Long-Term Eye-Movement Training may Improve Visual Function in School-Age Children

In a study conducted by researchers at the University of Tsukuba, 28 elementary and middle school students living in Tsukuba City performed home-based eye-movement exercises while watching instructional videos over 24 weeks. The results showed improvements in eye-hand coordination and in the ability to accurately identify moving numbers. These findings suggest that sustained eye-movement training may improve children's visual skills.

Ultrasonic Beam Extends Acoustic Levitation Range Sixfold

A research team at University of Tsukuba and the University of Bristol has experimentally demonstrated, for the first time, stable three-dimensional acoustic levitation within the high-pressure core of a zero-order Bessel beam. Using a specially designed ultrasonic beam emitted from a single side, the researchers successfully levitated and translated millimeter-scale objects in midair without physical contact over distances of up to approximately 40 cm. This working distance is approximately six times greater than that achieved using conventional single-sided acoustic levitation methods.

Subjective and Objective Difficulty of English Texts Are Related—but Not the Same

Not all learners find the same English text equally difficult. Researchers at the University of Tsukuba found that although objectively measured text difficulty is strongly associated with learners' perceived difficulty, subjective difficulty also reflects learner-specific factors that objective measures cannot fully capture. These findings suggest that objective measures provide reliable estimates of a text's overall difficulty but do not fully explain how difficult that text feels to an individual learner.