
Today on R&D World
NASA tests AI route planning for Perseverance rover drives on Mars
NVIDIA, Dassault Systèmes target materials discovery, drug development and more with industrial AI platform
The 12-year quest behind the SpaceX-xAI merger: From a 2012 warning about AI destroying Mars colonies to a $1.25 trillion deal
Patient survives for 48 hours with artificial lungs
Marktech expands large-area silicon photodiode portfolio for spectroscopy, medical diagnostics
Shimadzu, Georgia Southern launch SPARQ research and education partnership
How Radical AI is building a self-driving materials lab
Facing $14B losses in 2026, OpenAI is now seeking $100B in funding. But can it ever turn a profit?
R&D 100 red carpet recap: NETL team turns plastic waste into battery-grade graphite
Waters-BD biosciences merger set to close February 9
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Olivera Kotevska on PRESTO and Her R&D 100 Win
Lawrence Livermore’s “Science on Saturday” returns, linking computing research with classroom learning
STEM and healthcare degrees dominate 2026 employment rankings, but growth is concentrated in a narrow slice
R&D 100 Winner Spotlight: A closer look at Thermo Fisher Scientific’s trio of R&D 100 wins in 2025
Physics See More >

Research team shows nanoparticles adhere to quantum mechanics
A research team at the University of Vienna reports quantum interference of sodium nanoparticles containing more than 7,000 atoms, using a source that can produce clusters up to about 10,000 atoms. “Intuitively, one would expect such a large lump of metal to behave like a classical particle,” lead author and doctoral student Sebastian Pedalino said…

Researchers could be one step closer to understanding the origin of matter thanks to a new study

The Milky Way is glowing: these scientists think dark matter may be the cause

Three scientists awarded Nobel Prize in physics for showing quantum properties could exist in large-scale systems

ORNL named on 20 R&D 100 Awards, including carbon-capture and AM tools
Sponsored Content See More >
The Claims Conundrum: Why Integration is the Key to Smarter Commercialisation
By Angela Lawrence, Senior Director, Real World Evidence, Symphony Health, an ICON plc company The healthcare industry sits at the center of the world’s data explosion. Nearly 30% of all global data originates from healthcare, with the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of healthcare data expected to reach 36% in 2025. For life sciences companies,…
Life Science See More >

R&D 100 Winner Spotlight: A closer look at Thermo Fisher Scientific’s trio of R&D 100 wins in 2025
Thermo Fisher Scientific earned three 2025 R&D 100 Awards in the Analytical/Test category: the Stellar Mass Spectrometer, the KingFisher PlasmidPro Maxi Processor, and the SteriSEQ Rapid Sterility Testing Kit. According to Thermo Fisher, the Stellar Mass Spectrometer delivers 10x greater sensitivity while analyzing five times more compounds than traditional systems. The KingFisher PlasmidPro Maxi Processor…
Nanotechnology See More >

R&D 100 winner LLNL achieves 1,000x speed boost in 3D nanofabrication
Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Stanford University say they have built a two-photon lithography system that could push 3D nanofabrication toward manufacturing scale, boosting throughput by more than 1,000 times compared with commercial tools while maintaining minimum feature sizes of 113 nanometers. Two-photon lithography uses ultrafast laser pulses to harden material only at…
Energy See More >

R&D 100 Winner Spotlight: Energy storing and efficient air conditioner (ESEAC)
Filmed at the 63rd R&D 100 Awards in Scottsdale, Arizona, this quick interview spotlights the team behind the Energy Storing and Efficient Air Conditioner (ESEAC), an R&D 100 Award winning approach to commercial cooling that builds energy storage directly into the HVAC system. ESEAC was developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and is…
Chemistry See More >

New engineered proteins could make disease tracking portable and precise
Researchers reported in Nature that they have engineered proteins to emit light in response to a combination of weak magnetic fields and pulses of energy at radio frequencies. This could set the stage for tracking proteins in the body with MRI-like instruments with less powerful magnets. The technology could allow researchers to track disease-linked proteins…
Material Science See More >

R&D 100 red carpet recap: NETL team turns plastic waste into battery-grade graphite
At the 2025 R&D 100 Awards in Scottsdale, Arizona, we caught up with the National Energy Technology Laboratory team behind PLUS-Graphite. The technology converts polyethylene waste into high-performance synthetic graphite for lithium-ion batteries. Dr. Pangjali Mule, Ashra and Shinway represented NETL on the red carpet, where they reflected on what winning the “Oscar of Innovation”…

R&D 100 Spotlight: Looping nylon recycles fishnets into medical grade nylon

R&D 100 Winner Spotlight: How Qnity beat the industry timeline on PFAS-free lithography

R&D 100 Red Carpet: DuPont’s triple win

R&D 100 Winner Spotlight: DuPont Tychem 6000 SFR tackles the chemical vs. flame protection trade-off
Semiconductors See More >

Marktech expands large-area silicon photodiode portfolio for spectroscopy, medical diagnostics
Marktech Optoelectronics has expanded its silicon photodiode portfolio with new large-area detectors targeting optical instrumentation, spectroscopy and analytical measurement applications. The Latham, NY-based company’s new single-element and quadrant silicon photodiode devices are designed to improve signal capture, alignment tolerance, and signal-to-noise ratio in demanding optical systems. Available in multiple package styles and active area sizes,…
Aerospace See More >

NASA tests AI route planning for Perseverance rover drives on Mars
NASA says its Perseverance rover has completed the first rover drives on another world planned with the help of AI-generated waypoint plans, a demonstration aimed at reducing the time human rover drivers spend mapping routes, as NASA noted. The demonstration involved two drives on the rim of Jezero Crater in December 2025. On Dec. 8,…














































