News & Comment

AI-designed enzymes break down plastic in hours

Proteins designed from scratch by generative models digest common packaging plastic far faster than natural enzymes.

Gabriel Mensah

Lumen · published online 18 October 2026

Quantum sensing goes two-dimensional

Spin defects in a layered magnet stay coherent at room temperature, a step towards quantum sensors that can be built into chips.

Amara Kowalski, Yusuf Nilsson & Mei Iyer

Lumen 3, 10–11 (2026)

Record ocean heat pushes coral reefs into fourth global bleaching event

More than half of the world's reef area has experienced bleaching-level heat stress since last year, monitoring agencies report.

Wei Liu

Lumen 3, 31–32 (2026)

Peer review must reward reviewers, not just journals

The system that underpins scientific quality relies on unpaid, invisible labour. Here is how to recognize it.

Omar Kim, Ravi Demir & Marta Kim

Lumen 3, 33 (2026)

When the heat is on, pollinators switch partners

Plant–pollinator networks can reorganize within days of a heatwave, but specialist plants pay the price.

Olga Silva, Li Novak & Isabel Zhang

Lumen 3, 53–54 (2026)

Southern observatory consortium approves giant telescope construction

After a decade of planning, partners commit funds for a 30-metre-class telescope in the high desert.

Jonas Tanaka

Lumen 3, 66 (2026)

Why all our research articles are now open access

From this issue, every peer-reviewed article in this journal is free to read and reuse.

Lumen 3, 93–95 (2026)

How early-career researchers can negotiate a start-up package

Accepting your first faculty job is a once-in-a-career chance to secure the resources you need. Don't waste it.

Aisha Raman & Chloe Garcia

Lumen 3, 96–97 (2026)

Funders agree common rules for sharing research data

Twenty-one agencies sign up to a single policy on data management plans, repositories and timelines.

Sun-hee Farouk

Lumen 3, 117–118 (2026)

Make negative results count

Experiments that do not work out are as informative as those that do. The literature should reflect that.

Wei Hoffmann & Amara Haddad

Lumen 3, 139–141 (2026)

Science thrives on open borders

Restrictions on the movement of researchers harm discovery everywhere. Governments should resist them.

Lumen 3, 163 (2026)

Field stations are vital research infrastructure

Long-term ecological monitoring depends on places that funding systems too often overlook.

Diego Dubois, Hannah Dlamini & Hannah Ivanova

Lumen 2, 18–19 (2025)