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.

Studies from the Asian Institute of Technology show how smart design can slash emissions, cut energy costs, and boost renewable power.

From Thailand's textile plants to open waste burning across the region, five studies reveal how discarded resources and hidden pollutants threaten health and ecosystems - and the technologies that can help turn the tide.

While there has been remarkable progress in the number of people surviving with stage 4 cancer, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center remains dedicated to research that will spur much needed advances.

A new study published in Big Earth Data demonstrates that integrating Twitter data with deep learning techniques can significantly improve traffic event detection. By combining semantic, spatial, and temporal features of tweets in a transformer-based multi-feature fusion framework, researchers were able to classify traffic incidents more accurately and identify patterns in real-time. The approach achieved up to 7.93% improvement in accuracy for distinguishing traffic incidents from non-traffic content and 6.09% improvement across three traffic-related categories. These findings highlight the potential of social media as a timely, low-cost source of traffic information for faster response and improved transportation management.

The pain management teams at the LKS Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) and Queen Mary Hospital (QMH) have introduced percutaneous balloon compression (PBC) as a novel treatment option for patients suffering from debilitating chronic facial pain. The teams began performing this sophisticated neuroablative procedure in 2024, and so far, 40 patients have benefitted from this powerful and durable treatment.