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Technology

With AI, researchers can now identify the smallest crystals

One longstanding problem has sidelined life-saving drugs, stalled next-generation batteries, and kept archaeologists from identifying the origins of ancient artifacts. For more than 100 years, scientists have used a method called crystallography to determine the atomic structure of materials. The method works by shining an X-ray beam through a material sample and observing the pattern it produces. From this pattern – called a diffraction pattern – it is theoretically possible to calculate the exact arrangement of atoms in the sample. The challenge, however, is that this technique only works well when researchers ...

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Technology

Computational biology paves the way for new ALS tests

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a disease that destroys the nerves necessary for movement. About 30,000 people in the United States are affected, and doctors still don’t know what causes it. To lay the groundwork for better tests, Thomas Jefferson University researchers Phillipe Loher, Eric Londin, PhD, and Isidore Rigoutsos, PhD are taking a computational biology approach to see how ALS affects molecules in the blood. In a study published in Molecular Neurobiology, the team analyzed blood samples from about 300 people with and without ALS. The research focused on small non-coding ...

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Technology

Chips off the old block

Using a 3D printer to create organic tissue models that function like living organs may sound like science fiction — but engineers at the University of Pittsburgh are making it reality. Central to their breakthrough is a simple yet powerful idea: when provided with the right environment, cells instinctively know how to organize and function. The key lies in designing scaffolds that mimic the body’s natural structures, giving cells the cues they need to grow, interact, and form tissues. Daniel Shiwarski, assistant professor of bioengineering at the Swanson School of Engineering with a joint appointment at the School of Medicine’s Vascular ...

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Technology

Cutting the complexity from digital carpentry

Many products in the modern world are in some way fabricated using computer numerical control (CNC) machines, which use computers to automate machine operations in manufacturing. While simple in concept, the ways to instruct these machines is in reality often complex. A team of researchers including those from the University of Tokyo devised a system to demonstrate how to mitigate some of this complexity. Draw2Cut allows users to draw desired designs directly onto material to be cut or milled. In this case, color-coded lines drawn with standard marker pens instruct the Draw2Cut system to mill designs into wood without any prior knowledge of CNC machines or ...

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Technology

FlexTech inaugural issue launches, pioneering interdisciplinary innovation in flexible technology

FlexTech, an international academic journal (ISSN 2771-1706), jointly published by Tsinghua University Press and Wiley Publishing Group, has officially released its first issue. Supported by Tsinghua University’s State Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics Technology, the journal aims to serve as a global platform for scholars to advance cutting-edge research and engineering applications in flexible materials, devices, and systems, driving humanity toward an intelligent era. Editor-in-Chief’s Vision: Bridging Humanity, Machines, and the Digital World In his inaugural editorial, Prof. Xue Feng from Tsinghua University, Editor-in-Chief ...

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Technology

A vascularized multilayer chip reveals shear stress-induced angiogenesis in diverse fluid conditions

A research article published by the Shanghai University presented a novel microfluidic chip design with a 3-layer configuration that utilizes a polycarbonate (PC) porous membrane to separate the culture fluid channels from the tissue chambers, featuring flexibly designable multitissue chambers. PC porous membranes act as the capillary in the vertical direction, enabling precise hydrogel patterning and successfully constructing a microfluidic environment suitable for microvascular tissue growth. The new research paper, published on Feb. 28, 2025 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, presented a flexible and scalable chip that is highly suitable for culturing multiple ...

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Technology

Study: Artificial intelligence more accurately identifies child abuse

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help better identify prevalence of physical abuse of children seen in the emergency room, a new study found. The research will be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2025 Meeting, held April 24-28 in Honolulu. Researchers used a machine-learning model to estimate instances of child abuse seen in emergency departments based on diagnostic codes for high-risk injury and physical abuse. The researchers’ approach better predicted abuse rates than those that rely solely on diagnostic codes entered by a provider or administrative staff. Relying on abuse codes alone ...

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Technology

Study shows 90% metal pollution drop in Adirondack waters five decades after the clean air act

ALBANY, N.Y. (April 24, 2025) — A new study published by researchers at the University at Albany has presented the first documented evidence that Adirondack surface waters made a near full recovery from metal pollution since the enactment of the Clean Air Act. Originally passed in 1963 and amended in subsequent decades, the Clean Air Act was one of the first major pieces of environmental legislation in the U.S., intended to reduce and control air pollution nationwide. The Adirondack Park was a prime target for the legislation, with decades of acid rain damage impacting the region’s ...

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Technology

Nanophotonic platform boosts efficiency of nonlinear-optical quantum teleportation

Researchers have long recognized that quantum communication systems would transmit quantum information more faithfully and be impervious to certain forms of error if nonlinear optical processes were used. However, past efforts at incorporating such processes could not operate with the extremely low light levels required for quantum communication. Now, a team at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has improved the technology by basing the nonlinear process on an indium-gallium-phosphide nanophotonic platform. The result is substantially more efficient than prior systems, meaning that it requires much less light and operates all the way down to single photons, ...

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Technology

New approach to silicone waste recycling closes the loop

A new low-energy chemical recycling method using boron and gallium can convert common silicone waste into useful chlorosilanes with high efficiency and yield. The method offers a promising new chemical pathway toward circularity in silicone materials, addressing both resource sustainability and emissions reductions in the industry. Prized for their durability, heat and chemical resistance, and low toxicity, silicone polymers are found in countless everyday products, ranging from medical devices to car parts. Each year, millions of tons of silicone are produced globally. Producing silicones is highly energy-intensive, ...

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Technology

New approach makes AI adaptable for computer vision in crop breeding

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists developed a machine-learning tool that can teach itself, with minimal external guidance, to differentiate between aerial images of flowering and nonflowering grasses — an advance that will greatly increase the pace of agricultural field research, they say. The work was conducted using images of thousands of varieties of Miscanthus grasses, each of which has its own flowering traits and timing. Accurately differentiating crop traits under varied conditions at different points in the growing cycle is a formidable task, said Andrew Leakey, a professor of plant biology ...

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Technology

Awkward. Humans are still better than AI at reading the room

Humans, it turns out, are better than current AI models at describing and interpreting social interactions in a moving scene—a skill necessary for self-driving cars, assistive robots, and other technologies that rely on AI systems to navigate the real world. The research, led by scientists at Johns Hopkins University, finds that artificial intelligence systems fail at understanding social dynamics and context necessary for interacting with people and suggests the problem may be rooted in the infrastructure of AI systems. “AI for a self-driving car, for example, would need to recognize the intentions, goals, and actions of human drivers and pedestrians. You ...

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Technology

AI provides reliable answers with less computational overhead

ChatGPT and alike often amaze us with the accuracy of their answers, but unfortunately, they also repeatedly give us cause for doubt. The main issue with powerful AI response engines (artificial intelligence) is that they provide us with perfect answers and obvious nonsense with the same ease. One of the major challenges lies in how the large language models (LLMs) underlying AI deal with uncertainty. Until now, it has been very difficult to assess whether LLMs designed for text processing and generation base their responses on a solid foundation ...

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Technology

New era of aid cuts and conflict threatens educational lifeline of youngest learners

A sharp drop in aid for pre-primary education may be the first sign that the international community is turning its back on the world’s most vulnerable children amid wider economic strain, a new report warns. The annual donor ‘scorecard’, produced by researchers at the University of Cambridge for the charity Theirworld, reveals that the proportion of global education aid being committed to early childhood education – which was already well below international targets – has started to fall. The report’s authors warn that the true picture could be far worse, ...

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Technology

UTEP launches artificial intelligence think tank to address regional challenges

EL PASO, Texas (April 23, 2025) – The University of Texas at El Paso has launched the AI Institute for Community-Engaged Research (AI-ICER), an interdisciplinary think tank designed to leverage artificial intelligence technologies to address pressing regional and national challenges. The institute was established with funding from The University of Texas System Regents' Research Excellence Program. "This institute positions UTEP as a leader in responsible AI research while strengthening our mission as a community-engaged institution," said Ahmad M. Itani, Ph.D., UTEP vice president for research. ...

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Technology

Atomic imaging and AI offer new insights into motion of parasite behind sleeping sickness

Millions of people worldwide are affected by African sleeping sickness, Chagas disease and other life-threatening infections caused by microscopic parasites borne by insects such as the tsetse fly. Each of the underlying single-celled parasites — Trypanosoma brucei and its relatives — has one flagellum, a whiplike appendage that is essential for moving, infecting hosts and surviving in different environments. Now, a research team at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, or CNSI, has ...

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Technology

Helping computers perceive and interact with the visual world

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today named Cordelia Schmid, Research Director at Inria, the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology, as the 2025-2026 ACM Athena Lecturer. Schmid is recognized for outstanding contributions to computer vision in image retrieval, object recognition, and video understanding. Her work has helped computers understand, perceive, and interact with the visual world. Initiated in 2006, the ACM Athena Lecturer Award celebrates women researchers who have ...

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Technology

Engineering a robot that can jump 10 feet high – without legs

Inspired by the movements of a tiny parasitic worm, Georgia Tech engineers have created a 5-inch soft robot that can jump as high as a basketball hoop. Their device, a silicone rod with a carbon-fiber spine, can leap 10 feet high even though it doesn’t have legs. The researchers made it after watching high-speed video of nematodes pinching themselves into odd shapes to fling themselves forward and backward. The researchers described the soft robot April 23 in Science Robotics. They said their findings could help develop robots capable of jumping across various terrain, at different heights, in multiple directions. “Nematodes are ...

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Technology

Current AI risks more alarming than apocalyptic future scenarios

Current AI Risks More Alarming than Apocalyptic Future Scenarios Most people generally are more concerned about the immediate risks of artificial intelligence than they are about a theoretical future in which AI threatens humanity. A new study by the University of Zurich reveals that respondents draw clear distinctions between abstract scenarios and specific tangible problems and particularly take the latter very seriously. There is a broad consensus that artificial intelligence is associated with risks, but ...

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Technology

Generative AI masters the art of scent creation

Addressing the challenges of fragrance design, researchers at Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo) have developed an AI model that can automate the creation of new fragrances based on user-defined scent descriptors. The model uses mass spectrometry profiles of essential oils and corresponding odor descriptors to generate essential oil blends for new scents. This breakthrough is a game-changer for the fragrance industry, moving beyond trial-and-error, enabling rapid and scalable fragrance production. Designing new fragrances is crucial ...

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Technology

Crystal clear design for high-performance flexible thermoelectric semiconductor

QUT researchers have identified a new material which could be used as a flexible semiconductor in wearable devices by using a technique that focuses on the manipulation of spaces between atoms in crystals. In a study published in the prestigious journal Nature Communication (http://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58104-x), the researchers used “vacancy engineering” to enhance the ability of an AgCu(Te, Se, S) semiconductor, which is an alloy made up of silver, copper, tellurium, selenium and sulphur, to convert body ...

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Technology

Childhood exposure to air pollution, BMI trajectories and insulin resistance among young adults

About The Study: In this cohort study of young adults, the long-term association between traffic-related air pollution and insulin resistance may be partially explained by higher body mass index (BMI) and accelerated BMI growth from early adolescence into young adulthood. These findings highlight the importance of weight management in children, particularly those residing in highly polluted areas. Corresponding author: To contact the corresponding author, Shohreh F. Farzan, Ph.D., email sffarzan@usc.edu. To ...

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Technology

Carnegie Mellon researchers create transformable flat-to-shape objects using sewing technology

Researchers from the Human Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and Robotics Institute (RI) at Carnegie Mellon University introduced a novel method for fabricating functional flat-to-shape objects using a computer-controlled sewing machine. The team includes Sapna Tayal, undergraduate student in the School of Design; Lea Albaugh, Mark Stehlik postdoctoral teaching fellow at HCII; James McCann, associate professor in RI; and Scott E. Hudson, professor and associate department head for education in HCII. “Flat-to-shape” refers to objects that can be transformed from a flat sheet into a three-dimensional form through ...

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Technology

How safe is the air to breathe? 50 million people in the US do not know

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In 2024, more than 50 million people in the United States lived in counties with no air-quality monitoring, according to a new study from researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development. Rural counties — especially counties in the Midwest and South — were less likely to have an air-quality monitoring site. Air quality measures are used to estimate people’s exposure to air pollution, which makes monitoring a critical public health tool, according to Nelson Roque, assistant professor of human development and family studies and ...

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Technology

Research Spotlight: Using artificial intelligence to reveal the neural dynamics of human conversation

What were you investigating? We investigated how our brains process language during real-life conversations. Specifically, we wanted to understand which brain regions become active when we're speaking and listening, and how these patterns relate to the specific words and context of the conversation. What methods did you use? We employed artificial intelligence (AI) to take a closer look at how our brains handle the back-and-forth of real conversations. We combined advanced AI, specifically language models like ...

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