When a swat team trains multiple times a week, running repeated live-fire drills, the noise can be intense. Even with premium hearing protection, the sound and pressure can damage hearing over time, contributing to traumatic brain injuries for officers and disorienting civilians nearby. If only there were a way to curb that danger.

Those kinds of problems are exactly what the New Mexico Small Business Assistance program has helped tackle for 25 years with support from Sandia National Laboratories and, since 2007, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The program, created in the year 2000 helps small businesses solve critical challenges by providing technical assistance and expertise that they don’t have access to anywhere else, at no cost to them.

This year, two of the businesses Sandia helped aim to make the nation safer with their products: Ridgeline Engineering and Manufacturing, which is working to reduce hearing damage from firearms, and Aperi Computational Mechanics Consulting, which is making critical engineering simulations faster and more affordable.

Energy systems face complicated, long-term challenges with a high degree of uncertainty – and every country’s is different. To explore these challenges and support decision-making, the STEM energy systems model from the Energy Economics Group at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI has become an essential tool for guiding the energy transition in Switzerland.

The lifelong effects of rare blood disorder diagnoses in childhood are being analysed in a first-of-its-kind study led by the University of Leeds. 

This year ESE will mark twenty years as the voice for endocrinology in Europe and beyond, through various activities many of which will take place at the European Congress of Endocrinology (ECE) in Prague, Czech Republic, in May this year. These include a special celebration during the Welcome Reception, and an exciting symposium centred around endocrinology over the past 20 years and the future ahead of us, with several keynote speakers highlighting major breakthroughs in the field of endocrinology. A digital booklet about ‘A History of ESE – the first 20 Years and looking forward to the next 20’ will be launched at the Congress, authored by many past Presidents and key facilitators in the formation of the Society in 2004-2006.

From text generation in academic settings to the ethical challenges of using artificial intelligence in the publishing industry: Professor Christoph Bläsi takes a comprehensive look at AI in book studies – and far beyond. Since 2019, he has been one of three spokespersons for the KI@JGU network.

A Bird Sonic system that emits high-frequency sound to deter birds and reduce aircraft bird strikes was installed at Izumo Airport in Shimane Prefecture on November 18. Izumo Airport had recorded the highest bird-strike rate in Japan among major domestic airports in 2023, but incidents have reportedly been almost eliminated since installation. Developed by automotive parts manufacturer T.M. WORKS and evaluated by Okayama University of Science, the system provides wide-area coverage while minimizing environmental impact. The successful deployment at Izumo Airport, located adjacent to the ecologically sensitive Lake Shinji, demonstrates the potential of Bird Sonic to enhance aviation safety without disrupting local ecosystems.