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Tech & Engineering

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 20-Aug-2025 09:09 ET (20-Aug-2025 13:09 GMT/UTC)

Towards a fully automated approach for assessing English proficiency

Doshisha University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

While elicited imitation (EI) tests can effectively measure language proficiency by having learners repeat complex sentences, they require time-consuming human scoring. Now, researchers from Japan have developed a fully automated system by combining EI for speech recognition with a computational scoring metric. Their study showed that the automated system produced nearly identical overall scores to human raters, suggesting that this approach could enable efficient, large-scale language assessment and potentially transform educational practices.

Journal: Research Methods in Applied Linguistics

KIST develops full-color-emitting upconversion nanoparticle technology for color displays with ultra-high color reproducibility

National Research Council of Science & Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Dr. Ho Seong Jang and colleagues at the Extreme Materials Research Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) have developed an upconversion nanoparticle technology that introduces a core@multi-shell nanostructure, a multilayer structure in which multiple layers of shells surround a central core particle, and enables high color purity RGB light emission from a single nanoparticle by adjusting the infrared wavelength.

Journal: Advanced Functional Materials
Funder: Ministry of Science and ICT

A*STAR IMCB celebrates 40 years of biomedical innovation and impact

Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore
Business Announcement

SINGAPORE – 10 April 2025 – The A*STAR Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (A*STAR IMCB), a pioneering biomedical research institute under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), marked its 40th anniversary today with a gala dinner graced by Guest-of-Honour Dr Tan See Leng, Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Trade and Industry. The celebration underscored the institute’s four decades of scientific breakthroughs and its continuing role in shaping Singapore’s biomedical innovation landscape.

Recent technology advancements in large-scale DNA assembly

Higher Education Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The work provides a comparative evaluation of the characteristics of various large DNA fragment assembly strategies used in different host cells, focusing on their limitations, time requirements, and the respective advantages and disadvantages of each approach.

Journal: Quantitative Biology

Missing nitrogen: a dramatic game of cosmic hide-and-seek deep within our planet

Ehime University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Earth’s rocky layers are mysteriously low in nitrogen compared with carbon and argon. A scientific team explored our planet’s molten youth using advanced quantum mechanical simulations, revealing nitrogen’s secret: under extreme pressure, it chose to hide in the iron core 100 times more than the mantle. This solved why Earth’s volatile ratios involving nitrogen look odd. The findings suggest the necessary ingredients for developing a habitable world may have been settled in the early Earth.

Journal: Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Funder: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

New projections reveal more extreme erosion on O’ahu’s shores

University of Hawaii at Manoa
Peer-Reviewed Publication

O‘ahu’s sandy beaches are at risk. New research from the Coastal Research Collaborative (CRC) at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa determined that 81% of O‘ahu’s coastline could experience erosion by 2100, with 40% of this loss happening by 2030. Importantly, these forecasts of shoreline erosion are more extreme than previous studies indicated for Oʻahu.

Journal: Scientific Reports
Funder: Office of Naval Research

Los Angeles Rams add lifesavers to the chain of survival in 22 schools

American Heart Association
Business Announcement

The American Heart Association and the Los Angeles Rams provided CPR training and education to improve cardiac emergency outcomes