Every three seconds, one life is lost to sepsis, according to the Global Sepsis Alliance. It is a life-threatening, dysregulated immune response to infection and remains a leading cause of death worldwide. Most of these deaths are preventable with timely intervention.

Conventional culturing diagnostic methods are often slow and imprecise. The advancement of metagenomic and targeted next-generation sequencing (mNGS and tNGS) now provides rapid precision diagnostics, enabling earlier treatment.

In a collaboration showing the power of innovation and teamwork, physicists and engineers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed a mobile muon detector that promises to enhance monitoring for spent nuclear fuel and help address a critical challenge for quantum computing.

For more than 30 years, the Naval Postgraduate School’s (NPS) Fleet Satellite Communications System (FLTSATCOM) lab has advanced student knowledge in satellite design, engineering and operations. Once a vanguard of the institution’s spacecraft design and engineering education and research programs, the ground test - or qualification - model identical to FLTSATCOM satellites launched decades ago to support advanced U.S. Navy ultrahigh frequency (UHF) communications, executed its final telemetry student exercise, Aug. 25. Long overdue renovations to the school’s Halligan Hall will soon displace the satellite from its NPS home.

Mathematicians have developed a new method called the Maximum Agreement Linear Predictor (MALP), designed to improve predictions by ensuring they have the highest possible agreement with actual outcomes. Unlike traditional methods that focus on minimizing average error, MALP optimizes the Concordance Correlation Coefficient (CCC), a measure that assesses how closely predicted values align with actual values on a 45-degree line. Tested using real-world data from eye scans and body fat measurements, MALP consistently produced predictions that matched actual values more closely than the conventional least-squares approach. This makes MALP a valuable new tool for scientists in fields like medicine and social sciences, especially when the goal is not just to be close, but to achieve strong alignment with the truth.

Stanton McHardy, director of the Center for Innovative Drug Discovery (CIDD) and professor of chemistry, is contributing to three groundbreaking research programs aimed at developing safe, non-opioid medications for managing pain.

For many in Texas, opioids are a common prescription for pain relief, but these powerful drugs carry significant risks, including addiction and overdose. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), Texas’s drug poisoning deaths, which are largely attributed to opioid overdoses, have increased by more than 75% in the past five years.

Universidad Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M), through its Department of Mechanical Engineering and in collaboration with the organizing entity MADCUP, took part in the national final of the educational competition Stem Racing Spain supported by Formula 1®, formerly known as F1® in Schools.

A professor from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is part of the scientific team that has identified a potential sign of early life on Mars.

The KIMM research team, led by Principal Researcher Dr. Jun Young Park at the Department of Energy Storage Systems, independently designed and manufactured a turbo expander and cold box, achieving Korea’s first successful air liquefaction test for energy storage. The system can produce up to 10 tons of liquid air per day, providing a foundation for future commercialization.

UCF's Dr. Marcy Verduin, associate dean of students and professor of psychiatry, helped create Always Ready for the Road Ahead, a two-part mental health guidance program she is providing to all 3,000 sworn and civilian employees of the Orange County Sheriff's Office.