Energy is fundamentally important — researchers have linked a lack of reliable energy to poor physical health, poor mental health and higher mortality rates. But when astronauts push the boundaries of space exploration, energy is a matter of life and death.

Researchers, including the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Belinda Akpa, are using predictive modeling and machine learning to design universal vaccines that could provide lifelong protection against viruses and cancer. The APECx initiative integrates computational and biological methods to accelerate vaccine development, improve effectiveness, and make immunization more accessible and adaptable.

In a long-running collaboration with GE Aerospace, researchers at the University of Melbourne in Australia have been steadily working to improve the performance of high-pressure turbine (HPT) engines through computer simulations on leadership-class computing systems. Using ORNL's Frontier supercomputer, the Melbourne team investigated how the surface degradation of turbine blades affects their aerothermal performance with unprecedented simulations of 10 to 20 billion grid points in size,

As part of a multinational clinical trial, researchers and clinicians at U of U Health brought gold-standard medical stroke prevention care to patients, while showing that adding another treatment option called stenting helps lower risk even further.

Prof. Wang Lianzhou, Chair Professor of Energy Materials of the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, leads cutting-edge research on semiconductor nanomaterials for renewable energy conversion and storage, with a focus on solar-to-chemical and solar -to-electricity conversion and storage systems. His work addresses two major challenges in the field: efficiency and cost. By designing advanced catalysts and electrode materials, his team aims to improve energy conversion—from solar water splitting to hydrogen production—and storage capacities in batteries, making renewable technologies more practical and economically competitive.

When the Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies launched the first design studios in partner universities across Africa during Phase 1 of the NEST360 initiative, the vision was clear: create sustainable, university-based ecosystems that empower students to design, prototype and commercialize lifesaving technologies inspired by real needs in their own communities. Today, that vision is thriving, powered by a growing network of design studios modeled after Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen (OEDK) and by a collaborative, invention education approach that is transforming engineering training and strengthening innovation capacity across Africa.

An international collaborative research team, including researchers from the Faculty of Frontier Engineering at Kanazawa University, has for the first time elucidated sex differences in motor unit firing patterns in patients with Parkinson's disease. Utilizing high-density surface electromyography (HD-SEMG), their detailed analysis of motor unit activity revealed that female patients exhibited significantly greater asymmetry in motor unit discharge rates and lower persistent inward currents (PICs) compared to males. These findings suggest that neurodegeneration may be more asymmetrical in females, even when presenting with similar motor symptoms. This study indicates that motor unit behavior can serve as a sensitive evaluation tool to highlight differences in disease presentation between sexes, potentially leading to the development of personalized treatment strategies that consider sex-specific factors in the future.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) and Heriot-Watt University (HWU) have launched a pioneering master’s programme, offering one of the most streamlined and globally accessible routes to becoming a Chartered Accountant (CA).

With the rise of cryptocurrency transactions, merchants are prioritising security due to vulnerabilities in online transaction systems. Prof. Daniel Xiapu LUO, Associate Dean (Research) of Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences and Professor of the Department of Computing at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and his research team identified three double-spending attacks exploiting the rollback merchanisms. Their findings, reported to Arbitrum and Optimism, earned them a USD500K bug bounty for enhancing blockchain security. The corresponding paper was honored with the Distinguished Paper Award at ACM CCS 2024, a premier conference in cybersecurity. Subsequently, it earned the Best Practical Paper of Cybersecurity Award in 2025.