Japan

Researchers at Hiroshima University in Japan have blended together various polymer and molecular semiconductors as photo-absorbers to create a solar cell with increased power efficiencies and electricity generation.

Scientists from Japan and the USA have confirmed the presence in meteorites of a key organic molecule which may have been used to build other organic molecules, including some used by life. The discovery validates theories of the formation of organic compounds in extraterrestrial environments.

Turning off gene-editing until it reaches cell cycle phases where more accurate repairs are likely to happen offers a promising fix to CRISPR-Cas9’s problem with unwanted genetic changes.

A team of scientists from Hokkaido University has suggested that marimo maintain their characteristic spherical shape due to the rarity of the formation of reproductive cells.

Yuto Minami at KEK and Eiichiro Komatsu at Kavli IPMU developed a new method to calibrate detectors to the light from dust in our Galaxy, thereby describing a new physics, with 99.2 percent accuracy, that may show parity symmetry breaking.

Osaka City University shows carrot-based Japanese herbal medicine “Ninjin’yoeito” helps recover muscle fibers in mice.

A research team led by Kavli IPMU graduate student Hiroki Yoneda has shed new night on the massive star and its neutron star companion, which are thought to be at the core of the gamma-ray binary system LS 5039.

A research team including Kavli IPMU Principal Investigator Naoki Yoshida has, in a world first, succeeded in performing a 6-dimensional simulation of neutrinos moving through the universe.

University of Tokyo researchers have fabricated a tiny electronic sensor that can detect very low levels of a commonly used weed killer in drinking water.

A team of scientists has succeeded in visualizing how carbon dioxide (CO2) behaves in an ionic liquid that selectively absorbs CO2. The finding is expected to help develop more efficient methods to capture CO2 in the atmosphere, one of the major factors causing global warming.

A chance discovery leads to a simple process that can introduce ‘oxygen-missing layers’ into perovskite oxynitrides, changing their properties.

Scientists have found a way to control an interaction between quantum dots that could lead to more efficient solar cells.

A repetitive DNA sequence that causes health risks when it malfunctions can now be watched inside living cells using a synthetic tool

A collaboration between Osaka City University and the advertising company Hakuhodo Inc. brings innovation to conflict resolution during corporate development with a process that has businesses and the public voice their concerns and systematically solve them together, instead of a one-way game of convincing each other.

Scientists have discovered an extremely rare species of cymothoid from the mouth of a museum specimen of a deep-sea shark caught from the East China Sea, suggesting its wide distribution around the globe.

How hot is the Universe today? How hot was it before? A new study by an international team of researchers, including members of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), suggests that the mean temperature of gas in large structures of the Universe has increased about 3 times in the last 8 billion years, to reach about two million Kelvin today.

Computational models suggest that melting water originating in the deep interior of Greenland could flow the entire length of a subglacial valley and exit at Petermann Fjord, along the northern coast of the island. Updating ice sheet models with this open valley could provide additional insight for future climate change predictions.

Research shows that Japan’s noncompulsory state of emergency generally succeeded in reducing human movement. A study from The University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science used mobile phone location data for January–April 2020 to record and plot movement of people in metro Tokyo during the emergence and first wave of COVID-19. They found a movement reduction of over 50%, which in turn limited social contact and slowed infection spread.

The University of Tokyo introduced a system of gold nanorods that acts like a tiny light-driven motor, with its direction of motion is determined by the orientation of the motors. This work may lead to smaller and more precise nanomachines.

Residents of Kabwe Town, Zambia, have very high blood levels of lead and cadmium, to such an extent that the symptoms of toxicity have been clinically observed.

A research team based in Japan may be moving toward a more controlled walk by unveiling the mechanism underlying the directional decision of each quantum step and introducing a way to potentially control the direction of movement.

Scientists at The University of Tokyo use a two-state model based on the formation of tetrahedral structures to explain water’s anomalous properties and the surprising liquid–liquid transition of water.

Scientists have revealed the molecular mechanism regulating the trafficking of lysosomes that increases the invasiveness of radioresistant cancer cells following radiotherapy.

Therapeutic drugs, a novel test method, a fully automated testing process, and a way to conduct medical diagnosis remotely are just some of the research being done at Hiroshima University to beat COVID-19.

Osaka City University detects cancer cells in 2ml blood samples and connects them back to their origin tumor – creating a new diagnostic tool that may aid in quicker and more accurate anti-cancer measures.

Researchers at Kanazawa University and University of California, San Francisco report in Science that arbitrary proteins, when combined with anchoring and receptor proteins, can work as a signaling protein “morphogen” capable of engineered spatial patterning.

Signal loss along optical communication networks could be cut in half if silica glass fibers are manufactured under high pressure.

Osaka City University unravels the atomic architecture of the “Nap” protein complex found on Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Scientists have estimated that the age of an individual does not indicate how likely they are to be infected by SARS-CoV-2. However, development of symptoms, progression of the disease, and mortality are age-dependent.

Researchers at Kanazawa University report in Nature Communications the mechanism making some lung-cancer patients resistant to the drug osimertinib. In addition, they suggest a combined drug treatment resolving osimertinib resistance in the case of cancer cells expressing low amounts of AXL, a protein belonging to the class of receptor tyrosine kinases.