The cuts to USAID in early 2025 dealt a devastating blow to the health infrastructure around the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “HIV service disruptions that have resulted from funding challenges in 2025 include staffing shortages, supply chain interruptions, and increased barriers to access for prevention and treatment services.”

People under protective orders will soon benefit from a new technology developed by Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI). To address the limitations in the existing emergency response system, ETRI has unveiled APPS (AI Platform for Personal Safety), which can detect potential danger and automatically send SOS alerts, providing initial 3D location data via hybrid positioning and support drone search in large or inaccessible areas.

Stroke often results in significant upper limb impairment, affecting patients' ability to perform daily activities. Robotic therapy for individuals after stroke has been proven as evidence-based practice in rehabilitation because it allows high frequency and intensity of training to the individual with guided movement and standardized behavioural protocols. However, current rehabilitation methods are often limited by access to clinical facilities and high cost of robotic therapies.

IBD cases have nearly doubled since 1990, yet many patients don’t respond to current treatments. The EU-funded Algae4IBD project is uncovering anti-inflammatory and gut-supporting compounds from microalgae and seaweeds. Using advanced cultivation and patient-derived tissue testing, researchers have identified algae extracts with strong therapeutic potential. These findings are now being developed into functional foods and could inspire new pharmaceutical options, offering a promising natural approach for IBD care. 

Effective PAM-8 signal processing requires a highly linear receiver system. To address this, researchers at Hanyang University have developed a multi-path architecture that enhances the linearity-power trade-off, doubling linearity with only a 20% increase in power. The design also achieves successful channel-loss compensation through a separated feed-forward equalizer path. This technology enables an impressive 108 Gb/s data rate, paving the way for faster, more energy-efficient, data-intensive applications.

A team at Tohoku University’s AIMR has developed an ultra-high-temperature temperature-programmed desorption method capable of heating carbon materials to 2,100 °C. Combined with mass spectrometry and model material design, the technique enables complete quantitative and qualitative analysis of nitrogen dopants, offering unprecedented insight into buried nitrogen environments in carbon materials.

Researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station have identified genetic mechanisms in rice that can help counteract the negative effects of higher nighttime temperatures. Professor Andy Pereira, recently retired, and Research Scientist Julie Thomas in the crop, soil and environmental sciences department, have been investigating a genetic regulation hub in rice that functions as a “master regulator” of the plant’s growth and stress response. Dubbed HYR for “Higher Rice Yield,” the gene hub connects the plant’s genetic makeup with its ability to adapt to environmental changes. Pereira and Thomas have shown that even in a widely cultivated rice variety that typically has high levels of grain chalkiness, overexpression of HYR led to a significant reduction in chalk formation. Expanding on the work, Thomas and Awais Riaz, a Fulbright graduate student, identified a distinct group of genetic markers called haplotypes associated with HYR in multiple rice cultivars from around the world.