A new smart platform invented by Purdue University researchers to wirelessly monitor subsoil health could change the landscape of agricultural sensing systems. The invention addresses a critical need in agriculture nationwide: the efficient use of water, fertilizers and pesticides. Due to the variability of soil conditions across large fields, applying uniform amounts of these inputs can lead to significant waste, increasing costs for farmers and causing environmental harm if nutrient runoff reaches water systems.

MIT engineers identified a common polymer whose thermal conductivity changes quickly and reversibly when the material is stretched. The material could be used to engineer systems that adapt to changing temperatures in real-time, such as switchable fibers woven into apparel.

Researchers have demonstrated a low‑loss, polarization‑independent photonic chip fabricated in borosilicate glass using femtosecond laser writing, enabling a fully tunable heterodyne receiver that achieves record‑high quantum random number generation at 42.7 Gbit/s and secure quantum key distribution at 3.2 Mbit/s, marking a significant advance toward practical and scalable quantum communication technologies.

The University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering professors Albert To and Wei Xiong have received a $400,000 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) award to develop novel interlocking design and fabrication technology for complex defense, aerospace, transportation, energy, and medical systems.

Customers are 32% more likely to buy a product after reading a review summary generated by a chatbot than after reading the original review written by a human. That’s because large language models introduce bias, in this case a positive framing, in summaries. That, in turn, affects users’ behavior. 

These are the findings of the first study to show evidence that cognitive biases introduced by large language models, or LLMs, have real consequences on users’ decision making.