With the rapid rise of emerging technologies such as AI, high-performance computing (HPC) and 5G, demand for improved chip performance and reliability continues to grow. A research team from City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) has been awarded funding under the “RAISe+ Scheme” to address the complex metallisation challenges in the packaging of 3D integrated circuit (3DIC) semiconductor chips. This groundbreaking research leverages patented chemical additives in the copper electroplating process, ensuring chip performance by achieving more stable connections in stacked chips. The team plans to build an automated intelligent manufacturing line by 2026.

CSHL postdoc Miguel Santo Domingo Martinez and colleagues in the Lippman lab have used CRISPR gene editing to produce more compact goldenberry crops, making them easier to grow and harvest. The development could help bring this tasty fruit to farms and grocery stores around the globe.

Hypertrophic chondrocytes are deeply involved in the growth of mammalian bones. Researchers find that these cells transform into multiple functional cell types, including those responsible for lengthening bones, maintaining the periosteum, and promoting the invasion of blood vessels that supply newly formed bone. Thrombospondin-4, a key signaling molecule produced by these cells, drives blood vessel formation. These findings open new avenues for enhancing bone repair and healing injured bones.

Lithium is a strategically very important mineral in the present decade. Latin American countries, with their abundant resources, have taken divergent paths in terms of governance strategies. In a recent study, a researcher from Jeonbuk National University has proposed a two-stage decision-making framework to explain this trend, providing a useful starting point for examining how states navigate the interplay between external pressures and domestic structural constraints in governing lithium industries.

A new study finds just 6% of clinical trials used to approve new drugs in the U.S. reflect the country’s racial and ethnic makeup, with an increasing trend of trials underrepresenting Black and Hispanic individuals.

Researchers have found a way to control protein levels inside different tissues of a whole, living animal for the first time. The technological advance works while a nematode worm continues to live normally: eating, moving and growing as the system quietly adjusts protein levels inside the tissues of its body. The study paves the way for designing completely new experiments that were impossible to carry out with current techniques and unravel the molecular underpinnings of whole-body processes like ageing.