The Rotating Detonation Engine offers the ability to deliver satellites to precise orbits in outer space with greater robustness and reduced fuel consumption and emissions than with current conventional engines. However, there are many fundamental scientific challenges that remain related to designing materials systems that can perform under these extreme engine conditions. A new multi-institutional collaborative $2 million grant, "Thriving While Detonating – Materials for Extreme Dynamic Thermomechanical Performance,” led by Natasha Vermaak, an associate professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics in Lehigh University’s P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, addresses some of these materials design challenges. 

You might think that glass has no business acting as a replacement for bone, but it turns out the two materials have many similarities. Researchers reporting in ACS Nano developed a 3D printable bio-active glass that served as an effective bone replacement material. In rabbits, it sustained bone cell growth better than regular glass and a commercially available bone substitute.

In machine learning tasks for applications as diverse as facial recognition and movie recommendations, neural networks have been used extensively. To address the complexities of neural networks and issues such as overfitting, loss of generalization power, and excessive hardware cost, Qing et al. developed a general compression scheme based on automatically differentiable tensor networks that considerably reduces the number variational parameters needed while maintaining or improving the network’s performance. Their work was published on May 15, 2025, in an article titled “Compressing Neural Networks Using Tensor Networks with Exponentially Fewer Variational Parameters” in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal.

RMIT researchers have created an experimental 3D-printed diamond–titanium device that generates electricity from flowing liquid and receives wireless power through tissue making it possible to remotely sense changes in flow.

The innovation could one day lead to longer-lasting implants such as smart stents, drug-release systems and prosthetics that never need a battery replacement and are precisely tailored to a patient. It would involve no active electronics in the implant.

As climate change accelerates, the world is experiencing more frequent extreme weather events and rising temperatures. This is driving up the demand for cooling to make cities liveable, especially in fast-growing megacities with populations exceeding 10 million.

While cooling is essential, it also creates a challenge, as conventional cooling systems consume vast amounts of energy and contribute to carbon emissions, creating a vicious cycle that worsens global warming. To break this cycle, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), Aalborg University and Aarhus University in Denmark have embarked on a new five-year research initiative, supported by US$9.4 million (DKK 60 million or S$12 million) in funding from the Grundfos Foundation. This is the foundation’s largest individual research grant to date and the first to include a university outside Denmark.

 

Titled Sustainable Water-based cooling in Megacities (SWiM), the three universities will develop intelligent and sustainable cooling systems that can reduce energy consumption in large cities by up to 30 per cent, lowering both costs and carbon emissions.

From 191 samples representing 45 origins, international flavour experts have selected the 2025

Best 50 cacaos and their producers. Part of the 2025 Cacao of Excellence Awards, the Best 50

highlights exceptional quality, diversity, and farmer dedication.