Engineering
press releases.

Engineering16 Jan 2025

New chainmail-like material could be the future of armor

EVANSTON, Il. --- In a remarkable feat of chemistry, a Northwestern University-led research team has developed the first two-dimensional (2D) mechanically interlocked material. Resembling the interlocking links in chainmail, the nanoscale material exhibits exceptional flexibility and strength. With further work, it holds promise for use in high-performance, light-weight body armor and other uses that demand lightweight, flexible and tough materials. Publishing on Friday (Jan. 17) in the journal ...

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Engineering16 Jan 2025

The material revolution: How USA’s commodity appetite evolved from 1900 to present

A new study documents the dramatic change in America’s material diet from 1900 to 2020 – ongoing shifts in US commodity consumption patterns with profound environmental, economic, and geopolitical implications. Published by Iddo K. Wernick of The Rockefeller University’s Program for the Human Environment in the Elsevier journal Resources Policy, the paper details the consumption of 100 key commodities used to build cities, power cars, produce everyday products, and connect people. It charts transformative changes since the start of the 20th century in both absolute ...

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Engineering16 Jan 2025

Neural partially linear additive model

Interpretability has drawn increasing attention in machine learning. Partially linear additive models provide an attractive middle ground between the simplicity of generalized linear model and the flexibility of generalized additive model, and are important models for addressing the two interpretability problems of feature selection and structure discovery. The existing partially linear additive models still have various imperfect performances in terms of fitting ability. To solve the problems, a research team lad by Han LI published their new research on 15 December 2024 in Frontiers of Computer Science co-published by Higher Education Press and Springer Nature. The ...

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Engineering15 Jan 2025

Researchers make comfortable materials that generate power when worn

Researchers have demonstrated new wearable technologies that both generate electricity from human movement and improve the comfort of the technology for the people wearing them. The work stems from an advanced understanding of materials that increase comfort in textiles and produce electricity when they rub against another surface. At issue are molecules called amphiphiles, which are often used in consumer products to reduce friction against human skin. For example, amphiphiles are often incorporated into diapers to prevent chafing. “We set out to develop a model that would give us ...

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Engineering13 Jan 2025

Integrating CRISPR and biomaterials engineering: Paving the way for safer gene therapies

CRISPR is a powerful gene-editing tool that holds enormous potential for treating genetic diseases by allowing scientists to cut, replace, or delete mutations in DNA. It can also modify gene expression, temporarily amplifying or diminishing its effects. Yet, despite its promise, applying CRISPR (which is a reagent, or a substance that facilitates a reaction) in patients presents significant challenges. “CRISPR is difficult to control when you want to do gene editing in vivo, or directly in the patient,” says Tomas Gonzalez-Fernandez, an assistant professor of bioengineering in Lehigh University’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering ...

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Engineering10 Jan 2025

CDC awards $1.25M to engineers retooling mine production and safety

From mapping ore to predicting slope behavior and reclaiming land, mining is a rapidly evolving technological industry. Yet planning and operations have not necessarily kept up with the advancements. With $1.25 million from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, mining and geological engineering researchers in the University of Arizona College of Engineering are boosting their efforts to better align technology and planning for improved safety and productivity. The award from the institute, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will fund the research ...

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Engineering9 Jan 2025

World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject

On December 24th, AES Andes, a subsidiary of the US power company AES Corporation, submitted a project for a massive industrial complex for environmental impact assessment. This complex threatens the pristine skies above ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the darkest and clearest of any astronomical observatory in the world [1]. The industrial megaproject is planned to be located just 5 to 11 kilometres from telescopes at Paranal, which would cause irreparable damage to astronomical observations, in particular due to light pollution emitted throughout the project’s operational life. Relocating the complex would save one ...

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Engineering9 Jan 2025

Pulse oximeters infrequently tested by manufacturers on diverse sets of subjects

Manufacturers increasingly but still infrequently follow Food and Drug Administration guidance that recommends testing pulse oximeters on participants with a range of skin pigmentations, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The FDA made the recommendation in 2013, following reports that pulse oximeters—devices that measure blood-oxygen levels by shining light through the skin—can be less accurate when used on people with dark skin and that undetected low oxygen levels are more common ...

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Engineering9 Jan 2025

HKU Engineering Professor Kaibin Huang named Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors

The US National Academy of Inventors (NAI) announced the 2024 Class of Fellows on December 10, 2024. Professor Kaibin Huang of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE), Faculty of Engineering, the University of Hong Kong (HKU), was elected a 2024 Fellow in recognition of his inventions and contributions in tackling real-world issues. Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on ...

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Engineering8 Jan 2025

Proximity effect: Method allows advanced materials to gain new property

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Ferroelectrics are special materials with polarized positive and negative charges — like a magnet has north and south poles — that can be reversed when external electricity is applied. The materials will remain in these reversed states until more power is applied, making them useful for data storage and wireless communication applications. Now, turning a non-ferroelectric material into one may be possible simply by stacking it with another ferroelectric material, according to a team led by scientists from Penn State who demonstrated the phenomenon, called proximity ferroelectricity. The ...

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Engineering8 Jan 2025

Low-cost system will improve communications among industrial machines

Researchers have found a low-power, inexpensive way for large numbers of devices, such as machines in factories and equipment in labs, to share information by efficiently using signals at untapped high frequencies. The technology could immediately enable low-cost, efficient real-time monitoring in industrial settings, such as tracking the condition of manufacturing robots or detecting gas leaks in refineries, by eliminating the need for power-hungry signal transmitters. The researchers said that with some engineering improvements, the technology ...

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Engineering8 Jan 2025

A new era in genetic engineering

Influential inventions often combine existing tools in new ways. The iPhone, for instance, amalgamated the telephone, web browser and camera, among many other devices. The same is now possible in gene editing. Rather than employ separate tools for editing genes and regulating their expression, these distinct goals can now be combined into a single tool that can simultaneously and independently address different genetic diseases in the same cell. Merging Gene Editing and Regulation In a new paper in Nature ...

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Engineering8 Jan 2025

When the past meets the future: Innovative drone mapping unlocks secrets of Bronze Age ‘mega fortress’ in the Caucasus

A Cranfield University, UK, academic has used drone mapping to investigate a 3000-year-old ‘mega fortress’ in the Caucasus mountains. Dr Nathaniel Erb-Satullo, Senior Lecturer in Architectural Science at Cranfield Forensic Institute, has been researching the site since 2018 with Dimitri Jachvliani, his co-director from the Georgian National Museum, revealing details that re-shape our understanding of the site and contribute to a global reassessment of ancient settlement growth and urbanism. Fortress settlements in the South Caucasus appeared between 1500-500 BCE, and represent an ...

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Engineering8 Jan 2025

Focal volume optics for composite structuring in transparent solids

For a long time, an ultrafast laser has been applied as a point-typed energy source to trigger various material modifications, and the profile of light intensity is mainly considered a Gaussian type. Therefore, the actual morphology and evolution of the light field in the focal volume have been overlooked. In International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, researchers indicates that the 3D spatial distribution of the light field at the focus can possess finer structures and is tunable, which offers a novel strategy for highly controllable micro-nano fabrication with more degrees of freedom beyond conventional point-by-point optical modification. It is proposed and experimentally demonstrated ...

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Engineering7 Jan 2025

Driving autonomous vehicles to a more efficient future

WASHINGTON, Jan. 7, 2025 – Thanks to the rapid progress of information technology and artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles (AVs) have been taking off. In fact, AV technology is now advanced enough that the vehicles are being used for logistics delivery and low-speed public transportation. While most research has focused on control algorithms to heighten safety, less attention has been directed at improving aerodynamic performance, which is essential for lowering energy consumption and extending driving range. As a result, aerodynamic drag issues have ...

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Engineering7 Jan 2025

The CTAO becomes a European Research Infrastructure Consortium

Bologna, Italy, 7 January 2025 – On January 7, 2025, the European Commission established the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), furthering its mission to become the world’s largest and most powerful observatory for gamma-ray astronomy. The creation of the CTAO ERIC will enable the Observatory's construction to advance rapidly and provide a framework for distributing its data worldwide, significantly accelerating its progress toward scientific discovery. “The ERIC will streamline the construction and operation ...

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Engineering6 Jan 2025

Media coverage of civilian casualties in allied countries boosts support for U.S. involvement

From photographs of decimated buildings to military and civilian casualty counts to narratives of suffering, news media bring information about foreign conflicts to American audiences. But does this coverage actually affect public opinion about whether and how the United States should be involved in a conflict? Does it influence what Americans think about the U.S. providing military, diplomatic, and economic aid to foreign nations? A new paper from researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania examines these questions and finds that media coverage of civilian casualties increases public support for U.S. involvement in conflicts by evoking empathy ...

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Engineering23 Dec 2024

Firearm and motor vehicle pediatric deaths— intersections of age, sex, race, and ethnicity

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, U.S. youths ages 0 to 19 years experienced important disparities in firearm and motor vehicle crash fatality rates and increases over time when considering the intersectionality by age group, sex, race, and ethnicity. These findings suggest that a multipronged strategy focused on individual, community, and policy level approaches for specific high-risk groups for each injury mechanism is necessary to address these leading causes of death in U.S. youths. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Lois K. Lee, MD, MPH, email lois.lee@childrens.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit ...

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Engineering20 Dec 2024

Older age linked to increased complications after breast reconstruction

December 20, 2024 — For women undergoing breast reconstruction after mastectomy, older age is associated with small but significant increases in certain complications, reports a study in the January issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. Older women may be less satisfied with the appearance of the reconstructed breasts, ...

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Engineering18 Dec 2024

Building a backbone: scientists recreate the body’s ‘GPS system’ in the lab

Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute have generated human stem cell models1 which, for the first time, contain notochord – a tissue in the developing embryo that acts like a navigation system, directing cells where to build the spine and nervous system (the trunk). The work, published today in Nature, marks a significant step forward in our ability to study how the human body takes shape during early development. The notochord, a rod-shaped tissue, is a crucial part of the scaffold of the developing body. ...

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Engineering18 Dec 2024

How to print a car: High-performance multi-material 3D printing techniques

Researchers at Tohoku University's Institute for Materials Research and New Industry Creation Hatchery Center have made a breakthrough in a multi-material 3D printing technique, demonstrating the process for creating a lightweight yet durable automobile part. The process of metal 3D printing involves building objects by depositing metals layer by layer, using heat to bind them together. The precision of 3D printing allows for the production of unique, highly customizable shapes that often create less wasteful byproducts than traditional manufacturing ...

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Engineering16 Dec 2024

Human civilization at a critical junction between authoritarian collapse and superabundance

A new scientific study published in the journal Foresight concludes that human civilisation is on the brink of the next ‘giant leap’ in evolution. However, progress could be thwarted by centralised far-right political projects such as the incoming Donald Trump administration. "Industrial civilisation is facing 'inevitable' decline as it is replaced by what could turn out to be a far more advanced ‘postmaterialist’ civilisation based on distributed superabundant clean energy. The main challenge is that industrial civilisation is facing such rapid decline that this could derail the emergence of a ...

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Engineering13 Dec 2024

Crowdsourcing hope: Book on community building shows impact of local action

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Dark-humored memes — like “This is fine,” featuring a dog wearing a bowler hat in a room on fire — tend to dominate social media during times when the world appears to be falling apart. But what bothers people most can spur action and change, especially on the local level, according to Lisa Silvestri, associate teaching professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State. Silvestri shifted her research focus to peace- and community building after studying ...

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Engineering12 Dec 2024

Dan M. Frangopol and Sunyong Kim co-author third book on structural performance

Dan M. Frangopol, the inaugural Fazlur R. Khan Endowed Chair of Structural Engineering and Architecture at Lehigh University, has co-authored a new book on probabilistic structural performance assessments. System Reliability, Risk, Longevity, Sustainability and Optimal Decision-Making: Emphasis on Marine Structures (available April 11, 2025) offers a comprehensive framework for analyzing and predicting the time-dependent performance of deteriorating structures. The book emphasizes marine infrastructure, addressing system reliability, risk, longevity, sustainability, and optimal decision-making processes. It is a valuable resource for students, engineers, researchers, decision-makers, ...

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Engineering11 Dec 2024

Nova SBE and New York University Tandon School of Engineering launch transatlantic dual degree program

Nova School of Business and Economics (Nova SBE) has partnered with NYU Tandon School of Engineering to create a transatlantic program focusing on two strategic and complementary fields: Management (Nova SBE) and Management of Technology (NYU Tandon). This new program allows students to earn distinct master’s degrees from two of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions, located in key cultural and economic centers: Lisbon and New York. Under this partnership agreement, students enrolled in either the International Master’s in Management or the Master’s in Management (both from Nova SBE) ...

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