The production of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the EU as of 2035. Electric motors are expected to become increasingly common in vehicles – but they are not suitable for all types of transport.

“Passenger cars can have a battery, but heavy trucks, ships or aircraft cannot use a battery to store the energy. For these means of transport, we need to find clean and renewable energy sources, and hydrogen is a good candidate,” says Jianwu Sun, associate professor at Linköping University, who has led the study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The LiU researchers are working on developing materials that can be used to produce hydrogen (H₂) from water (H₂O) by using the energy in sunlight.

The research team has previously shown that a material called cubic silicon carbide (3C-SiC) has beneficial properties for facilitating the reaction where water is split into hydrogen and oxygen. The material can effectively capture the sunlight so that the energy therein can be used for hydrogen production through the photochemical water splitting reaction.

In their current study, the researchers have further developed a new combined material. The new material consists of three layers: a layer of cubic silicon carbide, a layer of cobalt oxide and a catalyst material that helps to split water.

“It’s a very complicated structure, so our focus in this study has been to understand the function of each layer and how it helps improve the properties of the material. The new material has eight times better performance than pure cubic silicon carbide for splitting water into hydrogen,” says Jianwu Sun.

When sunlight hits the material, electric charges are generated, which are then used to split water. A challenge in the development of materials for this application is to prevent the positive and negative charges from merging again and neutralising each other. In their study, the researchers show that by combining a layer of cubic silicon carbide with the other two layers, the material, known as Ni(OH)₂/Co₃O₄/3C-SiC, becomes more able to separate the charges, thereby making the splitting of water more effective.

Today, there is a distinction between “grey” and “green” hydrogen. Almost all hydrogen present on the market is “grey” hydrogen produced from a fossil fuel called natural gas or fossil gas. The production of one tonne of “grey” hydrogen gas causes emission of up to ten tonnes of carbon dioxide, which contributes to the greenhouse effect and climate change. “Green” hydrogen is produced using renewable electricity as a source of energy.

The long-term goal of the LiU researchers is to be able to use only energy from the sun to drive the photochemical reaction to produce “green” hydrogen. Most materials under development today have an efficiency of between 1 and 3 per cent, but for commercialisation of this green hydrogen technology the target is 10 per cent efficiency. Being able to fully drive the reaction using solar energy would lower the cost of producing “green” hydrogen, compared to producing it using supplementary renewable electricity as is done with the technology used today. Jianwu Sun speculates that it may take around five to ten years for the research team to develop materials that reach the coveted 10 per cent limit.

The research has been funded with support from, among others, the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT), the Olle Engkvists Stiftelse, the ÅForsk Foundation, the Carl Tryggers Stiftelse and through the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Advanced Functional Materials (AFM) at Linköping University.

But the authors caution: It is way too soon to draw definitive conclusions.

The paper, “Artificial Intelligence and the Wellbeing of Workers,” published June 23 in Nature: Scientific Reports, uses two decades of longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Using that rich data, the researchers — Osea Giuntella of the University of Pittsburgh and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Luca Stella of the University of Milan and the Berlin School of Economics, and Johannes King of the German Ministry of Finance — explored how workers in AI-exposed occupations have fared in contrast to workers in less-exposed roles.

“Public anxiety about AI is real, but the worst-case scenarios are not inevitable,” said Professor Stella, who is also affiliated with independent European bodies the Center for Economic Studies (CESifo) and the Institute for Labor Economics (IZA). “So far, we find little evidence that AI adoption has undermined workers’ well-being on average. If anything, physical health seems to have slightly improved, likely due to declining job physical intensity and overall job risk in some of the AI-exposed occupations.”

Yet the study also highlights reasons for caution.

The analysis relies primarily on a task-based measure of AI exposure — considered more objective — but alternative estimates based on self-reported exposure reveal small negative effects on job and life satisfaction. In addition, the sample excludes younger workers and only covers the early phases of AI diffusion in Germany.

“We may simply be too early in the AI adoption curve to observe its full effects,” Stella emphasized. “AI’s impact could evolve dramatically as technologies advance, penetrate more sectors, and alter work at a deeper level.”

Key findings from the study include:

• No significant average effects of AI exposure on job satisfaction, life satisfaction, or mental health.
• Small improvements in self-rated physical health and health satisfaction, especially among lower-educated workers.
• Evidence of reduced physical job intensity, suggesting that AI may alleviate physically demanding tasks.
• A modest decline in weekly working hours, without significant changes in income or employment rates.
• Self-reported AI exposure suggests small but negative effects on subjective well-being, reinforcing the need for more granular future research.

Due to the data supply, the study focuses on Germany — a country with strong labor protections and a gradual pace of AI adoption. The co-authors noted that outcomes may differ in more flexible labor markets or among younger cohorts entering increasingly AI-saturated workplaces.

“This research is an early snapshot, not the final word,” said Pitt’s Giuntella, who previously conducted significant research into the effect of robotics on households and labor, and on types of workers. “As AI adoption accelerates, continued monitoring of its broader impacts on work and health is essential. Technology alone doesn’t determine outcomes — institutions and policies will decide whether AI enhances or erodes the conditions of work.”

“Fungi gave us penicillin,” says Sherry Gao, Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) and in Bioengineering (BE) and senior author of a new paper in Nature Chemical Biologyon the findings. “These results show that many more medicines derived from natural products remain to be found.”

From Curse to Cure

Aspergillus flavus, named for its yellow spores, has long been a microbial villain. After archaeologists opened King Tutankhamun’s tomb in the 1920s, a series of untimely deaths among the excavation team fueled rumors of a pharaoh’s curse. Decades later, doctors theorized that fungal spores, dormant for millennia, could have played a role.

In the 1970s, a dozen scientists entered the tomb of Casimir IV in Poland. Within weeks, 10 of them died. Later investigations revealed the tomb contained A. flavus, whose toxins can lead to lung infections, especially in people with compromised immune systems.

Now, that same fungus is the unlikely source of a promising new cancer therapy.

A Rare Fungal Find

The therapy in question is a class of ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides, or RiPPs, pronounced like the “rip” in a piece of fabric. The name refers to how the compound is produced — by the ribosome, a tiny cellular structure that makes proteins — and the fact that it is modified later, in this case, to enhance its cancer-killing properties.

“Purifying these chemicals is difficult,” says Qiuyue Nie, a postdoctoral fellow in CBE and the paper’s first author. While thousands of RiPPs have been identified in bacteria, only a handful have been found in fungi. In part, this is because past researchers misidentified fungal RiPPs as non-ribosomal peptides and had little understanding of how fungi created the molecules. “The synthesis of these compounds is complicated,” adds Nie. “But that’s also what gives them this remarkable bioactivity.”

Hunting for Chemicals

To find more fungal RiPPs, the researchers first scanned a dozen strains of Aspergillus, which previous research suggested might contain more of the chemicals.

By comparing chemicals produced by these strains with known RiPP building blocks, the researchers identified A. flavus as a promising candidate for further study.

Genetic analysis pointed to a particular protein in A. flavus as a source of fungal RiPPs. When the researchers turned the genes that create that protein off, the chemical markers indicating the presence of RiPPs also disappeared.

This novel approach — combining metabolic and genetic information — not only pinpointed the source of fungal RiPPs in A. flavus, but could be used to find more fungal RiPPs in the future.

A Potent New Medicine

After purifying four different RiPPs, the researchers found the molecules shared a unique structure of interlocking rings. The researchers named these molecules, which have never been previously described, after the fungus in which they were found: asperigimycins.

Even with no modification, when mixed with human cancer cells, asperigimycins demonstrated medical potential: two of the four variants had potent effects against leukemia cells.

Another variant, to which the researchers added a lipid, or fatty molecule, that is also found in the royal jelly that nourishes developing bees, performed as well as cytarabine and daunorubicin, two FDA-approved drugs that have been used for decades to treat leukemia.

Cracking the Code of Cell Entry

To understand why lipids enhanced asperigimycins’ potency, the researchers selectively turned genes on and off in the leukemia cells. One gene, SLC46A3, proved critical in allowing asperigimycins to enter leukemia cells in sufficient numbers.

That gene helps materials exit lysosomes, the tiny sacs that collect foreign materials entering human cells. “This gene acts like a gateway,” says Nie. “It doesn’t just help asperigimycins get into cells, it may also enable other ‘cyclic peptides’ to do the same.”

Like asperigimycins, those chemicals have medicinal properties — nearly two dozen cyclic peptides have received clinical approval since 2000 to treat diseases as varied as cancer and lupus — but many of them need modification to enter cells in sufficient quantities.

“Knowing that lipids can affect how this gene transports chemicals into cells gives us another tool for drug development,” says Nie.

Disrupting Cell Division

Through further experimentation, the researchers found that asperigimycins likely disrupt the process of cell division. “Cancer cells divide uncontrollably,” says Gao. “These compounds block the formation of microtubules, which are essential for cell division.”

Notably, the compounds had little to no effect on breast, liver or lung cancer cells — or a range of bacteria and fungi — suggesting that asperigimycins’ disruptive effects are specific to certain types of cells, a critical feature for any future medication.

Future Directions

In addition to demonstrating the medical potential of asperigimycins, the researchers identified similar clusters of genes in other fungi, suggesting that more fungal RiPPS remain to be discovered. “Even though only a few have been found, almost all of them have strong bioactivity,” says Nie. “This is an unexplored region with tremendous potential.”

The next step is to test asperigimycins in animal models, with the hope of one day moving to human clinical trials. “Nature has given us this incredible pharmacy,” says Gao. “It’s up to us to uncover its secrets. As engineers, we’re excited to keep exploring, learning from nature and using that knowledge to design better solutions.”

This study was conducted at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science; Rice University; the University of Pittsburgh; The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis; Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Porto.

The study was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (R35GM138207, R35CA274235, R35GM128779), the University of Pennsylvania, the Welch Foundation (C-2033-20200401), the Houston Area Molecular Biophysics Program (NIH Grant T32 GM008280), the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (RR220087, RR210029) and the National Science Foundation (OAC-2117681, OAC-1928147, OAC-1928224).

Additional co-authors include Fanglong Zhao, Xuerong Yu, Caleb Chang, Rory Sharkey, Bryce Kille, Hongzi Zheng, Kevin Yang, Alan Du, Todd Treangen, Yang Gao and Hans Renata of Rice University; Chunxiao Sun and Shuai Liu of Penn Engineering and Rice; Siting Li and Junjie Chen of MD Anderson; Mithun C. Madhusudhanan and Peng Liu of Pitt; Sandipan Roy Chowdhury, Dongyin Guan, Jin Wang, Xin Yu and Dishu Zhou of Baylor; Maria Zotova and Zichen Hu of Penn Engineering; Sandra A. Figueiredo and Pedro N. Leão of the University of Porto; and Andy Xu and Rui Tang of Wash U, St. Louis.