Technology
press releases.

Technology11 Sep 2025

AI tools uncover new link between idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and aging

“Our findings establish novel connections between aging biology and IPF pathogenesis while demonstrating the potential of AI-guided approaches in therapeutic development for age-related diseases.” BUFFALO, NY — September 11, 2025 — A new research paper was published in Volume 17, Issue 8 of Aging-US on August 8, 2025, titled “AI-driven toolset for IPF and aging research associates lung fibrosis with accelerated aging.” In this study, researchers Fedor Galkin, Shan Chen, Alex Aliper, Alex Zhavoronkov, and Feng Ren from Insilico Medicine used artificial ...

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Technology11 Sep 2025

Machine embroidery encodes skin-like tension lines in textiles, enabling mass-customizable wearables

A zigzag stitch enables fabric to stretch until the thread is straight. University of Tartu researchers report in Advanced Materials that thread packing can encode fabric stretchability, leading the way to tailoring wearables at industrial scale. As every body is unique, achieving a perfect dynamic fit of garments has to date relied on artisanal tailoring that cannot scale. Machine embroidery can place load-bearing thread in arbitrary patterns, but has been applied almost exclusively for visual appeal, such as logos and decorations. Embroidery machines ...

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Technology11 Sep 2025

Johns Hopkins researchers discover new methods for making smaller microchips

Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered new materials and a new process that could advance the ever-escalating quest to make smaller, faster and affordable microchips used across modern electronics—in everything from cellphones to cars, appliances to airplanes. The team of scientists has discovered how to create circuits that are so small they’re invisible to the naked eye using a process that is both precise and economical for manufacturing. The findings are published today in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering. “Companies have their roadmaps ...

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Technology10 Sep 2025

Kennesaw State researcher aiming to move AI beyond the cloud

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often linked to supercomputers and massive data centers, but Kennesaw State University researcher Bobin Deng is aiming for something a bit more accessible through a new National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. An assistant professor in Kennesaw State’s College of Computing and Software Engineering, Deng said the goal is to move AI beyond the cloud and into the hands of people where it can have the most impact – their personal devices. The research could allow AI tools to function without an internet connection, something that is uncommon ...

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Technology10 Sep 2025

Could robots help kids conquer reading anxiety? New study from the Department of Computer Science at UChicago suggests so

For many children, the transition from learning to read to reading to learn is a crucial and sometimes nerve-wracking milestone. Reading aloud in class is intended to foster fluency and confidence, but for many students, it may spark anxiety that can hinder literacy development well into adulthood. In response to this challenge, PhD student Lauren Wright led a team of researchers—including collaborators from the University of Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago, and University of Wisconsin–Madison—through an innovative study to explore how technology might assist children in learning contexts where anxiety can be a barrier. This work emerged from Assistant Professor ...

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Technology10 Sep 2025

UCSB-designed soft robot intubation device could save lives

Maintaining an open airway is a critical priority in emergency medicine. Without the flow of oxygen, other emergency interventions can become ineffective at saving the patient’s life. However, creating this airway through endotracheal intubation is a difficult task for highly trained individuals and under the best of circumstances. In the field and in the ER, where seconds matter, emergency medical personnel face many unknowns and wildly challenging conditions which lower their chances of success. But what if successful endotracheal intubation could be less reliant on ideal conditions and years of specialized training? In a paper published in the journal ...

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Technology10 Sep 2025

AI salespeople aren’t better than humans… yet

Artificial intelligence is changing how we shop online, but when it comes to selling products through livestreams, humans still have the edge. A new study from the UBC Sauder School of Business shows that AI-powered “digital streamers”—virtual salespeople who appear in livestreams to promote products—don’t perform as well as human streamers. In fact, they barely outperform having no streamer at all. “People assume that if businesses are using digital streamers, they must be doing well. But they aren’t, at least not in their current incarnation,” said UBC Sauder associate professor Dr. Yanwen Wang, a co-author ...

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Technology10 Sep 2025

Highly sensitive, next-generation wearable pressure sensors inspired by cat whiskers

Flexible pressure sensors can detect subtle mechanical stimuli, making them suitable for use in wearable sensors for human health monitoring and motion analysis. However, current sensors suffer from insufficient sensitivity, poor durability, and subpar stability. In a new study, taking inspiration from cat whiskers, researchers developed novel biomass fiber/sodium alginate aerogel (BFA)-based sensors that demonstrated excellent pressure sensitivity, durability, and rapid response, while being suitable for human physiological monitoring and motion analysis. The rapid development of wearable electronic sensors for use in health monitoring, ...

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Technology9 Sep 2025

AI tool developed at Oxford helps astronomers find supernovae in a sky full of noise

A new AI-powered tool has reduced astronomers’ workload by 85% - filtering through thousands of data alerts to identify the few genuine signals caused by supernovae (powerful explosions from dying stars). The findings have been published today (10 Sept) in The Astrophysical Journal. Lead researcher Dr Héloïse Stevance (Department of Physics, University of Oxford) said: “The surprising thing is how little data it took. With just 15,000 examples and the computing power of my laptop, I could train smart algorithms to do the heavy lifting and automate what used to take a human beings hours to do each day. This demonstrates that ...

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Technology9 Sep 2025

Gemini South aids in discovery of elusive cloud-forming chemical on ancient brown dwarf

Brown dwarfs are peculiar objects that are too massive to be considered planets, but not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion like a star. Among this curious class of objects, a brown dwarf nicknamed The Accident stands out for its unique mix of physical features, exhibiting characteristics previously seen only in warm, young brown dwarfs and others previously seen only in cool, ancient ones. The Accident’s properties are highly unusual compared to all other known stars and brown ...

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Technology9 Sep 2025

Breakthrough in atomic-level etching of hafnium oxide, a promising material for advanced semiconductors

Hafnium oxide (HfO2) has attracted attention as a promising material for ultrathin semiconductors and other microelectronic devices. The strong ionic bond between hafnium and oxygen atoms in HfO2 gives it a high dielectric constant, superior thermal stability, and a wide band gap. Notably, these properties can be maintained even at the atomic scale. Meanwhile, these properties also pose challenges in achieving highly precise and smooth etching of HfO2 films. Now, a group of researchers from Japan and Taiwan has successfully etched HfO2 films with atomic-level precision, smoothness, ...

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Technology8 Sep 2025

Artificial intelligence assessment indicates stress levels in farmed Amazonian fish

In Brazil, a group led by researchers from São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Jaboticabal, in collaboration with the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to assess the stress levels of tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum), the most widely produced native fish in Brazil. The study was published in the journal Aquaculture. The results could impact both animal welfare and the selection of specimens that are more tolerant of the farming environment. Tambaqui is an Amazonian species primarily farmed in the ...

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Technology5 Sep 2025

Innovation Crossroads companies join forces, awarded U.S. Air Force contract

The U.S. Air Force awarded startup SkyNano, led by Innovation Crossroads alumna Anna Douglas, a $1.25 million contract to advance its CO2-to-carbon nanotube technology as part of a project to develop low-cost, battery-grade graphite. SkyNano’s partners include American Energy Technologies Company and Eonix, led by Innovation Crossroads alumnus Don DeRosa. SkyNano and Eonix were recruited to Knoxville through Innovation Crossroads, a Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program node at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “In addition to accessing ...

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Technology5 Sep 2025

Good vibrations could revolutionize assisted reproductive technology

ITHACA, N.Y. – In the quest to address infertility, Cornell University researchers have developed a groundbreaking device that could simplify and automate oocyte cumulus removal, a critical step in assisted reproductive technologies. Their vibration-powered chip not only simplifies a complex procedure but also extends it to areas of the world lacking skilled embryologists or well-funded labs—reducing overall costs. This offers hope to millions of couples struggling with infertility – and makes fertility treatments more accessible worldwide. “This ...

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Technology5 Sep 2025

Understanding orderly and disorderly behavior in 2D nanomaterials could enable bespoke design, tailored by AI

Since their discovery at Drexel University in 2011, MXenes — a family of nanomaterials with unique properties of durability, conductivity and filtration, among many others — has become the largest known and fastest growing family of two-dimensional nanomaterials, with more than 50 unique MXene materials discovered to date. Experimentally synthesizing them and testing the physical properties of each material has been the labor of tens of thousands of scientists from more than 100 countries. But a recent discovery by a multi-university collaboration of researchers, led by Drexel University researcher Yury ...

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Technology5 Sep 2025

AI turns printer into a partner in tissue engineering

Organ donors can save lives, for example those of patients with kidney failure. Unfortunately, there are too few donors, and the waiting lists are long. 3D bioprinting of (parts of) organs may offer a solution to this shortage in the future. But printing living tissues, bioprinting, is extremely complex and challenging. The team of Riccardo Levato at UMC Utrecht and Utrecht University is now taking an important step toward printing implantable tissues. Using computer vision, a branch of artificial intelligence (AI), they’ve developed a 3D printer that doesn’t just print, it also sees and ...

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Technology5 Sep 2025

Growing a new, pencil-shaped structure of gold named “quantum needles”

Researchers Shinjiro Takano, Yuya Hamasaki, and Tatsuya Tsukuda of the University of Tokyo have successfully visualized the geometric structure of growing gold nanoclusters in their earliest stages. During this process, they also successfully “grew” a novel structure of elongated nanoclusters, which they named “gold quantum needles.” Thanks to their responsiveness to light in the near-infrared range, these “needles” could enable much higher-resolution biomedical imaging and more efficient light-energy conversion. The findings were published in the Journal of the American ...

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Technology4 Sep 2025

Can courts safeguard fairness in an AI age?

In the criminal justice system, decisions about when and how long to detain people have historically been made by other people, like judges and parole boards. But that process is changing: Decision-makers increasingly include artificial intelligence systems in a variety of tasks, from predicting crime to analyzing DNA to recommending prison sentences. The use of AI in these domains raises pressing questions about how these computing systems use data to make predictions and recommendations, as well as larger questions about how to safeguard fairness in an AI age. Notably, many AI systems are “black ...

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Technology4 Sep 2025

Single hair strand could provide biomarker for ALS, Mount Sinai study finds

New York, NY (September 4, 2025) – Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have shown for the first time that a single strand of hair can reveal unique elemental patterns that distinguish people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) from healthy individuals. The findings, published in eBioMedicine, suggest that a simple, non-invasive hair-based test could one day speed ALS diagnosis and improve patient care. ALS is a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease, typically taking 10 to 16 months from symptom onset to diagnosis in the United States. ...

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Technology4 Sep 2025

Researchers uncover similarities between human and AI learning

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — New research found similarities in how humans and artificial intelligence integrate two types of learning, offering new insights about how people learn as well as how to develop more intuitive AI tools. Led by Jake Russin, a postdoctoral research associate in computer science at Brown University, the study found by training an AI system that flexible and incremental learning modes interact similarly to working memory and long-term memory in humans. “These results help explain why a human looks like a rule-based learner in some circumstances and an incremental ...

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Technology4 Sep 2025

Game-changing biotech for engineering pathogen-resistant crops

Researchers led by Ken Shirasu at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan have identified an ancient protein that has the potential to help defend plants against tens of thousands of different bacteria and other pathogens. Dubbed “SCORE”, this receptor detects cold-shock protein—variations of which are found in more than 85% of known bacteria, as well as fungi and insects. Experiments published Sep 4 in Science revealed that simply swapping out key sections of SCORE with substitutes can predictably change the type of cold-shock protein, and thus pathogen, it recognizes. This strategy could be used engineer synthetic ...

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Technology4 Sep 2025

Artificial intelligence helps boost LIGO

LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, has been called the most precise ruler in the world for its ability to measure motions more than 10,000 times smaller than the width of a proton. By making these extremely precise measurements, the US National Science Foundation-funded LIGO, which consists of two facilities—one in Washington and one in Louisiana—can detect undulations in space-time called gravitational waves that roll outward from colliding cosmic bodies such as black holes. LIGO ushered in the field of gravitational-wave astronomy beginning in 2015 when it made the first-ever direct detection of ...

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Technology4 Sep 2025

AI model reveals hidden earthquake swarms and faults in Italy’s Campi Flegrei

Scientists are using artificial intelligence to understand escalating unrest in Italy’s Campi Flegrei, a volcanic area that is home to hundreds of thousands of people. Like adjusting a camera lens so a blurry image becomes clear, the new approach makes it possible for researchers to identify earthquakes that previous tools could not pick out from massive sets of seismic monitoring data. The research, a collaboration between Stanford University, Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) - Osservatorio Vesuviano, and ...

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Technology4 Sep 2025

Acid-resistant artificial mucus improves gastric wound healing in animals

Hydrogels—materials like gelatin that can absorb and hold water—can aid wound healing and enable slow-release drug delivery, but they usually break down in acidic environments like the stomach. Inspired by the properties of gastric mucus, a team of researchers and clinicians led by Zuankai Wang of Hong Kong Polytechnic University have developed an acid-resistant hydrogel called “ultrastable mucus-inspired hydrogel” (UMIH). Publishing September 4 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Physical Science, ...

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Technology4 Sep 2025

Researchers design robot that can find, pick hidden strawberries

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Strawberries are delicate and hard to harvest—easily bruised and often hidden under a canopy of leaves. This creates headaches for scientists trying to design robotic harvesters. Now a Washington State University-led team has designed one that combines an artificial-intelligence vision system, soft silicone “fingers,” and a fan that gently move leaves out of the way to get at hidden fruit. Experiments in the lab and in outdoor fields showed that the harvester correctly detected strawberries 80% of the time, on average, and could classify whether the berries were hidden 93% of the time. The design, development ...

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