The University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering’s IDEA Lab has collaborated with startup Silly Surfacing and Innovation Works’ Robotics Factory to develop and successfully demonstrated the technology for a pothole-filling robot.

Researchers identify a brain circuit that normally supports flexible behavior, but is recruited by cocaine to drive increasingly rigid and repetitive behavior.  The findings show that shifting the balance between opposing neural pathways can either promote behavioral rigidity or, conversely, rapidly interrupt cocaine driven repetitive behavior and restore a broader range of actions, offering new insight into the brain mechanisms underlying compulsive and stereotyped behavior.

Electroluminescent quantum efficiency is commonly used to determine the efficiency of solar cells. The value is directly related to the cell’s voltage; the higher the luminescent quantum efficiency, the better the solar cell. In The Journal of Applied Physics, by AIP Publishing, researchers in Germany modified a commercially available camera for something usually done in the lab: measuring the electroluminescence of solar cells. The researchers plan to expand the camera’s capabilities in future work, keeping an emphasis on using commercially available technology.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute researcher Solomon Mensah has been awarded a three-year grant of $532,935 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide research experiences to undergraduates who will work on projects determining how sepsis, a life-threatening infection, can trigger severe blood clotting.

With the widespread application of space traveling wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs) as core final-stage amplification devices in satellite communication systems, their operational reliability directly affects satellite signal transmission capability, and any failure may even lead to service interruption. Currently, fault statistics for space TWTAs are recorded in text form, encompassing a large number of fault phenomena, causes, and corresponding solutions. However, as the volume of fault events continues to grow, traditional analysis methods relying on manual statistics and empirical judgment suffer from low efficiency and lack of knowledge reasoning capabilities, making it difficult to comprehensively analyze multi-dimensional fault information. Although artificial intelligence technologies, particularly knowledge graphs (KGs) and large language models (LLMs), have demonstrated substantial potential in fault diagnosis, research on effectively integrating these two approaches and applying them to the specific fault diagnosis of space TWTAs remains unexplored. Therefore, how to construct an intelligent diagnosis framework capable of automatically understanding natural language fault descriptions and performing knowledge reasoning has become a key challenge in improving the troubleshooting efficiency and decision support capabilities for space TWTAs.

During the production of fermented products such as kefir, Parmesan, or mountain cheese, as well as in the production of protein powders, bitter-tasting peptides can form, which impair the taste and thus the acceptability of the products. A research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich has now developed and successfully tested an AI-based method that can predict the bitterness of peptides. It also makes it possible to design new, bitter-tasting peptides from scratch. This is another important step forward in taste and food research.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo have developed SYNAPSE (Synchronized Neural and Auditory Pupillometry for Sensory Evaluation), a multimodal assessment platform that objectively evaluates hearing-related disorders by combining synchronized EEG brain-activity recordings with pupil-response monitoring. The system uses around-the-ear electrodes, infrared eye tracking, and standardized auditory tests to measure responses linked to tinnitus, hyperacusis, misophonia, and related sound-tolerance disorders. By integrating physiological biomarkers rather than relying solely on patient self-reports, SYNAPSE may improve diagnostic accuracy and treatment monitoring. The patent-pending technology has been implemented in human participant studies, reached TRL 6 development, and is available for licensing or collaboration. SYNAPSE could expand access to more objective and reliable assessment of auditory disorders, particularly for individuals who have difficulty describing symptoms. Improved diagnosis and treatment monitoring may lead to better clinical care, enhanced patient outcomes, and new insights into the biological mechanisms underlying sound-sensitivity conditions.