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Tech & Engineering

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 7-Apr-2026 10:16 ET (7-Apr-2026 14:16 GMT/UTC)

How Chicago robot tutors are teaching SEL effectively–without pretending to be human

University of Chicago
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Chicago researchers, teachers, and curriculum leaders partnered to test if robots need fictional personalities to boost students’ social-emotional learning. Their results show that honest, factual robots can effectively supplement classroom instruction—challenging conventions and illuminating a new, ethical path for educational technology. The study was honored with the Best Paper Award at the prestigious 2026 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction.

Earthquake scientists reveal how overplowing weakens soil at experimental farm

University of Washington
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a new study, University of Washington researchers examine the impact of tilling on soil moisture and water retention using methods designed for monitoring earthquakes. They show that tilling disrupts important soil microstructures and highlight the potential utility of this method for precision agriculture and more.

Journal: Science

Fiber-optic sensors reveal how farming destroys soil's natural structure

Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Soil is often perceived simply as "dirt," but in reality, it is a dynamic, living system that acts as the Earth's natural sponge. Unfortunately, common agricultural practices—including deep plowing and the use of heavy machinery—can severely disrupt this natural system, according to a new study led by Dr. SHI Qibin from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with international partners.

Journal: Science

Plants that light up when they’re under attack

Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Medical Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists have developed the first autoluminescent plants that visibly light up when their immune systems are activated, providing a powerful non-invasive tool for studying how plants respond to pests, pathogens and environmental stress. The work, led by teams at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS), Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences and a biotech startup Planta, is published in Nature Communications.

Funder: Medical Research Council

Generative AI improves a wireless vision system that sees through obstructions

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Reports and Proceedings

Wave-Former is a new system that can complete the shape of a hidden 3D object or reconstruct the scene of an entire interior room using reflected wireless signals.

Funder: MIT Media Lab, Amazon

AI and satellite data expose carbon hotspots in China’s paper industry

Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

China's pulp and paper industry is one of the world's largest industrial paper systems, but its true carbon footprint has long been blurred by national and provincial averages.

Journal: Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

Light trapped in a layer thousands of times thinner than a sheet of paper

University of Warsaw, Faculty of Physics
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, in collaboration with research groups from the Łódź University of Technology, the Warsaw University of Technology, and the Polish Academy of Sciences, have developed a structure that traps infrared light in a layer just 40 nanometers thick. To achieve this, they created a structure called a subwavelength grating using a special material – molybdenum diselenide (MoSe₂). They published their results in the prestigious journal “ACS Nano”.

Journal: ACS Nano
Funder: the National Science Centre, Poland (OPUS projects), the Foundation for Polish Science, University of Warsaw under the Excellence Initiative – Research University (IDUB), European Union, ERC-ADVANCED