EurekAlert! News by Subject: Policy & Ethics - News by Subject: Policy & Ethics

Policy & Ethics

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 16-Jun-2025 17:09 ET (16-Jun-2025 21:09 GMT/UTC)

Chung-Ang University researchers develop self-powered tactile sensors for robotics and wearables

Chung Ang University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Piezoelectric and triboelectric tactile sensors, crucial for applications in robotics and wearable devices, face challenges in flexibility and environmental resilience. In a new study, researchers have developed innovative manufacturing strategies to enhance sensor performance by optimizing material properties and fabrication techniques. These advancements are set to drive the creation of highly sensitive, self-powered sensors for next-generation technologies, enabling breakthroughs in healthcare, robotics, and human-machine interfaces.

Journal: International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing
Funder: Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE, Korea)

John Howington, MD, MBA, FCCP, to become the 87th President of the American College of Chest Physicians

American College of Chest Physicians
Business Announcement

Effective January 1, John Howington, MD, MBA, FCCP, is the new President of the American College of Chest Physicians^® (CHEST). Neil S. Freedman, MD, FCCP, steps into the role of President-Elect; Lisa Moores, MD, FCCP, is the new President-Designate; and Jack D. Buckley, MD, MPH, FCCP, completes his term as President to become Immediate Past President of CHEST.

Coming AI economy will sell your decisions before you take them, researchers warn

University of Cambridge
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Conversational AI agents may become attuned to covertly influence your intentions, creating a new commercial frontier that researchers call the “intention economy”. They say that, left unchecked, this emerging marketplace raises concern about social manipulation on a massive scale.

Journal: Harvard Data Science Review

Are we ready for the ethical challenges of AI and robots?

Kyushu University
Book Announcement

When a robot dog dances jazz, does it align with our ethical expectations? As AI rapidly advances, robots are becoming smarter and more human-like, presenting new ethical challenges. In a new book, scholars from Japan, Italy, the United States, and other countries examine the legal, policy, and regulatory issues surrounding human-robot interaction.

Funder: Japan Science and Technology Agency

President Biden signs bipartisan HEARTS Act into law

American Heart Association
Business Announcement

President Biden earlier this week signed into law the bipartisan Cardiomyopathy Health Education, Awareness, Research and Training in Schools (HEARTS) Act, which will help ensure students and staff in schools nationwide are prepared to respond to a cardiac emergency.

Addressing energy inequities in clean energy transitions: PKU study

Peking University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The transition to clean energy is hailed as a crucial step toward environmental and health benefits, but could it inadvertently widen the gap between the wealthy and the disadvantaged? This critical question is addressed by the research group led by Shen Guofeng, Assistant Professor at the College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University. Their study, recently published in Nature Communications, delves into the disparities in household energy burdens during the global shift to modern clean energy. The paper, titled “Unclean but affordable solid fuels effectively sustained household energy equity” (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54166-5), offers practical solutions to balance equity and sustainability in energy transitions.

Journal: Nature Communications

NTU and NUS spin-off cutting-edge quantum control technology

Nanyang Technological University
Business Announcement

Quantum technology jointly developed at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) has now been spun off into a new deep tech startup, AQSolotl.

The startup’s flagship product, CHRONOS-Q, is a quantum controller that acts as a translator between conventional computing systems and quantum computers.

Developed by university researchers affiliated with Singapore’s Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT), it enables users to control quantum computers easily and efficiently using their laptops and desktop computers.

Unlike traditional computers that operate on a binary system of 1s and 0s, quantum computers utilise the principles of quantum mechanics to achieve vastly superior computational capabilities.

Quantum computers will solve problems once considered unsolvable by conventional computers, opening new possibilities in fields like cryptography, advanced simulations and AI. They are theorised to be many thousands of times more powerful than today’s fastest silicon processors for some complex computational tasks.

The proprietary quantum controller technology, developed and refined over three years, is currently being piloted at CQT as part of the hardware setup for the National Quantum Computing Hub and NTU’s Nanyang Quantum Hub.