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Engineering
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Engineering

Broadband ultrasonic imaging shows defects in all types of concrete

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2026 — Concrete structures like roads and bridges require nondestructive testing methods to identify interior defects without destroying their structure. Most methods send sound waves into the material and capture the waves that echo back to create images of what’s inside and find defects. This process is similar to ultrasounds used to see inside the human body. But unlike human tissues, concrete contains a diversity of materials, including stone, clay, chalk, slate, iron ore, and sand, that scatter sound waves and make clear imaging difficult to obtain. In an article in Applied Physics ...

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Engineering

Scientists engineer unsinkable metal tubes

More than a century after the Titanic sank, engineers still have hopes of someday creating “unsinkable” ships. In a step toward reaching that lofty goal, researchers at the University of Rochester’s Institute of Optics have developed a new process that turns ordinary metal tubes unsinkable—meaning they will stay afloat no matter how long they are forced into water or how heavily they are damaged. Chunlei Guo, a professor of optics and of physics and a senior scientist at URochester’s Laboratory ...

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Engineering

Engineering and the quest for peace

Engineering can create weapons systems or systems for defense and wellbeing. But can engineering create peace? In a Perspective, Guru Madhavan and colleagues propose an expansive mode of engineering practice that seeks to reduce conflict. In a world where the technical choices about pumping stations for transboundary water conveyance projects can become tense diplomatic questions, engineering for peace requires the competence to build systems that work as intended, the capability to foresee how such systems might be used or misused, ...

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Engineering

Rational electrolyte structure engineering for highly reversible zinc metal anode in aqueous batteries

As the demand for safe, low-cost energy storage continues to grow, the limitations of traditional lithium-ion batteries in terms of cost, safety, and resource availability become more pronounced. Now, researchers from Nanjing University of Science and Technology and Nanyang Technological University, led by Professor Wenyao Zhang and Professor Jong-Min Lee, have presented a comprehensive review on rational electrolyte structure engineering for highly reversible zinc metal anodes in aqueous zinc-ion batteries. ...

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Engineering

Turning industrial exhaust into useful materials with a new electrode

Flue gas is exhausted from home furnaces, fireplaces and even industrial plants, and it carries polluting carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. To help mitigate these emissions, researchers reporting in ACS Energy Letters have designed a specialized electrode that captures airborne CO2 and directly converts it into a useful chemical material called formic acid. The system performed better than existing electrodes in tests with simulated flue gas and at ambient CO2 concentrations. “This work shows that carbon capture and conversion do not need to be treated as separate steps. By integrating both ...

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Engineering

Drones reveal how feral horse units keep boundaries

For social animals, encounters between rival groups can often lead to conflict. While some species avoid this by maintaining fixed territories, others, like the feral horses, live in a "multilevel society" where multiple family groups (units) aggregate to form higher level group. Aggregating is considered to offer protection against predators and bachelor males, but it also brings rival males into close contact. The horses face a dilemma: they want to group together for safety but need to maintain distance to avoid fighting. How ...

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Engineering

Golden Gate method enables rapid, fully-synthetic engineering of therapeutically relevant bacteriophages

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL January 19, 2026 at 3:00 PM U.S. Eastern time Bacteriophages have been used therapeutically to treat infectious bacterial diseases for over a century. As antibiotic-resistant infections increasingly threaten public health, interest in bacteriophages as therapeutics has seen a resurgence. However, the field remains largely limited to naturally occurring strains, as laborious strain engineering techniques have limited the pace of discovery and the creation of tailored therapeutic strains. Now, ...

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Engineering

Researchers publish first ever structural engineering manual for bamboo

Comprehensive guidance about the design of permanent bamboo structures has been published by the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE). The detailed design manual draws on the expertise of four international authors from academia and industry. They are all members of the INBAR Bamboo Construction Task Force (BCTF), one of the leading international bodies on the structural uses of bamboo: Dr David Trujillo CEng, Assistant Professor in Humanitarian Engineering, School of Engineering at the University of Warwick; Kent Harries PEng, Professor of Structural Engineering and Mechanics, University of Pittsburgh; Sebastian Kaminski CEng, an IStructE Fellow ...

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Engineering

Mechanical and corrosion behavior of additively manufactured NiTi shape memory alloys

A team from Lanzhou University of Technology have developed a novel NiTi shape memory allow (SMA) with harmonic microstructures fabricated via selective laser melting (SLM). This work explores the relationship between microstructural evolution at various deformation stages and corrosion behaviour in seawater environments. The study reveals that in its initial states, the alloy exhibits superior corrosion resistance, primarily owing to dense and stable passivation films composed mainly of TiO₂ and NiO. Post-fracture, the formation of fragmented amorphous phases and nanocrystalline grains accelerates corrosion processes. Leveraging first-principles ...

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Engineering

The Frontiers of Knowledge Award goes to Allan MacDonald and Pablo Jarillo-Herrero for their discovery of the “magic angle” enabling science to transform and control the behavior of new materials

In his theoretical model published in 2011, Canadian Allan MacDonald predicted that by twisting two graphene layers at a given angle, in the region of one degree, the interaction of electrons would produce new emerging properties. Seven years later, Spaniard Jarillo-Herrero and his team provided the experimental confirmation, fabricating bilayers of graphene rotated at this “magic angle” that transformed the material’s behavior, giving rise to new properties like superconductivity. “Their work has opened up new frontiers in physics by demonstrating that rotating matter to a given angle allows us to control its behavior, obtaining ...

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Engineering

Pioneering natural, degradable polymer capsules

Polymer capsules can store functional substances such as drugs and fragrances, making them widely used in functional cosmetics and daily necessities. However, conventional capsules use non-degradable polymers and are difficult to decompose in natural environments. They are identified as a contributing factor to the marine microplastics problem, and concerns have been raised about their impact on the ecosystem and human health. In search of an alternative, a research group led by Associate Professor Yukiya Kitayama at ...

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Engineering

Engineered biochar enzyme system clears toxic phenolic acids and restores pepper seed germination in continuous cropping soils

A team of agricultural and environmental scientists has developed a simple biochar based technology that can strip self toxic chemicals from pepper growing soils and restore healthy seed germination. The work offers a promising new tool to help farmers overcome “continuous cropping obstacles” that have long plagued high value capsicum production. “Pepper farmers often feel forced to choose between meeting market demand and protecting their soil. Our study shows they do not have to make that trade ...

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Engineering

Commercially viable biomanufacturing: designer yeast turns sugar into lucrative chemical 3-HP

Using a tiny, acid-tolerant yeast, scientists have demonstrated a cost-effective way to make disposable diapers, microplastics, and acrylic paint more sustainable through biomanufacturing. A key ingredient in those everyday products is acrylic acid, an important industrial chemical that gives disposable diapers their absorbency, makes water-based paints and sealants more weather-proof, improves stain resistance in fabric, and enhances fertilizers and soil treatments. Acrylic acid is converted from a precursor called 3-Hydroxypropanoic acid, or 3-HP, which is made almost exclusively from petroleum through chemical synthesis — an energy-intensive process. ...

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Engineering

Engineering the development of the pancreas

To the point: Tissue engineering the pancreas: Working with three-dimensional pancreatic models (organoids), derived from mouse cells, researchers combined computer simulations with experiments to find out what controls the shape of lumens (fluid-filled cavities) during the development of the pancreas. Proliferation, Pressure, Permeability: The shape of the lumen depends on the balance between the cell proliferation rate and the pressure in the lumen. Low pressure and high proliferation produce more ...

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Engineering

New tool narrows the search for ideal material structures

Princeton researchers have developed a new tool to speed the discovery of advanced materials known as metal organic frameworks, or MOFs. MOFs are an emerging class of materials that form microscopic sponge-like structures with vast interior surface area. That quality promises to transform how society traps, absorbs and filters substances at the molecular level. The researchers say this could lead to better battery chemistry, more efficient carbon capture and improved access to clean water. But scientists face a problem of choice. MOFs are highly modular, consisting of metal-ion nodes and organic molecules that link the nodes into large networks. The researchers say there ...

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Engineering

HKU Engineering scholar demonstrates the smallest all-printed infrared photodetectors to date

A research team led by Professor Leo Tianshuo Zhao from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Hong Kong (HKU), has developed the world’s smallest fully printed infrared photodetectors, which are an innovative room-temperature nano-printing platform that overcomes the limitations of traditional silicon-based technology. Near-infrared (NIR) technology is essential for applications such as autonomous systems, biomedical sensing, and high-speed optical communications. However, conventional silicon-based CMOS technology cannot directly detect NIR wavelengths. Current solutions ...

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Engineering

Regional variations in mechanical properties of porcine leptomeninges

The meninges act as a key mechano-biological interface—dissipating external forces, supporting neuroimmune homeostasis, and dynamically regulating the brain microenvironment—yet they remain comparatively underexplored despite their importance. Within the three-layer meningeal system, the pia–arachnoid complex (PAC, i.e., leptomeninges) interfaces closely with the subarachnoid space that contains cerebrospinal fluid, vasculature, and immune cells, making it central to both mechanical safeguarding and broader physiological/immune functions. With the growing burden of traumatic brain injury (TBI), understanding force transmission across the brain–skull ...

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Engineering

Safety decision-making for autonomous vehicles integrating passenger physiological states by fNIRS

In recent years, several serious traffic accidents have exposed the shortcomings of current autonomous driving systems in making safe decisions. Traditional decision-making methods, due to functional deficiencies or machine performance limitations, struggle to address potential risky behaviors, leading to a continued need for human intervention in complex driving scenarios. To address this, researchers have begun exploring the use of human physiological states as an information source to improve the safety decision-making of autonomous vehicles. “Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), as a non-invasive real-time brain activity monitoring method, can provide cognitive ...

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Engineering

A researcher’s long quest leads to a smart composite breakthrough

Since his postdoctoral days at MIT, Hang Yu, associate professor of materials science and engineering, has been wrestling with the challenge of creating a shape-memory ceramic that can be manufactured at scale without breaking. Now, in tandem with Ph.D. student Donnie Erb '15, M.S. '18 and postdoctoral researcher Nikhil Gotawala, he’s had a breakthrough. Yu’s team has used an advanced manufacturing technique called additive friction stir deposition to embed functional ceramic particles into metal. The result? A strong, defect-free material that can phase-shift under stress to dissipate energy and, unlike normally brittle ceramics, can be 3D-printed in ...

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Engineering

Structural findings reveal how distinct GPCR ligands create different levels of activation

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – December 22, 2025) G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are proteins triggered by ligands (protein-binding chemicals) from outside cells to transmit signals inside the cell. These signals are transmitted primarily through the activation of G proteins, which produce various physiological effects. Due to their important role in growth, metabolism and neurotransmitter signaling, GPCRs represent outstanding drug targets, including one-third of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs. However, a lack of understanding about how different ligands that bind the same GPCR can cause varying ...

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Engineering

Begging gene leads to drone food

Is complex social behaviour genetically determined? Yes, as a team of biologists from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) together with colleagues from Bochum and Paris discovered while studying bees. They identified a genetic factor that determines the begging behaviour of drones, which they use to obtain food socially. They are now publishing their findings in the scientific journal Nature Communications. Male bees, or “drones”, do not have an easy time obtaining essential proteins. This ...

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Engineering

Tracing the quick synthesis of an industrially important catalyst

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have successfully traced the mechanism behind how an industrially important “superbase” catalyst is synthesized in a faster, microwave-assisted reaction. They took measurements using X-rays while the reaction occurred, uncovering how small precursor molecules were formed first before they clustered to create the final product. Their insights promise finer control over a promising technology for speeding up chemical synthesis in industry. Polyoxometalates are industrially ...

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Engineering

New materials conduct ions in solids as easily as in liquids

Scientists have created a new family of organic materials that stay conductive in the solid state. The new materials conduct ions equally well as liquids, liquid crystals, and solids, with no steep decrease in ion movement when the salt solidifies. The team’s discovery overturns a long-standing limitation in electrochemistry: that freezing or crystallizing a liquid inevitably slows ion movement. The findings have been published today (18/12/25) in Science. Normally, when liquids solidify, their molecules become locked in place, making it much harder for ions to move and leading to a steep decrease in ionic conductivity. Now, scientists ...

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Engineering

Groundbreaking ceremony marks the beginning of CTAO-South Array construction in Chile

Paranal, Chile, 17 December 2025 — Representatives from the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and governmental authorities gathered today to celebrate the official groundbreaking of the CTAO’s southern site, CTAO-South. After years of successful site preparations, the event marked the beginning of construction on the telescope foundations, paving the way for the first telescopes to be completed by the end of 2026. The CTAO will be the world’s largest and most powerful observatory for gamma-ray astronomy, ...

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Engineering

Drone-mounted lab monitors fertilizer runoff in real time

What if instead of taking a water or soil sample to the lab, you could take the lab to the sample? That’s what a team of researchers reporting in ACS Sensors did with a new nitrate-monitoring “lab-on-a-drone” system. The drone allows for easy, real-time water sampling and analysis in hard-to-reach areas like steep ditches or swampy lowlands. The technology could help farmers optimize their fertilizer use and prevent waterway pollution from excess nitrate runoff. Nitrogen-containing fertilizer is an important component of modern agriculture, but most of it gets carried away from fields by water drainage systems. A good portion of ...

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