## Cornwall Council Vows to Address Glyphosate Concerns Following Public Protests

Cornwall Council has committed to taking seriously the growing wave of objections surrounding its decision to reintroduce a chemical weedkiller on local roads and highways — a substance the authority had avoided using for the past ten years.

The council announced plans to resume the use of glyphosate, a widely debated herbicide, in a targeted and more diluted form beginning next month. However, the decision has sparked significant backlash from residents, environmental advocates, and local government representatives alike.

## Protests Outside Council Headquarters

Demonstrators gathered outside the council's offices in Truro on Tuesday, coinciding with a full council meeting where the controversial proposal was formally debated. The public display of opposition reflected broader anxieties about both the health implications of glyphosate and the potential damage it could cause to local ecosystems.

Criticism has also been directed at the limited window given to towns and parishes to opt out of the scheme, with many local communities arguing they were not given adequate time to assess the consequences or develop alternative strategies.

## Councillors Voice Strong Opposition

Green group leader Councillor Drew Creek was among the most vocal critics, arguing that reintroducing glyphosate would pose risks not only to the natural environment but also to human health. Creek urged the council to take a more cooperative approach, calling on decision-makers to work alongside town and parish councils to identify and explore alternative weed management solutions.

Labour group leader Councillor Kate Ewert also weighed in sharply, accusing the council of showing a lack of respect toward smaller local authorities throughout the process.

"They've given them no time to put in back-up plans, essentially just holding a gun to their head to say 'you have to opt in,'" Ewert said, highlighting what she described as a rushed and dismissive consultation process.

## Council Says the Message Has Been Heard

Despite Tuesday's vote being advisory in nature — meaning the cabinet is under no legal obligation to act upon it — senior council figures indicated they would not simply brush aside the democratic signal it represented.

Loic Rich, the cabinet portfolio holder for the environment, acknowledged that the meeting had delivered an unmistakable message.

"I just don't think we could ignore that," Rich said. "We had a motion and I think that's because people around Cornwall felt that the idea of weed control that we're proposing has not given the towns and the parishes enough time to properly consider implications."

He added: "We're going to have to listen to the council. They've made a message today loud and clear to us and we're going to listen."

## What Happens Next

While no firm reversal of the plan has been announced, the council's tone suggests that further dialogue with local communities is now on the agenda. Residents and local parishes will be watching closely to see whether the promise to listen translates into meaningful changes to the rollout timeline or the scope of the glyphosate program itself.

The debate over glyphosate is far from unique to Cornwall — the herbicide remains one of the most contested chemicals in environmental and public health discussions globally, with ongoing debates about its long-term safety and ecological impact.

Cornwall Council pledges to address public objections over reintroducing glyphosate weedkiller after protests and a council vote demand reconsideration.

Cornwall Council to Listen on Glyphosate Weedkiller Concerns

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Cornwall Council Pledges to Hear Public Concerns Over Return of Controversial Weedkiller

## East London's Bold Plan to Bring Nature Back to the City

A ambitious new conservation initiative is carving a 14-mile green lifeline through some of east London's most nature-starved neighbourhoods, offering fresh hope for urban wildlife and the communities that share space with it.

### What Is the Wild Cities Project?

The Wild Cities project is a large-scale ecological initiative designed to stitch together fragmented pockets of wildlife habitat across the boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Haringey, and Newham. Running from Lee Valley Regional Park in the north down to the River Thames, the corridor aims to create a continuous, living network through which pollinators and other urban wildlife can freely move.

Organised by the green group Initiative Earth, the project draws on a broad coalition of contributors — including ecologists, community growers, transport authorities, cultural institutions, football clubs, and local residents — all working in concert to advance conservation goals along the route.

## Building a Corridor From Everyday Urban Spaces

One of the most compelling aspects of Wild Cities is its inclusive vision of what counts as green infrastructure. Rooftops, canal banks, community gardens, sports fields, and even backyard streets could all become vital links in this interconnected urban ecosystem.

The project follows the "stepping stone" connectivity model developed by Buglife, which demonstrates that habitat patches positioned no more than 300 metres apart can effectively restore ecosystems at a landscape-wide scale. By applying this evidence-based framework to a dense urban environment, Wild Cities is translating conservation science into real-world action.

## Why Urban Nature Corridors Matter

The urgency behind this initiative is backed by compelling data. Research has revealed that London runs approximately 1°C to 1.5°C hotter than the surrounding south-east region — a figure that highlights the city's vulnerability to the urban heat island effect. Crucially, well-designed nature networks have the potential to reduce urban temperatures by as much as 7°C, offering a powerful natural tool in the fight against city overheating.

Beyond temperature regulation, green infrastructure has been shown to support local food systems, bolster pollinator populations, and restore biodiversity to neighbourhoods that have long been disconnected from the natural world.

Paul Hetherington from Buglife noted that Wild Cities puts that body of evidence into practice in one of the most nature-deprived regions in the entire country.

## Aligned With London's Broader Conservation Goals

The Wild Cities corridor also serves as a direct contribution to the Mayor of London's local nature recovery strategy, published recently, which identified green corridors and pollinator support as top biodiversity priorities for the capital.

Wanessa Rudmer, executive director of Initiative Earth, described the motivation behind the project: "We started Wild Cities because urban nature must be restored for people, for wildlife, and for the future. A coalition model lets us work at the scale the challenge demands, celebrating communities and helping people and ecosystems become more connected and resilient."

## A Model for Cities Worldwide

What makes Wild Cities particularly significant is its potential as a replicable model. As urban centres around the world grapple with biodiversity loss, rising temperatures, and disconnected communities, east London's nature corridor offers a practical blueprint — one that demonstrates how cities can harness everyday spaces, collaborative partnerships, and proven ecological science to build greener, healthier, and more resilient urban environments.

East London's Wild Cities project creates a 14-mile nature corridor to restore pollinators, cool city streets, and reconnect urban communities with wildlife.

East London's 14-Mile Nature Corridor Boosts Biodiversity

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How East London's New 14-Mile Nature Corridor Could Transform Urban Biodiversity

## The Spacecraft That Refused to Quit

More than four decades ago, a probe no larger than a compact car was launched into the sky from the Florida coast, strapped to the top of a rocket and pointed at the outer solar system. Its designers gave it five years. It has now been traveling for nearly fifty.

This week, NASA confirmed it has powered down one of Voyager 1's last remaining scientific instruments — not as an admission of defeat, but as a calculated act of survival. The goal is simple: keep the most distant spacecraft in human history alive for as long as physically possible.

## What Voyager 1 Actually Is

Voyager 1 is a robotic deep-space probe that lifted off on September 5, 1977, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, riding a Titan-Centaur rocket into history. Weighing approximately 1,797 pounds — comparable to a mid-size sedan — the spacecraft is equipped with a 12-foot dish antenna that keeps it locked in communication with Earth. It was designed and built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, a research facility operated by the California Institute of Technology.

For nearly 49 uninterrupted years, Voyager 1 has been sending data back across the void of space, making it one of the most enduring feats of engineering humanity has ever achieved.

## The Rare Alignment That Made It Possible

The entire Voyager program was born from a stroke of cosmic timing. In the late 1960s, scientists and engineers recognized that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune were slowly drifting into a rare planetary alignment — one that would not repeat for approximately 175 years. This alignment created an extraordinary opportunity: a spacecraft could use each planet's gravitational field as a natural slingshot, gaining velocity and changing direction without burning additional fuel. This technique is known as a gravity assist.

NASA initially envisioned a sweeping mission called the "Grand Tour" that would visit all four outer planets. Budget limitations eventually pared that vision down, and the rechristened Voyager program was formally approved for a focused fly-by of Jupiter and Saturn only. The twin probes were designed to last five years. They have lasted nearly ten times longer.

## A Journey of Extraordinary Discoveries

Voyager 1's scientific legacy is almost incomprehensible in scope. When the probe swept past Jupiter in March 1979, it captured something nobody had ever seen before: active volcanoes erupting on Io, one of Jupiter's moons. It was the first confirmed discovery of volcanic activity anywhere beyond Earth.

The spacecraft then arced toward Saturn, arriving in November 1980 and delivering breathtaking close-up imagery of the planet's iconic ring system and its largest moon, Titan. The trajectory required for that Titan flyby tilted Voyager 1 upward, out of the flat plane of the solar system entirely — effectively ending its tour of the planets but launching it on a one-way journey toward interstellar space.

In 1990, NASA formalized the spacecraft's new purpose under the Voyager Interstellar Mission, directing the probe to seek out the very boundary of the Sun's influence. That moment came on August 25, 2012, when Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause — the point at which the Sun's stream of charged particles finally gives way to the matter and energy of interstellar space. It became the first human-made object in history to exit our solar system. Its twin, Voyager 2, crossed the same threshold in 2018.

## 15 Billion Miles and Counting

As of spring 2026, Voyager 1 sits more than 15 billion miles from Earth. At that staggering distance, a radio signal traveling at the speed of light takes over 23 hours to reach the spacecraft — one way. Every instruction engineers transmit, and every data packet the probe returns, must cross that unfathomable gulf.

The spacecraft draws its power not from solar panels or conventional batteries, but from a radioisotope thermoelectric generator — a device that converts heat produced by decaying plutonium into electricity. That nuclear heat source loses roughly 4 watts of output every year. After nearly five decades of decay, the power budget has become critically tight.

## Why NASA Pulled the Plug on One More Instrument

In late February, during a routine operational maneuver, Voyager 1's power levels dropped unexpectedly, nudging the spacecraft dangerously close to triggering its own automatic fault-protection system — a built-in emergency response that would have forced the probe into a protective shutdown. Recovering from such an event would have been a lengthy, complex, and high-risk process. The engineering team had to move quickly.

On April 17, mission controllers transmitted commands to deactivate the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment, known as the LECP. This instrument had spent decades measuring ions, electrons, and cosmic rays originating from both the outer solar system and the interstellar medium, helping scientists construct a detailed map of the space beyond our Sun. Its equivalent instrument aboard Voyager 2 had already been switched off in March 2025.

The sequencing of these shutdowns was not improvised. Years ago, the Voyager science and engineering teams jointly agreed on a prioritized list of which instruments to power down and in what order, balancing power conservation against scientific value.

"While shutting down a science instrument is not anybody's preference, it is the best option available," said Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at JPL, in an official NASA blog post.

## What Remains — and What Comes Next

Voyager 1 now operates with just two active science instruments: a plasma wave detector and a magnetometer. Together, they continue to record data from a region of the universe no other spacecraft has ever reached. Engineers estimate that the latest power-saving measure could extend the mission's operational window by roughly one additional year.

The team is also preparing a more ambitious intervention, informally dubbed "the Big Bang" — a coordinated switch of multiple onboard systems, replacing higher-power components with lower-power alternatives in a single complex maneuver. Testing on Voyager 2 is scheduled for May and June of 2026. If those tests succeed, the same procedure will be applied to Voyager 1, likely no earlier than July 2026. There is even a possibility that, if the plan works as hoped, the LECP instrument could be brought back online.

The long-term goal is to keep at least one science instrument operational on each spacecraft well into the 2030s — still listening, still measuring, still reporting from the loneliest frontier humanity has ever reached.

NASA has powered down one of Voyager 1's last instruments to save energy. Here's why the 49-year-old spacecraft still matters and what comes next.

Voyager 1: Why NASA Shut Down Another Instrument

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Against All Odds: How NASA Is Keeping Voyager 1 Alive at the Edge of the Stars

## Suspected Arson Destroys Protected Reed Beds at Kent Nature Reserve

Authorities are treating a weekend fire that tore through a protected nature reserve in Kent as a deliberate act of arson, raising serious concerns among conservationists about the safety of the region's most ecologically sensitive landscapes.

The fire ignited on Sunday evening at Pegwell Bay in Ramsgate, a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), consuming approximately three acres of reed bed habitat and leaving a visible scar stretching roughly 300 metres across the protected land.

### Environmental Impact During Critical Nesting Season

Local environmentalist Nik Mitchell described the destruction as "devastating," particularly given the timing. Speaking through his Get Wild social media platform, Mitchell emphasised that the blaze struck during the heart of nesting season — a period when the reed beds are most alive with activity.

"There would have been loads of nesting birds in there and lots of nest building — it's devastating," he said.

The reed beds at Pegwell Bay serve as essential breeding grounds for species including warblers and reed buntings, both of which begin nesting in early spring. The loss of this habitat at such a critical time could have serious consequences for local bird populations.

Mitchell also praised Kent Fire & Rescue Service (KFRS) for their swift response, saying crews had done "an incredible job" containing the blaze and limiting further damage. However, he expressed concern that members of the public might begin walking through the burned area, potentially forming informal footpaths that would hinder the natural regeneration of the reed bed.

### Authorities Launch Arson Investigation

Kent Police confirmed they received multiple reports at approximately 20:30 BST on Sunday evening, relating to separate fires involving bins in the Cliffsend area, including at Pegwell Bay Nature Reserve and Chapmans Fields. Officers attended the scene, and a formal arson investigation is now under way. No injuries were reported.

A spokesperson for KFRS confirmed that three fire engines were dispatched to reports of marshland alight on Sandwich Road, Ramsgate. Crews deployed main jets and hose reel jets to bring the flames under control.

### A Site of Irreplaceable Ecological Value

Emma Waller, Senior Planning and Policy Officer at Kent Wildlife Trust, underscored the ecological significance of Pegwell Bay, calling it "one of the most sensitive and important coastal sites in Kent."

"Its saltmarsh is an irreplaceable habitat that supports rare species and underpins the functioning of the wider ecosystem," Waller stated.

She also warned that this incident is far from isolated, pointing to a troubling rise in disturbances across multiple Kent Wildlife Trust reserves — from antisocial behaviour to mounting recreational pressures that are becoming increasingly difficult for wildlife to withstand.

In one recent example, the Trust was forced to relocate its herd of Highland cattle from Hothfield Heathlands Nature Reserve after viral social media content encouraged visitors to approach the animals directly, putting both the wildlife and the public at risk.

### Growing Threat to Kent's Natural Spaces

The incident at Pegwell Bay highlights a broader and deeply concerning pattern of human interference with protected natural environments. As disturbances escalate across the region, conservationists are calling for greater public awareness, stronger deterrents, and more robust protections for habitats that took centuries to form and cannot simply be replaced.

A suspected arson attack has burned three acres of protected reed beds at Pegwell Bay, Kent, devastating critical bird nesting habitat during peak spring season

Arson Suspected After Fire Destroys Kent Bird Nesting Site

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Suspected Arson Devastates Protected Bird Nesting Site at Pegwell Bay

## A Rainforest Scarred by Industry — and One Woman's Fight to Restore It

For most children, growing up near a lush tropical rainforest would mean climbing trees, swimming in clean rivers, and eating fresh fruit fallen from the branches overhead. For Theonila Roka Matbob, childhood meant something entirely different. Raised on the largest island in Papua New Guinea's Autonomous Region of Bougainville, she was surrounded not by thriving greenery but by barren rock and sand — a landscape stripped bare by decades of industrial mining.

Today, at 35 years old, Roka Matbob is being honored as one of the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize winners — one of the most prestigious global recognitions for grassroots environmental activism. Each year, the prize celebrates one champion from each of the world's inhabited regions. Roka Matbob represents the island nations.

## The Mine That Changed Everything

The source of her homeland's destruction is the Panguna copper and gold mine, developed and operated by Bougainville Copper Ltd., a subsidiary of Rio Tinto — one of the world's largest mining corporations, headquartered across Australia and the United Kingdom. Between 1972 and 1989, the mine extracted millions of tons of copper along with hundreds of tons of gold and silver from the Bougainville landscape.

But the environmental toll was catastrophic and enduring. Rivers became contaminated. The surrounding land was stripped of vegetation. Residents were warned from childhood to stay away from the water, avoid eating anything from the ground, and keep their distance from the riverbanks — though explanations were rarely offered.

"From our grandparents and parents, the advice you always get is: Don't go near the water. Don't go near the river. It is poisonous," Roka Matbob recalls. "And they don't tell you why."

As she grew older, she began searching for answers herself.

## A Civil War, a Lost Father, and a Life in Survival Mode

The damage done by the Panguna mine extended far beyond the environment. The influx of outside labor and the export of profits to foreign shareholders created intense local resentment, ultimately igniting a violent, decade-long civil conflict. The armed uprising eventually evolved into a broader separatist insurgency. Thousands of lives were lost in the fighting.

Roka Matbob was personally touched by the violence. Just days before her third birthday, her father was abducted by an armed group and subsequently killed. Her mother and siblings were left to survive as best they could, moving from place to place in search of safety before eventually settling in a government-controlled camp.

"I was born into that broken environment," she says. "Growing up, it's a life on survival mode — permanently."

When the mine finally shut down amid the chaos, no remediation plan was put in place. The environmental contamination was simply left behind.

## From Schoolyard Protests to International Legal Action

Roka Matbob's activism began in high school, where she organized protests to draw attention to the ongoing destruction of her community's land and health. Over the years, her efforts grew in both scale and impact.

Her most significant achievement came when she became the lead complainant in a landmark human rights case filed by the Human Rights Law Centre against Rio Tinto. The complaint demanded accountability for decades of environmental and social harm caused by the Panguna mine.

The outcome was historic. In 2021, Rio Tinto agreed to fund an independent environmental assessment of the impacted region. By 2024, the company had signed a memorandum of understanding committing to work directly with affected communities to address and remediate the damage.

"Theonila is leading a historic effort to obtain justice for decades of environmental and social devastation because of the Panguna mine," said Ilan Kayatsky of the Goldman Environmental Prize. "Her efforts have brought together a coalition intent on improving the lives of Bougainvilleans, today and into the future."

## What Keeps Her Going

For Roka Matbob, the motivation to keep fighting is deeply personal and deeply cultural. As a member of the Indigenous Nasioi people and the Basikang clan, she belongs to a matrilineal tradition in which women are considered the guardians and protectors of the land.

"We women are the land guardians and keepers," she says proudly.

She also draws strength from motherhood. With two young children of her own, she refuses to accept passing on a poisoned environment to the next generation. "No mother would want to pass on to her child a broken, contaminated portion of the environment," she explains.

Her roots, too, play a role. In her culture, relocating to another tribal territory is not an option. The land her family occupies is the land her children and grandchildren will inhabit for generations. That permanence demands a permanent solution.

## A Voice in Politics and Beyond

Roka Matbob has also carried her advocacy into the political arena, becoming one of very few women elected to Bougainville's House of Representatives. While she acknowledges that the political culture remains largely patriarchal, she sees her gender as a source of power rather than a barrier.

She points to a saying in her native language: it takes a woman's cry to start a fight, and a woman's tears to broker peace. In that tradition, her struggle for environmental justice is not just activism — it is a fulfillment of her role within her community.

As for the prize money that accompanies the Goldman award, Roka Matbob says that decision will not be hers alone to make. She and her community will determine together how best to use it.

Her story is a reminder that behind every legal victory and corporate concession, there is often a single determined individual who refused to stop asking why — and refused to stop demanding better.

Theonila Roka Matbob won the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize for her fight against Rio Tinto over devastating mining damage in Papua New Guinea.

Goldman Prize Winner Fights Papua New Guinea Mining Damage

How One Woman From Papua New Guinea Stood Up to a Mining Giant and Won

## Communities Raise Their Voices for Lough Neagh

A powerful chorus of concern echoed across the shores of Lough Neagh on Sunday as community choirs from across the region gathered at multiple locations to participate in a heartfelt event titled 'Sing for the Lough'. The initiative brought together passionate locals who believe that music can serve as a compelling tool to demand long-overdue action on the lake's deepening environmental crisis.

## The Power of Song as Environmental Protest

Organisers of the event described their mission as harnessing the emotional resonance of song to shine a spotlight on what they consider an urgent need for a comprehensive, long-term recovery strategy for Lough Neagh. The UK and Ireland's largest freshwater lake has been plagued by toxic blue-green algal blooms for three consecutive summers, turning its waters a striking and alarming shade of green.

Una McCann, director of one of the participating choirs, composed an original piece titled *Water is Life* specifically for the occasion. All five choirs performed the song simultaneously from their respective locations around the lake.

"I wrote the song because I wanted something deeply personal — both to this issue and to the people who call this community home," McCann explained. "Our aim is to give the lough a voice and unite as a community to express, through music, how profoundly we feel about its condition."

### A Grassroots Response to an Ecological Emergency

Event organisers emphasised that Sunday's gathering represented a genuine grassroots movement — a community-driven response to what many locals view as a neglected ecological emergency. The simultaneous performances across different locations around the lough were designed to send a unified message of solidarity.

Attendee Nicole Minogue voiced her belief that the lough remains critically underappreciated. "We need to bring real attention to the environmental disaster unfolding here," she said. "Singing is a wonderful way to do that — it brings people together around something joyful while still making a serious point."

Singer Paddy Brannigan echoed those sentiments, stating that it felt "important" to be there on the day. "The lough is in a bad way, and communities are coming together through singing to draw attention to its current state," he said.

## Government Acknowledges the Crisis

A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) confirmed that blue-green algae in Lough Neagh represents "a serious environmental and public health issue" being treated with "the utmost urgency".

Daera noted that Minister Andrew Muir fully acknowledges the depth of public concern and understands the frustration felt by communities — particularly those living on the lough's doorstep. Muir has stated that the crisis "has been decades in the making" and, while there are "no quick fixes", restoring and protecting the ecological health of the lough remains an achievable goal.

### The Lough Neagh Action Plan

A formal Lough Neagh Action Plan is currently in place, designed to address the algal bloom problem over a multi-year period. The plan focuses on reducing nutrient levels in the water and supporting the lake's broader ecological recovery. Daera's spokesperson confirmed that "progress is being made to implement the actions required" under the plan, offering some cautious optimism for the future of this vital natural landmark.

Community choirs gathered at Lough Neagh to perform in solidarity, calling for urgent action against toxic algal blooms threatening the UK's largest freshwater 

Choirs Sing for Lough Neagh to Demand Environmental Action

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Choirs Unite Around Lough Neagh to Amplify the Lake's Environmental Crisis Through Song

## A Quiet Revolution in Physics Could Change Computing Forever

A remarkable discovery in physics may be about to rewrite the rules of modern computing. Scientists have demonstrated that microscopic atomic vibrations — known as chiral phonons — can directly transfer motion to electrons, enabling them to carry information without the need for magnets, batteries, or electrical current. The finding opens up an entirely new discipline called **orbitronics**, where data is processed through the orbital movement of electrons rather than conventional electrical charge or spin.

## Why the World Needs a Smarter Way to Compute

As global demand for data processing continues to climb, researchers are turning to the quantum realm in search of more efficient solutions. Orbitronics has emerged as one of the most promising frontiers in this search. The concept revolves around harnessing the **orbital angular momentum** of electrons — essentially, the way electrons orbit an atom's nucleus — to store and transmit information more efficiently than current methods allow.

The problem, until now, has been control. Influencing electron orbital motion has traditionally depended on magnetic materials like iron, which are heavy, expensive, and difficult to integrate into small-scale devices. A new study published in the journal *Nature Physics* has changed that picture dramatically.

## The Role of Chiral Phonons

### What Makes a Material Chiral?

To understand the breakthrough, it helps to understand chirality. Most solid materials have symmetrical atomic structures — their mirror image looks identical to the original. Chiral materials are fundamentally different. In substances like quartz, atoms are arranged in a spiral pattern, much like the threading of a screw. This twisted structure can be either left- or right-handed, and crucially, it cannot be overlaid on its own mirror image. Human hands offer a familiar everyday example of this property.

Atoms inside solids are never completely still — they vibrate constantly. In symmetrical materials, this vibration is generally a simple back-and-forth motion. In chiral materials, however, the spiral atomic arrangement causes atoms to move in circular or spiral paths instead.

### How Phonons Carry Angular Momentum

When these circular vibrations travel through a material as collective waves, they form what scientists call **chiral phonons**. A useful analogy is the ripple effect at a concert, where one person begins swaying and the movement gradually spreads through the crowd.

Because the atoms trace circular paths, they carry angular momentum. The researchers proved that this momentum can be transferred directly to electrons — giving electrons orbital angular momentum without any involvement from magnets or external electrical sources.

## The Breakthrough: Orbital Seebeck Effect

The research team, led by North Carolina State University in collaboration with the University of Utah and several other institutions, used **α-quartz** — a crystal with a naturally chiral structure — to test their theory.

Under normal conditions, chiral phonons in a material exist in a mix of left- and right-handed states. By briefly applying a magnetic field, the team was able to align these phonons. Once a sufficient number were aligned, their collective rotational motion transferred to the electrons — and this transfer persisted even after the external magnetic field was switched off.

The researchers named this phenomenon the **orbital Seebeck effect**, drawing a deliberate parallel to the spin Seebeck effect, which describes a related process involving electron spin. To measure the effect, they layered metals — specifically tungsten and titanium — on top of the quartz crystal. This setup converted the orbital motion of electrons into a detectable electrical signal.

For the first time, scientists at the University of Utah also directly measured the internal magnetism generated by chiral phonons in quartz, using specialized equipment at the National High Magnetic Field Lab in Florida. By firing lasers through the material and analyzing changes in the reflected light, they confirmed that chiral phonons produce a meaningful magnetic field — even in a material that is not itself magnetic.

## What Scientists Are Saying

"The generation of orbital currents traditionally necessitates the injection of charge current into specific transition metals, and many of these elements are now classified as critical materials," said **Dali Sun**, physicist at North Carolina State University and co-author of the study. "There are other ways to generate orbital angular momentum, but this method allows for the use of cheaper, more abundant materials."

**Valy Vardeny**, distinguished professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Utah, put it even more directly: "We don't need a magnet. We don't need a battery. We don't need to use voltage. We just need a material with chiral phonons. Before, it was unimaginable. Now, we've invented a new field, so to speak."

Doctoral candidate **Rikard Bodin** of the University of Utah added a broader perspective on the discovery's long-term potential: "When we talk about discovering things like the orbital Seebeck effect — I can't tell you that your TV is going to run on it, but it's creating more levers that we can pull on to do new things. Now that it's here, someone else can push it forward, and before you know it, it's ubiquitous. That's how technology is."

## Beyond Quartz: A Versatile Platform

One of the most significant aspects of the discovery is that it is not limited to quartz alone. The same principles can be applied to a range of other chiral materials, including **tellurium**, **selenium**, and **hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites**. Compared to existing orbitronics approaches, this method requires fewer raw materials, involves simpler processes, and allows orbital motion to persist for considerably longer periods.

This combination of accessibility, efficiency, and scalability positions the technology as a genuinely viable path toward next-generation computing devices that are faster, smaller, and far less energy-hungry.

## A Wide Collaborative Effort

The study was the product of an extensive multi-institutional collaboration involving researchers from North Carolina State University, the University of Utah, Nanjing Normal University, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the University of Washington, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of South Carolina, and Pennsylvania State University.

The full findings were published in the journal *Nature Physics*.

Researchers discover chiral phonons can transfer orbital motion to electrons — a magnet-free breakthrough that could revolutionize computing technology.

Scientists Control Electrons Without Magnets or Power

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No Magnets, No Battery: Scientists Discover a New Way to Control Electrons

## The Spacecraft That Refused to Quit

Nearly five decades ago, a spacecraft no larger than a compact car blasted off from the Florida coast, originally designed to last just five years in the depths of space. This week, NASA quietly flipped a switch that turned off one of its final working science instruments — a bittersweet but deliberate act aimed at keeping the legendary probe functioning for as long as physically possible.

Voyager 1, the most distant human-made object in existence, is slowly losing power. The small team of dedicated engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California is doing everything within their means to postpone its eventual silence.

## A Journey That Was Never Supposed to Last This Long

Launched on September 5, 1977, from Cape Canaveral aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket, Voyager 1 is a robotic space probe weighing approximately 1,797 pounds — comparable to a mid-size sedan. It features a 12-foot-wide dish antenna engineered to maintain communication with Earth across unimaginable distances. Built at JPL, a federally funded facility operated by the California Institute of Technology, the spacecraft has remained operational for nearly 49 consecutive years.

The mission's roots trace back to a remarkable astronomical opportunity identified in the late 1960s. Scientists and engineers noticed that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune were drifting into a rare planetary alignment — one that would not occur again for approximately 175 years. This configuration allowed engineers to design a flight path that used each planet's gravitational pull as a natural slingshot, propelling the spacecraft forward without consuming additional fuel. This technique, known as a gravity assist, made an extraordinary multi-planet tour theoretically possible.

NASA initially envisioned a sweeping mission called the "Grand Tour" to visit all four outer planets, but budget limitations scaled back those ambitions. The restructured Voyager program was funded for targeted fly-bys of Jupiter and Saturn, with both spacecraft expected to survive just five years. They have since surpassed that estimate by nearly a factor of ten.

## Milestones That Rewrote the History of Space Exploration

Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Jupiter in March 1979, and the discoveries were immediate and stunning. Scientists observed active volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's moon Io — marking the very first time volcanic activity had ever been detected on a world other than Earth. The probe then swept past Saturn in November 1980, delivering unprecedented close-up imagery of the planet's iconic ring system and its enigmatic moon Titan.

That close encounter with Titan had a lasting navigational consequence: it tilted Voyager 1's trajectory upward and out of the solar system's plane, effectively ending its planetary tour. But it also placed the spacecraft on a course that no machine had ever traveled before — toward interstellar space.

In 1990, NASA formally expanded the mission under the Voyager Interstellar Mission designation, tasking both spacecraft with studying the outermost boundaries of the Sun's influence. On August 25, 2012, Voyager 1 made history once again by crossing the heliopause — the boundary where the Sun's stream of charged particles gives way to the cold expanse of interstellar space — becoming the first human-made object ever to enter the space between the stars. Its companion spacecraft, Voyager 2, crossed the same threshold in 2018.

## 15 Billion Miles Away — and Still Listening

As of spring 2026, Voyager 1 is more than 15 billion miles from Earth. At that staggering distance, a radio signal traveling at the speed of light requires over 23 hours to reach the probe — one way. Every command transmitted by engineers, and every piece of data returned by the spacecraft, crosses that immense void before anyone on Earth receives a response.

The probe draws its power not from solar panels or conventional batteries, but from a radioisotope thermoelectric generator — a device that transforms heat produced by decaying plutonium into usable electricity. This system loses roughly 4 watts of output every year. After nearly five decades of continuous operation, that slow but relentless decline has reached a critical threshold.

## Why NASA Shut Down the LECP Instrument

During a routine operational maneuver in late February, Voyager 1's power levels dipped unexpectedly, pushing the spacecraft dangerously close to triggering an automatic fault-protection response. Such a shutdown would have forced engineers into a time-consuming and high-risk recovery effort — a scenario the team was determined to avoid.

Acting decisively, mission engineers transmitted a series of commands on April 17 to deactivate the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment, commonly referred to as the LECP. This instrument had spent decades measuring ions, electrons, and cosmic rays from both within our solar system and the broader galaxy, providing scientists with an irreplaceable map of interstellar space. The LECP aboard Voyager 2 had already been switched off in March 2025.

The decision to deactivate the LECP was not made impulsively. Years ago, the Voyager science and engineering teams collaboratively agreed on a ranked order of instrument shutdowns, designed to conserve power while protecting the most scientifically valuable systems for as long as possible. The LECP was simply next in line.

"While shutting down a science instrument is not anybody's preference, it is the best option available," said Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at JPL, in an official NASA blog post published on April 18.

## What Remains — and What Comes Next

With the LECP offline, Voyager 1 now operates with just two functioning science instruments: a plasma wave detector that listens for activity in the surrounding environment, and a magnetometer that tracks magnetic field variations. Engineers estimate that this latest shutdown could extend the mission's operational window by approximately one additional year.

Looking further ahead, the JPL team is developing an ambitious power conservation plan they have informally nicknamed "the Big Bang." The strategy involves simultaneously swapping several active components for lower-power alternatives — a coordinated overhaul designed to squeeze out as much operational life as possible. Testing on Voyager 2 is currently scheduled for May and June 2026. If those tests succeed, the same procedure will be applied to Voyager 1 no earlier than July 2026. There is even a possibility, however slim, that a successful implementation could restore limited functionality to the LECP.

The mission team remains cautiously optimistic. Their goal is to keep at least one science instrument active aboard each spacecraft well into the 2030s — ensuring that both probes continue transmitting data from regions of the universe no human machine has ever explored before.

NASA powers down Voyager 1's LECP instrument to preserve the 49-year-old probe. Learn why the most distant spacecraft ever built still matters to science.

Voyager 1: NASA Shuts Down Instrument to Extend Mission

Voyager 1 at 49: NASA Powers Down Another Instrument to Keep the Legendary Probe Alive

## The Tatooine Problem: Where Are All the Two-Sun Planets?

For decades, astronomers have wrestled with a baffling cosmic gap. Planets should form readily around stars — including the many stars that exist in pairs — yet worlds orbiting two stars simultaneously are extraordinarily scarce. Of more than 6,000 confirmed exoplanets catalogued to date, a mere 14 have been verified orbiting both stars in a binary system. Scientists expected hundreds. New research now points to a surprising culprit: Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the American University of Beirut, was published in *The Astrophysical Journal Letters*. Its findings reframe how we understand planetary survival in complex star systems — and explain why so-called circumbinary planets (those orbiting both stars in a pair) are vanishingly rare.

## What Happens Inside a Binary Star System

In a typical binary system, two stars of slightly different masses orbit one another along elongated, elliptical paths. Any planet circling both stars must navigate the competing gravitational pulls of each, causing its orbital path to slowly rotate over time — a phenomenon known as precession, similar to a spinning top gradually wobbling off-axis.

The two stars themselves also precess, but for a distinct reason rooted in Einstein's general relativity. Over time, tidal forces between the stars pull them gradually closer together. As their shared orbit shrinks, the stars' precession rate accelerates — while the planet's precession rate simultaneously slows.

At a certain point, these two precession rates align, creating what physicists call a **resonance**. The consequences for any nearby planet are severe.

### Resonance: A Death Sentence for Planets

Once resonance takes hold, the planet's orbit becomes progressively more distorted and unstable. It swings to extreme distances on one end of its path and plunges dangerously close to the binary stars on the other.

"Two things can happen: Either the planet gets very, very close to the binary, suffering tidal disruption or being engulfed by one of the stars, or its orbit gets significantly perturbed by the binary to be eventually ejected from the system," explained Mohammad Farhat, a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study. "In both cases, you get rid of the planet."

The team's mathematical models and computer simulations indicate that roughly eight out of every ten planets around tight binary star systems would be destabilized through this mechanism — with most ultimately being destroyed.

## A Planetary Desert Around Close Binary Pairs

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) detect planets by recording tiny dips in a star's brightness as a planet passes in front of it. Kepler alone identified around 3,000 eclipsing binary systems. Given that approximately 10% of Sun-like stars host large planets, astronomers anticipated finding a comparable proportion among binary stars — roughly 300 circumbinary systems. Instead, only 47 candidates have been identified, with just 14 confirmed.

Strikingly, not a single confirmed circumbinary planet orbits a binary pair whose stars complete a mutual orbit in fewer than seven days.

"You have a scarcity of circumbinary planets in general and you have an absolute desert around binaries with orbital periods of seven days or less," said Farhat. "The overwhelming majority of eclipsing binaries are tight binaries and are precisely the systems around which we most expect to find transiting circumbinary planets."

### The Instability Zone

Binary star systems contain what researchers call an **instability zone** — a region surrounding the stellar pair where planetary orbits simply cannot be maintained. Within this boundary, the combined gravitational influence of two stars either ejects planets outward or drags them inward to their destruction.

Notably, 12 of the 14 known circumbinary planets sit just beyond this unstable region. This suggests they likely formed at greater distances and migrated inward over time — because forming a planet at the edge of the instability zone would be nearly impossible.

"Planets form from the bottom up, by sticking small-scale planetesimals together. But forming a planet at the edge of the instability zone would be like trying to stick snowflakes together in a hurricane," Farhat noted.

## How Einstein's Theory Reshapes Entire Planetary Systems

First proposed by Albert Einstein in 1915, general relativity describes gravity not as an invisible force but as the curvature of spacetime caused by mass. One of the theory's earliest observational confirmations was the subtle shift in Mercury's orbital path — a drift that Newton's classical laws alone could not account for.

A parallel process unfolds in binary star systems. Stars that begin their lives relatively far apart are gradually drawn closer through interactions with surrounding gas clouds, a process that can span tens of millions of years. Tidal forces continue tightening their orbit over billions of years more. As this happens, relativistic effects on the stars' orbital precession grow increasingly significant.

Co-author Jihad Touma, a physics professor at the American University of Beirut, had long suspected general relativity played a role in shaping planetary fates around binary stars — but the magnitude of the effect was previously unclear.

"A planet caught in resonance finds its orbit deformed to higher and higher eccentricities, precessing faster and faster while staying in tune with the orbit of the binary, which is shrinking," Touma explained. "And on the route, it encounters that instability zone around binaries, where three-body effects kick into place and gravitationally clear out the zone."

## Surviving Planets Are Simply Too Far to Detect

This does not mean binary stars are entirely without planets. Those that survive the resonance-driven purge tend to reside at much greater orbital distances — too far out to be detected by current transit-based observatories like Kepler and TESS, which are best suited to finding planets in relatively close orbits.

"There are surely planets out there. It's just that they are difficult to detect with current instruments," said Touma.

## What Comes Next

The research team is now expanding their models beyond ordinary binary stars. Their next focus includes studying how relativistic effects influence star clusters surrounding pairs of supermassive black holes, as well as investigating whether similar mechanisms could help explain the scarcity of planets around binary pulsars — rapidly rotating neutron star pairs that emit precisely timed radio pulses.

The implications extend well beyond Tatooine-style fantasy. Understanding how general relativity shapes the architecture of planetary systems challenges long-held assumptions about where habitable worlds might exist — and where we should be looking for them.

New research reveals Einstein's general relativity is responsible for the surprising scarcity of planets orbiting binary star systems, destroying most through o

Why Einstein's Relativity Destroys Planets in Binary Star Sy

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Einstein's General Relativity Is Destroying Planets Around Binary Stars, Scientists Reveal

## A Journey That Was Never Supposed to Last This Long

In the summer of 1977, a spacecraft not much larger than a compact car was bolted atop a rocket at Cape Canaveral and launched into the unknown. The plan was modest: a five-year tour of the outer solar system. Nearly half a century later, that same spacecraft is still out there — and NASA engineers are still fighting to keep it alive.

This week, the space agency confirmed it had powered down one of Voyager 1's final remaining science instruments. The decision was not a sign of failure. It was an act of survival.

## What Exactly Is Voyager 1?

Launched on September 5, 1977, aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket, Voyager 1 is a robotic space probe built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California — a federally funded research center operated by the California Institute of Technology. The spacecraft weighs approximately 1,797 pounds, comparable to a mid-size sedan, and is equipped with a 12-foot-wide dish antenna that keeps it locked in communication with Earth.

It has been operational for almost 49 consecutive years, an extraordinary testament to engineering, scientific ambition, and a fair amount of cosmic luck.

## The Rare Alignment That Made It All Possible

The story of Voyager 1 begins with an astronomical coincidence. In the late 1960s, scientists and engineers realized that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune were slowly drifting into a rare geometric alignment — one that would not repeat for approximately 175 years. This configuration opened a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use each planet's gravitational field as a natural slingshot, propelling a spacecraft from one world to the next without burning additional fuel. The technique is known as a gravity assist.

NASA initially envisioned a sweeping mission called the "Grand Tour" that would visit all four outer planets. Budget pressures ultimately scaled the vision back, and the program was restructured under the Voyager name, with two spacecraft designed to conduct intensive flybys of Jupiter and Saturn over a projected five-year lifespan. They have now operated for nearly ten times that duration.

## Historic Discoveries Along the Way

### Jupiter and the Birth of a New Discovery

When Voyager 1 swept past Jupiter in March 1979, it delivered one of the most stunning revelations in planetary science history. Cameras aboard the probe captured active volcanoes erupting on Io, one of Jupiter's moons — the first confirmed evidence of volcanic activity anywhere beyond Earth. It was a discovery that permanently reshaped our understanding of the solar system.

### Saturn's Rings and a Fateful Encounter

Arriving at Saturn in November 1980, Voyager 1 sent back extraordinarily detailed imagery of the planet's iconic ring system and conducted a close study of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. That close encounter with Titan came at a cost, however. The gravitational interaction altered the spacecraft's trajectory, tilting it upward out of the plane of the solar system and effectively ending its planetary tour. But it also set Voyager 1 on a heading toward interstellar space — toward the unknown.

### Crossing Into the Space Between Stars

In 1990, NASA formally broadened Voyager 1's objectives under the Voyager Interstellar Mission, tasking the probe with studying the outermost boundary of the Sun's influence. On August 25, 2012, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause — the frontier where the Sun's stream of charged particles fades and true interstellar space begins — becoming the first human-built object ever to exit our solar system. Its twin, Voyager 2, crossed the same threshold in 2018.

## 15 Billion Miles Away — and Running Low on Power

As of spring 2026, Voyager 1 sits more than 15 billion miles from Earth. A radio signal traveling at the speed of light takes over 23 hours to reach the probe one way. Every command the engineering team sends, and every byte of data the spacecraft returns, must bridge that immense distance.

The probe is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator — a device that converts heat produced by decaying plutonium into usable electricity. There are no solar panels. There are no rechargeable batteries. Just the gradual, reliable release of nuclear heat, which diminishes by roughly 4 watts every year. After five decades, that steady decline has reached a critical threshold.

## Why NASA Powered Down the LECP

During a routine operational maneuver in late February 2026, Voyager 1's power levels dropped more sharply than expected, nudging the spacecraft dangerously close to triggering an automatic fault-protection response — a built-in self-preservation mode that, if activated, would have forced engineers into a complex and risky recovery process with a 23-plus-hour communication delay on every exchange.

To prevent that outcome, mission engineers sent a carefully prepared sequence of commands on April 17, instructing the spacecraft to deactivate the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment, known as the LECP. This instrument had spent decades measuring ions, electrons, and cosmic rays from both the solar system and the galaxy beyond, contributing to scientists' understanding of the architecture of interstellar space in ways no other tool could replicate. The same instrument had already been switched off on Voyager 2 back in March 2025.

The science and engineering teams at JPL had long ago agreed on a prioritized shutdown sequence for Voyager 1's instruments, designed to conserve power while holding onto the most scientifically valuable capabilities for as long as possible. The LECP was next on that list.

"While shutting down a science instrument is not anybody's preference, it is the best option available," said Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at JPL, in a statement published by NASA.

## What Comes Next

Voyager 1 now carries just two functioning science instruments: a plasma wave detector that listens for electromagnetic activity in interstellar space, and a magnetometer that tracks magnetic field behavior. Engineers estimate the latest power-saving measure could extend the mission by approximately one additional year.

Looking further ahead, the Voyager team is developing a more ambitious conservation strategy they have informally dubbed "the Big Bang" — a coordinated procedure that would simultaneously swap several powered components for lower-energy alternatives. Testing on Voyager 2 is scheduled for May and June 2026. If successful, the same approach will be attempted on Voyager 1 no earlier than July 2026. There is even a realistic, if slim, possibility that a successful implementation could allow the LECP to be reactivated.

Ultimately, the team's goal is to keep at least one science instrument operating on each spacecraft well into the 2030s — ensuring that these two remarkable machines continue sending data from regions of the universe no human instrument has ever before explored.

## The Legacy of an Unstoppable Probe

Voyager 1 was built to last five years. It has lasted nearly fifty. It has revealed volcanoes on another world, mapped the edges of our solar system, and crossed into the space between the stars. Now, its engineers are rationing every last watt to squeeze out whatever time remains.

In the history of human exploration, few endeavors have delivered so much from so far away.

NASA has shut down one of Voyager 1's last science instruments to preserve power on the most distant spacecraft ever built. Here's why it matters.

Voyager 1: Why NASA Powered Down a Key Instrument

Voyager 1 at 49: NASA Powers Down an Instrument to Keep History's Farthest Spacecraft Alive

## Volunteers Fear the Worst After Reservoir Is Suddenly Emptied

A devoted group of wildlife volunteers in Wrexham is facing heartbreak after the reservoir they spent months guiding toads toward was completely drained by a local water company — potentially wiping out more than a thousand amphibians in one fell swoop.

Members of the Wrexham Toad Patrols dedicate their evenings every spring to safely shepherding toads, frogs, and newts across the busy A525 road, helping them reach their ancestral breeding ground at Nant-y-Ffrith reservoir. This year, the group celebrated a record season, successfully moving nearly 1,500 toads — four times the number assisted in the previous year, thanks to a surge in volunteer numbers.

That achievement has now been overshadowed by devastating news.

## Reservoir Drained Over Easter Weekend

Water company Hafren Dyfrdwy emptied the Nant-y-Ffrith reservoir over the Easter weekend, citing essential safety upgrades required to keep the operational reservoir compliant with strict regulatory standards. The volunteers, however, say they received no advance warning — and the timing could not have been worse.

The toads were still in the midst of their breeding season and were not expected to leave the water for another four to six weeks. When patrol members visited the site following the draining, they were met with an unsettling silence.

"The males are very vocal so you can usually hear them. It was silent," said volunteer Becky Wiseman. "We got as close to the reservoir as we could but we saw no life."

## Weeks Too Soon: A Preventable Tragedy

Volunteers are deeply frustrated, believing the disaster could have been avoided with a brief delay to the scheduled works.

Group member Teri Davies expressed the collective despair felt across the patrol: "All of us are totally gutted — all that hard work and it's just gone."

She explained that had the drainage been postponed by just four to six weeks, the toads would have completed their breeding cycle. "They would have laid their spawn, the spawn would have turned to toadlets, and they would have left the water free for the maintenance works," she said.

Fellow volunteer Ella Thisleton echoed those concerns, highlighting the broader ecological consequences. "There's a whole ecosystem," she said. "We don't know what next year will bring from this, so we're all very upset. If we'd known about it, there could have been things we could have put in place to try and prevent any fatalities."

## A Species Already Under Pressure

The loss comes at a particularly sensitive time for common toads in the United Kingdom. Research conducted by conservation charity Froglife revealed that the UK's common toad population has plummeted by 41% over the past four decades. A primary driver of this decline is the disappearance of garden ponds, making larger natural water bodies like reservoirs increasingly critical refuges for breeding amphibians.

Becky Wiseman called for greater collaboration between human development interests and wildlife conservation. "I appreciate that people see humans as the priority, but we're not the only ones here," she said. "I think we need to work together to prevent damage going forward."

## Wildlife Beyond Toads Also Affected

The impact of the draining extends beyond the toad population. The Nant-y-Ffrith reservoir also serves as an important habitat for bird species, including curlews and geese, raising further concerns about the disturbance caused to local wildlife and the wider ecosystem.

## Water Company Responds

In a statement, a Hafren Dyfrdwy spokesperson acknowledged the community's distress, saying the company understood how "concerning this situation is for the local community." The spokesperson emphasized that the work was non-negotiable from a safety perspective but confirmed that the company is "currently reviewing what has occurred alongside our ecologists on site."

The company has since committed to working alongside the Wrexham Toad Patrols to explore possible next steps while construction continues, expressing a desire to "identify ways to put things right for the future."

"While the reservoir plays a vital role in supplying drinking water, we recognise it is also an important space for local wildlife and the community," the spokesperson added.

For the volunteers who gave up countless evenings this spring to protect these creatures, the hope now is that future coordination between conservation groups and utility companies can prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.

Wrexham Toad Patrol volunteers fear over 1,000 toads have died after Hafren Dyfrdwy drained a key breeding reservoir during peak season without warning.

1,000 Toads Feared Dead After Reservoir Drained by Water Fir

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Over 1,000 Toads Feared Dead After Water Company Drains Their Breeding Reservoir

## Printed Artificial Neurons Successfully Communicate With Living Brain Cells

A team of engineers at Northwestern University has achieved something once thought confined to science fiction: artificial neurons, produced through a printing process, that can genuinely communicate with living brain cells. These flexible, affordable devices generate electrical signals so close to the real thing that they can activate biological neural tissue — a feat demonstrated on actual mouse brain samples.

The achievement marks a meaningful turning point in the effort to bridge the gap between electronic hardware and the human nervous system.

## Why This Breakthrough Matters

Unlike earlier artificial neurons that could only mimic brain activity in a rudimentary way, these printed devices interact directly with real neural circuits. During laboratory tests involving slices of mouse cerebellum, the artificial neurons triggered genuine responses in living brain cells — demonstrating an unprecedented level of biological compatibility.

This opens the door to a new class of electronics capable of seamlessly interfacing with the nervous system. Applications could include advanced brain-machine interfaces and neuroprosthetic devices — implants designed to help restore lost functions such as hearing, vision, or physical movement.

### The Energy Problem Driving the Research

Beyond medical applications, the research is motivated by a pressing technological challenge: the staggering energy consumption of modern artificial intelligence.

"The world we live in today is dominated by artificial intelligence," said Mark C. Hersam, the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering, who led the study. "The way you make AI smarter is by training it on more and more data. This data-intensive training leads to a massive power-consumption problem. Therefore, we have to come up with more efficient hardware to handle big data and AI. Because the brain is five orders of magnitude more energy efficient than a digital computer, it makes sense to look to the brain for inspiration for next-generation computing."

Hersam co-led the study alongside Vinod K. Sangwan, a research associate professor at McCormick, and holds additional appointments in medicine and chemistry at Northwestern.

## How the Human Brain Outperforms Silicon Chips

Conventional computers rely on billions of uniform transistors packed onto rigid, flat silicon chips. Once built, these systems are essentially locked in place — identical components performing the same fixed operations.

The brain operates on entirely different principles. It is made up of diverse neuron types, each serving specialized functions, woven together in soft, three-dimensional structures that continuously adapt and rewire themselves through learning.

"Silicon achieves complexity by having billions of identical devices," Hersam explained. "Everything is the same, rigid and fixed once it's fabricated. The brain is the opposite. It's heterogeneous, dynamic and three-dimensional. To move in that direction, we need new materials and new ways to build electronics."

Previous artificial neuron designs fell short by producing overly simplistic signals, requiring large, energy-hungry networks of devices just to replicate moderately complex behavior.

## The Science Behind the Printable Neurons

### Materials That Mimic the Brain's Softness

To more faithfully replicate how real neurons behave, Hersam's team constructed their artificial neurons from soft, printable electronic inks. These inks contain nanoscale flakes of two key materials: molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂), which functions as a semiconductor, and graphene, which provides electrical conductivity. The mixture was deposited onto flexible polymer surfaces using a technique called aerosol jet printing.

### Turning a Flaw Into a Feature

One of the more ingenious aspects of the research involved rethinking a long-standing problem. Previous researchers considered the polymer in these inks a defect because it degraded electrical performance, so they removed it entirely after printing. Hersam's team instead found a way to harness it.

"Instead of fully removing the polymer, we partially decompose it," Hersam said. "Then, when we pass current through the device, we drive further decomposition of the polymer. This decomposition occurs in a spatially inhomogeneous manner, leading to formation of a conductive filament, such that all the current is constricted into a narrow region in space."

This concentrated electrical pathway triggers a sharp, neuron-like firing response. The resulting devices can produce a rich variety of signal patterns — single spikes, sustained firing, and bursting sequences — closely mirroring the full complexity of natural neural communication. Because each individual artificial neuron can generate more sophisticated signals, fewer components are needed overall, which translates to greater computing efficiency.

## Tested Against Living Neural Tissue

To validate real-world biological compatibility, the Northwestern team collaborated with Indira M. Raman, the Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Neurobiology at Weinberg College, whose lab applied the artificial signals directly to mouse cerebellar tissue.

The signals matched critical biological benchmarks — specifically their timing and waveform shape — and successfully activated living neurons in patterns consistent with natural brain activity.

"Other labs have tried to make artificial neurons with organic materials, and they spiked too slowly," Hersam noted. "Or they used metal oxides, which are too fast. We are within a temporal range that was not previously demonstrated for artificial neurons. You can see the living neurons respond to our artificial neuron. So, we've demonstrated signals that are not only the right timescale but also the right spike shape to interact directly with living neurons."

## A Greener, More Affordable Path to Smarter Computing

The manufacturing process behind these devices is both cost-effective and environmentally considerate. Aerosol jet printing deposits material only where it is actually needed, drastically cutting down on waste compared to traditional chip fabrication methods.

This efficiency advantage becomes especially significant as AI infrastructure grows increasingly resource-intensive. Large-scale data centers already consume enormous quantities of electricity and require vast amounts of water just for cooling.

"To meet the energy demands of AI, tech companies are building gigawatt data centers powered by dedicated nuclear power plants," Hersam warned. "It is evident that this massive power consumption will limit further scaling of computing since it's hard to imagine a next-generation data center requiring 100 nuclear power plants. The other issue is that when you're dissipating gigawatts of power, there's a lot of heat. Because data centers are cooled with water, AI is putting severe stress on the water supply. However you look at it, we need to come up with more energy-efficient hardware for AI."

## What Comes Next

The study, titled *"Multi-order complexity spiking neurons enabled by printed MoS₂ memristive nanosheet networks,"* is set for publication on April 15 in the journal *Nature Nanotechnology*. The research received support from the National Science Foundation.

With artificial neurons now proven capable of speaking the brain's own electrical language, the path toward truly brain-inspired computing — and revolutionary medical implants — has never looked more tangible.

Northwestern engineers have printed artificial neurons that activate living brain cells, advancing brain-machine interfaces and energy-efficient AI hardware.