Hankyeul Kang and colleagues describe low-temperature catalytic cracking of polyethylene using *BEA-type zeolite in an open-batch setup, highlighting critical role of zeolite crystal size and aluminum site density in optimizing catalytic performance.

Thermal desalination processes such as air gap membrane distillation (AGMD) contribute to addressing water scarcity. Yashwant Yogi and colleagues test slippery liquid infused porous surfaces in the condensation plate of an AGMD apparatus. Models validated against experimental data suggest that AGMD energy efficiency could be boosted through the incorporation of such hydrophobic condensation surfaces, leading to improved droplet shedding.

Clement Turck and colleagues present an alternative computing platform leveraging the property of logarithm to transfer multiplication operation into addition. They demonstrate the energy efficiency and superior performance of the prototype on gesture recognition and sleep stage recognition benchmark tasks.

Unconventional water resources are becoming increasingly important particularly in waterstressed regions. This review highlights the fundamental physical processes and improvement strategies of atmospheric water harvesting using electrostatic technology, and provides insights into future research directions towards practical applications.

Reservoir controllers control robots by using reservoir’s nonlinear dynamics to approximate robots’ inverse dynamics, but developing and testing them relies on repetitive experiments that require researchers’ proficiency in both robot and reservoir design. In this paper, Fan Ye and colleagues propose a design method for reliable reservoir controllers by synchronizing the timescales of the reservoir dynamics with those observed in the robot.

Mina Naguib and colleagues propose an integrated physicsand machine-learning-based method for early thermal fault detection in battery packs. This approach enhances reliability and safety by identifying faults such as sensor failures and cooling system issues before they become critical.

Aris Tsirigotis and colleagues propose a photonic neuromorphic accelerator using optical spectrum slicing in a reconfigurable processor. Their approach enables optical-domain preprocessing, achieving 97.7% accuracy on MNIST with up to 30% lower power consumption than digital systems.

Aaron Allred and colleagues use Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation to alter motion sickness in humans during motion. Their findings isolate the role of vestibular information in motion sickness, support sensory conflict theory, and provide technological mitigation methods.

Gabriel Saavedra and colleagues introduce an all-fiber device for rapid core-switching in multi-core fiber systems, achieving speeds under 0.7 μs. This device can improve the integration of multi-core fibers into networking applications.

The challenge of capturing complex interactions limits dexterous robotic manipulation. Kai Junge and Josie Hughes propose the addition of spatially distributed stiffness a robotic hand results in human-like behaviors robust to uncertainty.

Operational data of lithium-ion batteries from battery electric vehicles can be logged and used to model lithium-ion battery aging, i.e., the state of health. Here, we discuss future State of Health definitions, the use of data from battery production beyond production, the logging & aggregation of operational data and challenges of the State of Health in automotive applications. Our suggestions could improve data transfer efficiency and data storage costs.

With global conflicts on the rise, it is crucial for researchers in science, engineering, and technology to engage more actively in promoting peace. Here, Mariazel Maqueda-López et al. propose a practical framework focusing on common language, needs-driven innovation, stakeholder collaboration, and minimizing harm.

Daniel Perez Lopez is Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at iPronics, a company dedicated to the development and commercialization of integrated programmable photonic circuits. His company focuses both on hardware advances for novel circuit and component architectures as well as software advances leading to the creation of fault-tolerant automated routines enabling advanced optical networking and processing, specially for AI infrastructure and intra-datacenter communications. As a young entrepreneur, Daniel shares with us his experiences and insights of the academia-industry transition and building a spin-out company from his university research.

A recent publication in Nature Communications describes the use of cameras on hovering drones to detect submillimetre displacements of bridge spans.

Learning from the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquake Sequence offers valuable insights into disaster recovery. Carmine Galasso and Eyitayo Opabola delve into the intricacies of the “Build Back Better” (BBB) concept, underscoring the importance of recovery and reconstruction efforts toward a future that is not only more resilient but also more sustainable and equitable.

Recent high-profile concrete material failures, including the collapse of parts of public buildings in the UK, have highlighted the need for a greater understanding of the durability of concrete. Here, John Provis explores the need to recognise the complexity of concrete when planning both the research and application of this key construction material.