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

Tech & Engineering

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 6-May-2025 16:09 ET (6-May-2025 20:09 GMT/UTC)

Refining hardwood by bioluminescence

Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Since more and more deciduous trees are being planted in Swiss forests, whose wood is often burned directly, innovative ideas for a cascade use are in high demand in order to utilize Swiss hardwood more sustainably. Empa researchers are therefore equipping wood with new functionalities. Their latest coup: wood that can glow in the dark.

Journal: Advanced Science

SS-Pro: A simplified siamese contrastive learning approach for protein surface representation

Higher Education Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The team proposes SS-Pro, a simple and efficient contrastive self-supervised learning framework, which can be adapted to various protein surface networks.

Journal: Frontiers of Computer Science

Resurrecting an ancestral protein as a novel tool to study RNA biology

Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Graduate University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

By deducing the possible ancient forms of a bacterial enzyme, OIST scientists have resurrected one of its ancestral versions, with a comparably higher ability to chemically modify RNA. In the Protein Engineering and Evolution Unit's latest publication in Nucleic Acids Research, the team presents an engineered RNA methyltransferase, which can be used to study the role of RNA modifications in cells.

With RNA modifications affecting stability, promoting translation, and influencing its location within the cell, such modifications play an important role in the cell’s health and in diseases.

Funder: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Japan Science Society, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

New thermal dome concept revolutionizes heat invisibility technology

Higher Education Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers have introduced a revolutionary thermal dome concept, as detailed in a study published in Engineering. This innovation aims to overcome the limitations of traditional thermal invisibility cloaks by featuring an open structure and reconfigurability, potentially transforming heat management and cloaking technologies.

Journal: Engineering

Additive engineering for Sb2S3 indoor photovoltaics with efficiency exceeding 17%

Light Publishing Center, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics And Physics, CAS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Indoor photovoltaics (IPVs) have attracted increasing attention for sustainably powering Internet of Things (IoT) electronics. Towards this goal, scientists from China and United Kingdom developed an effective additive engineering strategy to enable the deposition of high-quality solution-processed antimony sulfide (Sb₂S₃) absorbers, and achieved efficient planar IPVs with power conversion efficiency (PCE) exceeding 17% under 1000 lux white light emitting diode (WLED) illumination. Large-area IPV minimodules were further successfully constructed to power IoT wireless sensors.

Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, National Natural Science Foundation of Hefei City, UKRI Frontier Grant, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Royal Academy of Engineering

13th ITER International School (IIS2024) gives professional training for 200 young scientists and engineers of the world, to advance nuclear fusion research on the road to commercial reactor

National Institutes of Natural Sciences
Meeting Announcement

►The National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS) will host the 13^th ITER International School (IIS2024), organized by the ITER^*1 Organization and Aix-Marseille University in France, in Nagoya, Japan for one week from 9^th to 13^th December 2024 as the host country organization. The main subject of this time is “Magnetic fusion diagnostics and data science.”

►This is one of the world’s largest international schools in the field of nuclear fusion research, where more than 200 graduate students, young scientists and engineers from around the world who are interested in fusion research and development will gather together. This is the second time that Japan has hosted the school, 16 years after the 2^nd IIS was held in Fukuoka in 2008.

►At IIS2024, there will be lectures on the latest status of ITER which is currently under construction in France, as well as on fusion plasma diagnostic technology and data science.

►On the first day of the school, the representatives from organizing institutions will gather together for a press conference at the venue.

Stanford Medicine study discovers what’s behind heart cell damage from chemotherapy

Stanford Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers used a new screening technique to identify genes involved in heart cell damage during a common chemotherapy treatment. They also found a drug that may be able to prevent it.

Journal: Cell Stem Cell