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

Tech & Engineering

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 12-Sep-2025 20:11 ET (13-Sep-2025 00:11 GMT/UTC)

Smartwatch technology could help with future alcohol interventions, new study finds

University of Bristol
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Alcohol harm costs NHS England £3.5 billion annually, with 70 people dying every day from alcohol-related causes in the UK (1). According to new University of Bristol-led research smartwatches could provide a more accurate picture of people’s daily drinking habits than current methods. The technology could be a key element for future alcohol interventions.

Journal: JMIR Formative Research

Computer scientists build a faster, secure, energy-efficient blockchain system

New York University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team of New York University computer scientists has developed an alternative approach to blockchain design, Bounce, that relies on satellites to determine the order of the blocks, where each block is a set of transactions.

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

An intelligent device for detecting infections from the temperature of the skin

Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team led by researchers from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) has developed an innovative piece of equipment in the field of medical technology: an intelligent device capable of monitoring the temperature of the skin continuously and accurately. The device uses a thermoelectric system that works without batteries or an external power supply to detect temperature variations associated with inflammation and infection. The results of the project have been published in the journal Advanced Science.

Journal: Advanced Science

More than 20 journals published by Pensoft with their own hosted data portals on GBIF to streamline and FAIR-ify biodiversity research

Pensoft Publishers
Business Announcement

In collaboration with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Pensoft has established data portals for 25 open-access peer-reviewed journals published on the ARPHA Platform. The portals aim to make biodiversity data related to published research more accessible, usable, and in line with FAIR data principles. The portals offer seamless integration of published articles and data elements with GBIF-mediated records, and currently host data on over 1,000 datasets and almost 325,000 occurrence records across the 25 journals.

Extended reality to help produce eco-friendlier food

Academy of Finland
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Extended reality makes it possible to artificially modify human sensations. For example, researchers have succeeded in using extended reality to make vegetarian food even more attractive.

“This could be one way of facilitating more ecologically diverse food production and, at the same time, encouraging people to eat healthier,” says Roope Raisamo, a professor in human-technology interaction at Tampere University, who has been carrying out research on extended reality for different use cases with funding from the Research Council of Finland (RCF) for years.

Journal: Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces
Funder: Academy of Finland

Metamaterials: Highly twisted rods store large amounts of energy

Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international research team coordinated at KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) has developed mechanical metamaterials with a high elastic energy density. Highly twisted rods that deform helically provide these metamaterials with a high stiffness and enable them to absorb and release large amounts of elastic energy. The researchers conducted simple compression experiments to confirm the initial theoretical results. Their findings have been published in the science journal Nature. (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08658-z)

Journal: Nature

Study tracks chromium chemistry in irradiated molten salts

DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory report that radiation-induced chemical reactions may help mitigate the corrosion of metals in a new type of nuclear reactor cooled by molten salts.

Journal: Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy