R&D World

3 weeks ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

Tokyo-based startup ispace has lost contact with its Resilience lander during a landing attempt at the Moon’s Mare Frigoris, a long lunar sea also dubbed the “Sea of Cold.” The mission’s likely failure marks a significant setback in the company’s second bid to achieve a commercial lunar touchdown. The first Hakuto-R mission (M1) in April 2023 after its software misjudged the lander’s altitude over a steep crater rim, causing it to run out of fuel while still about 5 km above the surface.

3 weeks ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

Just over two months after R&D World covered the debut of Google’s experimental Gemini 2.5 Pro, the company has announced a significant upgrade following a prior May update to the model that drew mixed reactions from developers. Google’s latest Gemini 2.5 Pro has jumped to the top of AI performance rankings with an Elo score of 1470, a chess-style rating system that measures how often models beat each other in head-to-head comparisons based on user feedback.

3 weeks ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

In many ways, the first half of 2025 hasn’t been kind to the biotech sector’s growth trajectory. Headwinds from constrained research funding and shifting market dynamics have led to strategic recalibrations for many, including instrument makers like 10x Genomics. But the company’s Chief Technology Officer Michael Schnall-Levin is optimistic about the bigger picture. “I think on the fundamentals, it’s actually a pretty exciting time,” Schnall-Levin said.

3 weeks ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered a six-month halt on issuing new student visas to Harvard University students, declaring in a proclamation that he is “suspending the entry into the United States of any new Harvard student as a non-immigrant” for a period of six months because their presence “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” The suspension specifically targets new applicants for F-1 (academic studies), M-1 (vocational/non-academic studies), and J-1...

3 weeks ago | rdworldonline.com | Brian Buntz

Alongside its new Astral Zoom, Thermo Fisher Scientific also launched the Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Excedion Pro mass spectrometer at ASMS 2025, a system engineered to help researchers tackle the growing complexity and size of modern biotherapeutics. This instrument introduces an extended mass range and novel fragmentation technology to help provide detailed structural data to help ensure these next-generation therapeutics are safe and effective before advancing to clinical studies.