Technology
press releases.

Technology22 May 2025

AI is here to stay, let students embrace the technology

A new study from UBC Okanagan says students appear to be using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) responsibly, and as a way to speed up tasks, not just boost their grades. Dr. Meaghan MacNutt, who teaches professional ethics in the UBCO School of Health and Exercise Sciences (HES), recently published a study in Advances in Physiology Education. Published this month, the paper—titled Reflective writing assignments in the era of GenAI: student behaviour and attitudes suggest utility, not futility—contradicts ...

Read the release

Technology22 May 2025

Breakthrough AI model could transform how we prepare for natural disasters

Machine learning at the core ‘Aurora uses state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to deliver superior forecasts for key environmental systems—air quality, weather, ocean waves, and tropical cyclones,’ explains Max Welling, machine learning expert at the University of Amsterdam and one of the researchers behind the model. Unlike conventional methods, Aurora requires far less computational power, making high-quality forecasting more accessible and scalable—especially in regions that lack expensive infrastructure. Trained on a million hours of earth data Aurora is built on a 1.3 billion ...

Read the release

Technology22 May 2025

Microwave technologies give hummus longer shelf life, eliminate preservatives

PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State University scientists are using microwave technology to extend the shelf life of hummus while eliminating the need for chemical preservatives, as demonstrated in a recent Journal of Food Process Engineering paper. The Middle Eastern dip, which is growing in popularity around the world, was associated with 20 illness outbreaks in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018 that resulted in 65 hospitalizations and five deaths. Because of those outbreaks, many commercial hummus makers use chemical preservatives ...

Read the release

Technology21 May 2025

Illinois study: Novel AI methodology improves gully erosion prediction and interpretation

URBANA, Ill. – Gully erosion is the most severe form of soil erosion, and it can seriously impact agricultural fields, contributing to sediment loss and nutrient runoff into waterways. Gullies can be triggered suddenly by a single heavy rainfall event, creating deep channels that are difficult to rehabilitate even with heavy machinery. Accurately predicting where gully erosion is likely to occur allows agricultural producers and land managers to target their conservation efforts more effectively. In a new study, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers use a new AI-driven approach that combines machine learning with an interpretability ...

Read the release

Technology21 May 2025

Penn engineers discover a new class of materials that passively harvest water from air

A serendipitous observation in a Chemical Engineering lab at Penn Engineering has led to a surprising discovery: a new class of nanostructured materials that can pull water from the air, collect it in pores and release it onto surfaces without the need for any external energy. The research, published in Science Advances, was conducted by an interdisciplinary team, including Daeyeon Lee, Russell Pearce and Elizabeth Crimian Heuer Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE), Amish Patel, Professor in CBE, Baekmin Kim, a postdoctoral scholar in Lee’s lab and first author, and Stefan Guldin, Professor in Complex Soft Matter at the Technical University of Munich. Their work ...

Read the release

Technology21 May 2025

Femtosecond-level precision achieved in chip-scale soliton microcombs

Laser frequency combs are light sources that produce evenly spaced, sharp lines across the spectrum, resembling the teeth of a comb. They serve as precise rulers for measuring time and frequency, and have become essential tools in applications such as lidar, high-speed optical communications, and space navigation. Traditional frequency combs rely on large, lab-based lasers. However, recent advancements have led to the development of chip-scale soliton microcombs, which generate ultrashort pulses of light within microresonators. One of the key challenges for soliton microcombs is timing jitter, which refers to tiny fluctuations ...

Read the release

Technology21 May 2025

A new technology for extending the shelf life of produce

We’ve all felt the sting of guilt when fruit and vegetables go bad before we could eat them. Now, researchers from MIT and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) have shown they can extend the shelf life of harvested plants by injecting them with melatonin using biodegradable microneedles. That’s a big deal because the problem of food waste goes way beyond our salads. More than 30 percent of the world’s food is lost after it’s harvested — enough to feed more than 1 billion people. Refrigeration is the most common way to preserve foods, but it requires energy and ...

Read the release

Technology21 May 2025

Mind the band gap! – researchers create new nanoscale forms of elementary semiconductor with tunable electronic properties

Researchers have demonstrated that by using a semiconductor with flexible bonds, the material can be moulded into various structures using nano containers, without altering its composition, the discovery could lead to the design of a variety of customised electronic devices using only a single element. Semiconductors are vital to our daily lives, as they are found in nearly every electronic device. One of the key characteristics of semiconductors is their band gap, which determines how they conduct electric current. The band gap is typically ...

Read the release

Technology21 May 2025

Light-powered artificial muscles for underwater robots with reversible, high-stroke actuation

A Korean research team has developed a light-powered artificial muscle that operates freely underwater, paving the way for next-generation soft robotics. The research team—Dr. Hyun Kim at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), Prof. Habeom Lee at Pusan National University, and Prof. Taylor H. Ware at Texas A&M University—successfully developed artificial muscles based on azobenzene-functionalized semicrystalline liquid crystal elastomers (AC-LCEs) that actuate in response to light. Traditional soft ...

Read the release

Technology20 May 2025

Combined oral contraceptives triple risk of cryptogenic stroke in young women, new study shows

(Wednesday, 21 May 2025, Helsinki, Finland) New research presented today at the European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) 2025 revealed that the use of combined oral contraceptives (OCs) is associated with a threefold increase in the risk of cryptogenic ischaemic stroke (CIS) in young women.1 The findings add to a growing body of evidence linking hormonal contraception to vascular risk in women of reproductive age. Cryptogenic ischaemic stroke, which is stroke with no identifiable cause, accounts for up to 40% of all ischaemic strokes in young adults.2 Despite its prevalence, ...

Read the release

Technology20 May 2025

Scientists discover one of the world’s thinnest semiconductor junctions forming inside a quantum material

Scientists studying a promising quantum material have stumbled upon a surprise: within its crystal structure, the material naturally forms one of the world’s thinnest semiconductor junctions—a building block of most modern electronics. The junction is just 3.3 nanometers thick, about 25,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper. “This was a big surprise,” said Asst. Prof. Shuolong Yang. “We weren’t trying to make this junction, but the material made one on its own, and it’s one of the thinnest we’ve ever seen.” The discovery offers a way to build ultra-miniaturized electronic components, ...

Read the release

Technology20 May 2025

Changes in BMI during adolescence may explain link between air pollution exposure and insulin resistance, study shows

Changes in Body Mass Index (BMI) during adolescence play an important role in the association between air pollution exposure and insulin resistance, according to a new study led by investigators from the Keck School of Medicine of USC. The study, funded in part by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and published in JAMA Network Open, found that children who were exposed to higher levels of traffic-related air pollution—specifically nitrogen oxides—tended to have a higher BMI by age 13, and experienced rapid weight gain from adolescence to young adulthood. This, in turn, was linked to higher levels of insulin resistance in their mid-20s. “We estimated ...

Read the release

Technology20 May 2025

AI and partnerships are vital to tackling food contamination - study

Global partnerships and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be key to addressing the growing challenges posed by food contamination, a new study reveals. The study, co-authored by Professor Lord John Krebs, former Chair of the UK Food Standards Agency, analyses 116 peer-reviewed papers published between 2019 and 2024. It reveals that that a range of biological, chemical, and physical contaminants combined with emerging risks including demographic changes, economic trends, and environmental degradation could lead to increased health hazards for people around the ...

Read the release

Technology20 May 2025

Magnetic shaftless propeller millirobot with multimodal motion for small-scale fluidic manipulation

A research paper by scientists at Beijing Institute of Technology presented a magnetic shaftless propeller-like millirobot (MSPM) that possesses the capabilities of rotating-based multimodal 3-dimensional motion and cargo transportation with untethered manipulation. The research paper, published on Mar. 12, 2025 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems. In recent years, magnetic miniature robots have shown great potential in biomedical, environmental remediation, micro control and other fields, especially in thrombosis treatment, drug delivery, endoscopic ...

Read the release

Technology20 May 2025

Radiologists share tips to prevent AI bias

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Radiologists, computer scientists and informaticists outline pitfalls and best practices to mitigate bias in artificial intelligence (AI) models in an article published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). “AI has the potential to revolutionize radiology by improving diagnostic accuracy and access to care,” said lead author Paul H. Yi, M.D., associate member (associate professor) in the Department of Radiology and director of Intelligent Imaging Informatics at ...

Read the release

Technology19 May 2025

Novel data streaming software chases light speed from accelerator to supercomputer

Analyzing massive datasets from nuclear physics experiments can take hours or days to process, but researchers are working to radically reduce that time to mere seconds using special software being developed at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley and Oak Ridge national laboratories. DELERIA — short for Distributed Event-Level Experiment Readout and Integrated Analysis — is a novel software platform designed specifically to support the GRETA spectrometer, a cutting-edge instrument for nuclear physics experiments. The Gamma Ray Energy Tracking Array, or GRETA, ...

Read the release

Technology19 May 2025

Tiny microlaser sensors offer supercharged biosensing

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a 3D micro-printed sensor for highly sensitive on-chip biosensing. The sensor, which is based on a polymer whispering-gallery-mode microlaser, opens new opportunities for developing high-performance, cost-effective lab-on-a-chip devices for early disease diagnosis. “In the future, these whispering-gallery-mode microlaser sensors could be integrated into a microfluidic chip to enable a new generation of lab-on-chip devices for ultrasensitive quantitative detection of multiple biomarkers,” ...

Read the release

Technology19 May 2025

Empowering robots with human-like perception to navigate unwieldy terrain

The wealth of information provided by our senses that allows our brain to navigate the world around us is remarkable. Touch, smell, hearing, and a strong sense of balance are crucial to making it through what to us seem like easy environments such as a relaxing hike on a weekend morning. An innate understanding of the canopy overhead helps us figure out where the path leads. The sharp snap of branches or the soft cushion of moss informs us about the stability of our footing. The thunder of a tree falling or branches dancing in strong winds lets us know of potential dangers ...

Read the release

Technology19 May 2025

AI chip developed for decentralized use without the cloud

A new AI chip developed at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) works without the cloud server or internet connections needed by existing chips. The AI Pro, designed by Prof Hussam Amrouch, is modelled on the human brain. Its innovative neuromorphic architecture enables it to perform calculations on the spot, ensuring full cyber security. It is also up to ten times more energy efficient. The professor of AI processor design at TUM has already had the first prototypes produced by semiconductor manufacturer Global Foundries in Dresden. Unlike conventional chips, the ...

Read the release

Technology19 May 2025

Researchers take AI to “kindergarten” in order to learn more complex tasks

We need to learn our letters before we can learn to read and our numbers before we can learn how to add and subtract. The same principles are true with AI, a team of New York University scientists has shown through laboratory experiments and computational modeling. In their work, published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, researchers found that when recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are first trained on simple cognitive tasks, they are better equipped to handle more difficult and complex ones later on. The paper’s authors labeled this form of training kindergarten curriculum learning as it centers on first instilling an ...

Read the release

Technology19 May 2025

Under embargo: Robots learning without us? New study cuts humans from early testing

Press release Under embargo until 05:01 BST/00:01 ET ‎19th May Robots learning without us? New study cuts humans from early testing Humans no longer have exclusive control over training social robots to interact effectively, thanks to a new study from the University of Surrey and the University of Hamburg. The study, which will be presented at this year’s IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), introduces a new simulation ...

Read the release

Technology16 May 2025

UCF’s ‘bridge doctor’ combines imaging, neural network to efficiently evaluate concrete bridges’ safety

Necati Catbas doesn’t hold a medical degree, but the UCF engineering professor is more than qualified to diagnose the health of bridges using a combination of emerging technologies. Catbas collaborated with his former civil engineering student Marwan Debees ’23PhD, who now works as a NASA Bridge Program manager, on newly published research that details how infrared thermography, high-definition imaging and neural network analysis can combine to make concrete bridge inspections more efficient. Catbas and Debees are hopeful that their findings, recently published in the Transportation Research Record, can be leveraged by engineers ...

Read the release

Technology16 May 2025

Enhancing centrifugal compressor performance with ported shroud technology

The automotive industry is undergoing a transformative shift toward sustainable propulsion systems to meet stringent environmental regulations, such as the European Union’s push for near-zero-emission vehicles. Among the promising alternatives, proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) stand out due to their high efficiency and rapid response times. However, optimizing PEMFC performance requires advanced turbocharging systems to supply compressed air to the fuel cell stack. Centrifugal compressors, a key component in ...

Read the release

Technology16 May 2025

Log in to your computer with a secret message encoded in a molecule

Molecules like DNA are capable of storing large amounts of data without requiring an energy source, but accessing this molecular data is expensive and time consuming. Publishing May 16 in the Cell Press journal Chem, researchers have developed an alternative method to encode information in synthetic molecules, which they used to encode and then decode an 11-character password to unlock a computer. “Molecules can store information for very long periods without needing power. Nature has given us the proof of principle that this works,” says corresponding author and ...

Read the release

Technology15 May 2025

Bismuth’s mask uncovered: Implications for quantum computing and spintronics materials

Whether bismuth is part of a class of materials highly suitable for quantum computing and spintronics was a long-standing issue. Kobe University research has now revealed that the true nature of bismuth was masked by its surface, and in doing so uncovered a new phenomenon relevant to all such materials. There is a class of materials that are insulators in their bulk, but robustly conductive at their surface. As this conductivity does not suffer from defects or impurities, such “topological materials,” as they are called, are expected ...

Read the release