University of Houston engineering professor Venkat Selvamanickam has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional honors awarded to engineers worldwide.

The University of Tennessee and United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) have strengthened their 10-year formal partnership of developing highly skilled workers for nuclear and environmental cleanup work with an expanded Memorandum of Understanding focused on the increased importance of nuclear and criticality safety career opportunities at Department of Energy operations across the United States.

New archaeological evidence reveals that seabird guano – nutrient-rich bird droppings – was not only essential to boosting corn yields and supercharging agriculture in ancient Peru but may have been a driving force behind the rise of the Chincha Kingdom as one of the most prosperous and influential pre‑Inca societies. 

A male fruit fly in a laboratory chamber extends his wings and vibrates them to produce his species' version of a love song. A female fly stays nearby listening. Suddenly, a green light flashes across the chamber for a fraction of a second. The male's song cuts off mid-note and his wings fold. The female, not impressed by the interrupted serenade, walks away. The culprit? An AI system that watched the male begin his courtship dance and shut down his song-producing brain cells. Developed by scientists at Nagoya University and their collaborators from Osaka University and Tohoku University, the AI can watch and recognize animal behaviors and control the specific brain circuits that drive them. Published in Science Advances, the study presents an advanced AI system that can identify which animal performs a behavior in a group and selectively target only that animal’s brain cells during social interactions. 

Xingjie Ni, associate professor of electrical engineering at Penn State, and his team recently developed a new device that can accelerate and dramatically reduce the energy cost of AI computation, which they detailed in a paper published in Science Advances. Their system routes light through an “infinity mirror” like loop of tiny optical elements, encoding data directly into the beams of light and capturing the resulting light patterns with a microscopic camera.

Scientists designed vaccines to treat HPV-positive head and neck cancer. All vaccines had the same ingredients but different, strategically designed structures. One vaccine vastly outperformed the others, showing that vaccine design depends on structure as well as medicinal components.

A drone developed by scientists from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, equipped with low‑cost air quality sensors, has revealed unexpectedly high concentrations of particulate matter at around 100 metres above ground level in Delhi. These new vertical insights could play an important role in urban haze understanding and mitigation.A drone equipped with low‑cost air quality sensors has revealed unexpectedly high concentrations of particulate matter at around 100 metres above ground level in Delhi. These new vertical insights could play an important role in urban haze understanding and mitigation. 

The findings, published in Nature npj Clean Air, demonstrate the feasibility of measuring air pollution up to 100 metres using an affordable, custom-built drone platform.