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AI designs new antibodies that pass blinded laboratory tests

Researchers affiliated with UTHealth Houston, competing under the team name Novamab AI, placed among the top five teams in the international AIntibody Challenge, a blinded, prospective benchmark published in Nature Biotechnology.

The study, “A blinded, prospective benchmark of in-silico antibody discovery anchored to experimental affinity and developability,” evaluates artificial intelligence platforms for therapeutic antibody design through laboratory synthesis and experimental characterization.

Unlike retrospective computational benchmarks that evaluate models against historical data sets, the AIntibody Challenge required participating teams to design entirely new antibody sequences. The designs were independently synthesized and experimentally evaluated for binding affinity and developability—key physical and chemical traits required for clinical drug candidates.

Hyperdoped silicon photodiode advances short-wave infrared detection at room temperature

Detecting short-wave infrared (SWIR) light, a region of the electromagnetic spectrum just beyond the light visible to the human eye, could be advantageous for many real-world applications. For instance, it could enable more advanced systems for capturing images at night, as well as sophisticated medical imaging, environmental monitoring and industrial inspection technologies.

Despite their potential, most SWIR detection devices developed so far are based on expensive semiconducting materials that are often difficult to integrate with existing electronic hardware. This is because silicon, the most widely used semiconductor in the electronics industry, cannot absorb SWIR photons due to its wide band gap.

Researchers at Complutense University of Madrid have developed a silicon photodiode that can efficiently absorb SWIR light and is compatible with current electronics manufacturing processes. The new device, introduced in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, is based on silicon doped with a high concentration of tellurium (Te) atoms.

Tiny atomic changes could lead to smarter wireless technology

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London have shown that making extremely small changes to the structure of a material can dramatically improve its ability to respond to electrical signals. Published recently in Science Advances, the breakthrough could help create a new generation of wireless devices that can change frequency on demand, making communication systems more flexible and energy efficient.

The team focused on a ceramic material called strontium tantalate. By replacing a small number of atoms with slightly smaller calcium atoms, they created tiny distortions in the material’s structure. Although these changes occur at the atomic scale, they have a major effect on how the material behaves.

How high scores in an online brain teaser made mathematicians lie for three years

It might not yet be the phenomenon that is Wordle, but for hundreds of thousands of players, Digit Party has scratched the itch of a casual brain teaser to break up their day.

Players arrange numbers on a 5-by-5 grid, earning points whenever identical numbers touch on adjacent or diagonally connected squares. They can then compare their score to the puzzle’s maximum score that the game spits out at the end of a round.

There’s just one problem: The game was lying. Or rather, its creators were. For more than three years, Vincent Vatter, Ph.D., at the University of Florida and Robert Brignall, Ph.D., at The Open University in the United Kingdom didn’t know how to calculate the true high scores.

Narrow ultrasonic beam enables stable 3D levitation six times farther than before

Scientists have developed a new acoustic levitation technique using an ultrasonic beam capable of levitating and moving small objects in midair over distances of up to 40 cm (16 inches), six times farther than previously achieved using conventional methods. The study, carried out by a research team from the University of Tsukuba in Japan and the University of Bristol, was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Acoustic levitation is a technique that uses sound waves to suspend objects in midair without physical contact—meaning it has the potential to be beneficial for handling fragile materials, contamination-sensitive samples and hazardous substances.

Conventional acoustic levitation systems rely on sound waves generated within an enclosed space, but the new technique is the first time a single-sided design has demonstrated stable acoustic levitation in three dimensions.

High magnetic fields revive superconductivity in nickelates

Scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS), in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States, have uncovered that a class of nickel-based materials known as samarium (Sm)-based infinite-layer nickelates can regain their superconducting ability under strong magnetic fields. This behavior could open a promising pathway toward superconducting technologies that can operate under extreme magnetic conditions.

Superconductivity, the ability of certain materials to conduct electricity without resistance, is typically destroyed by strong magnetic fields. However, a research team led by Professor Ariando from the Department of Physics at NUS, working with scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, has shown that Sm-based infinite-layer nickelates defy this expectation.

In these nickelates, superconductivity is first suppressed at low magnetic fields of a few tesla, only to reappear as the field increases, persisting beyond 60 tesla (hundreds of thousands of times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field). This unusual behavior, known as reentrant superconductivity, has previously been observed only in materials with very low transition temperatures, limiting their practical relevance.

Ramped fields create more robust entanglement between trapped-ion qubits

While quantum computing could be the future, it is currently plagued by finicky hardware. To make the technology practical, researchers must demonstrate that it consistently and continuously works and performs at scale. In a new study, published in Physical Review Letters, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Ion Storage Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, created a robust process for entangling trapped-ion qubits. The result means better building blocks for ion-based quantum computers.

The approach creates a physical link between two trapped ions. Those ions are held in place with an electric field, although they do vibrate naturally. Because they have the same charge, they also repel each other. If one ion moves, it nudges its neighbor.

That shared motion can be used as a messenger between the qubits. In this experiment, the team used radio-frequency and microwave electromagnetic fields to apply a force to the ions. In different quantum states—say, when the qubit is pointing up versus down—the force pushes the shared-ion motion in a slightly different way.

Scientists Reveal How Cells Tame One of Biology’s Most Dangerous Metals

Polyamines may protect cells from toxic iron buildup by keeping reactive iron under control.

Iron keeps cells alive, but when too much of it remains chemically reactive, the same metal can become destructive. Excess free iron can drive reactions that damage DNA, proteins, and cell membranes, creating a problem cells must constantly control.

Whitehead Institute Member Ankur Jain, former postdoc Whitney Henry, and graduate student Pushkal Sharma have identified an unexpected part of that protective system: small molecules known as polyamines.

Scientists Find a Clue to Making Brain Stimulation More Reliable

The brain’s activity immediately before stimulation may help predict its response and improve the consistency of neuromodulation.

The same brain stimulation can produce very different responses depending on when it is delivered.

A study published in Brain Stimulation, using detailed brain recordings hosted by EBRAINS, suggests that the brain’s activity immediately before stimulation can explain much of this variation and may eventually help make neuromodulation therapies more dependable.

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