Are we ready to live with caregiving robots? With Japan facing a projected shortage of 570,000 care workers by 2040, researchers at Chiba University surveyed older adults, families, caregivers, and developers about their acceptance of home-care robots. They found that openness to using robots influenced willingness among both users and developers, while other factors differed between the groups—revealing distinct perspectives and highlighting the need for collaboration and ethical awareness in developing home-care robots.

The Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Institute of Science Tokyo is proud to announce that it will host the PCST Japan Symposium 2025, to be held from 11–13 November 2025. This joint international symposium marks the first time the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Network brings a symposium to Japan, and the seventh conference of the Japan SciCom Forum (JSF).

An Osaka Metropolitan University-led research team has developed a new regenerative treatment using stem cells derived from fat for spinal fractures in elderly people.

Singlet fission (SF) offers a way to boost energy conversion in photosensitive materials by splitting energy from a single high-energy photon into two lower-energy excited states. In a recent study, researchers at Kyushu University developed a set of pressure-responsive SF-active molecules with flexible polar linkers. Their experiments revealed that adjusting pressure and changing the solvent can reversibly control SF rates, paving the way for advanced energy conversion materials and phototherapeutic applications.

New study argues standard forms of consent for cell donations would not be appropriate for this line of research

A theoretical framework predicts the emergence of non-reciprocal interactions that effectively violate Newton’s third law in solids using light, report researchers from Japan. They demonstrate that by irradiating light of a carefully tuned frequency onto a magnetic metal, one can induce a torque that drives two magnetic layers into a spontaneous, persistent “chase-and-run” rotation. This work opens a new frontier in non-equilibrium materials science and suggests novel applications in light-controlled quantum materials.

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is central to gene regulation, but accurately simulating its folding is a long-standing challenge in computational biology. In a recent study, Associate Professor Tadashi Ando from Tokyo University of Science rigorously evaluated state-of-the-art molecular dynamics simulation tools. By testing 26 diverse RNA stem loops, he achieved highly accurate folding predictions and outlined areas for improvement, marking a major step toward RNA-based drug discovery and design.