Tech Xplore news

Tech Xplore / Energy and memory: A new neural network paradigm

Listen to the first notes of an old, beloved song. Can you name that tune? If you can, congratulations—it's a triumph of your associative memory, in which one piece of information (the first few notes) triggers the memory ...

May 14, 2025 in Machine learning & AI
Tech Xplore / Groups of AI agents spontaneously form their own social norms without human help, study suggests

A new study suggests that populations of artificial intelligence (AI) agents, similar to ChatGPT, can spontaneously develop shared social conventions through interaction alone.

May 14, 2025 in Computer Sciences
Tech Xplore / Interlocked electrodes push silicon battery lifespan beyond limits

As demand surges for batteries that store more energy and last longer—powering electric vehicles, drones, and energy storage systems—a team of South Korean researchers has introduced an approach to overcome a major limitation ...

May 14, 2025 in Energy & Green Tech
Tech Xplore / Steering AI: New technique offers more control over large language models

Imagine developing a finer control knob for artificial intelligence (AI) applications like Google Gemini and OpenAI ChatGPT.

May 14, 2025 in Computer Sciences
Tech Xplore / Scalable, low-maintenance design recycles heat for a steady supply of drinking water off-grid

Fresh drinking water is a vital yet limited resource that will only grow scarcer over the next few years, according to the World Resources Institute. Desalination, the process of removing salt from water, is an established ...

May 14, 2025 in Engineering
Tech Xplore / Upgraded technique for extracting uranium from seawater promises higher efficiency and lower costs

A team of chemists, materials scientists and engineers affiliated with several institutions in China, working with a colleague from Taiwan, has developed a new way to remove uranium from seawater that is much more efficient ...

May 14, 2025 in Energy & Green Tech
Tech Xplore / Handy octopus robot can adapt to its surroundings

Scientists inspired by the octopus's nervous system have developed a robot that can decide how to move or grip objects by sensing its environment.

May 14, 2025 in Robotics
Tech Xplore / AI model classifies images with a hierarchical tree from broad to specific

A new AI model, H-CAST, groups fine details into object-level concepts as attention moves from lower to high layers, outputting a classification tree—such as bird, eagle, bald eagle—rather than focusing only on fine-grained ...

May 14, 2025 in Hi Tech & Innovation
Tech Xplore / Vision-language models can't handle queries with negation words, study shows

Imagine a radiologist examining a chest X-ray from a new patient. She notices the patient has swelling in the tissue but does not have an enlarged heart. Looking to speed up diagnosis, she might use a vision-language machine-learning ...

May 14, 2025 in Computer Sciences
Tech Xplore / World's smallest self-powered bipedal robot achieves record speed and agility with simple mechanical design

At less than one and a half inches tall, roughly the same height as a LEGO minifigure, the world's smallest self-contained bipedal robot can self-start from standstill, walk faster than a half mile per hour, turn, skip, and ...

May 13, 2025 in Robotics
Tech Xplore / Atmospheric water harvesting: Optimization of a hygroscopic hydrogel device improves efficiency

A small team of engineers from the U.S., Chile and Ireland has found a way to extract more water from drier air, allowing for water production in arid places like the Atacama Desert. Their paper is published in Device.

May 13, 2025 in Engineering
Tech Xplore / Eldercare robot helps people sit and stand, and catches them if they fall

The United States population is older than it has ever been. Today, the country's median age is 38.9, which is nearly a decade older than it was in 1980. And the number of adults older than 65 is expected to balloon from ...

May 13, 2025 in Consumer & Gadgets