The SETI Institute will recognize Dr. Joseph Twicken, Senior Data Scientist at the SETI Institute, with its 2025 Carl Sagan Center (CSC) Director’s Award. Now serving as the Lead Data Scientist in the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) Science Processing Center, Twicken’s contributions to the Kepler Mission included designing, implementing, operating, maintaining and documenting the mission’s Data Processing Pipeline. Kepler revolutionized exoplanet science, discovering and confirming nearly 3,000 exoplanets and fundamentally changing our understanding of planets beyond our solar system. SETI Institute to Honor Contributions to Exoplanet Research with its Carl Sagan Center Director’s Award CSC Director’s Award honors SETI Institute scientists for outstanding achievements in astrobiology, technology, and exploration of life in the universe. Beyond excellence in science, the awardees must demonstrate their commitment to mentoring and educating the next generation of scientists and sharing the excitement of exploration and discovery with the public. The SETI Institute’s Science Council peers select the recipient presented annually during the Drake Awards celebration.

Getting interrupted while at work can cause you to lose your ability to work quickly and effectively. A computer’s central processing unit (CPU) core is no different. Researchers in Purdue University’s Department of Computer Science have developed a new method that does not use polling, an often inefficient system that devotes an entire CPU to only checking and routing the traffic.

LOS ANGELES, April 23, 2025 — The Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) proudly announces that its Director and CEO, Dr. Ali Khademhosseini, has received the 2025 Materials Research Society (MRS) Mid-Career Researcher Award. This prestigious honor recognizes exceptional achievements in materials research by mid-career professionals who have demonstrated notable leadership in the field.

In a breakthrough that blends ancient design with modern materials science, researchers at the University of Houston have developed a new class of ceramic structures that can bend under pressure — without breaking.

The invention is a metamaterial, which is a material engineered to feature new and unusual properties that depend on the material’s physical structure rather than its chemical composition. In this case, the researchers built their metamaterial using a combination of simple plastics and custom-made magnetic composites. Using a magnetic field, the researchers changed the metamaterial’s structure, causing it to expand, move and deform in different directions, all remotely without touching the metamaterial.