A review paper by scientists at the University of Oxford highlights recent advancements in SMTE, including innovations in scaffold design, cell sourcing, usage of external physicochemical cues, and bioreactor technologies.

The review paper, published on May. 15, 2025 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, presented the emerging synergies between SMTE and robotics, focusing on the use of robotic systems to enhance bioreactor performance and the development of biohybrid devices integrating engineered muscle tissue.

A research paper by scientists at Duke University proposed a novel sharp-edge acoustofluidic platform designed for rapid and effective sample preparation, coupled with sensitive detection of specific sEV populations based on their surface markers.

The new research paper, published on July. 17 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems, presented an acoustofluidic technology which enables highly flexible, specific, and efficient capture and detection of circulating extracellular vesicles (sEVs) from small sample volumes. Its portability, low cost, and ease of use make it an ideal tool for point-of-care detection of sEV surface markers, while its modular design allows for one-step, high-throughput capture and detection of diverse sEV populations

The dairy industry has been plagued by a persistent global problem for decades – bacterial infection of cow udders that significantly reduces milk production. Antibiotics have been used to treat the infection, called bovine mastitis, but there is rising antibiotic resistance and concerns around milk contamination from antibiotic residues. Now, a team of international researchers has developed alternatives to antibiotics that prevent infection through a novel mechanism they discovered. These alternatives have attracted interest from several agricultural companies in Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and New Zealand seeking substitutes that are safer and more environmentally friendly than existing compounds in preventing bovine mastitis. The scientists were led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), in collaboration with the Antimicrobial Resistance Interdisciplinary Research Group at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) research enterprise in Singapore.

Light bulbs come in many shapes and styles: globes, twists, flame-like candle tips and long tubes. But there aren’t many thin options. Now, researchers report in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces that they have created a paper-thin LED that gives off a warm, sun-like glow. The LEDs could light up the next generation of phone and computer screens and other light sources while helping users avoid disruptions to their sleep patterns.

Recently, a research team led by Professor Wenfeng Cong from China Agricultural University, in collaboration with Dr. Wopke van der Werf from Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, revealed the changing trends of dietary zinc intake among Chinese adults and the underlying reasons by analyzing data from China Health and Nutrition Surveys conducted between 2004 and 2011. The study covered 21,266 adults aged 18–50 from 9 provinces and 3 municipalities directly under the central government in China. The results showed that from 2004 to 2011, the average daily zinc intake of Chinese adults decreased from 11.1 to 9.89 mg, and the proportion of people with insufficient intake increased from 23% to 37%, a growth of more than 60%. Notably, this trend was prevalent across different income groups—although the zinc intake of high-income groups was consistently higher than that of low-income groups, zinc intake in all income strata showed a downward trend. The related paper has been published in Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering (DOI: 10.15302/J-FASE-2024584).

Thermal superinsulation, arising from nanoporous aerogels with pore sizes < 70 nm, involves ultralow heat conduction with a thermal conductivity lower than that of stationary air (24 mW·m⁻¹·K⁻¹). Ultra-flexibility, on the basis of nanofibrous aerogels, demonstrates remarkable flexibility with a compressive strain of approximately 90%, fracture strain of approximately 10% and bending angel of approximately 100%. In Science Bulletin, researchers from Harbin Institute of Technology now fabricate a ceramic aerogel with a unitary core–sheath fiber architecture based on microstructural design, which achieves superior thermal insulation (21.96 mW·m⁻¹·K⁻¹) while retaining nanofiber flexibility (compressive strain of 80% and a bending angle of 100%).