Quantum steampunk?

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[“Steampunk Quantum Engine” downloaded from https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/03/15/quantum-goes-steampunk-umd-physicist-helps-sculpt-quantum-mechanics-into-reality/ on March 17, 2026]

I eventually came across the example of quantum steampunk art/science work you see in the above after seeing this notice in a November 20, 2026 newsletter from Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI; received via email),

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Quantum steampunk: we explore the art and science

Explore the art of steampunk and how it is influenced by the technology of the 19th century.


Listen to the Podcast here

Here’s more about the artist responsible for the quantum steampunk engine depicted and the podcast mentioned in the above, from Hamish Johnston’s October 30, 2025 podcast “Quantum steampunk: we explore the art and science” for Physics World, Note: Links have been removed,

Earlier this year I met the Massachusetts-based steampunk artist Bruce Rosenbaum at the Global Physics Summit of the American Physical Society. He was exhibiting a beautiful sculpture of a “quantum engine” that was created in collaboration with physicists including NIST’s [US National Institute of Standards and Technology] Nicole Yunger Halpern – who pioneered the scientific field of quantum steampunk.

I was so taken by the art and science of quantum steampunk that I promised Rosenbaum that I would chat with him and Yunger Halpern on the podcast – and here is that conversation. We begin by exploring the art of steampunk and how it is influenced by the technology of the 19th century. Then, we look at the physics of quantum steampunk, a field that weds modern concepts of quantum information with thermodynamics – which itself is a scientific triumph of the 19th century.

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Nicole Yunger Halpern, the physicist who pioneered quantum steampunk, wrote a May 1, 2020 article for Scientific American,

Quantum Steampunk: 19th-Century Science Meets Technology of Today

Just as fictional steampunk unites Victorian style with sci-fi tech, a new branch of physics is updating thermodynamics for modern quantum systems 

London, at an hour that made Rosalind glad she’d nicked her brother’s black cloak instead of wearing her scarlet one. The factory alongside her had quit belching smoke for the night, but it would start again soon. A noise caused her to draw back against the brick wall. Glancing up, she gasped. An oblong hulk was drifting across the sky. The darkness obscured the details, but she didn’t need to see; a brass-colored lock would be painted across the side. Mellator had launched his dirigible.

Welcome to steampunk. This genre has expanded across literature, art and film over the past several decades. Its stories tend to take place near nascent factories and in grimy cities, in Industrial Age England and the Wild West—in real-life settings where technologies were burgeoning. Yet steampunk characters extend these inventions into futuristic technologies, including automata and time machines. The juxtaposition of old and new creates an atmosphere of romanticism and adventure. Little wonder that steampunk fans buy top hats and petticoats, adorn themselves in brass and glass, and flock to steampunk conventions.

These fans dream the adventure. But physicists today who work at the intersection of three fields—quantum physics, information theory and thermodynamics—live it. Just as steampunk blends science-fiction technology with Victorian style, a modern field of physics that I call “quantum steampunk” unites 21st-century technology with 19th-century scientific principles.

Our goal is to update the laws of thermodynamics—the study of work, heat and efficiency—to meet the demands of cutting-edge experiments, technologies and theory. Thermodynamics was born when steam engines drove the Industrial Revolution. But as technology shrinks, thermodynamics and information couple in smaller and smaller systems. The spotlight has swept from trains to nanoscale engines, living cells’ molecular motors and the smallest possible refrigerators. We must now investigate how to apply traditional thermodynamic concepts such as heat, work and equilibration to modern quantum systems.

Victorian physics meets millennial science

By 1800 Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen had invented, and James Watt and Matthew Boulton had refined, the steam engine. Thinkers then wondered how efficiently such engines could pump water out of mines. Their studies grew from practicalities to questions of fundamental physics, such as why time flows only in one direction. The field of thermodynamics is grounded in this work.

This branch of physics describes many-particle systems, such as steam, in terms of large-scale properties, such as temperature, pressure, volume and energy. Energy in transit falls into two classes, work and heat. Work is well-organized energy usable for a purpose, like turning a mill wheel. Heat is the energy of random motion—of particles jiggling.

Thermodynamicists quantify randomness with a number called entropy. Every particle in a canister of steam has a position and a momentum (the particle’s mass times its velocity). The set of all the particles’ positions and momenta we call the steam’s microstate. We cannot know the microstate, because the canister contains about 1024 (1 followed by 24 zeroes) particles. Imagine trying to locate them all! Instead we track the probability that the steam occupies this or that microstate. Entropy quantifies our uncertainty. According to the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of a closed, isolated system cannot shrink. This fact underlies the reality that time flows in a single direction.

But the steam engines central to traditional thermodynamics resemble today’s technologies about as much as top hats resemble virtual-reality headsets. Many modern inventions and experiments involve small, complex quantum systems. Quantum theory is the physics of atoms, electrons and other constituents of matter. They can behave in ways impossible for larger, classical systems, such as steam canisters, factories and people. For instance, quantum particles can share entanglement, a type of ultrastrong correlation. If you entangle two atoms and measure one, the other atom changes instantaneously, even if it is across a continent. Physicists can use entanglement to process information in ways impossible with classical systems. The study of how we can solve computational problems, communicate, secure information and enhance measurements with quantum systems is called quantum information theory. This theory is a useful mathematical tool kit for implementing our update to thermodynamics. How do the two fields connect? To reason about information, we have to confront ignorance. Information theorists quantify ignorance with entropy, just as thermodynamicists do.

Quantum computers, for instance, are systems where both quantum information theory and thermodynamics are key. Google, IBM and other institutions are hard at work building such machines, which aim to break certain encryption schemes and to model certain materials far more quickly than any classical computer. Most quantum-computing systems need to be cooled to a temperature near absolute zero. Cooling amounts to dissipating heat, a thermodynamic quantity. Yet quantum computers look nothing like the engines for which thermodynamics was developed.

Efforts to apply thermodynamic concepts to quantum settings date to the mid-20th century, when Joseph Geusic, E. O. Schulz-DuBois and H. E. Derrick Scovil proposed the first quantum engine.It was made from a maser, which operates like a laser but releases microwave light. Later, Ronnie Kosloff of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his colleagues helped to turn quantum engines into their own subfield. Another pioneer is Marlan Scully, sometimes called the “quantum cowboy,” who works on quantum optics at Princeton University and Texas A&M University and also raises cattle. Meanwhile theorists Gian Paolo Beretta, the late Elias Gyftopoulos and the late George Hatsopoulos studied the arrow of time from a quantum perspective. And a seminal publication was Seth Lloyd’s 1988 Ph.D. thesis at the Rockefeller University, “Black Holes, Demons, and the Loss of Coherence: How Complex Systems Get Information, and What They Do with It,” which established many important ideas for the field of quantum thermodynamics.

Quantum Steampunk Tools

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Yunger Halpern’s May 1, 2020 article offers some intriguing insights. 2020 is also the year Yunger-Halpern was approached by a ‘steampunk’ artist according to a March 12, 2025 article by Resonance for the Quantum Insider, Note: Links have been removed,

Insider Brief

  • Physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern and artist Bruce Rosenbaum collaborated to create a steampunk-inspired sculpture that visually represents quantum thermodynamics.
  • The eight-inch metallic sculpture, designed with input from scientists and artists, illustrates a quantum engine that converts random microscopic motion into useful energy.
  • Debuting at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit in 2025, the piece is planned as a precursor to a larger, interactive version blending antique aesthetics with modern technology.

In 2020, physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern received a rather unusual email out of the blue. Bruce Rosenbaum, a Massachusetts-based artist dubbed “the steampunk guru” by The Wall Street Journal, watched one of her lectures about quantum thermodynamics and was interested in collaborating with her. Rosenbaum saw something extraordinary in Yunger Halpern’s work—in terms of cutting-edge science and artistic possibility. 

For Yunger Halpern, who coined the term “quantum steampunk” while earning her Ph.D. in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology, it almost felt like scientific serendipity. 

“It’s been a privilege to interact with someone who is based in such a different world. I’m in physics, Bruce is in art. And yet, we both have a very strong shared interest in connecting the steam-powered world of the Industrial Revolution to today,” said Yunger Halpern, who is a theoretical physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a fellow of the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Physics and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland.

The unusual partnership kicked off a multi-year quest to craft a piece of art that could represent two very different worlds. For weeks, Yunger Halpern and Rosenbaum worked over weekend Zooms and emails to brainstorm before enlisting others to help bring their ideas to life. 

In late 2024, they finally created their masterpiece: an eight-inch diameter sculpture that marries steampunk (a popular genre that combines Victorian-era aesthetics like brass, gears and steam with modern technology) with quantum physics (a rapidly evolving field that deals with how things work at the tiniest possible scales). At these tiny levels, objects don’t behave the same way as they do in our everyday world—for example, things can exist in multiple states at once, like a coin that, in some ways, behaves as though it were both heads-up and tails-up simultaneously.

Inspired by these strange behaviors present in quantum physics, Yunger Halpern and Rosenbaum focused their project on the concept of quantum engines, devices that convert energy from one form to another. According to Yunger Halpern, even a single atom can function as an engine, transforming random microscopic motion into useful energy. 

“Our sculpture depicts an engine that can operate at the atomic scale to convert heat energy— which is random, the energy of particles always jiggling around—into useful work. Work is coordinated energy, the kind that charges our computers and powers our factories,” Yunger Halpern explained. “Like the steam-powered tech of the Victorian era, this engine relies on thermodynamic properties to make its conversion. We wanted to bring those two themes from very different periods of history together.”

Linking quantum and art for all

Creating this visual representation of the invisible quantum world required an unusual team with varied skills. Rosenbaum brought in illustrator Jim Su for the initial designs and design engineering company Empire Group fabricated the sculpture. Rosenbaum and Yunger Halpern coordinated a careful balance between artistic vision and scientific accuracy at every stage of the project. Gradually, the team grew to include other UMD faculty and staff members, including Distinguished University Professors Christopher Jarzynski and William Phillips, Senior Faculty Specialist Daniel Serrano and Scientific Development Officer Alfredo Nava-Tudela. The UMD Quantum Startup Foundry and Caltech’s [California Institute of Technology[ Institute for Quantum Information and Matter also pitched in.

The result was a metallic, partially 3D-printed sculpture measuring eight inches in diameter, an eclectic mashup of both quantum science principles and artistic sensibilities. 

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You can find out more at the Quantum Steampunk Engine (or Captain Okoli’s Magnificent Steampunk Quantum Engine)website and there;s Yunger Halpern’s 2022 book from John Hopkins’ University Press, Quantum Steampunk; The Physics of Yesterday’s Tomorrow.

Lethal precision killer: a nanogel capable of killing some of the most dangerous bacteria known to medicine

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A November 19, 2026 news item on Nanowerk announced UK research into work that could give medicine a new tactic for dealing with dangerous bacteria, Note: A link has been removed,

As the threat of antibiotic resistance grows, a Swansea University academic has led the development of a novel technology capable of killing some of the most dangerous bacteria known to medicine—with over 99.9% effectiveness against Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) (Angewandte Chemie International Edition, “Heteromultivalent Nanogels as Highly Potent Inhibitors of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa”).

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A November 19, 2025 Swansea University press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides technical details, Note: Links have been removed,

The innovation centres on a heteromultivalent nanogel: a flexible particle made by crosslinking polymers and adding sugar residues (galactose and fucose) alongside antimicrobial peptides.

These sugars bind to specific proteins on the bacterial surface, guiding the nanogel precisely to its target. Once there, the peptides disrupt the bacterial membrane, leading to rapid and selective bacterial death—without harming surrounding healthy cells.

Advanced testing using flow cytometry, scanning electron microscopy, and confocal microscopy revealed:

  • Over 99.99% of free-floating P. aeruginosa were killed.
  • Over 99.9% of biofilm-coated P. aeruginosa—the tough, protective layer bacteria form—were inactivated within 12 hours.

The nanogel also showed strong antibacterial effects against other major threats, including Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

This technology offers a promising and versatile strategy for tackling biofilm-related and multidrug-resistant infections—two of the most persistent challenges in modern medicine.

Main corresponding author and research supervisor, Dr Sumati Bhatia, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at Swansea University, said: “Leading this research, alongside our international partners, has been incredibly rewarding. It opens a new direction for using glycan-based polymer systems as a therapeutic strategy against pathogenic bacteria and could lay the foundation for a new class of antibacterial therapies against contagious bacterial infections.

This discovery is the result of a collaboration between Dr Bhatia and academics from Freie Universität Berlin, combining expertise in glycochemistry, polymer sciences, and nanotechnology.

Thanks to funding support from the German Science Foundation, Dr Bhatia is able to continue this work at Swansea University.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Heteromultivalent Nanogels as Highly Potent Inhibitors of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa by Yuhang Jiang, Dr. Chuanxiong Nie, Boyu Zheng, Dr. Vinod Khatri, Denis Puccio, Yanping Long, Dr. Mathias Dimde, Prof. Dr. Rainer Haag, Dr. Sumati Bhatia. Angewandte Chemie Volume 64, Issue 52 December 22, 2025 e13121 First published online: 11 November 2025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202513121

This paper is open access.

History of printing press can teach us about AI regulation?

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A November 19, 2025 McGill University news release (also on EurekAlert) announces historical and legal research into regulation of an old technology, the printing press, with an eye to better understanding artificial intelligence,

A study on the legal history of printing press regulation in early modern England yields insights relevant to contemporary debates on the regulation of emerging technologies like AI and virtual reality, a McGill researcher says.

“Two key insights emerge,” said Ali Ekber Cinar, doctoral candidate at the McGill Faculty of Law and author of the paper. “First, effective influence over regulation required both financial resources and a direct connection to the technology. Second, preventing problems like monopolies and censorship depended on having diverse voices involved in regulation.”

Cinar examined the legal responses to the printing press in England from the 1470s to the early 1700s, with a particular focus on long-term social and institutional changes. His objective was to better understand how societies regulate new technologies.

“Many of the same issues – such as the concentration of power and the need for balanced regulation – are repeating today,” explained Cinar.

The research highlights how the state, religious authorities and economically powerful groups such as printers both wrestled and collaborated with each other over time to protect their own interests regarding the technology, and how their responses were also influenced by various political and social upheavals.

“Just as economic power and direct involvement shaped regulation in the past, today’s tech giants influence how AI is governed. Similarly, while the printing press transformed knowledge into a commodity, AI is now driving the commodification of data. Learning from history suggests that involving a broad range of stakeholders is essential to avoid monopolization, ensure transparency, and protect public interest,” he said.

According to Cinar, the research aligns with existing scholarship on the interest-driven nature of regulation, emphasizing how legal change is often shaped in the long run by economic power and interest groups.

Cinar said he hopes to continue to expand this research to provide policymakers with a more informed and historically grounded framework for addressing the complex challenges posed by today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Given how contentious copyright continues to be to this day, it seems odd to look at its and the printing press’s history for hints about AI regulation.

For those unfamiliar with the history of the printing press and to satisfy my pedantic tendencies, it has a complicated history and not all of it centered in Europe. From the ‘History of printing’ Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,

Printing emerged as early as the 4th millennium BCE in the form of cylinder seals used by the Proto-Elamite and Sumerian civilizations to certify documents written on clay tablets. Other early forms include block seals, hammered coinage, pottery imprints, and cloth printing. Initially a method of printing patterns on cloth such as silk, woodblock printing for texts on paper originated in Tang China by the 7th century, to the spread of book production and woodblock printing in other parts of Asia such as Korea and Japan. The Chinese Buddhist Diamond Sutra, printed by woodblock on 11 May 868, is the earliest known printed book with a precise publishing date. Movable type was invented in China during the 11th century by the Song dynasty artisan Bi Sheng, but it received limited use compared to woodblock printing. However, the use of copper movable types was documented in a Song-era book from 1193, and the earliest printed paper money using movable metal type to print the identifying codes were made in 1161.[1] The technology also spread outside China, with the oldest extant printed book using metal movable type being the Jikji, printed in Korea in 1377 during the Goryeo era.

Woodblock printing was also used in Europe until the mid-15th century. Late medieval German inventor Johannes Gutenberg created the first printing press based on previously known mechanical presses and a process for mass-producing metal type. By the end of the 15th century, his invention and widescale circulation of the Gutenberg Bible became responsible for a burgeoning economical book publishing industry spreading globally across Renaissance Europe and eventually among the colonial publishers and printers that emerged in the British American colonies. This industry enabled the communication of ideas and the sharing of knowledge on an unprecedented scale, leading to the global spread of the printing press during the early modern period. Alongside the development of text printing, new and lower-cost methods of image reproduction were developed, including lithography, screen printing and photocopying.

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Getting back to the matter at hand, here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Understanding technology regulation through history: insights from the legal history of the printing press and copyright in early modern England by Ali Ekber Cinar. Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice, Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2025, Pages 681–691 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jiplp/jpaf054 Published:: 03 September 2025

This paper is open access.

Softening coastal infrastructure with nature-inspired solutions

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As someone who lives in an area with a popular seawall walk (Canada’s Stanley Park Seawall in Vancouver), this November 16, 2025 Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research (OLAR) press release on EurekAlert is of special interest,

Seawalls and other unyielding structures meant to keep rising waters at bay and to protect against storm surges can cause other significant harm to the coast, often by disrupting natural processes and accelerating erosion. The gap between protection and preservation might be bridged with a softer, nature-inspired solution, according to an international research team.

In a study published on Oct. 7 [2025] in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research, the researchers detailed how artificial mangrove roots (AMRs) offer a viable, scalable solution for shoreline management. Inspired by the mangrove trees that grow in brackish or salty water, AMRs at two pilot sites in Thailand proved to enhance shoreline stability, dissipate wave energy and promote sediment retention, the team said.

“Coastal protection structures such as seawalls and revetments are designed to safeguard properties and infrastructure from waves and storm surges,” said corresponding author Butsawan Bidorn, assistant professor in the Department of Water Resources Engineering at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. “However, these rigid barriers disrupt natural sediment transport and can intensify erosion in adjacent areas by reflecting wave energy seaward.”

Bidorn explained that, over time, this leads to beach narrowing, scouring — erosion caused by moving water — near the structure, and the loss of natural habitats needed to support biodiversity, recreation and tourism.

“These unintended impacts are becoming increasingly problematic under climate change, forcing coastal communities to protect one place at the expense of another,” Bidorn said. “To overcome these drawbacks, attention is shifting toward soft and adaptive solutions that can be installed rapidly, repositioned if needed, and designed to work with natural coastal processes.”

AMRs are one such solution, as they can mimic the wave-dissipating and sediment-trapping functions of natural mangrove root systems, Bidorn explained. The researchers installed AMRs at two different sites along coastlines in Thailand, each with different environmental conditions. Over a year, the researchers used remote sensing technology and site visits to evaluate the resiliency of the AMRs and the impact on the sites.

“We found AMRs can serve as an additional option for mitigating erosion in areas where hard structures have caused negative end effects. Rather than blocking waves completely, AMRs allow water to pass through and help reduce wave impact, which encourages sediment to remain along the shoreline,” Bidorn said, noting that the approach supports more natural beach behavior compared to rigid seawalls and revetments. “AMRs are adjustable, removable and scalable, which helps coastal managers respond to changing shoreline conditions without committing to permanent infrastructure.”

AMRs are not intended to replace existing coastal protection, Bidorn cautioned, but rather to complement hard structures and offer more flexibility for sustainable and community-supported coastal management.

Next, the researchers plan to improve the AMR design to better adapt to different coast conditions, as well as to continue studying how AMRs influence the areas where they are installed.

“Our broader goal is to provide coastal managers with more adaptable and environmentally compatible tools that can be combined with existing protection measures,” Bidorn said. “By offering a flexible and scalable option, AMRs can help communities respond to erosion pressures while maintaining the natural characteristics of the coastline. We aim for AMRs to support more resilient coastal management strategies, particularly in places where urgent or temporary protection is needed.”

Bidorn is also affiliated with the university’s Center of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Research for Sustainable Development.  

Other collaborators are Warit Charoenlerkthawin and Thanawatth Sattabongkot, Chulalongkorn University; Narakorn Srinil and Yan Naung Aye, Newcastle University in the United Kingdom; and Ni Nyoman Pujianiki, Udayana University in Indonesia.

Chulalongkorn University and the International Science Partnerships Fund of the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology in partnership with the British Council, supported this work.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Field Evidence of a Nature-Inspired Solution to Mitigate the Impacts of Hard Coastal Structures by Warit Charoenlerkthawin, Thanawatth Sattabongkot, Narakorn Srinil, Yan Naung Aye, Ni Nyoman Pujianiki, and Butsawan Bidorn. Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research 7 Oct 2025 Vol 4 Article ID: 0107 DOI: 10.34133/olar.0107

This paper is open access.

First fully synthetic brain tissue model could enable more reliable animal-free drug testing

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A November 17, 2025 University of California at Riverside (UCR) news release (also on EurekAlert) by Jules Bernstein announced some encouraging news for those who would like to see the end of animal testing, Note: Links have been removed,

For the first time, scientists have grown functional, brain-like tissue without using any animal-derived materials or added biological coatings. The development opens the door to more controlled and humane neurological drug testing.

Neural tissue engineering’s overall goal is to create something that closely resembles the structure and function of the human brain, enabling more reproducible neurological disease studies and drug testing.

“One of the drawbacks of most brain tissue platforms is that they utilize biological coatings to help living cells thrive. These animal-derived coatings are poorly defined, which makes it difficult to recreate their exact composition for reliable testing,” said Iman Noshadi, a UCR associate professor of bioengineering who led the team.

In addition, using animal brains to conduct research relevant to human conditions — as is currently the norm — is not ideal. There are significant genetic and physiological differences between rodent and human brains. This platform could reduce, and in some cases eliminate, the need to use animal brains for this purpose and aligns with U.S. FDA efforts to phase out animal testing requirements in drug development.

The new material, described in the Advanced Functional Materials journal, functions as a scaffold on which to grow donor brain cells and could be used to model traumatic brain injuries, strokes, or neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.

It is primarily composed of a common polymer known for its chemical neutrality called polyethylene glycol, or PEG. Typically, living cells do not attach to PEG without the addition of proteins like laminin or fibrin.

By reshaping PEG into a maze of textured, interconnected pores, the research team turned an inert material into a matrix that cells recognize, colonize, and use to build functional neural networks. Once these cells mature, they could exhibit donor-specific neural activity, allowing direct evaluation of drugs targeted to their neurological conditions.

“Since the engineered scaffold is stable, it permits longer-term studies,” said Prince David Okoro, the study’s lead author and a doctoral candidate in Noshadi’s lab. “That’s especially important as mature brain cells are more reflective of real tissue function when investigating relevant diseases or traumas.”

To build the scaffold structure, the team used a process involving water, ethanol, and PEG flowing through nested glass capillaries. When the mixture reached an outer water stream, its components began to separate. A flash of light stabilized this separation, locking in the porous structure.

The pores allow oxygen and nutrients to circulate throughout the structure efficiently, essentially feeding the donated stem cells.  

“The material ensures cells get what they need to grow, organize, and communicate with each other in brain-like clusters,” Noshadi said. “Because the structure more closely mimics biology, we can start to design tissue models with much finer control over how cells behave.”

The research began in 2020 and was supported by Noshadi’s startup funds from UC Riverside. Okoro’s work was funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Currently, the scaffold material is only about two millimeters wide. Going forward, the team is working to scale the model and has submitted a related paper focused on liver tissue.

The group’s long-term goal is to develop a suite of interconnected organ-level cultures that reflect how systems in the body interact. They hope these tissue platforms will offer stability, longevity, and functionality comparable to the brain tissue model.

“An interconnected system would let us see how different tissues respond to the same treatment and how a problem in one organ may influence another. It is a step toward understanding human biology and disease in a more integrated way,” Noshadi said.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Bicontinuous Microarchitected Scaffolds Provide Topographic Cues That Govern Neuronal Behavior and Maturation by Prince D. Okoro, Kevin Dalsania, Shiril B. Iragavarapu, Benjamin Dela Cruz, Aihik Banerjee, Merve Basaranbilek, Martin F. Haase, Bahman Anvari, Iman Noshadi. Advanced Functional Materials Volume 36, Issue 5, 15 January 2026 e09452 First published online: 01 October 2025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202509452

This paper is open access.

Shout out to US science at 250: the American Association for the Advancement of Science presents a Science Magazine Special Collection:

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Happy 250th to our southern neighbours! The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is celebrating the anniversary with a special issue of its magazine, Science. The authors offer a thoughtful look back at 250 years acknowledging both the highs and lows of US scientific endeavour. Here’s more from a July 2, 2026 news release by Walter Beckwith on EurekAlert (an online science news service sponsored by the AAAS),

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, a special collection in Science highlights the roots and evolution of the nation’s science and research enterprise.

Across three Policy Forums, authors illustrate how the United States’ scientific and technological progress has been driven not only by major discoveries and innovations, but also by the policies and institutions that supported them. These articles highlight the historical changes in government, universities, and industry that have shaped the U.S. research and science enterprise and emphasize that continued collaboration among these sectors is essential to advancing scientific research and technological development.

For much of U.S. history, the federal government played only a limited role in funding scientific research. However, in a Policy Forum by Daniel Gross and Bhaven Sampat, the authors discuss how that changed dramatically during World War II, when the government forged unprecedented partnerships with universities and industry to accelerate innovation for the war effort. This success ultimately laid the foundation for the modern American research enterprise as well as the establishment of the diverse network of federal science-focused agencies, such as the NIH, NSF, and NASA. The system that arose post-WWII has become globally influential and continues to fuel technological progress, economic growth, and public health.

In another Policy Forum, Johns Hopkins University President Ronald Daniels highlights the role of U.S. universities in U.S. research. According to Daniels, much of the modern American research enterprise can trace its roots to the late 19th century transformation of U.S. universities. The rise in advanced research through graduate-level education, which was sustained by federal investment, quickly made the U.S. a global leader in science. The author argues that the core principles of open competition, scientific merit, and academic freedom remain essential and should be strengthened rather than abandoned.

The final Policy Forum underscores how American industry has helped build American science and innovation. According to Ashish Arora and Sharon Belenzon, the organization of American innovation has evolved from the lone inventor to a collaborative ecosystem linking universities, start-ups, and established companies. Early industrial research laboratories, pioneered by innovators like Thomas Edison and later expanded by major corporations, integrated scientific discovery with product development and helped fuel many of the twentieth century’s greatest technological advances. Over time, however, universities became the primary engines of basic research, while venture-backed start-ups increasingly translated discoveries into commercial applications and larger firms focused on scaling them.

The package also includes a selection of six short essays from various authors that highlight the nation’s scientific legacy – both its extraordinary achievements, such as the space program, and its profound harms, like the eugenics movement. Together, the essays offer perspective on how science has shaped –  and been shaped by – democracy, equity, public investment, and the U.S.’s evolving values. [emphasis mine]

In an Editorial, Science Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp reflects on whether the promise of knowledge and education envisioned by the founders is still alive in America today. “Rather than continuing to discuss the problem of public trust in higher education and science, the Semiquincentennial is an opportunity for both institutions to acknowledge that Americans can be disappointed in the impact of higher education and science on society but still believe that both can be better,” Thorp writes. “The scientific community can recognize this by committing to what it says it can do and living up to those aspirations in a way that is rigorously documented and provides benefits to all.”

Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.aek0783

Article Title

250 years of promise

The collection of essays are open access.

I have dipped into the collection and found the three main essays heavy on historical overviews while the group of six shorter essays offer accessible reads into some of the best and the worst of US science.

American science at 250 by Alex Wellerstein, Beronda L. Montgomery, Margaret O’Mara, Luis A. Campos, Osagie K. Obasogie, and Erik M. Conway. Science 2 Jul 2026 Vol 393, Issue 6806 pp. 28-32 DOI: 10.1126/science.aej4833

Like the rest of the collection, the group of essays is open access.

Hap[y 250th! I wish the best for our neighbours, irregardless of the current kakistrocracy.

BBC’s (British Broadcasting Corporation) Zoe Kleinman poses a provocative question: Will quantum be bigger than AI?

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Zoe Kleinman’s November 5, 2025 article for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) explores two technologies that have people excited in both the positive and the negative senses, Note: Links have been removed,

There’s an old adage among tech journalists like me – you can either explain quantum accurately, or in a way that people understand, but you can’t do both [emphasis mine].

That’s because quantum mechanics – a strange and partly theoretical branch of physics – is a fiendishly difficult concept to get your head around.

It involves tiny particles behaving in weird ways. And this odd activity has opened up the potential of a whole new world of scientific super power.

Its mind-boggling complexity is probably a factor in why quantum has ended up with a lower profile than tech’s current rockstar – artificial intelligence (AI).

This is despite a steady stream of recent big quantum announcements from tech giants like Microsoft and Google among others.

Broadly speaking, we tend to think about quantum more commonly in the form of hardware like sensors and computers, while AI is more software-based – it requires hardware to operate.

Put them together, and we might one day have a new form of technology that’s more powerful than anything we have ever created… although the word “might” is doing some heavy lifting in that particular prediction, warns Brian Hopkins, VP and principal analyst in emerging tech at research firm Forresters.

“The potential is there, but the jury is still out,” he says.

“Initial experiments suggest promise, but they all indicate that we require much more powerful quantum computers and further innovative research to effectively apply quantum effects to AI.”

In terms of their value, both are lucrative. The quantum sector could be worth up to $97bn (£74bn) by 2035, according to market research group McKinsey.

Meanwhile, AI’s value is forecast in the trillions. But they both live under the shadow of hype and the bursting of bubbles.

…

Nicely done Ms. Kleinman. It took me to long to see it but thank you for applying the uncertainty principle to science communication “… you can either explain quantum accurately, or in a way that people understand, but you can’t do both.”

Quantum bling

This passage describing a quantum computer was compelling since I have never seen one before, from Kleinman’s November 5, 2025 article, Note: A link has been removed,

…

Quantum and AI have one more thing in common – errors. While we are largely familiar now with the “hallucinations” of generative AI tools, quantum is plagued by a different kind of error.

These are caused because the state in which the particles have to operate is so fragile. The slightest change to the environment, including light and noise, can disrupt them.

It’s tricky to sustain such an environment. This week Elon Musk suggested on X that quantum computing would run best on the “permanently shadowed craters of the moon”.

Quantum computers don’t look anything like a traditional machines. There is no design blueprint, but they are currently very big.

They exist in laboratories, and the most commonly adopted format seems to include a kind of jellyfish-inspired shape.[emphasis mine].

They require extremely cold temperatures and lasers. It’s not the sort of thing you’re likely to have in your home, let alone in your pocket.

They’re also a bit bling – researchers have found that using synthetic diamonds [emphasis mine] to create qubits, which are the building blocks of quantum computers, enables them to work much closer to room temperature.

The luxury jeweller De Beers [emphasis mine] has a subsidiary company called Element Six, which claims to have launched the world’s first general-purpose quantum-grade diamond in 2020. And it has worked with Amazon Web Services on optimising artificial diamonds for future networks of quantum machines.

…

Quantum could be good for us

Kleinman reviews some of the quantum computing promises, from her November 5, 2025 article, Note: A link has been removed,

…

“The area of quantum computing is, in my mind, when you look at the applications, as big if not bigger than AI.”

Prof Sir Peter Knight is one of the UK’s top quantum experts. “Things that could take the age of the universe to calculate, even on the most powerful supercomputer, could be performed probably in seconds,” he told Dr Dr [sic]Jim Al-Khalili on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific.

So what exactly are these gigantic, life-changing things that the machines might do once they’re ready?

As with AI, there’s a lot of quantum research directed towards improving healthcare.

Quantum computers could one day be able to effortlessly churn through endless combinations of molecules to come up with new drugs and medications – a process that currently takes years and years using classical computers.

To give you an idea of that scale – in December 2024, Google unveiled a new quantum chip called Willow, which it claimed could take five minutes to solve a problem that would currently take the world’s fastest super computers 10 septillion years – or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years – to complete.

Hazra [Rajeeb Hazra, the boss of Quantinuum] says this could pave the way for personalised medication, where instead of getting a standard prescription, you get a specific drug tailormade for your individual body, that’s most likely to work for you.

And that applies to wider chemical processes too, such as new ways to produce fertilizers more efficiently, potentially a huge boost for global farmers.

Quantum sensors, which use the principles of quantum mechanics to measure things incredibly precisely, already exist and are found in atomic clocks.

In 2019, scientists at Nottingham University put them in a prototype device the size of a bike helmet, and used them in a new system to conduct non-intrusive brain scans on children with conditions such as epilepsy.

…

Trouble ahead?

Kleinman’s November 5, 2025 article examines one of the potential problems,

It is widely accepted that current forms of encryption – the way in which we store both personal data and official secrets – will one day be busted by quantum technology being able to churn through every single possible combination in record time, until the data becomes unscrambled.

Nations are known to be already stealing encrypted data from each other with a view to being able to decode it one day.

“It’s called harvest now, decrypt later,” says Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert from Surrey University [University of Surrey].

“The theory of how to break current forms of public key encryption await a truly operational quantum computer,” he adds.

“The threat is so high that it’s assumed everyone needs to introduce quantum-resistant encryption now.”

The moment a such a computer exists is sometimes referred to as Q-day. Estimates of when it might arrive vary, but Brian Hopkins at Forrester says it could be soon – around the year 2030.

Companies like Apple and the secure messaging platform Signal have already rolled out what they believe to be post-quantum encryption keys, but they cannot be applied retrospectively to current data encrypted in the traditional way.

…

If you have time, I recommend reading Kleinman’s November 5, 2025 article in its entirety.

What about our current level of privacy?

Valerie Fortney’s February 26, 2026 article for the National Post, “It’s the end of personal privacy. ‘There’s nowhere to hide anymore'”

By the time the Class of 2026 convenes this spring, the world will already know all sorts of personal details about these mostly 25-and-under university and college grads, things no one would have even thought to ask about the generations that preceded them.

Parents began trumpeting their arrivals on social media beginning in 2004, with baby steps and kindergarten performances chronicled on Facebook and, later, Instagram. Security cameras captured their first toddle into a grocery store. Today, they, and the rest of us, can be photographed and videoed without consent or even knowledge, from any one of the more than 12 million CCTV cameras or 30 million smartphones in use in Canada.

Some were introduced to computers and cellphones even before grade school, and it didn’t take long before they strapped on smart watches and logged on to social media. Even then, those convenient devices were collecting not just data but creating the start of full profiles — sometimes “anonymized,” sometimes not — for marketing and other purposes.

Even in the privacy of home, smart fridges were collecting data about the entire family’s eating routines, while smart TVs in living rooms “watched” them, tracking and cataloguing viewing habits. Today, Alexa listens in.

When those fresh-faced graduates apply for that first big job out of school, the odds are their prospective employers will have sifted through everything from social posts to search engines and even online gaming sites. And if you somehow stayed off-line and have no digital footprint at all? That could raise suspicion that you have something to hide.

In short, forget about personal privacy, everyone; it ain’t what it used to be. But do we still care? Should we?

…

Fortney’s February 26, 2026 article is an estimated 21 minute read.

Between the current state of privacy and Q Day, the future doesn’t look that good for anyone who prizes their privacy.

Happy Canada Day! Breathing in the past: How museums can use biomolecular archaeology to bring ancient scents to life

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Caption: Visitors sniffing the Scent of the Afterlife card during a guided tour at the Museum August Kestner, Hannover, Germany Credit: Ehrich SC, Calvez C, Loeben CE, Dubiel U, Terp Laursen S and Huber B (2026) From biomolecular traces to multisensory experiences: bringing scent reproductions to museums and cultural heritage. Front. Environ. Archaeol. 4:1736875. doi: 10.3389/fearc.2025.1736875

Happy Canada Day 2026! I think the national holiday is a chance to celebrate and review the past, the present, and the future. The following story provides a rather unusual approach to experiencing the past.

A February 5, 2026 Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology press release (also on EurekAlert) takes us to the past via the sense of smell,

Recent advances in biomolecular archaeology have revealed that ancient objects can retain the molecular fingerprints of past aromatic practices. These molecules provide unprecedented insight into ancient perfumery, medicine, ritual, and daily life.

In a new publication, an interdisciplinary research team led by archaeo-chemist Barbara Huber (Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and the University of Tübingen), shows how museums can use this molecular evidence to engage audiences with the sensory worlds of the past. The team combined their expertise to create a new workflow for converting biomolecular data into accessible, visitor-ready olfactory recreations.

“This research represents a significant shift in how scientific results can be shared beyond academic publications,” explains Huber.

From Data to Fragrance

The process began with a briefing, prepared by Huber in collaboration with scent-based storytelling consultant Sofia Collette Ehrich, establishing a crucial link between scientific data and perfumery practice. Building on this foundation, perfumer Carole Calvez developed a series of formulations that translated ancient chemical signatures into a scent suitable for museum environments. Calvez emphasizes that this is not a simple act of replication.

“The real challenge lies in imagining the scent as a whole,” she explains. “Biomolecular data provide essential clues, but the perfumer must translate chemical information into a complete and coherent olfactory experience that evokes the complexity of the original material, rather than just its individual components.”

Scent Cards and Stations: Visitors Travel Back in Time through their Noses

To demonstrate, the team developed two formats for presenting ancient scents in public settings. Using The Scent of the Afterlife, a recreation of the aromas that accompanied the ancient Egyptian mummification process, they created a portable scented card and a fixed scent diffusion station integrated into exhibition design.

At the Museum August Kestner in Hanover, where the artefacts that inspired the project are displayed, the scented card quickly became an integral part of guided tours.

“Scent provides a new approach to mummification, moving away from the scare factor and horror movie clichés towards an appreciation of the motivations behind the actions and the desired results,” curators Christian E. Loeben and Ulrike Dubiel report.

The fixed scent station format was installed in the exhibition Ancient Egypt – Obsessed with Life at the Moesgaard Museum in Aarhus, Denmark.

“The scent station transformed how visitors understood embalming,” curator Steffen Terp Laursen observes. “Smell added an emotional and sensory depth that text labels alone could never provide.”

This work demonstrates how molecular traces of the past can be transformed into meaningful cultural experiences.

“We hope to offer museums compelling new tools for bringing visitors closer to past environments and practices via sensory interpretation and engagement,” Sofia Collette Ehrich concludes.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

From biomolecular traces to multisensory experiences: bringing scent reproductions to museums and cultural heritage by Sofia Collette Ehrich, Carole Calvez, Christian E. Loeben, Ulrike Dubiel, Steffen Terp Laursen, Barbara Huber. Front. Environ. Archaeol., 04 February 2026 Sec. Archaeological Isotope Analysis Volume 4 – 2025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fearc.2025.1736875 Published: 05 February 2026

This paper is open access.

Registration rates + more: 2026 Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC 2026)—Sovereignty by Design: Mobilizing Action to Reshape Canada’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Capacity on November 24 – 27, 2025

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A June 18, 2026 Canadian Science Policy Centre notice (received via email), announces early registration for their annual conference, Note: CSPC can stand for either the Canadian Science Policy Centre or the Canaidian Science Policy Conference depending on context. From the announcement,

CSPC 2026 Registration is Now Open –

Register at SuperSaver Rate

Registration for the eagerly awaited 18th Canadian Science and Innovation Policy Conference is now available! Check the CSPC Conference Website for more information.

Register now at the SuperSaver rate, which offers significant savings and is valid until August 31, 2026.

CSPC 2026 will feature:

  • NEW: AI Policy and Governance Summit on Tuesday, November 24, 2026
  • 4 Symposia with 15+ sessions on Wednesday, November 25, 2026. Themes on:
    • Northern Sovereignty
    • Talent Development
    • From Investment to Impact in Dementia Research and Innovation
    • Transforming R&I Investments into Canadian Economic Sovereignty: A Federal-Provincial Dialogue
  • 50+ Concurrent Panel Sessions
  • 7 Plenary Sessions
  • 2 Breakfast Sessions
  • 2 Luncheons Talks
  • 2 Receptions
  • Fireside Chats
  • Gala Dinner

With the overarching theme of ‘Sovereignty by Design: Mobilizing Action to Reshape Canada’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Capacity’, CSPC 2026 expects more than 1000 participants, 300+ speakers in 50+ panel sessions, and will include a spectacular Gala Dinner featuring its award ceremony, which has become a signature annual event to celebrate Canadian science and innovation policy achievements.

Don’t miss out on the SuperSaver rate, and register now!

Register Now

Now for the rate, from the CSPC 2026 registration page,

Registration Rates

All rates are subject to 13% HST tax.
For group registration, please see below

Conference and Symposiums: 3 Lunches, 3 breakfasts, refreshment breaks, and two receptions.
AI Summit:  Breakfast, lunch and refreshment breaks.

SuperSaver (All Summer)
 until August 31		CONFERENCE ONLYCONFERENCE + SYMPOSIUM
(Nov 25-27, 2026)		CONFERENCE + SYMPOSIUM
+ AI SUMMIT
(Nov 24-27, 2026)		GALA DINNER
(Nov 25, 2026)
Standard (Gala Dinner included)$1,300.00$1,400.00Included
Academic/Non-Profit/Diplomat/Retired$850.00$950.00$150.00
Student/Post Doctoral$350.00$400.00$99.00
Early Bird (Sept 1 to Oct 4)
Standard (Gala Dinner included)$1,400.00$1,500.00$1,600.00Included
Academic/Non-Profit/Diplomat/Retired$900.00$1,000.00$1,100.00$150.00
Student/Post Doctoral$350.00$400.00$450.00$99.00
Regular (Oct 5 to Nov)
Standard (Gala Dinner included)$1,600.00$1,700.00$1,800.00Included
Academic/Non-Profit/Diplomat/Retired$1,000.00$1,100.00$1,200.00$150.00
Student/Post Doctoral$400.00$500.00$550.00$99.00
AI SUMMIT ONLY
 (Tuesday Nov 24 9am – 5pm)		SYMPOSIUM ONLY
 (Wednesday Nov 25 9am-12pm)
Standard $300$300.00
Academic/Non-Profit/Diplomat/Retired$200$200.00
Student/Post Doctoral$100$100.00
Other Cost
Speaker One Day (Day of presentation)$250
Speaker Full Conference$500
Exhibitor Booth Staff$900
Gala Dinner TicketsCost
Guest (not registered for conference)$300
Table (10)$2,750

The actual conference is from November 25 – 27, 2026. The AI Summit being held on November 24, 2026 is tacked onto the conference..

By and large prices are up by about $50 – $100..One of the things that makes the 2026 iteration different is that you can’t purchase a ‘conference only’ registration if you’re a “supersaver.” The others, early bird and regular have the ‘conference only’ option. Predictably, there’s a new category. In addition to ‘conference’ only, ‘conference + symposium’, and ‘gala dinner’, there’s ‘Conference + Symposium + AI Summit’.

As for the AI summit (November 24, 2026) and the 2026 CSPC (November 25 – 27, 2026), here’s more from the 2026 conference homepage, Note 1: This is early so there are no details about speakers or sessions, Note 2: Due to my technical shortcomings, I have reformatted the following information,

Sovereignty by Design: Mobilizing Action to Reshape Canada’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Capacity

The 18th annual Canadian Science and Innovation Policy Conference (CSPC 2026) will be held from Nov 24th-27th, 2026 at the Fairmont Château Laurier, Ottawa.

AI POLICY AND GOVERNANCE SUMMIT

Tuesday,
Nov 24th [2026[
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
(In Person Only)

• 7 panels, bringing together experts to discuss AI governance, safety, tech adoption, and their impact on policy making

SYMPOSIUMS

Wednesday,
Nov 25th [2026]
9:00am – 12:00pm
(In Person Only) • 4 Symposia:
– Northern Sovereignty
– Talent Development
– The Moonshot We Can’t Afford to Miss – Policy and Strategic Investment to Transform Dementia Research and Innovation for Societal Impact
– Transforming R&I Investments into Canadian Economic Sovereignty:
A Federal-Provincial Dialogue

• Includes 15+ sessions

MAIN CONFERENCE

Wednesday,
Nov 25th – Friday, Nov 27th [2026]
(In Person Only)

• 50+ Concurrent Sessions
• 7 Plenary Sessions
• 2 Luncheon Talks
• 2 Breakfast Sessions
• Fireside Chats
• 2 Receptions
• Gala Dinner

CSPC 2026 Tracks:

STI: Sovereignty, and National Capability

STI2: he Challenge of Implementation – Coordination and Collaboration

ST3: Productivity, Competitiveness, and Economic Transformation

ST4: Civil Society, Public Trust, Social Cohesion, and Democratic Resilience

ST5: Talent Development and Future Skills

ST6: Science and Innovation Diplomacy and Geopolitical Shift

ST7: Northern and Arctic Knowledge and Innovation – Key to Canadian Sovereignty?

That’s it for now.

Transforming respiratory disease prevention with a nasal vaccine

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This is exciting news but you might want to temper your enthusiasm, a little. The research was performed on mice. A November 10, 2025 Trinity College Dublin press release (also on EurekAlert) announces a new nasal vaccine,

A research team from Trinity has unveiled a groundbreaking new approach to vaccination that could redefine how we protect against respiratory infections.

In a landmark study published in Nature Microbiology, the team demonstrated that their nasally-delivered, antibiotic-inactivated Bordetella pertussis (AIBP) vaccine not only prevents severe disease but also curbs bacterial transmission — an achievement long sought by vaccine developers worldwide.

The work, led by Professor Kingston Mills and Dr Davoud Jazayeri of Trinity’s School of Biochemistry and Immunology, introduces a needle-free mucosal vaccine platform capable of inducing durable local immunity directly at the infection site.

This strategy could transform both whooping cough prevention and the broader market for respiratory bacterial vaccines, addressing an urgent global need for next-generation immunisation technologies.

“We’ve applied our understanding of protective immune pathways to engineer a fundamentally different kind of vaccine,” said Prof. Mills, who is based in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI). 

“By stimulating immunity where infections begin, at the respiratory mucosa, we can offer stronger protection and potentially interrupt community transmission.”

Current whooping cough vaccines, while life-saving, have key limitations: they protect infants from severe illness but fail to prevent bacterial colonisation in the nose and throat, allowing continued spread within communities. Global resurgence of pertussis — despite high vaccination coverage — underscores the commercial and clinical demand for improved vaccines.

The Trinity team’s innovation hinges on antibiotic-inactivated Bordetella pertussis delivered intranasally rather than by injection. This delivery route activates a distinct T-cell-driven mucosal immune response that shields both the lungs and upper respiratory tract without triggering unwanted systemic inflammation.

In preclinical studies, AIBP achieved complete protection against infection of the lungs and nasal cavity, which outperforms current acellular vaccines. These findings suggest AIBP could serve as both a stand-alone next-generation pertussis vaccine and a “plug-and-play” platform adaptable to other pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

This research was initially funded through a Research Ireland Frontiers for the Future Award and is now advancing under the ARC Hub for Therapeutics, a  €32 million national translational research initiative administered by Research Ireland and co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Union through the ERDF Southern, Eastern & Midland Regional Programme 2021-2027.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Respiratory immunization using antibiotic-inactivated Bordetella pertussis confers T cell-mediated protection against nasal infection in mice by Seyed Davoud Jazayeri,, Lisa Borkner,, Caroline E. Sutton, and Kingston H. G. Mills. Nature Microbiology volume 10, pages 3094–3106 (2025) Published: 10 November 2025 Version of record: 10 November 2025 Issue date: December 2025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-025-02166-6

This paper is open access.