To resolve this controversy, Dr. Ruijing Ni, the first author of the study published today in the journal One Earth, and her colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry have conducted a comprehensive global meta-analysis with researchers from China, the USA, and Australia. The research team determined the data from 68 epidemiologic studies from 2019 conducted across 22 countries, including those in North America, Western Europe, East Asia, South Asia, and Africa. They conclude that there is now sufficient evidence with high confidence level to support an association between long-term exposure to ambient PM_2.5 and asthma.

11 percent of new cases of asthma in Germany are attributable to particulate matter

“We estimate that globally in 2019, almost a third of asthma cases are attributable to long-term PM_2.5 exposure, corresponding to 63.5 million existing cases and 11.4 million new cases. In Germany, the pollution may have been responsible for 11 percent of new asthma cases, which corresponds to 28,000 people. We also find that the risk of asthma associated with PM_2.5 is much higher in children than in adults, reflecting the age-related vulnerability,” says Dr. Ni.

Typically, the full maturation of lung and immune function is gradually completed until early adulthood. As a result, children may be more susceptible to air pollution exposure, which can lead to airway oxidative stress, inflammation, and hyper-responsiveness, as well as changes in immunological responses and respiratory sensitization to allergens. All these factors play a role in the development of asthma.

Further using these data, the research team established exposure-response curves for both childhood and adult asthma. Such curves are widely employed to quantitatively assess health risks by illustrating the relationship between the level of exposure to a particular substance, e.g., PM_2.5 and the magnitude of the effect it produces, e.g., asthma risk. The exposure-response curves were determined by incorporating evidence from countries and regions across various income levels, which capture the global variation in PM_2.5 exposure. “This initiative is important for quantifying global health effects of air pollution,” comments Prof. Yuming Guo, an epidemiologist from Monash University.

Countries with different income levels and particulate matter pollution considered

Populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are typically exposed to higher concentrations of air pollution and bear a greater burden of PM_2.5. In contrast, research on the health effects of PM_2.5 has been limited in these regions previously, with the majority of studies conducted in North America and Western Europe. Consequently, attempting a global health impact assessment of PM_2.5 exposure necessitates extrapolating exposure-response associations observed in high-income countries to LMICs. The approach may introduce large uncertainty due to the differences in air pollution sources, healthcare systems, and demographic characteristics between high-income countries and LMICs.

The inclusion of evidence from several LMICs mitigates the limitation in approach and enables the exposure-response curves to be applicable to assess city- to global-scale attributable burden of asthma, as well as asthma health benefits associated with air pollution reductions, e.g., health benefits obtained from policy-driven reductions in air pollution under different scenarios.

“Our findings highlight the urgent need for policymakers to enforce stringent legislation to continuously combat air pollution, while personal protective measures, such as wearing masks, can also help reduce individual exposure and mitigate the risk of asthma,” emphasizes Prof. Yafang Cheng, the corresponding author of the study and the director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry.

The study was conducted by researchers from Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (Germany), Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (China), University of Washington (USA), and Monash University (Australia).

“Our goal was to design a printable concrete that performs better and is more eco-friendly,” said Osman Ozbulut, a professor at UVA’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “The addition of graphene to LC2 cement offers a unique opportunity to lower carbon emissions while maintaining the strength and flexibility required for 3D printed construction.”

The study, which explored the flow properties, mechanical performance and environmental impacts of this material, was led by visiting scholar Tugba Baytak and UVA’s Tawfeeq Gdeh, doctoral researchers at Resilient and Advanced Infrastructure Laboratory at University of Virginia. Collaborating with researchers at Virginia Transportation Research Council (VTRC), Baytak and Gdeh applied graphene — known for its outstanding mechanical properties — to LC2 cement, significantly improving its performance for 3D printing applications.

“This kind of innovation is essential for the future of construction, and I’m proud to be part of the team driving this forward,” said Baytak.

A key aspect of the research was a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), conducted by Zhangfan Jiang, a postdoctoral researcher the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in collaboration with Lisa Colosi Peterson, an environmental engineering professor at the University of Virginia. The LCA revealed that this graphene-enhanced LC2 concrete could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 31% compared to traditional printable concrete mixtures.

“Being able to see the full environmental footprint of this new concrete was important,” explained Jiang. “It not only exhibits better mechanical performance but also has a lower environmental impact, making 3D concrete construction technology more sustainable compared to traditional 3D printing methods with higher carbon emissions.”

“It’s rewarding to see science push us toward greener building practices,” said Colosi Peterson.

The partnership with VTRC allowed the UVA team to assess the material’s potential applications in transportation infrastructure, further showcasing its real-world potential. “The VTRC collaboration was essential in uncovering the fundamental properties of this new concrete,” added Ozbulut.

“It’s exciting to be part of a project that addresses both the technical demands of modern construction and the urgent need for more eco-friendly materials,” said Gdeh.

The research team included Tugba Baytak, a doctoral researcher from Istanbul Technical University and a visiting scholar at University of Virginia, Tawfeeq Gdeh, Zhangfan Jiang, Lisa Colosi, and Osman E. Ozbulut from the University of Virginia, and Gabriel Arce, a research scientist from the Virginia Transportation Research Council.

The article was entitled “Rheological, Mechanical, and Environmental Performance of Printable Graphene-Enhanced Cementitious Composites with Limestone and Calcined Clay” published in the Journal of Building Engineering, 2024.

This research was funded in part by the University of Virginia’s 3 Cavaliers Program and The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK).

A new technique for growing these microscopic crystals, published this week in Science, has not only found a new, more efficient way to build a useful type of quantum dot, but also opened up a whole group of novel chemical materials for future researchers’ exploration.

“I am excited to see how researchers across the globe can harness this technique to prepare previously unimaginable nanocrystals,” said first author Justin Ondry, a former postdoctoral researcher in UChicago’s Talapin Lab.

The team — which included researchers from the University of Chicago, University of California Berkeley, Northwestern University, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Argonne National Laboratory — achieved these remarkable results by replacing the organic solvents typically used to create nanocrystals with molten salt — literally superheated sodium chloride of the type sprinkled on baked potatoes.

“Sodium chloride is not a liquid in your mind, but assume you heat it to such a crazy temperature that it becomes a liquid. It looks like liquid. It has similar viscosity as water. It’s colorless. The only problem was that nobody ever considered these liquids as media for colloidal synthesis,” said Prof. Dmitri Talapin at the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) and the Chemistry Department.

Why salt?

Quantum dots are among the more well-known nanocrystals, not only for their wide commercial uses but for the recent 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry given to the team that discovered them.

“If there is a material from the world of nano that has had an impact on the society in terms of applications, it’s the quantum dot,” said UC Berkeley Prof. Eran Rabani, a co-author of the paper.

However, much of the previous research on quantum dots, including the Nobel work, was around dots grown using combinations of elements from the second and sixth groups on the periodic table, Rabani said. These are called “II-VI” (two-six) materials.

More promising materials for quantum dots can be found elsewhere on the periodic table.

Materials found in the third and fifth groups of the periodic table (III-V materials) are used in the most efficient solar cells, brightest LEDs, most powerful semiconductor lasers, and fastest electronic devices. They would potentially make great quantum dots, but, with few exceptions, it was impossible to use them to grow nanocrystals in solution. The temperatures required to make these materials were too high for any known organic solvent.

Molten salt can handle the heat, making these previously inaccessible materials accessible.

“This distinct advance of molten salt synthesis that Prof. Talapin’s group has pioneered for the first time many materials for which previously colloidal synthesis was simply unavailable,” said co-author Richard D. Schaller, who has a joint appointment with Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University. “Fundamental as well as applied advances can now be made by with many of these newly available materials and at the same time there is now a whole new synthetic frontier available to the community.”

The Quantum Age

One of the reasons researchers synthesizing nanocrystals overlooked molten salt was because of its strong polarity, said UChicago graduate student Zirui Zhou, second author of the new paper.

Salt’s positively charged ions and negatively charged ions have a strong pull toward each other. Small things like nanocrystals have small surface charges, so researchers assumed the charge would be too weak to push back as salt’s ions pull in. Any growing crystals would be crushed before they could form a stable material.

Or so previous researchers thought.

“It’s a surprising observation,” Zhou said. “This is very contradictory to what scientists traditionally think about these systems.”

The new technique can mean new building blocks for better, faster quantum and classical computers, but for many on the research team, the truly exciting part is opening up new materials for study.

“Many eras in human history are defined by the materials humanity had available — think ‘Bronze Age’ or ‘Iron Age,'” Ondry said. “In this work we have unlocked the ability to synthesize nearly a dozen new nanocrystal compositions which will enable future technologies.”

More and more organizations have come to San Francisco State University’s experts in organizational psychology asking for help doing just that. In response, University researchers developed a tool for job interviews to assess narcissistic grandiosity among potential job candidates. San Francisco State Psychology Professors Kevin Eschleman and Chris Wright and four student researchers led the project, published in the Journal of Personality Assessment.

“We focused on narcissism because it’s one of the most commonly talked about characteristics of people. Really, it represents a lot of things that can go bad in terms of a team,” Eschleman said. “But it’s a characteristic that is very attractive in the short-term. [Narcissists] often have tendencies to be very goal-oriented and are often very successful. There’s a lure to somebody who is high in narcissism.”

The tool developed by the SF State researchers — the Narcissism Interview Scale for Employment (NISE) — is a set of behavioral and situational questions that can be incorporated into a job interview. One question asks respondents to describe their approach to leading a team. Another asks how candidates would procced if they disagree with a plan that the rest of their team likes — and the project requires unanimous consent to move forward. Interviewers are trained to rate candidate responses, providing a more scientific and consistent way to evaluate a candidate’s propensity for narcissistic grandiosity.

The project started four years ago when Eschleman noticed an uptick in organizations asking about effective teams, candidate selection and how to avoid “bad apples.” It’s easy for organizations to be enticed by how a candidate’s skills appear on paper, but failing to properly consider personality might derail team-oriented environments, Eschleman notes. Employees with narcissistic grandiosity tend to have inflated views of self and make self-focused and short term-focused decisions instead of considering long-term organizational needs. They may also abuse and try to protect their sense of power and control, he adds.

“This isn’t a categorical diagnosis,” Eschleman clarified, noting that everyone probably falls somewhere on the continuum of narcissism. “What we’re looking at are people’s consistencies over time. It’s how they view themselves or how others view them consistently over time. Do they engage in these actions consistently?”

The authors acknowledge that this assessment is not a perfect science. There are many other factors in building a successful team and healthy work environment. But they hope their tool will increase the odds for success.

While the researchers have been studying these topics for years, they wanted to make sure their tool was easy to use and could be adapted by different work environments. It is why they focused on job interviews, something accepted and considered appropriate by both organizations and applicants in the hiring process.

Sharon Pidakala (M.S., ’22), one of the study authors, is now a People & Development Manager at Lawyers On Demand in Singapore. Her work involves talent acquisition, culture, development, organizational policies and employee engagement.

“I’ve been grateful to put my research into daily use. It’s really important to make sure that these questions are not outrightly direct because you don’t want it to look like you’re asking someone, ‘Are you a narcissist?'” explained Pidakala, whose SFSU thesis focused on developing the NISE tool. “These questions are raised in a way to make it look favorable for the candidate.”

Pidakala came to SF State specifically to get this type of training. With an undergraduate background in psychology, she sought specialized training in organizational psychology to further refine and expand her expertise in the field.

“Attending SF State and studying organizational psychology has been incredibly valuable, equipping me with versatile skills that can be applied globally,” she said.

For years, scientists have warned that unchecked Arctic warming could lead to devastating consequences, threatening wildlife and ushering in an era of more frequent and extreme weather events. Amid concerns for these types of outcomes, a study led by UC Riverside offers some limited relief.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined the effects that the slowing of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, may have on the climate in the Arctic. The AMOC is the current that transports heat from the tropics to higher latitudes.

Though temperatures in the Arctic are projected to rise by 10 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, the study shows that when the slowing AMOC current is factored in, Arctic temperatures will only rise by 8 degrees Celsius.

“The AMOC is a critical component of our climate system because it moves heat around the globe,” said Yu-Chi Lee, UCR graduate student in Earth and Planetary Sciences and first author of the study. “We found that its weakening reduces the amount of heat reaching the Arctic, which slows down the rate of warming.”

Despite this potential benefit, the study highlights ongoing concerns for Arctic ecosystems. As sea ice melts, polar bears face habitat loss, which could make it more difficult for them to hunt and survive. Moreover, as the ice disappears, darker open water is exposed, which absorbs more sunlight and further accelerates warming through a process called the albedo effect.

While the slowdown may slightly reduce Arctic warming, the researchers caution that it may cause other climate disruptions. One of the most concerning is a potential shift in the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a tropical rain belt. If this rain belt moves southward, regions that depend on its rainfall could experience more frequent droughts, affecting agriculture and water supplies.

There are also misconceptions about the connection between sea ice and rising sea levels. Melting sea ice doesn’t directly cause sea levels to rise because the ice is already in the water, much like how melting ice cubes in a glass won’t cause it to overflow. However, land ice, such as glaciers, and the expansion of water as it heats up, do contribute to rising sea levels. The AMOC slowdown isn’t a major factor in sea level rise, but it brings other significant changes to the climate system.

Wei Liu, UC Riverside associate professor of climate change and co-author of the paper, emphasized the complexity of the AMOC’s role in the global climate. “The AMOC slowdown may offer some temporary relief in the Arctic, but this is not a simple good-news story,” Liu said. “The overall impact on ecosystems and weather patterns, both in the Arctic and globally, could still be severe.”

The research team used a coupled climate model, which integrates interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, land, and sea ice. The researchers isolated the effect of the AMOC by running two simulations: one that allowed the AMOC to slow under the influence of rising greenhouse gases, and another that artificially maintained its strength by removing fresh water from the North Atlantic to increase salinity.

“Our simulations allowed us to clearly see how much of the future Arctic warming is tied to the AMOC slowdown,” Lee said. “Even though the slowdown reduces warming by a couple of degrees, the overall effects on Arctic ecosystems and the global climate system remain severe.”

Lee also emphasized that the slowdown began relatively recently, and there’s still debate among scientists about how long it has been happening and whether it will continue.

“Direct, in-situ observations of AMOC strength began around 2004, so it’s a relatively short timeframe from which to draw long-term conclusions,” she said. “But there are studies suggesting it could collapse by the end of this century, which would have huge implications.”

Looking ahead, Lee remains focused on the bigger picture. “While the AMOC slowdown might provide some short-term benefits, its broader impacts show us that even small shifts in ocean circulation can cause ripple effects across the planet. Climate change is far from a one-region issue,” she said. “The future of the Arctic — and the world — depends on how we respond today.”

“It’s inconvenient, it’s annoying, but sensations like pain and itch are crucial. They’re ever-present, especially when it comes to skin infections,” says Inclan-Rico, a postdoctoral researcher in the Herbert Lab at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine, who has been exploring what he calls “sensory immunity,” the idea that “if you can feel it, you can react to it.” Itch, he explains, is the body’s way of detecting threats such as skin infections before they can take hold.

But in a recent paper published in Nature Immunology, De’Broski Herbert, professor of pathobiology at Penn Vet, and his team flipped that theory on its head. They shed light on how a parasitic worm, Schistosoma mansoni, can sneak into the human body by evading this very defense mechanism, bypassing the itch response entirely. And while there are prophylactic therapeutics for those who may encounter S. mansoni, options for treating someone who has unknowingly been exposed are relatively scant, and these research findings pave the way for addressing this concern.

“These blood flukes, which are among the most prevalent parasites in humans, infecting nearly 250 million people, have seemingly evolved to block the itch, making it easier for them to enter the body undetected,” Inclan says. “So, we wanted to figure out how they do it. What are the molecular mechanisms underlying how they turn off such an essential sensory alarm? And what can this teach us about the sensory apparatus that drives us to scratch a pesky itch?”

Not all reactions are equal

Inclan-Rico says that the research really began when his project revealed that certain strains of mice were more susceptible to infection of S. mansoni. “Specifically, some of the mice had a higher number of parasites successfully traversing throughout body following skin penetration.”

Heather Rossi, a senior research investigator in the Herbert lab and co-author on the study, says that this motivated the team to investigate the neuronal activity at play, with special attention paid to MrgprA3 neurons, which are commonly associated with immunity and itchiness.

They then looked at how a “cousin” of S. mansoni that’s typically found in avian species but has been shown to cause swimmer’s itch in humans, and they found a stark difference between the reaction or lack of it within the mice.

“While avian schistosomes triggered a strong itch response in the skin, S. mansoni was unable to induce this reaction,” Rossi says. “What’s more, when we introduced chloroquine — an anti-malarial drug that’s known to cause pruritus by interacting with MrgprA3 — to the mice treated with S. mansoni antigens, we found that itching was blocked almost entirely.”

A closer look

To further investigate the biochemistry involved in S. mansoni’s workaround for skating past MrgprA3 neurons, the researchers employed a three-legged strategy: Using light to genetically activate neurons on ear skin prior to infection, administering chloroquine, and genetically reducing the population of MrgprA3 neurons in the mice.

“Turns out that activating these neurons blocks the entry,” Inclan-Rico says. “It creates an inflammatory environment, we think, within the skin that prevents the entry and dissemination of the parasites, which is particularly cool.”

Members of the Herbert lab, (Left to right): Ulrich Femoe, Heather Rossi, Adriana Stephenson, Evonne Jean, Annabel Ferguson, De’Broski Herbert, Juan Inclan Rico, Heidi Winters, Camila Napuri, Li-Yin Hung, Olufemi Akinkuotu. (Credit: Adriana Stephenson)

The Herbert lab has been studying parasites that enter the skin, migrate through the layers of connective tissue all the way through until they find a blood vessel, and chart a course towards the lung. There they molt into another larval stage and then use the liver and portal vein to make their way to the intestines as adults where they lay eggs, leading to characteristic symptoms in humans like abdominal swelling, fever, and pain.

“So, as you may imagine, if there are fewer parasites entering the body during initial infection, and also fewer parasites making their way into the lungs,” Inclan-Rico says. “This suggests two things: That the activation of these neurons is blocking the entry of the parasites and it’s also inhibiting their dissemination through the body.” The researchers also found that the mice that had MrgprA3 ablation saw an increased amount of lung parasite infection.

Subcellular crosstalk

Armed with the knowledge that MrgprA3 neurons were involved in blocking the parasites, the team hypothesized that there may be crosstalk between these cells and immune cells, so they began investigating the relationship between these two classes.

“When we activated MrgprA3, it increased the number of macrophages in the skin,” Inclan-Rico says. “These are the white blood cells that typically come in and gobble up infectious elements, and so, when we depleted the macrophages, we saw that this was in fact a causal relationship, that the neurons were functionally linked to the macrophage response because without them the worm infection wasn’t blocked at all.”

Next, the Herbert team sought to find the specific signaling molecules involved and discovered that downstream of MrgprA3 activation the neuropeptide CGRP was released, demonstrating that this neuropeptide plays a key role in neuron-immune cell communication.

“CGRP acts like a messenger between neurons and macrophages,” Inclan-Rico says, “and this signaling triggers the activation of immune cells at the site of infection, which helps contain the parasite.”

However, CGRP wasn’t acting alone as the team found that the nuclear protein IL-33, typically known as an alarm signal released by damaged cells, played a surprising, significant role. When they examined macrophages, they discovered that IL-33 was not just being reduced but was instead acting within the cell nucleus.

“Up until now, people just thought that IL-33 was a nuclear protein, but we didn’t know exactly what it was doing in there. Its role was more thought to be as a secreted factor, either as a consequence of cell death or potentially from immune cells secreting it directly,” Rossi says. “But we did a number of experiments to prove that, in fact, IL-33 in macrophages controls the accessibility of DNA, essentially opening DNA’s tight packaging material and allowing pro-inflammatory cytokines like TNF to be expressed.”

This pro-inflammatory environment is critical for forming a protective barrier that prevents the parasite from advancing farther into the body.

“It’s a two-step process,” Inclan-Rico says. “First, MrgprA3 neurons release CGRP, which signals into macrophages. Then, IL-33 held within the macrophages’ nuclei is greatly reduced, which enhances the inflammatory response and helps block the parasite’s entry.”

Interestingly, they also found that when IL-33 was genetically deleted from macrophages, the protective response induced by itchy neurons was lost.

“This tells us that the neurons are orchestrating this whole defense, but they need the macrophages — and specifically IL-33 in those macrophages — to mount a full immune response,” Herbert says.

Looking ahead, the Herbert lab plans to dive deeper into understanding the mechanisms behind this neuron-immune communication.

“We’re really interested in identifying the molecules that parasites use to suppress the neurons and whether we can harness that knowledge to block parasite entry more effectively,” Herbert says. They also hope to identify other molecules, beyond CGRP and IL-33, that are involved in this signaling pathway.

“If we can pinpoint the exact components that parasites are targeting to evade the itch response, we could develop new therapeutic approaches that not only treat parasitic infections but potentially offer relief for other itch-related conditions like eczema or psoriasis,” Herbert says.

De’Broski R. Herbert is the presidential professor of immunology and a professor of pathobiology at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Juan Manuel Inclan-Rico is a postdoctoral researcher in the Herbert Lab at Penn Vet.

Heather L. Rossi is a senior research investigator in the Herbert Lab at Penn Vet.

Other researchers are Ulrich M. Femoe, Annabel A. Ferguson, Bruce D. Freedman Li-Yin Hung, Xiaohong Liu, Fungai Musaigwa, Camila M. Napuri, Christopher F. Pastore, and Adriana Stephenson of Penn Vet; Wenqin Luo and Qinxue Wu of the Perelman School of Medicine at Penn; Cailu Lin and Danielle R. Reed of the Monell Chemical Senses Center; Petr Horák and Tomáš Macháček of Charles University, Czech Republic; and Ishmail Abdus-Saboor of Columbia University.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants T32 AI007532-24, R01 AI164715-01, U01 AI163062-01, P30-AR069589, and R01 AI123173-05 and contract HHSN272201700014I), Charles University (Cooperatio Biology, UNCE24/SCI/011, SVV 260687), and the Czech Science Foundation (GA24-11031S).

The research team, led by research associate Lauren Schurmeier, that also includes Gwendolyn Brouwer, doctoral candidate, and Sarah Fagents, associate director and researcher, in the Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) in the UH Manoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), observed in NASA data that Titan’s impact craters are hundreds of meters shallower than expected and only 90 craters have been identified on this moon.

“This was very surprising because, based on other moons, we expect to see many more impact craters on the surface and craters that are much deeper than what we observe on Titan,” said Schurmeier. “We realized something unique to Titan must be making them become shallower and disappear relatively quickly.”

To investigate what might be beneath this mystery, the researchers tested in a computer model how the topography of Titan might relax or rebound after an impact if the ice shell was covered with a layer of insulating methane clathrate ice, a kind of solid water ice with methane gas trapped within the crystal structure. Since the initial shape of Titan’s craters is unknown, the researchers modeled and compared two plausible initial depths, based on fresh-looking craters of similar size on a similar-size icy moon, Ganymede.

“Using this modeling approach, we were able to constrain the methane clathrate crust thickness to five to ten kilometers [about three to six miles] because simulations using that thickness produced crater depths that best matched the observed craters,” said Schurmeier. “The methane clathrate crust warms Titan’s interior and causes surprisingly rapid topographic relaxation, which results in crater shallowing at a rate that is close to that of fast-moving warm glaciers on Earth.”

Methane-rich atmosphere

Estimating the thickness of the methane ice shell is important because it may explain the origin of Titan’s methane-rich atmosphere and helps researchers understand Titan’s carbon cycle, liquid methane-based “hydrological cycle,” and changing climate.

“Titan is a natural laboratory to study how the greenhouse gas methane warms and cycles through the atmosphere,” said Schurmeier. “Earth’s methane clathrate hydrates, found in the permafrost of Siberia and below the arctic seafloor, are currently destabilizing and releasing methane. So, lessons from Titan can provide important insights into processes happening on Earth.”

Structure of Titan

The topography seen on Titan makes sense in light of these new findings. And constraining the thickness of the methane clathrate ice crust indicates that Titan’s interior is likely warm — not cold, rigid, and inactive as previously thought.

“Methane clathrate is stronger and more insulating than regular water ice,” said Schurmeier. “A clathrate crust insulates Titan’s interior, makes the water ice shell very warm and ductile, and implies that Titan’s ice shell is or was slowly convecting.”

“If life exists in Titan’s ocean under the thick ice shell, any signs of life (biomarkers) would need to be transported up Titan’s ice shell to where we could more easily access or view them with future missions,” Schurmeier added. “This is more likely to occur if Titan’s ice shell is warm and convecting.”

With the NASA Dragonfly mission to Titan scheduled to launch in July 2028 and arrive in 2034, researchers will have an opportunity to make up-close observations of this moon and further investigate the icy surface, including a crater named Selk.

Existing high-sensitivity sensors have been limited by performance degradation due to fatigue and repeated use. However, the dynamic polymer network developed by the research team maintains excellent sensitivity and durability by using vinylogous urethane bonding. This bonding structure self-heals in response to external stimuli such as temperature, light, and pressure, preventing performance degradation even after repeated use.

The dynamic polymer network is also sensitive to various mechanical movements, heat, and light, and sensors based on the network excel at detecting human body movements. Researchers have demonstrated that the sensors can accurately detect finger bends, changes in facial expressions, and even swallowing movements in the throat. One of the biggest strengths of the technology is that it can maintain the same sensitivity after recycling without any degradation.

Addressing the growing issue of e-waste, the team designed the technology to combine recyclability with high performance. They believe the dynamic polymer network’s versatility supports repeated use and recycling, potentially leading to significant reductions in e-waste. Their work promises to have far-reaching implications not only in sensor technology but also in next-generation electronics, wearable devices, and medical equipment. The team continues to work on commercializing the technology for widespread industrial applications.

“Our material offers excellent processability and can be recycled mechanically or chemically,” said DGIST Professor Chiyoung Park. “The polymer network undergoes a simple recycling process, which we expect will extend the lifespan of electronic devices and wearable sensors, significantly reducing electronic waste.”

The research received support from the Industrial Technology Alchemist Project, funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and the Basic Research Center Project of the Ministry of Science and ICT. The findings (first author: Gyeonghyeon Choi, integrated MS/PhD student) were published in the Chemical Engineering Journal.