New 'cloaking device' concept shields electronics from disruptive magnetic fields

Unwanted magnetic fields can disrupt the operation of precision instruments, sensors, and electronic components, leading to signal distortion, data errors, or equipment malfunction. This is a growing concern in environments such as hospitals, power grids, aerospace systems, and scientific laboratories, where increasingly sensitive technologies require effective protection from magnetic interference.

Researchers have unveiled a concept for a device designed to magnetically "cloak" sensitive components, making them invisible to detection.
A magnetic cloak is a device that hides or shields an object from external magnetic fields by manipulating how these flow around an object so that they behave as if the object isn't there.

In Science Advances, the team of engineers demonstrate for the first time that practical cloaks can be engineered using superconductors and soft ferromagnets in forms that can be manufactured.

Using computational and theoretical techniques such as advanced mathematical modeling and high-performance simulations based on real-world parameters, they have developed a new physics-informed design framework that allows magnetic cloaks to be created for objects of any shape. Until now, cloaks were mostly theoretical or restricted to simple shapes like cylinders.

This study demonstrates for the first time how to design magnetic cloaks for the irregular geometries we see in the real world. These cloaks also maintain their effectiveness across a broad range of field strengths and frequencies.

Magnetic cloaks could play a vital role in protecting sensitive electronics and sensors from magnetic interference, which is a growing challenge in everything from medical devices to renewable energy and space technology.

 Yusen Guo et al, Designing Functional Magnetic Cloaks for Real-World Geometries, Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aea2468. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea2468

Biophysicists uncover new electrical transmission in cells

Many biological processes are regulated by electricity—from nerve impulses to heartbeats to the movement of molecules in and out of cells.

A new study by search scientists reveals a previously unknown potential regulator of this bioelectricity: droplet-like structures called condensates. Condensates are better known for their role in compartmentalizing the cell, but this study shows they can also act as tiny biological batteries that charge the cell membrane from within.

The team showed that when electrically charged condensates collide with cell membranes, they change the cell membrane's voltage—which influences the amount of electrical charge flowing across the membrane—at the point of contact.

The discovery, published in the journal Small, highlights a new fundamental feature about how our cells work, and could one day help scientists treat certain diseases.

Condensates are organelles—structures within cells that carry out specific functions—but unlike more well-known organelles such as the nucleus and mitochondria, they are not enclosed within membranes. Instead, condensates are held together by a combination of molecular and electrical forces. They also occur outside of cells, such as at neuronal synapses.

Condensates are involved in many essential biological processes, including compartmentalizing cells, protein assembly and signaling both within and between cells. Previous studies have also shown that condensates carry electrical charges on their surfaces, but little is known about how their electrical properties relate to cellular functions.

If condensates can alter the electrical properties of cell membranes, it could have big implications, because many cellular processes are controlled by changes in the cell membrane voltage. For example, ion channels—proteins that rapidly transport molecules across the cell membrane—are activated by changes in cell membrane voltage.
In the nervous system, this rapid, one-directional transport of electrically charged molecules is what drives the propagation of electrical signals between nerves.

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To test whether condensates can alter cell membrane voltage, the researchers used cell models called Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs). To allow them to visualize changes in voltage, they stained GUV membranes with a dye that changes color in response to changes in electrical charge. Then, they put GUVs in the same vessel as lab-made condensates and photographed their interactions under the microscope.

They showed that when the condensates and GUVs collided, it caused a local change in the GUV membranes' electrical charge at their point of contact.
By varying the chemical makeup of the condensates, the researchers showed that the more electrical charge a condensate carried, the bigger its impact on cell membrane voltage. They also found that the shape of the condensates appeared to be correlated with variations in the voltage change.

In some instances, the voltages induced are quite substantial in magnitude—on the same scale as voltage changes in nerve impulses.

Anthony Gurunian et al, Biomolecular Condensates Can Induce Local Membrane Potentials, Small (2025). DOI: 10.1002/smll.202509591

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