed to autonomously transport valuable customer experiments and other payloads safely back from space to Earth, including for in-orbit manufacturing. Starfall is a cylindrical-shaped capsule approximately 0.75 meters tall with a diameter of 3.1 meters, weighing approximately 2,100 kilograms, and capable of carrying 1,000 kilograms of payload. It is designed to be carried on Starship flights.
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NASASpaceflight is not affiliated with or does not represent the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA initials used with NASA’s permission.
Engineering the age(ing) of tissues in vitro could lead to more representative and predictive models for the ageing population. This forum introduces methodological approaches for ‘age engineering’ (‘ageneering’) and further discusses future applications of age-matched cells, matrices, and microtissues in predictive disease modelling, biomarker discovery, and age-specific pharmacotoxicology.
What neuroscience reveals about how intelligence actually works — and how those insights are informing the next generation of AI architectures.
Alexander Wissner-Gross, David Rock, Simran Chana, Manolis Kellis.
✌️ Subscribe! http://bit.ly/ImaginationInAction-You… info: https://www.imaginationinaction.co/ 🐦 Join the conversation! #ImaginationInAction ====== Leading in an Intelligent World On April 10th, 225 speakers across 6 stages joined Imagination in Action at MIT Media Lab to explore how intelligence is built, deployed, governed, and directed toward the world’s hardest problems — alongside 60 startup pitches and 2 AI agent workshops with 500 participants. ======
