When they design mechanical systems, engineers first need to understand how they will behave using mathematical modelling tools that can simulate their movements. In recent years, they have increasingly explored the possibilities of ‘compliant’ mechanisms: highly flexible systems which are now being applied across numerous leading fields of technology. However, because their motions are often incredibly complex, engineers have so far found it difficult to recreate their behaviours in the mathematical tools needed to design them. Because they involve complex, nonlinear behaviour, designing compliant mechanisms has posed a long-standing challenge for engineers. While several advanced synthesis methods are now available, they’re often computationally intensive and can’t readily cope with the inevitable uncertainties in a system’s operating variables. In their latest research, Ahmed Alhindi and Dr. Meng-Sang Chew at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, propose a novel approach that directly accounts for uncertainty in the design process. By reformulating widely used equations, their ‘dimensional synthesis’ method offers a streamlined yet powerful way to design compliant mechanisms under real-world, uncertain conditions.

Between 1982 and 2012, the 150-foot solar tower at Mount Wilson Observatory collected a vast archive of observations of the Sun’s surface. In a series of recent studies, Professor Roger Ulrich, together with colleagues Dr. Tham Tran and Dr. John Boyden at UCLA, have revisited these data, running a thorough recalibration of the findings. Their results led them to a crucial discovery: two properties of the Sun’s plasma which were once thought to be separate are actually two faces of the same underlying effect, which plays a fundamental role in shaping the Sun’s magnetic field throughout the solar cycle.

Building the next generation of particle accelerators depends on solving surprisingly small but stubborn material-related problems. Dr Jerzy Lorkiewicz and his collaborators of the National Centre for Nuclear Research in Poland tackled one of the toughest challenges: how to make lead films stick firmly to niobium, to realise his vision of a fully superconducting electron injector. By implanting lead ions into the niobium before adding a lead layer, his team created a smoother, more durable bond that resisted peeling. This innovation brings us closer to more efficient electron injectors for powerful particle accelerators.

Highly polar pesticides such as glyphosate are notoriously difficult to detect in food due to their chemical properties and interference from natural food compounds. A new method developed by Dr Michelangelo Anastassiades and Ann‑Kathrin Schäfer of CVUA Stuttgart, and their colleagues, offers a more accurate and practical way to identify residues of these pesticides. By simplifying sample preparation and reducing interference, the method delivers reliable results across a wide range of foods. This development improves routine food safety testing and strengthens our ability to monitor potentially harmful pesticides.

For over a century, Einstein’s theory of general relativity has underpinned our understanding of gravity. However, it still hasn’t been able to explain some of the most enduring mysteries in cosmology, including the need for vast quantities of dark matter, which has gone undetected for decades. Today, this need has been explained by Conformal Gravity: a framework which modifies Einstein’s theory by requiring that the laws of physics must stay the same, even if all fields are scaled up or down at every point in space and time. Through his research, Robert Nesbet of IBM’s Almaden Research Center argues that this principle – named ‘universal conformal symmetry’ – should apply to all fundamental fields. If correct, this framework could eliminate the need for dark matter and dark energy.

Scientific discovery often unfolds in unexpected ways. What begins as a search for solutions to real-world challenges can lead researchers into unexplored scientific territory, where unconventional ideas emerge and spark debate. This dynamic was at the heart of research by Dr. Arthur W. Snow and Dr. Ramagopal Ananth in the Chemistry Division of the US Naval Research Laboratory. Their study aimed to address a pressing need: replacing fluorocarbon surfactants in firefighting foams. What they discovered would take them beyond firefighting applications and into fundamental questions about the nature of water itself.

Before the universe was illuminated by stars, most of its observable matter existed in a roughly even distribution of hydrogen and helium. As these materials collapsed under their own gravity, they would have heated up, initially preventing them from collapsing further to densities high enough for stars to form. As part of a new review, Prof. Dr. Ralf Klessen and Prof. Dr. Simon Glover at Heidelberg University investigate the chemical mechanisms which enabled this primordial gas to cool and fragment to form the universe’s first generation of stars.