Technology
press releases.

Technology7 Feb 2025

No quantum exorcism for Maxwell's demon (but it doesn't need one)

In a groundbreaking discovery, researchers from Nagoya University in Japan and the Slovak Academy of Sciences have unveiled new insights into the interplay between quantum theory and thermodynamics. The team demonstrated that while quantum theory does not inherently forbid violations of the second law of thermodynamics, quantum processes may be implemented without actually breaching the law. This discovery, published in npj Quantum Information, highlights a harmonious coexistence between the two fields, ...

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Technology6 Feb 2025

New software developed at Wayne State University will help study chemical and biological systems

DETROIT — Physics-based computer simulations are essential tools for understanding the relationship between atomic-level interactions and physically observable properties of materials. It is from knowledge of these structure-property relationships that new materials can be designed with properties specifically tailored to address the problem of interest. With the help of a new grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), a team of Wayne State University College of Engineering researchers are developing new software to support computational materials design. Built on a 15-year collaborative effort, Jeffrey Potoff, Ph.D., chair ...

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Technology6 Feb 2025

New technology lights way for accelerating coral reef restoration

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have developed a novel tool designed to protect and conserve coral reefs by providing them with an abundance of feeding opportunities. The device, dubbed the Underwater Zooplankton Enhancement Light Array (UZELA), is an autonomous, programmable underwater light that works to draw in nearby zooplankton, microscopic organisms that coral feed on. After testing the submersible on two species of coral native to Hawaii over six months, researchers found that UZELA could ...

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Technology6 Feb 2025

UC3M patents a new design for a soft robotic joint that is more adaptable and robust

Researchers at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have developed a new soft joint model for robots with an asymmetrical triangular structure and an extremely thin central column. This breakthrough, recently patented, allows for versatility of movement, adaptability and safety, and will have a major impact in the field of robotics. “The main feature of this new design is that it allows greater bending angles to be achieved with less force, providing the robots with great versatility and adaptability of movement,” explains Concha Monje, professor in the UC3M Department ...

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Technology6 Feb 2025

InsectNet technology identifies insects around the world and around the farm

AMES, Iowa – A farmer notices an unfamiliar insect on a leaf. Is this a pollinator? Or a pest? Good news at harvest time? Or bad? Need to be controlled? Or not? That farmer can snap a picture, use a smartphone or computer to feed the photo into a web-based application called InsectNet and, with the help of machine learning technology, get back real-time information. “The app identifies the insect and returns a prediction of its taxonomic classification and role in the ecosystem as a pest, predator, pollinator, parasitoid, decomposer, herbivore, indicator ...

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Technology6 Feb 2025

Multimillion-pound research project aims to advance production of next-generation sustainable packaging

A multimillion-pound research project, called SustaPack, aims to overcome manufacturing challenges for the next generation of sustainable, paper-based packaging for liquids. Backed by a £1 million grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of UKRI’s co-investing programme, packaging technology company Pulpex Ltd has joined forces with the University of Surrey to refine its manufacturing processes to provide a viable solution to plastic pollution. Contributing matching support towards the project, Pulpex has already made significant strides in the development of its patented technology, ...

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Technology5 Feb 2025

Apply for the Davie Postdoctoral Fellowship in Artificial Intelligence for Astronomy

February 5, 2025, Mountain View, CA -- The SETI Institute announced the Davie Postdoctoral Fellowship in Artificial Intelligence for Astronomy, inviting researchers to refine and expand ML-driven pipelines for exoplanet discovery. The successful candidate will join the SETI Institute researcher Dr. Vishal Gajjar and his team and collaborators at the SETI Institute and IIT Tirupati in India. This project will focus on enhancing supervised CNN architectures and integrating anomaly-detection techniques to uncover subtle or unconventional signals hidden within massive datasets. The application deadline is March 15, 2025. Information about how to apply is here. “Machine ...

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Technology5 Feb 2025

New study finds students' attitudes towards computer science impacts final grades

University of Delaware Associate Professor Teomara Rutherford, along with UD co-authors Hye Rin Lee, Austin Cory Bart and Andrew Rodrigues and Megan Englert of the University of Colorado Boulder, investigated changes in student motivation in first-year university CS courses. Although students’ perception of the value of CS declined over the semester, their sense of belonging and beliefs in their ability to succeed increased. Rutherford and her co-authors also found that students’ beliefs in their ability to succeed, their view of the course’s importance and their perception of its emotional cost ...

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Technology5 Feb 2025

Clean air policies having unintended impact driving up wetland methane emissions by up to 34 million tonnes

Reducing sulphur in the air may inadvertently increase natural emissions of methane from wetlands such as peatlands and swamps, a new study has found. The findings published today in the journal Science Advances suggests that the decline of global sulphur emissions as the result of clean air policies, coupled with the warming and fertilization effects of carbon dioxide emissions lifts a lid on wetland methane production resulting in increased emissions. The resulting additional future release of 20-34 ...

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Technology5 Feb 2025

Quantum algorithm distributed across multiple processors for the first time – paving the way to quantum supercomputers

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 16:00 GMT / 11:00 ET WEDNESDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2025 Quantum algorithm distributed across multiple processors for the first time – paving the way to quantum supercomputers In a milestone that brings quantum computing tangibly closer to large-scale practical use, scientists at Oxford University Physics have demonstrated the first instance of distributed quantum computing. Using a photonic network interface, they successfully linked two separate quantum processors to form a single, fully connected ...

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Technology5 Feb 2025

New spin on quantum liquids: Quasi-1D dynamics in molecular spin systems

Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are fascinating and mysterious states of matter that have intrigued scientists for decades. First proposed by Nobel laureate Philip Anderson in the 1970s, these materials break the conventional rules of magnetism by never settling into a stable magnetic state, even at temperatures close to absolute zero. Instead, the spins of the atoms within them remain constantly fluctuating and entangled, creating a kind of magnetic “liquid.” This unusual behavior is driven by a phenomenon called magnetic frustration, where competing forces prevent the system from reaching a single, ordered configuration. QSLs are notoriously ...

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Technology5 Feb 2025

‘Living’ electrodes breathe new life into traditional silicon electronics

Osaka, Japan – High-speed electronic devices that do not use much power are useful for wireless communication. High-speed operation has traditionally been achieved by making devices smaller, but as devices become smaller, fabrication becomes increasingly difficult. Have we reached a dead end? Not yet! A research team at Osaka University is exploring another way to improve device performance: placing a patterned metal layer, i.e., a structural metamaterial, on top of a traditional substrate, e.g., silicon, to accelerate ...

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Technology5 Feb 2025

One in four chance per year that rocket junk will enter busy airspace

There’s a 26 per cent annual chance that space rocket junk will re-enter the atmosphere and pass through a busy flight area, according to a recent UBC study. While the chance of debris hitting an aircraft is very low, the research highlights that the potential for uncontrolled space rocket junk to disrupt flights and create additional costs for airlines and passengers is not. Space junk disrupting air traffic is far from unheard of. In 2022, a re-entering 20-tonne piece of rocket prompted Spanish and French aviation authorities to close parts ...

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Technology4 Feb 2025

Emilia Morosan on team awarded Kavli Foundation grant for quantum geometry-enabled superconductivity

Rice University physicist Emilia Morosan is part of an international research collaboration that has been awarded multimillion-dollar funding from The Kavli Foundation to develop and test next-generation superconductors through artificial intelligence and quantum geometry. This global initiative, spearheaded by Päivi Törmä of Aalto University in Finland, seeks to push the boundaries of quantum materials science and superconductivity. The project includes funding from the Klaus ...

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Technology4 Feb 2025

Visualization of chemical phenomena in the microscopic world using semiconductor image sensor

A research team led by Professor Kazuaki Sawada and Project Assistant Professor Hideo Doi of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology has developed a semiconductor sensor enabling the real-time observation of two types of biomolecule dynamics in solutions. By using semiconductor technology to pattern a thin metal film functioning as a neurotransmitter-sensitive membrane on sensor pixels arranged two-dimensionally in a 2 µm pitch, the sensor captures the movement of hydrogen ions and lactate ...

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Technology4 Feb 2025

Quantum machine offers peek into “dance” of cosmic bubbles

Physicists have performed a groundbreaking simulation they say sheds new light on an elusive phenomenon that could determine the ultimate fate of the Universe. Pioneering research in quantum field theory around 50 years ago proposed that the universe may be trapped in a false vacuum – meaning it appears stable but in fact could be on the verge of transitioning to an even more stable, true vacuum state. While this process could trigger a catastrophic change in the Universe's structure, experts agree that predicting the timeline ...

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Technology4 Feb 2025

AI boosts employee work experiences

A new paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, published by Oxford University Press, shows customer service workers using artificial intelligence assistance become more productive and work faster. The effects vary significantly, however. Less experienced and lower-skilled employees improve both the speed and quality of their work, while the most experienced and highest-skilled workers see small gains in speed and small declines in quality. The researchers also found that AI assistance can help worker learning and improve English fluency, particularly for international workers. Computers and software have transformed the economy with their ability to perform certain tasks with far ...

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Technology4 Feb 2025

Generative AI bias poses risk to democratic values

Generative AI, a technology that is developing at breakneck speed, may carry hidden risks that could erode public trust and democratic values, according to a study led by the University of East Anglia (UEA). In collaboration with researchers from the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and Insper, both in Brazil, the research showed that ChatGPT exhibits biases in both text and image outputs — leaning toward left-wing political values — raising questions about fairness and accountability in its design. The study revealed ...

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Technology3 Feb 2025

Shaping future of displays: clay/europium-based technology offers dual-mode versatility

The world of display technology is on the cusp of a transformative breakthrough, with electrochemical stimuli-responsive materials gaining more attraction. Based on external stimuli, such as low voltage, these materials can instantaneously undergo electrochemical reactions. These electrochemical reactions can result in the production of different colors, revolutionizing the age of display solutions. An electrochemical system consists of electrodes and electrolytes. Combining the luminescent and coloration molecules on the electrodes instead of the electrolyte can offer higher efficiencies and stability for display devices. To this end, a research team ...

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Technology3 Feb 2025

Tiny copper ‘flowers’ bloom on artificial leaves for clean fuel production

Tiny copper ‘nano-flowers’ have been attached to an artificial leaf to produce clean fuels and chemicals that are the backbone of modern energy and manufacturing. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley, developed a practical way to make hydrocarbons – molecules made of carbon and hydrogen – powered solely by the sun. The device they developed combines a light absorbing ‘leaf’ made from a high-efficiency solar cell material called perovskite, with a copper nanoflower catalyst, to convert carbon dioxide into useful molecules. Unlike most metal catalysts, which can only convert CO₂ into single-carbon ...

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Technology3 Feb 2025

Printable molecule-selective nanoparticles enable mass production of wearable biosensors

The future of medicine may very well lie in the personalization of health care—knowing exactly what an individual needs and then delivering just the right mix of nutrients, metabolites, and medications, if necessary, to stabilize and improve their condition. To make this possible, physicians first need a way to continuously measure and monitor certain biomarkers of health. To that end, a team of Caltech engineers has developed a technique for inkjet printing arrays of special nanoparticles that enables the mass production of long-lasting wearable sweat sensors. These sensors could be used to monitor a variety of biomarkers, ...

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Technology31 Jan 2025

Robots get smarter to work in sewers

The ambitious project PIPEON* will develop new robotic and AI-based technologies for mapping, monitoring, and maintaining Europe’s sewer networks using autonomous “thinking” robots and AI-based modelling and analysis tools. The development and application of such new technologies would have major societal, environmental and economic impact. Instead of repairing in-sewer defects and removing blockages after streets and homes have been flooded with sewage, defects can be quickly identified and repaired and blockages removed when they are still small. Early, preventative repair and maintenance actions will limit the frequency and ...

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Technology31 Jan 2025

With generative AI, MIT chemists quickly calculate 3D genomic structures

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Every cell in your body contains the same genetic sequence, yet each cell expresses only a subset of those genes. These cell-specific gene expression patterns, which ensure that a brain cell is different from a skin cell, are partly determined by the three-dimensional structure of the genetic material, which controls the accessibility of each gene. MIT chemists have now come up with a new way to determine those 3D genome structures, using generative artificial intelligence. Their technique can predict thousands of structures in just minutes, making it much speedier than existing experimental methods for analyzing the structures. Using this technique, researchers could more ...

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Technology31 Jan 2025

Ribosomes team up in difficult situations, new technology shows

Researchers from the Tanenbaum group at the Hubrecht Institute have developed a new microscopy technique to observe how ribosomes function in cells. With this method, they can monitor individual ribosomes as they convert mRNA into proteins. The researchers discovered that ribosomes help each other when encountering difficulties, a process they refer to as ‘ribosome cooperativity’. This technique and the findings, published in Cell, provide insights into how proteins are made and offer other researchers a tool to better study mRNA translation. Our DNA contains genetic information essential for ...

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Technology30 Jan 2025

Linking citation and retraction data aids in responsible research evaluation

Linking citation and retraction data aids in responsible research evaluation In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Biology: http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002999 Article title: Linking citation and retraction data reveals the demographics of scientific retractions among highly cited authors Author countries: United States, Italy, the Netherlands Funding: The work of AC has been supported by the European Network Staff Exchange for Integrating Precision Health ...

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