EurekAlert! News by Subject: Tech & Engineering - News by Subject: Tech & Engineering

Tech & Engineering

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 3-May-2025 09:09 ET (3-May-2025 13:09 GMT/UTC)

23-Apr-2025

University of Houston engineer reinvents ceramics with origami-inspired 3D printing

University of Houston
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a breakthrough that blends ancient design with modern materials science, researchers at the University of Houston have developed a new class of ceramic structures that can bend under pressure — without breaking.

Journal: Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials

23-Apr-2025

London’s low emission zones save lives and money, new study finds

University of Bath
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Study finds a 18.5% reduction in sick leave following LEZ implementation in Greater London compared to areas in England without low emission zones.

Journal: Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

23-Apr-2025

Four generations help science explore genome mutation rate

University of Washington School of Medicine/UW Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An advanced genomic analysis of a multigenerational family is providing new knowledge about genetic mutations and their transmission, both the variants that are inherited and those that arise anew.

Journal: Nature
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health, Terry Fox Foundation, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

23-Apr-2025

New electronic “skin” could enable lightweight night-vision glasses

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

MIT engineers developed a technique to grow and peel ultrathin “skins” of electronic material that could be used in applications such as night-vision eyewear and autonomous driving in foggy conditions.

Journal: Nature
Funder: U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research

23-Apr-2025

New model predicts a chemical reaction’s point of no return

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

MIT researchers developed a machine-learning model that can predict the structures of transition states of chemical reactions in less than a second, with high accuracy. Their model could make it easier for chemists to design reactions that could generate a variety of useful compounds, such as pharmaceuticals or fuels.

Journal: Nature Machine Intelligence
Funder: U.S. Army Research Office, U.S. Department of Defense Basic Research Office, U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Science Foundation, U.S. Office of Naval Research

23-Apr-2025

Material? Robot? It’s a metabot

Princeton University, Engineering School
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The invention is a metamaterial, which is a material engineered to feature new and unusual properties that depend on the material’s physical structure rather than its chemical composition. In this case, the researchers built their metamaterial using a combination of simple plastics and custom-made magnetic composites. Using a magnetic field, the researchers changed the metamaterial’s structure, causing it to expand, move and deform in different directions, all remotely without touching the metamaterial.

Journal: Nature
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

23-Apr-2025

“Periodic table of machine learning” could fuel AI discovery

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Reports and Proceedings

After uncovering a unifying algorithm that links more than 20 common machine-learning approaches, MIT researchers organized them into a “periodic table of machine learning” that can help scientists combine elements of different methods to improve algorithms or create new ones.

Funder: Air Force Artificial Intelligence Accelerator, National Science Foundation AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Fundamental Interactions, Quanta Computer