EurekAlert! News by Subject: Tech & Engineering - News by Subject: Tech & Engineering

Tech & Engineering

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 21-Dec-2025 05:11 ET (21-Dec-2025 10:11 GMT/UTC)

Researchers uncover previously unexplored details of mosquito’s specialized detection mechanisms

University of California - San Diego
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers have captured unprecedented images of the mechanisms that allow mosquitoes, the world’s deadliest animal, to target our blood. The scientists used advanced imaging technology to assemble detailed visualizations of the neurons within hairs that mosquitoes use to detect us as blood hosts.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health, NIH/National Institutes of Health, Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation

Biochar’s hidden helper: Dissolved organic matter boosts lead removal from polluted water

Biochar Editorial Office, Shenyang Agricultural University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study reveals that a small but powerful component of biochar, known as dissolved organic matter, plays a surprisingly large role in capturing toxic lead from contaminated water. The research, published in Biochar, uncovers how this dissolved material enhances the metal-binding power of biochar and offers molecular-level insights that could guide safer and more effective cleanup strategies.

Journal: Biochar

Amid renewable-energy boom, study explores options for electricity market

Penn State
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Renewable energy sources like wind and solar generation now account for over 20% of electricity in the U.S. — and keep growing after large-scale production more than doubled since 2000. Still, high-profile power failures illustrate persistent challenges from the lack of available capacity to provide enough energy at times of need, said Chiara Lo Prete, an associate professor of energy economics in the John and Willie Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State.

Journal: Energy Economics
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

Capturing cancer cells from blood could help doctors choose the right breast cancer treatment

University of Michigan
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Doctors may be able to spare patients unnecessarily aggressive breast cancer treatments by collecting and testing cancer cells in patients' blood, research from the University of Michigan and the University of Kansas suggests.

Journal: Science Advances
Funder: U-M Forbes Institute for Cancer Discovery, Kansas University Cancer Center, Kansas Institute for Precision Medicine, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences's Clinical, Translational Science Awards Program.

Biosensor identifies protein linked to depression and schizophrenia in saliva

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Low-cost device quickly detects BDNF concentrations. Scientist at the University of São Paulo says the next step is to obtain a patent.

Journal: ACS Polymers Au
Funder: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

A new dimension for spin qubits in diamond

University of California - Santa Barbara
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The path toward realizing practical quantum technologies begins with understanding the fundamental physics that govern quantum behavior — and how those phenomena can be harnessed in real materials. In the lab of Ania Jayich, Bruker Endowed Chair in Science and Engineering, Elings Chair in Quantum Science, and co-director of UC Santa Barbara’s National Science Foundation Quantum Foundry, that material of choice is laboratory-grown diamond.

Journal: Nature

Kilimanjaro has lost 75 percent of its natural plant species over the last century

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study suggests that, between 1911 and 2022, land-use change was the primary direct cause of the loss of 75% of natural plant species on the lower slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. Andreas Hemp of the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on October 29, 2025.

Journal: PLOS One