The first-ever published research on Tinshemet Cave reveals that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant not only coexisted but actively interacted, sharing technology, lifestyles, and burial customs. These interactions fostered cultural exchange, social complexity, and behavioral innovations, such as formal burial practices and the symbolic use of ochre for decoration. The findings suggest that human connections, rather than isolation, were key drivers of technological and cultural advancements, highlighting the Levant as a crucial crossroads in early human history.

An international collaboration headed by researchers in the Department of Physics has shown that additive manufacturing offers a realistic way to build large-scale plastic scintillator detectors for particle physics experiments.

Conductive hydrogels from ionic liquids are widely used in soft electronics and solid electrolytes due to their high flexibility and conductivity. However, engineering such hydrogels with simultaneous biocompatibility, recyclability, excellent conductivity, stretchability, and toughness for different soft electronic applications remains challenging. This study presents a simple strategy to fabricate tough, biocompatible, and recyclable conductive hydrogels based on polyvinyl alcohol PVA and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate for highly stretchable strain sensors and all-in-one supercapacitors. These hydrogels can also be recycled to make new strain sensors with consistent performance in terms of linear sensitivity, durability, and low hysteresis. This simple design concept opens up new avenues for the development of the next generation "green" wearable and implantable electronic devices.

An international team of researchers from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Riga Technical University, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and the MESA+ Institute at the University of Twente has discovered a new method to generate electricity using small plastic beads. By placing these beads close together and bringing them into contact, they generate more electricity than usual. This process, known as triboelectrification, is similar to the static electricity produced when rubbing a balloon against hair.

Irresistible Materials, Ltd (IM), a leader in the development of novel resist materials for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, has announced the appointment of Dinesh R. Bettadapur as its new chief executive officer (CEO) and board director. 

It would be greatly beneficial to physicians trying to save lives in intensive care units if they could be alerted when a patient’s condition rapidly deteriorates or shows vitals in highly abnormal ranges. While current machine learning models are attempting to achieve that goal, a Virginia Tech study recently published in Communications Medicine shows that they are falling short with models for in-hospital mortality prediction, which refers to predicting the likelihood of a patient dying in the hospital, failing to recognize 66 percent of the injuries.