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

Tech & Engineering

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 14-Nov-2025 10:11 ET (14-Nov-2025 15:11 GMT/UTC)

Living near St. Louis-area Coldwater Creek during childhood linked with higher risk of cancer from radiation

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Living near Coldwater Creek—a Missouri River tributary north of St. Louis that was polluted by nuclear waste from the development of the first atomic bomb—in childhood in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s was associated with an elevated risk of cancer, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The researchers say the findings corroborate health concerns long held by community members.

Journal: JAMA Network Open
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health

Faster, smarter, more open: a new way to accelerate AI models

Weizmann Institute of Science
Reports and Proceedings

Until recently, there was no way for models developed by different companies to communicate directly, collaborate or combine their strengths to improve performance. This week, at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) in Vancouver, Canada, scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Intel Labs are presenting a new set of algorithms that overcome this barrier, enabling users to benefit from combined computational power of AI models working together. The new algorithms, already available to millions of AI developers around the world, speed up the performance of large language models (LLMs) – today’s leading models of generative AI – by 1.5 times, on average.

Nitrogen may limit natural climate solutions

Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Forests, grasslands, and other natural areas around the world have access to about a quarter less nitrogen than previously estimated, according to a new study published today in Nature. Coauthored by Sarah Batterman, an ecologist at Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, findings have implications for natural climate solutions, as nitrogen is essential to plant growth and thus the removal of carbon from the atmosphere.

Journal: Nature
Funder: U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Geological Survey

Lunar soil could support life on the Moon

Cell Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists have developed a technology that may help humans survive on the Moon. In a study publishing July 16 in the Cell Press journal Joule, researchers extracted water from lunar soil and used it to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and chemicals for fuel—potentially opening new doors for future deep space exploration by mitigating the need to transport essential resources like water and fuel all the way from Earth.

Journal: Joule
Funder: National Key R&D Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, The Program for Guangdong Introducing Innovative and Entrepreneurial Teams, Special Fund for the Sci-tech Innovation Strategy of Guangdong Province, Guangdong Basic Research Center of Excellence for Aggregate Science, The Shenzhen Natural Science Foundation, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Eco-materials and Renewable Energy, NSF of Jiangsu Province, University Development Fund

How to more efficiently study complex treatment interactions

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Reports and Proceedings

A new experimental design framework could enable scientists to efficiently estimate how combinations of interventions will affect a group of cells, reducing the cost of experiments and providing less biased data that could be used to understand disease mechanisms or develop new treatments.

Funder: Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program at MIT, Apple, National Institutes of Health, Office of Naval Research, DOE/US Department of Energy, Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center at the Broad Institute, Simons Investigator Award

Idaho National Laboratory collaborates with Microsoft to streamline nuclear licensing

DOE/Idaho National Laboratory
Business Announcement

(IDAHO FALLS, Idaho) — The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) have announced a collaboration to use Microsoft’s Azure cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to streamline the nuclear permitting and licensing application process.

Wastewater contaminants boost green hydrogen production

RMIT University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Research led by RMIT University in Australia has developed an experimental invention to turn wastewater’s high contaminant load into an advantage for making green hydrogen that could reduce reliance on fresh water – a scarce resource in many parts of the world.

With more than 80% of global wastewater discharged into the environment untreated, this research provides an opportunity to turn this environmental liability into boosted productivity.

Journal: ACS Electrochemistry