The critical minerals that power lithium-ion batteries are in high demand and short supply, especially for the U.S., which must rely on importing resources such as nickel and cobalt to manufacture the technology.

Cornell researchers have now developed a more efficient and cost-effective way to recover almost the full life of these batteries after they are spent. By using an electrochemical solution to regenerate their electrodes, the recycled batteries can regain up to 95% of their original power and last longer when reused, the researchers demonstrated.

The process could also slash current recycling costs by 56% and would be more environmentally friendly than current methods.

The findings were published in Energy & Environmental Science...

The mysterious Amaterasu particle may not be a proton at all. New research suggests that some of the most extreme cosmic rays could be ultraheavy atomic nuclei, heavier than iron, which are better able to retain their energy while traveling through space...

The first human clinical trial of a universal Sarbeco coronavirus vaccine, developed by the University of Cambridge and spin-out DIOSynVax (DVX) Ltd, has shown that the vaccine is safe and has no significant side effects.

The trial, involving 39 healthy volunteers, tested a vaccine designed to provide protection against multiple Sarbeco coronaviruses—the large group of viruses that occur in nature including SARS-CoV-2, which caused the COVID pandemic.

The vaccine triggered immune responses in the volunteers not only to SARS-CoV-2 and SARS, but to related bat viruses that could potentially jump from animals to humans and cause future pandemics.

This trial proves the safety of an entirely new way of designing vaccines...

For the first time, new algorithms may be able to automatically explain why some self-driving cars crash—a question crucial to answer as more autonomous vehicles take to the roads. This new approach, developed by researchers at King’s College London, reviews past events to explain why specific instances of failure happened, in the hope that this can be used to make improvements in the future.

The research was presented at the 2026 IEEE International Conference of Robotics and Automation.

Self-driving vehicles are increasingly being rolled out across the globe, in cities like London and San Francisco, but collisions and serious breaches of road safety have put pressure on manufacturers to explain why they make the mistakes they do...