Frontiers Science House: did you miss it? Fresh stories from Davos – end of week wrap

Frontiers

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• Open science at the center of global dialogue 

• Antimicrobial resistance: a “pandemic” killing more people than cancer by 2050 – Davos needs to talk about this  

• The science trust dividend: why data integrity matters  

• Before AI runs out of data, we need a new AGI paradigm 

• Frontiers Planet Prize: advancing planetary boundary science through interdisciplinary research 

• New AI platform building cities within planetary boundaries  

• UNESCO Science Decade: aligning global science for impact, openness, and cross-sector collaboration 

• Announcement of Europe’s first commercial cancer lab in space 

• Draghi Tracker launched to measure and accelerate European innovation and competitiveness  

• Disruptive transformations unlocked by quantum computing  

• Structural batteries: a top 10 emerging technology demonstrated for the first time 

• Ammonia market to grow from $100 billion to $500 billion 

• Grammy-nominated Aloe Blacc calls for open data sharing across funders and corporations  

• Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on what AI means for the future 

Read more about the individual stories below. 

Open science at the center of global dialogue 

Reflecting on the future of open science during the closing plenary session “The 2035 science roadmap,” Frontiers CEO and Co-founder Kamila Markram reiterated the value of making science openly accessible and visible:  

“Everybody profits and benefits from science made openly accessible, and the world will be a better place for it. The Frontiers Science House was the first of its kind – bringing a science house smack to the middle of the Davos Promenade, not somewhere in the corner, but into the middle of the most prominent promenade in Davos, so that everybody can see the amazing scientists driving the agenda and the beauty of science as well.” 

Global health & data trust 

Immediate global actions needed against the “AMR pandemic”  

AMR is a fast-growing global threat, with the potential to kill more people than cancer by 2050, requiring urgent cross-sector action and investment. Vanina Laurent Ledru, Chief Public Health and Government Affairs Officer of Institut Merieux and bioMerieux; Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and Adèle James, Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer of Phagos shared their insights: “Antimicrobial resistance pandemic will kill more people than cancer by 2050 and no one at Davos is talking about it" – leading scientists speak out at Frontiers Science House  

Data integrity helps build trust in science

Speakers raised concerns that public mistrust in data and science can delay policy making and implementation, weakening society’s response to global challenges. The private sector, policymakers, and international organizations are the catalyst of building an international trustworthy and ethical science ecosystem grounded in equity, transparency, and openness.  

Following “The science trust dividend: Enabling innovation and adoption” session, Giles Moëc, Chief Economist of AXA Group added:

“For us [at AXA], respect for science is absolutely key for various reasons, among which is our absolute need for data integrity. Data integrity is key to what we do. Otherwise, we cannot actually insure risks accurately. Trust in science is also key to enabling people to protect themselves accurately against key risks.”  

Before AI runs out of data, we need a new AGI paradigm 

During the closing plenary session, “The 2035 science roadmap,” Henry Markram, co-founder of INAIT, the Open Brain Institute, and Frontiers, warned that today's dominant approach to artificial general intelligence (AGI) is reaching its limits. He explained that achieving true intelligence will require a fundamentally new paradigm, grounded in real-time physical and biological interaction rather than recursive learning from past records. 

“Apparent AI, strictly scientifically speaking, is not intelligent. It is capable – superhumanly capable – but it is reflecting the human record because that's the data. [...] When you get to the real-time barrier, you run out of data. There's no more data. The current paradigm that is being used to get to AGI is not going to get you there.”  

Planetary boundaries & sustainability

Frontiers Planet Prize: Advancing planetary boundary science 

The Frontiers Planet Prize community shared how their award-winning research is advancing planetary boundary science during the session “Frontiers Planet Prize: Science improving the state of the world.” Johan Rockström, pioneer in planetary boundary science, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and Chairman of the Jury of 100 for the Frontiers Planet Prize, highlighted bringing the planetary boundary framework to COP30 for the first time. There, scientists and leading figures with the Planetary Science Pavilion released a science statement that Rockström called “the call for interdisciplinary science, representing the spirit of the Frontiers Planet Prize.” 

Since winning the Frontiers Planet Prize in 2025, International Champion Arunima Malik, Professor at the University of Sydney, has continued her interdisciplinary work, applying planetary boundary science to global trade through a Scope 3 emissions masterclass and a sustainable business hub supporting “net zero positive transitions in global trade.” 

AI Polis: turning climate science into actionable urban planning

Genisys AI announced the launch of AI Polis, an AI-powered platform functioning as a city-level coordination system, integrating data, AI models, and governance frameworks to help cities design, prioritize, and scale projects that improve urban life while staying within planetary boundaries. Hear what Bart Becks, CEO of Genisys AI and board member of the European Innovation Council said: AI platform helps cities develop within planetary boundaries  

Frontiers Science House and the UNESCO International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development 

Frontiers Science House marks an important starting point for collaboration between Frontiers and UNESCO’s Science Decade, aligning global scientific leadership around a shared strategic vision for the decade ahead. At a UNESCO-organized session in Davos, participants were encouraged to engage with the Science Decade Strategic Plan, which focuses on strengthening science systems and accelerating real-world impact through openness, trust, and cross-sector collaboration. 

Building on this momentum, the first Science Decade Global Conference will take place in Paris in July 2026, bringing together policymakers, funders, researchers, and industry leaders to advance coordinated action under the Science Decade framework. 

Breakthrough technologies & emerging innovation 

Europe’s first commercial orbital cancer lab  

SPARK Microgravity GmbH revealed plans to build Europe’s first dedicated commercial orbital cancer lab, accelerating the path from discovery to therapy. Learn how microgravity enables research that is impossible on Earth: SPARK Microgravity announces plans for Europe’s first commercial cancer lab in space at Frontiers Science House in Davos

JEDI Draghi Tracker launched to measure and accelerate European innovation and competitiveness  

The Joint European Disruptive Initiative (JEDI) Draghi Tracker was launched during the session “Strengthening Europe's science and innovation engine” – a quarterly progress report designed to measure Europe’s implementation of the Draghi report on competitiveness and help move from debate to delivery. Learn more about the performance of 20 key measures in the report: Draghi Tracker launched to measure and accelerate European innovation and competitiveness at Davos’ Frontiers Science House  

Disruptive transformations unlocked by quantum computing    

Quantum technologies will reshape science and industry as profoundly as AI has. The quantum decade could unlock new capabilities for managing highly complex systems – from climate and biological networks to secure communications.   

During the session “Conquering quantum's next frontier,” Barry Sanders, Scientific Director Quantum City of the University of Calgary, said:  

“We don’t know exactly what kind of disruptive transformation quantum will bring. It is exciting for scientists but on the security side this is a dual question.”  

Structural batteries: a top WEF 10 emerging technology demonstrated for the first time 

Chalmers University of Technology and Imperial College London showcased structural battery technology at Frontiers Science House – a breakthrough innovation listed in the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2025 report, co-published by the World Economic Forum and Frontiers. Structural batteries are multifunctional materials that both store electrical energy and carry mechanical loads, with the potential to fundamentally reshape construction, transport, and energy systems. 

In a world's first live demonstration, Professor Leif Asp, Chalmers University of Technology, and Professor Emile Greenhalgh, Imperial College London, presented how structural batteries could transform the way we build, move, and power the world during the session “Discover structural batteries.” Later in the week, Professor Asp demonstrated working devices – including a hollow torch and an aircraft door opening structural power design – illustrating the technology's real-world application and scalability. 

Ammonia market to grow from $100 billion to $500 billion 

At the closing plenary session, “The 2035 science roadmap,” researchers, funders, policymakers, and innovators explored how open, trusted, and inclusive science can be achieved over the next decade, focusing on the infrastructures, incentives, and collaborations needed to translate science into cooperation, resilience, and real-world impact. 

During the conversation, Karen Baert, CEO and Co-founder of Ammobia, highlighted the growing importance of ammonia technology: 

“Soon enough, the ammonia market will grow from $100 billion today to $500 billion and will really sit at the critical intersection of not just food security, but also energy security, and sustainability.” 

The reason for this being two new use cases for ammonia, which Baert explained: 

“One, ammonia will be used as a maritime shipping fuel, which will decarbonize 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. And [two], on top of that, ammonia will be used as an energy carrier, a way to redistribute renewable energy across the world.” 

Open science & collaboration 

Aloe Blacc calls for open data sharing across funders and corporations  

Speaking during the session “Novel approaches to accelerate cancer precision therapeutics—on both sides of the leash,” Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum artist, and founder of Major Inc and Pepto-ID, Aloe Blacc urged funders, universities, startups, and corporations to share data – especially negative results – so the scientific community can learn faster in the AI era. Privacy-preserving approaches could enable collaboration without undermining commercial incentives. Discover projects advancing open data including Frontiers FAIR² Data Management and the Open Brain Institute: Grammy-nominated Aloe Blacc calls for open data sharing across funders and corporations at the Frontiers Science House  

What does AI mean for Wikipedia? Jimmy Wales’ answer: facts and the nerds still rule 

At an evening session, “The future of knowledge in the age of AI,” celebrating Wikipedia's 25th anniversary, founder Jimmy Wales participated in a panel on trustworthy information, sustainability of the knowledge ecosystem, and collaboration in the public interest. In a follow-up interview with Frontiers, he reflected: 

“When I think about Wikipedia 25 years from now, I actually think it's going to be very similar in a way to what we have today. The fundamentals of what an encyclopedia is are timeless. […] Wikipedia will be bigger. I suspect by then there'll be new ways of interacting with the content. That is ask a question of Wikipedia and get an answer. Right now, large language models hallucinate too much to really make that effective. And we're very obsessed about facts, so we want it to be really fact-based. But clearly the trend in technology is going to be that a keyword-based search is really old fashioned and that we're going to have new ways of interacting. So, I think it's going to be an exciting time but I think one of the things to remember about Wikipedia is it's our hobby, we do this, we're a bunch of nerds and we love writing an encyclopedia as our hobby.” 

European Space Agency Director General calls for space traffic management 

During the “Restoring multilateralism with science diplomacy” session, leaders from government, technology, and science explored how science can be used to prevent conflict, carry out agreements, and bridge geopolitical divides. Speakers included Christian Ehler, Member, European Parliament; Lise Korsten, President, African Academy of Science; Josef Aschbacher, Director General, European Space Agency; Alexandre Fasel, State Secretary, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland; and Martin Müller, Executive Director Science Anticipation, GESDA. 

When discussing potential areas for future global collaboration, European Space Agency Director General Josef Aschbacher highlighted the need for space traffic management, similar to air traffic management, noting the increasing number of satellites:  

“By the end of the decade, we will probably have 100,000 [satellites]. So just imagine the sheer number of satellites there, including dead ones. That means they are becoming debris and therefore it has to be taken care of.” 

In a follow-up interview with Frontiers, Aschbacher added: 

“Science, of course, is one way of enhancing, increasing diplomacy and therefore multilateralism. But at a certain point the doors are closing, especially when it comes to competition or security-, defense-related science and innovation. So, it's really the question is how far you can find common ground to really exchange, collaborate, and therefore benefit from humanity.” 

 

Rice researchers replicating Edison’s 1879 light bulb experiments show graphene may have an been unintentional byproduct

Rice University

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image: 

James Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry at Rice University

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Credit: Rice University

What do Thomas Edison and 2010 Nobel Prize in physics winners Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim have in common? According to a recent publication from the lab of Rice University’s James Tour, it could be graphene — an answer that might have confused Edison, who died almost 20 years before physicist P.R. Wallace proposed such a substance could exist and nearly 80 years before Novoselov and Geim were awarded a Nobel Prize for isolating and characterizing it.

Graphene is a transparent, remarkably strong substance, as thin as a single atom and useful in a number of modern applications like semiconductors. One type of graphene, called turbostratic graphene, can be produced by applying a voltage across a resistant carbon-based material and rapidly heating it to 2,000-3,000 degrees Celsius.

In modern terms, that method is called flash Joule heating. But for Edison in 1879, the method available to him was simply turning on one of his newly patented, stable light bulbs. Unlike modern incandescent light bulbs that rely on tungsten filaments, early versions often used resistant carbon-based filaments like Japanese bamboo. Flipping a switch applied a voltage that rapidly heated the filaments, producing light. Or, perhaps, graphene. It depends on the century.

“I was developing ways to mass produce graphene with readily available and affordable materials,” explains Lucas Eddy, first author on the paper and a former Rice graduate student in Tour’s lab. “I was looking at everything from arc welders, which were more efficient than anything I’d ever built, to lightning struck trees, which were complete dead ends.” But then, as his lab mate put it, he had a light bulb moment. “I was trying to figure out the smallest, easiest piece of equipment you could use for flash Joule heating, and I remembered that early light bulbs often used carbon-based filaments.”

Why Edison’s light bulbs? Unlike many other early light bulbs, Edison’s patented design reached the critical 2,000-degree Celsius temperature. As a bonus, Edison’s 1879 patent gave Eddy a precise blueprint to work from when replicating the experiment.

Eddy’s first few attempts to procure an Edison-style light bulb proved unsuccessful with “carbon” filaments turning out to be tungsten in disguise. “You can’t fool a chemist,” laughs Eddy. “But I finally found a small art store in New York City selling artisan Edison-style light bulbs.” The artisan light bulbs were exactly like Edison’s, down to the Japanese bamboo filaments. Even the diameters of the filaments were close with Eddy’s filaments measuring only 5 micrometers larger than Edison’s.

Just like Edison, Eddy attached the light bulb to a 110-volt DC electricity source. He flipped the switch on for only 20 seconds. Longer periods of heating, he explains, can result in graphite forming rather than graphene.

The modern lenses of an optical microscope, a tool centuries older than Edison, showed the carbon filament had gone from a dark gray to a “lustrous silver.” A transformation had likely occurred, but to what?

To characterize the change, Eddy reached for a technique developed in the 1930s: Raman spectroscopy. This technique uses lasers to identify the substances through their atomic signatures, like reading a barcode. Advances over the last century allow it to do so with rather extreme precision. The spectroscopy confirmed what Eddy had hoped — parts of the filament had turned into turbostratic graphene. Edison, in his quest to develop a practical light bulb that could be used in everyday life, may just have produced a substance that is quickly becoming key to the technology-dependent 21st century.

Of course, there is no way to know what really happened with Edison’s long-ago experiment. Even if the original light bulb Edison used was available to analyze, any graphene produced likely would have turned to graphite during its first 13-hour test.

“To reproduce what Thomas Edison did, with the tools and knowledge we have now, is very exciting,” said Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry and corresponding author on the paper. “Finding that he could have produced graphene inspires curiosity about what other information lies buried in historical experiments. What questions would our scientific forefathers ask if they could join us in the lab today? What questions can we answer when we revisit their work through a modern lens?”

The research was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-22-1-0526, J.M.T.), the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (W912HZ-21-2-0050 and W912HZ-24-2-0027, J.M.T.), and the Welch Foundation (C-2065-20210327, Y.H.) The content in this press release is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of funding organizations and institutions.

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Journal

ACS Nano

DOI

10.1021/acsnano.5c12759 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Evidence for Graphene Formation in Thomas Edison’s 1879 Carbon Filament Experiments

Article Publication Date

6-Jan-2026

 

Wood burning in homes drives dangerous air pollution in winter

Thousands of U.S. deaths per year linked to particulate matter from wood smoke

Northwestern University

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Throwing another log into a crackling fireplace on a cold winter’s night might seem like a cozy, harmless tradition. But Northwestern University scientists have found residential wood burning is a major — yet often overlooked — contributor to winter air pollution across the United States.

Although only 2% of U.S. homes rely on wood as their primary heating source, residential wood burning accounts for more than one-fifth of Americans’ wintertime exposure to outdoor fine particulate matter (PM2.5), the new study found. 

These tiny airborne particles can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, where they are linked to increased risks of heart disease, lung disease and even premature death. Among their findings, the scientists calculated that pollution from residential wood burning is associated with about 8,600 premature deaths per year. 

Surprisingly, the majority of those most affected live in urban, not rural areas. The health burden also disproportionately falls on people of color, who burn less wood yet experience higher exposure levels and greater health harms related to wood-smoke pollution. This is likely due to higher baseline mortality rates and a long history of past discriminatory policies.

By reducing indoor wood burning, Americans could decrease outdoor air pollution, resulting in major health benefits and thousands of saved lives.

The study will be published on Jan. 23 in the journal Science Advances.

“Long-term exposure to fine particulate matter is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases,” said Northwestern’s Kyan Shlipak, who led the study. “Studies have shown consistently that this exposure leads to a higher risk of death. Our study suggests that one way to substantially reduce this pollution is to reduce residential wood burning. Using alternative appliances to heat homes instead of burning wood would have a big impact on fine particulate matter in the air.”

“We frequently hear about the negative health impacts of wildfire smoke, but do not often consider the consequences of burning wood for heat in our homes,” said Northwestern’s Daniel Horton, the study’s senior author. “Since only a small number of homes rely on wood burning for heat, facilitating a home-heating appliance transition to cleaner burning or non-burning heat sources could lead to outsized improvements in air quality.”  

Horton is an associate professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, where he directs the Climate Change Research Group (CCRG). Shlipak is an undergraduate in mechanical engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering and a member of the CCRG.

Neighborhood by neighborhood analysis

For decades, air-quality research and policies have focused on emissions from vehicles, power plants, agriculture, industry and wildfires. However, in the new study, Shlipak, Horton and their collaborators turned to a much less studied and often overlooked source of pollution: wood burning in homes, including emissions from wood-burning furnaces, boilers, fireplaces and stoves.

The team first gathered residential wood-burning data from the National Emissions Inventory (NEI), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s comprehensive and detailed account of air pollution sources. The NEI bases its wood-burning emissions estimates on national household surveys, housing data, climate conditions and appliance types.

Then, the Northwestern team used a high-resolution atmospheric model to simulate how pollution moves through the air. The model accounts for weather, wind, temperature, terrain and atmospheric chemistry to estimate air quality over time.

“Wood burning emissions enter the atmosphere, where they are affected by meteorology,” Horton said. “Some emissions are considered primary pollutants, such as black carbon, and some interact with the atmosphere and other constituents, and can form additional, secondary species of particulate matter pollution.”

To capture precise patterns of these pollutants, Shlipak and Horton divided the continental U.S. into a grid of 4-kilometer by 4-kilometer squares. For each square, they modelled the amount of pollution generated each hour, how the pollution moves through the air and where it accumulates or disperses over time. Rather than averaging particulate matter across entire cities or counties, the neighborhood-scale grid enabled the research team to pinpoint hotspots.

The team ran the model twice — with residential wood burning emissions and without them — and compared the two simulations. Then, they attributed the difference in pollution levels to wood burning. The results showed that residential wood burning comprises about 22% of PM2.5 pollution in winter, making it one of the single largest sources of fine particle pollution during the U.S.’s coldest months.

Vulnerable populations bear the burden

Shlipak and Horton found that particulate matter from wood burning is particularly problematic in cities and suburban communities due to the combined effects of population density, emissions density and atmospheric transport. In many cities, smoke from surrounding suburbs drifts into more densely populated urban cores, which have limited wood-burning emissions. Even cities not typically associated with wood burning, such as those in warmer climates, can experience impacts from wood burning during cold snaps, recreational burning and atmospheric transport.

“Our results suggest that the impacts of residential wood burning are primarily an urban and suburban phenomenon,” Shlipak said. “This finding underscores the public health relevance of this pollution. We estimate that long-term exposure to emissions from wintertime wood burning is associated with approximately 8,600 deaths per year, and this estimate does not account for particulate matter exposures in other seasons.”

To determine who is most affected, the researchers combined pollution estimates with U.S. census data and census-tract-level mortality data. The researchers found that although people of color burn less wood, they experienced higher exposure levels and greater harms from wood-burning pollution. In the Chicago metropolitan area, for example, the researchers estimate that Black communities face more than 30% higher adverse health effects from residential wood burning than the citywide average.

“While a lot of emissions from residential wood burning come from the suburbs, pollutants emitted into the air don’t typically stay put,” Horton said. “When this pollution is transported over densely populated cities, more people are exposed. Because people of color tend to be more susceptible to environmental stressors due to the long tail of past discriminatory policies, we estimate larger negative health outcomes for people of color.”

“People of color face both higher baseline mortality rates and higher rates of exposure to pollution from wood burning,” Shlipak said. “However, people of color are correlated with lower emissions rates, indicating that a large fraction of this pollution is transported to these communities, rather than emitted by them.”

Shlipak and Horton note that their study only looks at the outdoor impacts of exposure to wood-burning pollution. Additional impacts from indoor exposure to particulate matter also have public health consequences but were not included in this study.   

The study, “Ambient air quality and health impacts of PM2.5 from U.S. residential wood combustion,” was supported by the National Science Foundation (award number CAS-Climate-2239834).

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Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adz0189 

Article Title

Ambient Air Quality and Health Impacts of PM2.5 from U.S. Residential Wood Combustion

Article Publication Date

23-Jan-2026