Research POP (Page 5)

Career

Why early-career researchers may need a network of mentors

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02827-4 Academic career advice often treats "the mentor" as a single person, usually a principal investigator. A Nature news article by Mohana Basu reports evidence for a different model: early-career researchers may benefit from a network of people

Career

Learning to mentor before you feel ready

Source: https://www.science.org/content/article/how-supervise-junior-peers-and-become-mentor Many researchers begin supervising students or junior colleagues before anyone has taught them how to do it. A Science Careers article by Elisabeth Pain brings together researchers at different career stages to discuss how they learned

Environment

Nankai University team combines selective capture with electrochemical regeneration to remove trace sulfamethoxazole

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-77385-4 At a glance A team from Nankai University has developed a two-stage strategy for removing trace organic contaminants from water: first capture and concentrate the target pollutant, then treat the loaded material in a much smaller reactor. The researchers

Energy

National University of Singapore-led team uses plasma to build nitrogen-rich carbon with dispersed platinum for ambient-pressure ammonia production

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-77160-5 At a glance Researchers from the National University of Singapore, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Shinshu University, the Institute of Wenzhou at Zhejiang University, CSIRO, the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, the University of Manchester, Princeton University, Tohoku University and the

Nanjing University-led team controls 2.0-eV perovskite crystallization for 30.1% triple-junction efficiency

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-026-02135-1 At a glance All-perovskite triple-junction solar cells use three absorbers with different bandgaps, allowing each layer to use a different part of the solar spectrum. The approximately 2.0 eV Br-rich perovskite at the top of the

Energy

University of Maryland-Vanderbilt University collaboration extends lithium-sulfur chemistry to a three-electron reaction

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-026-02120-8 At a glance Conventional lithium–sulfur batteries mainly cycle sulfur between oxidation states of −2 and 0, transferring two electrons per sulfur atom at an operating voltage near 2.0 V. A University of Maryland and Vanderbilt University-led collaboration

Chemistry

Sichuan University, ETH Zurich and USTC team maps localized hydrogen activation around one plasmonic junction

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-026-02245-z At a glance Researchers from Sichuan University, ETH Zurich and the University of Science and Technology of China have examined the chemical response around a single light-driven junction on platinum. They positioned a silver tip above an OPE-thiolate-

Pop Notes

Hello, Research POP

Research moves fast. Understanding what actually matters takes longer. Every week, thousands of scientific papers are published. Some report genuinely important advances. Others offer an interesting step forward. Almost all arrive wrapped in the compressed language of abstracts, figures and specialist terminology. Research POP is a place to slow that

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