Krakow — The European Commission presented a working plan to track progress and deliver key defense capabilities by 2030 to European Union member states on October 16. The roadmap, titled Preserving Peace – Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030, follows March’s White Paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030 and the broader ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030 package, which […]
It isn’t surprising that more and more space companies are pivoting to defense. Defense budgets are rising across the board, and rising quickly. In fact, the sum of money set to be available is eye-watering. Now that NATO has pledged to spend 5% of GDP by 2035, McKinsey thinks that annual defense spending across the […]
Researchers in the US have discovered that a tiny jumping worm uses static electricity to increase the chances of attaching to its unsuspecting prey.
The parasitic roundworm Steinernema carpocapsae, which live in soil, are already known to leap some 25 times their body length into the air. They do this by curling into a loop and springing in the air, rotating hundreds of times a second.
If the nematode lands successfully, it releases bacteria that kills the insect within a couple of days upon which the worm feasts and lays its eggs. At the same time, if it fails to attach to a host then it faces death itself.
While static electricity plays a role in how some non-parasitic nematodes detach from large insects, little is known whether static helps their parasitic counterparts to attach to an insect.
To investigate, researchers are Emory University and the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a series of experiments, in which they used highspeed microscopy techniques to film the worms as they leapt onto a fruit fly.
They did this by tethering a fly with a copper wire that was connected to a high-voltage power supply.
They found that a charge of a few hundred volts – similar to that generated in the wild by an insect’s wings rubbing against ions in the air – fosters a negative charge on the worm, creating an attractive force with the positively charged fly.
Carrying out simulations of the worm jumps, they found that without any electrostatics, only 1 in 19 worm trajectories successfully reached their target. The greater the voltage, however, the greater the chance of landing. For 880 V, for example, the probability was 80%.
The team also carried out experiments using a wind tunnel, finding that the presence of wind helped the nematodes drift and this also increased their chances of attaching to the insect.
“Using physics, we learned something new and interesting about an adaptive strategy in an organism,” notes Emory physicist Ranjiangshang Ran. “We’re helping to pioneer the emerging field of electrostatic ecology.”
Transparent healthcare Illustration of the fully transparent sensor that reacts to sunlight and allows real-time monitoring of UVA exposure on the skin. The device could be integrated into wearable items, such as glasses or patches. (Courtesy: Jnnovation Studio)
A flexible and wearable sensor that allows the user to monitor their exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation has been unveiled by researchers in South Korea. Based on a heterostructure of four different oxide semiconductors, the sensor’s flexible, transparent design could vastly improve the real-time monitoring of skin health.
UV light in the A band has wavelengths of 315–400 nm and comprises about 95% of UV radiation that reaches the surface of the earth. Because of its relatively long wavelength, UVA can penetrate deep into the skin. There it can alter biological molecules, damaging tissue and even causing cancer.
While covering up with clothing and using sunscreen are effective at reducing UVA exposure, researchers are keen on developing wearable sensors that can monitor UVA levels in real time. These can alert users when their UVA exposure reaches a certain level. So far, the most promising advances towards these designs have come from oxide semiconductors.
Many challenges
“For the past two decades, these materials have been widely explored for displays and thin-film transistors because of their high mobility and optical transparency,” explains Seong Jun Kang at Soongsil University, who led the research. “However, their application to transparent ultraviolet photodetectors has been limited by high persistent photocurrent, poor UV–visible discrimination, and instability under sunlight.”
While these problems can be avoided in more traditional UV sensors, such as gallium nitride and zinc oxide, these materials are opaque and rigid – making them completely unsuitable for use in wearable sensors.
In their study, Kang’s team addressed these challenges by introducing a multi-junction heterostructure, made by stacking multiple ultrathin layers of different oxide semiconductors. The four semiconductors they selected each had wide bandgaps, which made them more transparent in the visible spectrum but responsive to UV light.
The structure included zinc and tin oxide layers as n-type semiconductors (doped with electron-donating atoms) and cobalt and hafnium oxide layers as p-type semiconductors (doped with electron-accepting atoms) – creating positively charged holes. Within the heterostructure, this selection created three types of interface: p–n junctions between hafnium and tin oxide; n–n junctions between tin and zinc oxide; and p–p junctions between cobalt and hafnium oxide.
Efficient transport
When the team illuminated their heterostructure with UVA photons, the electron–hole charge separation was enhanced by the p–n junction, while the n–n and p–p junctions allowed for more efficient transport of electrons and holes respectively, improving the design’s response speed. When the illumination was removed, the electron–hole pairs could quickly decay, avoiding any false detections.
To test their design’s performance, the researchers integrated their heterostructure into a wearable detector. “In collaboration with UVision Lab, we developed an integrated Bluetooth circuit and smartphone application, enabling real-time display of UVA intensity and warning alerts when an individual’s exposure reaches the skin-type-specific minimal erythema dose (MED),” Kang describes. “When connected to the Bluetooth circuit and smartphone application, it successfully tracked real-time UVA variations and issued alerts corresponding to MED limits for various skin types.”
As well as maintaining over 80% transparency, the sensor proved highly stable and responsive, even in direct outdoor sunlight and across repeated exposure cycles. Based on this performance, the team is now confident that their design could push the capabilities of oxide semiconductors beyond their typical use in displays and into the fast-growing field of smart personal health monitoring.
“The proposed architecture establishes a design principle for high-performance transparent optoelectronics, and the integrated UVA-alert system paves the way for next-generation wearable and Internet-of-things-based environmental sensors,” Kang predicts.
As the government shutdown drags on, scientists and advocates remain focused on the long-term effects of proposed budget cuts at NASA and other agencies.
The Department of the Air Force has approved SpaceX’s proposal to double its launch rate at Vandenberg Space Force Base and begin using a second launch pad there.
Learn how tracking data shows that manta rays plunge more than 4,000 feet down in the deep sea not to hunt, but to find their bearings and travel across the open ocean.
Learn more about the differences between Lebanese and Italian tools, which contradict the theory that modern human migrations spread a single stone tool culture from the Near East to Europe.
Excusing record-keeping “misconduct” flagged in earlier investigative report, City University of New York concluded in letter that image doctoring by Hoau-Yan Wang was not proved
iRocket’s plans for a fully reusable satellite launcher got a boost from the first flight test of IRX-100, a short-range missile the startup hopes will generate near-term revenue to support its orbital Shockwave vehicle.
Satellite Market Shifts as Data Service Revenues Triple Paris, France [October, 2025] – Released today, Novaspace’s 32nd edition of the Satellite Connectivity and Video Market report reveals a seismic shift […]
Solna, Sweden — October 2025 — ECAPS AB, Sweden’s leading propulsion technology provider, has announced successful testing of its new Fast-Start Thruster (FAST) technology, a major advancement that enables LMP-103S […]
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