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Tech & Engineering

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 2-Apr-2026 20:15 ET (3-Apr-2026 00:15 GMT/UTC)

3-Dec-2025

Death may suggest we belong to a broader whole

Kyoto, Japan -- Shisei Tei claims he is clumsy with technology and doesn't even own a smartphone, yet he has found himself thinking a lot about what we call generative AI.

Tei is cautious rather than optimistic about AI. As a researcher, he uses it to help with analyzing psychiatric data, and outside work it helps him plan personalized hikes. But Tei is concerned that AI will change how we think about death, which he discusses in a chapter he wrote for the book SecondDeath: Experiences of Death Across Technologies.

"Today, I often see how AI reframes grief and remembrance," says Tei. Though he thinks mental health chatbots have the potential to lower barriers to care, maladaptive use of chatbots that reconstruct deceased individuals can distort our perceptions of death and existence.

Funder: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development

3-Dec-2025

Terrestrial biodiversity grows with tree cover in agricultural landscapes

University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Farmers plant or preserve riparian buffers for various reasons, such as improving water quality, controlling erosion, or maintaining hunting habitat. Now, a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign underscores the benefits of riparian buffers to terrestrial biodiversity, finding that for every 10% increase in forest cover, an additional species is present.

Journal: Journal of Applied Ecology
Funder: National Institute of Food and Agriculture

3-Dec-2025

A new era beyond gas refrigerants-opening the door to high-efficiency cooling technology

National Research Council of Science & Technology

A research team led by Dr. Jong-Woo Kim from the Nano Materials Research Division and Dr. Da-Seul Shin from the Materials Processing Research Division at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) has successfully developed Korea’s first full-cycle magnetic cooling technology, encompassing materials, components, and modules. This breakthrough is expected to address the environmental issues associated with conventional gas-based refrigeration technologies and pave the way for eco-friendly, high-efficiency alternative cooling solutions to enter the market.

Journal: Rare Metals
Funder: Ministry of Science and ICT

2-Dec-2025

Success in measuring nano droplets, a new breakthrough in hydrogen, semiconductor, and battery research

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In hydrogen production catalysts, water droplets must detach easily from the surface to prevent blockage by bubbles, allowing for faster hydrogen generation. In semiconductor manufacturing, the quality of the process is determined by how evenly water or liquid spreads on the surface, or how quickly it dries. However, directly observing how such water or liquid spreads and moves on a surface ('wettability') at the nanoscale has been technically almost impossible until now, forcing researchers to rely mostly on conjecture. KAIST announced on December 2nd that a research team led by Professor Seungbum Hong of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Jongwoo Lim's team at Seoul National University, has developed a technology to directly observe nano-sized water droplets in real-time using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and to calculate the contact angle based on the droplet's shape. This research, by enabling the visual confirmation of the actual shape of nano-droplets, allows for the precise analysis of how well water droplets adhere to and detach from a surface. This is expected to be immediately applicable to various advanced technologies where liquid movement determines performance, such as hydrogen production catalysts, fuel cells, batteries, and semiconductor processes.

Funder: Ministry of Science and ICT, National Research Foundation of Korea

2-Dec-2025

New hierarchical blockchain framework enables credible, automated dynamic spectrum sharing for 6G networks

ELSP
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers have introduced a new blockchain-enabled framework that could significantly advance dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) in future 6G wireless networks, addressing long-standing challenges in latency, security, and high-density spectrum coordination. Published in Blockchain, this work presents HierSpectrumChain, a hierarchical blockchain architecture that integrates smart-contract–driven Stackelberg auctions to coordinate spectrum access efficiently and securely among diverse wireless users.

Journal: Blockchain

2-Dec-2025

Flood risks in delta cities are increasing, study finds

University of East Anglia
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research finds that a combination of extreme climate events, sea-level rise and land subsidence could create larger and deeper floods in coastal cities in future.

The study focused on Shanghai in China, which is threatened with flooding by large and strong typhoons, or tropical storms, producing storm surges and waves. To avoid disaster a major adaptation effort is required - which will almost certainly include raising defences and constructing mobile flood barriers, like those seen at the Thames Barrier in London. However, the team warn there is also the risk of “catastrophic failure” of defences due to rising water levels, especially due to the combination of subsidence, sea-level rise and higher surges during typhoons, as occurred in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Journal: One Earth

2-Dec-2025

New strategic support for UK clean industry with £2 million funding boost

Heriot-Watt University
Business Announcement

A mathematician who has helped transform our understanding of population genetics, one of the most eminent chemical engineers in China, and leading international innovators in biotechnology and retail marketing have been awarded Honorary Degrees from Heriot-Watt University as part of its 2025 winter graduation programme.