Humanoid robotics, robotic prosthetics, genomics and RNA technologies, nanomedicine, and advanced microscopy were the key themes presented today at the Italy Pavilion at the EXPO 2025 Osaka in Japan during the workshop "Health Technologies: How Science is Transforming Healthcare" organized by the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) during the health week and moderated by the science journalist Akihiko Mori. The event brought together IIT scientists and experts from Italian and Japanese research institutes and companies with whom IIT collaborates on future medical technologies, including Nikon Instruments, RIKEN, Kanazawa University and Bracco. The workshop began with opening remarks from Mario Andrea Vattani, Italy's Commissioner General for Expo 2025 Osaka. This was followed by a discussion on the future of humanoid robotics in an aging society, featuring IIT Scientific Director Giorgio Metta and Hiroshi Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University and the creator of one of the Expo's three thematic areas.

Stronger than steel and lighter than aluminum, carbon fiber is a staple in aerospace and high-performance vehicles — and now, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found a way to make it even stronger. Using the Frontier supercomputer, they simulated 5 million atoms to study a novel process for making carbon fiber composites stronger and more cost efficient by incorporating a reinforced layer of polyacrylonitrile nanofibers, or PAN fibers. The research could lead to new ultra-durable materials for airplanes, electric vehicles, and a wide range of manufacturing applications that require stronger, more lightweight materials.

NHCS has successfully performed Southeast Asia’s first PASCAL transcatheter valve repair (also known as transcatheter edge-to-edge repair), offering new hope to patients with moderate-to-severe and severe mitral regurgitation who were previously considered too high-risk for conventional surgical repair or valve replacement.  

We often hear about the power of virtual reality (VR) to revolutionize healthcare, education, immersive training, and entertainment, but there's a hidden challenge standing in the way: imbalance. 

A team at the University of Cambridge is helping to drive biological discovery through innovation in microscope technologies. Dr Lisa-Maria Needham, who leads the University’s Microscopy Bioscience Platform, said: “We’re in a unique position here in Cambridge of being surrounded by amazing biological research. The thing I love most about developing new microscopes is collaborating with the biologists to create technology with real-world applications in mind. We’re developing microscopes that don’t exist anywhere in the world.”

She added: “Technical staff are often not as highly regarded as researchers, but we’re all scientists. I have an amazing, intelligent, creative team of people who love tech and they’re enabling science that wouldn’t otherwise happen.”

“I believe advances in technology go hand in hand with biological discovery. Scientists get to a certain point in their research where they know there’s something going on, but nothing exists to help them see it. That’s driving technological innovation.”

These images show some of the groundbreaking research supported by Needham’s team.

The Microsoft "AI for Good" program announced StockSmart and it's developers as 2025 winners. The award includes Microsoft Azure cloud computing credits and the opportunity to work with scientists from the AI for Good Lab, which will enable the winning team of researchers from Washington State University, the University of Arizona, and the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station to further develop and enhance StockSmart for ranchers, range specialists, and others who use it.  

Quality sleep isn't just a nightly recharge—it's a proven way to lower your cancer risk. People who get enough restful sleep are much less likely to develop cancer, while those with poor or disrupted sleep face higher risks. Making sleep a priority is one of the simplest steps you can take to protect your long-term health.

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) the Advanced ICT Research Institute, ASTRODESIGN, Inc. , and Fujikura Ltd. have developed a multi-core fiber cable consisting of eight 4-core, standard cladding diameter multi-core fibers, and they have successfully implemented it for the first time as an ultrahigh-capacity data transmission unit in a real system handling uncompressed 8K video.

In an uncompressed 8K video system, approximately 70 Gbps of data must be transmitted per video stream, requiring one single-core single-mode fiber for each uncompressed 8K camera. The developed multi-core fiber cable contains a total of eight standard cladding diameter (125 μm) single-mode 4-core multi-core fibers of two different types within a 3 mm diameter cable, which is equivalent to the 32 single-core single-mode fibers that are conventionally used in uncompressed 8K video systems.

In this implementation, by introducing a transmission unit that utilizes the multi-core fiber cable, we successfully achieved stable system operation by transmitting high-volume video data from multiple 8K cameras installed in a cleanroom, through limited-capacity information conduits and building interior spaces, over 300 m to an 8K video composition device located in a separate building.

This achievement enables the deployment of systems requiring high-capacity data transmission, such as uncompressed 8K video systems, even in cases in which conventional installation was difficult owing to limited space in information conduits or wiring pathways within or between buildings.