Category Archives: Technology and Proto Types

August 23, 2022 · 4:09 am

Global Affairs Weekly Stories (Week of August 22, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world for the week of August 22, 2022.

Global News

A team of researchers at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts are developing a targeted cancer vaccine based on mRNA technology.

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A research team from the University of Cambridge has developed a learning algorithm to help automated 3-D printers identify and correct errors and even print new materials.

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Five plants that could help the world’s food supply better adapt to climate change.

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Americas

Canada’s highest court may soon have the country’s first Indigenous court judge with the nomination of Michelle O’Bonsawin

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Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva holds a 12 percent lead on Jair Bolsonaro.

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Human traffickers are using Facebook and WhatsApp to spread misinformation and advertise in Latin America.

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Africa

The Ethiopian government has proposed a peace plan to end the war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and end the violence in Tigray. But the TPLF does not trust the government to keep their word.

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More than 1,400 delegates from various political, civil and military groups met in N’Djamena on Saturday to debate a new government for the nation of Chad. However, two of the biggest rebel groups and a large political coalition did not participate in the talks.

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In Nigeria, a virus that infects 100,000 to 300,000 people in Africa a year, is raging. The Lassa virus could become a major threat outside of Africa and currently has no cure.

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Europe

Droughts in Europe could worsen the cost of living as water stress increases costs of shipping, food, water and sanitation with 60 percent of the continent affected.

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Russian-state communications watchdog organization Roskomnadzor is imposing fines and other punishment against foreign IT companies like TikTok and Pinterest for alleged violations of Russian law regarding the removal of “illegal” content.

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Explainer: What is causing the recent tensions between Serbia and Kosovo?

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Middle East

Israel and Turkey are reestablishing diplomatic relations with ambassadors to be exchanged.

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Explainer: The Iran nuclear deal maybe closer to agreement, but how close is it?

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Asia

Newly elected Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr is taking aim at critics in the media.

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Slavery allegations in Xinjiang, China, are credible according to a United Nations expert on the subject. In the cited report, other nations have been spotlighted for forced domestic servitude and forced and child marriages.

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After failing to curb resistance to military rule, Myanmar, military government chief Min Aung Hlaing is targeting government and business elites. Some analysts see this as consolidation of power by Hlaing and potentially a sign of fragile leadership.

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June 21, 2022 · 6:22 am

Global Affairs Weekly Stories (Week of June 19, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world for the week of June 19, 2022.

Global News

The World Health Organization is creating a vaccine-sharing program with nations in Africa and 30 countries outside the continent to combat Monkeypox. However, the program might draw away vaccines from the continent to richer countries where the cases of Monkeypox are mostly mild whereas the ailment is endemic in Central and Western Africa.

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Explainer: The Russian war against Ukraine is causing a global food shortage and raising global food prices.

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While not published last week, here is a guide for making one’s garden into a carbon sink.

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Americas

Columbia has elected their first leftist president in former rebel Gustavo Petro. Several other Latin American countries have also elected more progressive and leftist presidents, but in Columbia there was a mood of who the electorate wanted least in power.

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Puerto Rican politicians are pushing to hold a vote on the future of the island as either a commonwealth, independent or the 51st State of the United States of America.

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Juneteenth celebration in America, commemorating the arrival of Union troops in Galveston, Texas June 19, 1865, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery in Texas.

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Africa

Explainer: The tensions between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo goes back decades and is currently flaring again.

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Facebook moderators failed to remove extremist content from Jihadist groups such as Islamic State and al-Shabab according to a study by Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

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Explainer: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and “Farmgate”, which could see the president facing criminal charges.

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Europe

Dutch authorities stopped a GRU operative from infiltrating the International Criminal Court in the Hauge. The ICC is currently investigating war crimes allegations against Russia in Ukraine.

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The United Kingdom and European Union are in a row over a unilateral change to the Brexit agreement made by the UK government regarding trade on the Northern Ireland border.

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The EU will fine tech companies that fail to consistently deal with deepfakes with fines up to 6% of global turnover.

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Middle East

Israel and Egypt signed a deal with the EU to export natural gas and oil in exchange for the EU’s assistance with energy exploration in the two nations’ territorial waters.

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The EU has unfrozen aid for the Palestinian Authority.

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In Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr, the head of the Sadrist movement and ordered 73 politicians from his movement to resign from the government.

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Asia

Bank customers in Henan, China found their COVID tracker apps turning red when they entered the city to withdrawal money from troubled rural banks, denying them access to public services like trains and entry into buildings. 

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China launches the Type 003 “Fujian” carrier on Friday.

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Islamic State launched an attack on the Sikh community in Afghanistan, killing one and wounding seven in Kabul.

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April 27, 2022 · 2:29 am

Global Tech Stories (April 26, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

Researchers in Israel have developed a new 3-D printing process that can restore and preserve coral reefs. The process can apply to a diverse array of coral types and environments and at large scale while attracting reef species and marine life.

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A new way to prevent unintended pregnancies could be a few years away. Researchers in China are working on a reversible non-hormonal contraceptive for men. While still in testing, this method is reversible with ultrasound and worked in experiments with mice.

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Despite being 100% recyclable without a quality loss, glass is one of the least recycled materials. Scientists at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore created a way to replace sand in concrete with glass waste that can lead to more environmentally sustainable building materials.

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An integrated reversible gas-to-electricity system has been developed by researchers from Stanford University and at the University of Mannheim, which can convert hydrogen to electricity and back depending on power needs. These fuel cells can scale with any grid and make a new way to store and utilize green energy affordably.

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Researchers in the United States are working on developing a nickel-based catalyst that only requires light. This will pave the way for catalysts that do not need scarce precious metals like Palladium.

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April 13, 2022 · 3:42 am

Global Tech Stories (April 12, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

Long distance quantum communications is difficult due to information losses over distance. If there were a way to limit the information loss, one could have a communication system that is nearly impossible to compromise by third parties. Scientists in Australia discovered a way to limit the information loss.

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Microfluidic channels can now be 3-D printed, at least in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Such channels are vital to microfluidic devices and biomedical research on the property of specific compounds and drug testing and the development of new treatments.

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An international research team developed a new way to heal bone fractures using bioprinting paired with gene therapy. While tested on rats, the healing rate was several times greater than by natural healing, with four times greater bone tissue creation and almost four times greater bone coverage.

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Miniature pulse power systems maybe the future of energy storage. Researchers at the University of Houston are studying how to create a miniaturized pulse power system that is a one-tenth of the size of the conventional devices.

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Microbiologists are using bacteria to convert methane into electricity. Methane is 25 times more potent than carbon as a greenhouse gas and often introduced to the atmosphere from agriculture and fossil fuel-based energy use.

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Researchers are developing a renewable alternative to increasingly expensive inorganic phosphates. This will improve fertilizers and agricultural practices.

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April 6, 2022 · 3:59 am

Global Tech Stories (April 5, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

A fungal spray that can fight soil degradation and air pollution has been developed in India.

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Zyxel, a hardware company, has released a patch for the CVE-2022-0342 flaw. The flaw affected VPNs and Firewalls due to an authentication bypass vulnerability in the common gateway interface of a device.

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Twitter and Elon Musk reached a deal to allow Musk onto the board but limited to 14.9% common stock. This deal would prevent a buyout of the company’s stock.

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Darknet site Hydra, the largest cybercrime forum globally, has been shut down by German authorities.

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According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there are five things we can do to fight climate change effectively with current technology and tools.

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Deeper dive on the IPCC report.

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March 28, 2022 · 5:58 am

Global Affairs Weekly Stories (Week of March 27, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world for the week of March 27, 2022.

Global News

Two state-backed North Korean hacker groups exploited a vulnerability in Chrome to launch a zero-day attack. The vulnerability, CVE-2022-0609, has been patched but the primarily means to actually target people was a complex social engineering operation that involved either compromising legitimate sites or creating fake profiles and sites to lure potential targets in various industries.

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The deep ocean current is impacted by global temperature and carbon, and it’s getting faster with more carbon. This could have a major impact on future sequestration of carbon and on ocean life.

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A new lithium battery that can stretch and flex. This could one day lead to clothing that can recharge and power electronics.

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Americas

Canadian Indigenous delegations will be meeting with Pope Francis this week to ask for a formal apology from the Catholic Church for abuses and crimes against Indigenous communities due to the residential schools that operated between the early 19th Century and 20th Century.

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El Salvador is moving forward with trying to popularize bitcoin as a legal tender, including the release of bitcoin-backed bond for the treasury. While the president and crypto enthusiasts love the idea, many Salvadorans are not using the currency and critics, such as the International Monetary Fund, point to the risks and volatility of the digital currency as threat to the economy.

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Nicaragua’s ambassador to the Organization of American States, Arturo McFields, resigned on Wednesday after accusing president Daniel Ortega and his government of suppressing freedoms and attacking opposition parties.  

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Africa

A court in Uganda issued an arrest warrant for Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, an author and critic of the government who fled the country for Germany after he was allegedly tortured by government agents. He is the second critic to flee the country.

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A ceasefire and truce were have taken hold yesterday in Ethiopia between the government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. First initiated unilaterally by the government, the TPLF has agreed to the truce, which could help deliver humanitarian assistance to the hundreds of thousands living in the Tigray region and possibly lead to an end of the conflict.

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The NGO Big Ship is mobilizing communities in Mombasa, Kenya, use plastic waste to fight both marine plastic pollution and deforestation. They accomplish this by using yoghut cups to replant mangrove seedlings. With a survival rate of 95% for the mangrove seedlings, these communities reforest critical swampland in Tudor Creek while taking hundreds of thousands of plastic cups out of the marine and mangrove environment.

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Europe

According to General Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Ministry of Defence’s Intelligence Directorate in Ukraine, Putin is attempting to cut the country into two and install a pro-Kremlin government in Russian-occupied territory.

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Explainer- What is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, why does it exist, and what it’s doing to help Ukraine?

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Russia’s anti-war protestors and activists are still operating despite massive repression by Putin’s government and over 15,000 arrests and sentences of more than 15 years in prison for individuals protesting the Ukrainian war. While opposition to the war keeps some in Russia, others fear being unable to come back should they leave.

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Middle East

The Houthi movement and the Yemeni government agreed to a prisoner swap on Sunday. The swap will be 1,400 Houthi prisoners in return for 823 prisoners, including the brother of the Yemeni president, according to the Houthis’ national committee for prisoner affairs, however the Yemeni government has not reached a final agreement with the Houthis yet.

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Qatar’s state fund for development will be going into a 50-50 partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help farmers adapt to climate change. The total promised investment is 200 million dollars, and will focus on projects to help low-income farmers in Africa adapt agricultural practices and technologies to better prepare for the changes brought on by climate change.

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The LGBTQ+ community in Iraq faces persecution from state-backed authorities such as the police, and disorganized private groups according to a report from Human Rights Watch.

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Asia

North Korea tested new intercontinental ballistic missiles last week. While promising future tests and greater military capabilities, some analysts see this as both part of the typical activity marking the anniversary of the founder of North Korea’s birthday, Kim Il-Sung, on April 15.

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The United States, U.K. and Canada are launching targeted sanctions on the Myanmar military and government and arms dealers.

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Thousands are heading to Islamabad to rally as embattled Prime Minister Imran Khan potentially faces a no-confidence vote.

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March 2, 2022 · 4:56 am

Global Tech Stories (March 1, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

Nanobots will one day remove heavy metal pollutants from the water ways and oceans. Scientists in Prague developed nanobots that can attract and retain pollutants and be fabricated at large scale with environmentally sustainable components.

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NASA has new ideas for the future of space exploration. The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program selected 12 Phase I projects and 5 Phase II projects for further funding, including a project on extended radiation shielding for astronauts, 3-D printed microbots and the development of artificial gravity through rotating structures.

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Researchers at MIT are tackling bias in machine-learning models by teaching machines to different similarity attributes besides a sensitive one. This method is Partial Attribute Decorrelation, and could make technologies like facial recognition fairer.

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For manufacturers, downtime from broken or stalled equipment can be a drain on resources and time, often without the help of experienced employees to help fix the problem. A recently created self-learning assistance system could change that.

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A newly developed wrap blocks both bacteria and viruses.

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The future of bullet resistant armor looks a lot thinner and could one day be warn in hot and cold climates. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a nano-fibrous material that performs better at resisting impact than steel plates and Kevlar fabric.

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Imagine harvesting electricity from radio waves. Researchers in the University of South Florida have developed a metasurface-based antenna that could harvest 100 microwatts- enough to power a simple device.

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Earthworms play a more active role in the health of soil and the nitrogen cycle by secreting nitrogen in their mucus when active, enriching the soil and contributing to crop health.

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Scientists developed a way to turn on dormant genes using a combination of AI and CRISPR technologies. This could help doctors activate genes for fighting illnesses through personalized medicine and general medical treatments.

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Stonehenge may have been a solar calendar.

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February 16, 2022 · 5:37 am

Global Tech Stories (February 15, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

Explainer: What is the Ethereum Swarm?

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The BlackByte group launched attacks that penetrated at least three critical infrastructure sectors and several US and foreign businesses last year.

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In 2021, 74% of all revenue from ransomware attacks went to Russian-affiliated hacker groups.

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The James Webb Space Telescope has taken its first pictures in space. The object was of the star HD 84406 in the constellation of Ursa Major.

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After testing bionic implants to improve eyesight for sheep, Researchers in Australia came one step closer to bionic eyes for humans.

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Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan developed a way to produce hydrogen using cobalt and manganese.

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February 9, 2022 · 3:42 am

Global Tech Stories (February 8, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

MIT scientists created a new material that is as light as plastic and with a yield strength twice that of steel. This new material can be produced in large quantities and impermeable to gases.

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The University of Delaware has developed a hydrogen powered carbon filtration and capture device that captures 99% of carbon dioxide from the air. The device could scale for different applications such as cars, spacecraft, submarines and other machines.

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A new form of targeted medicine has been developed in a collaborative between Australian Centre for Blood Diseases at Monash University and TU Graz (Austria). The metal-organic framework antibody-drug delivery system is a crystal that latches onto a targeted cell and dissolves, exposing only the targeted cell to the drug or chemical.

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A new AI coding program, AlphaCode, could perform almost as well as a human in writing code. However, AI is still not ready to replace human coders.

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Patients with spinal cord injuries may walk again in the next few years with personalized implants. Researchers at Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology developed 3-D spinal cord tissue that can be implanted and restore walking ability to lab models with long-term chronic paralysis with an 80% success. For lab models with acute paralysis, the implants were successful in restoring walking abilities 100% of the time.

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January 26, 2022 · 4:57 am

Global Tech Stories (January 25, 2022)

Here’s what’s going on in the world of technology for this Tuesday.

Social Media company Meta plans on developing a powerful AI supercomputer by mid-2022. Meta plans to use this super computer to train their systems, such as content moderation and machine learning.

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A new firmware-based implant malware has been discovered recently by Kaspersky. This malware is the most advanced of its variety so far discovered.

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Researchers at the University of Michigan and Northeastern University developed a topological optimization algorithm that promises not only to cut down time and resources in finding the best designs for architecture, but to reshape the world.

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Self-powered soft temperature sensors have been developed and can lead to the development of smart clothing and soft robotics.

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Banana peels and apple cores may one day fuel your car, fertilize crops and create valuable components to electrical devices. A way to make biofuel, fertilizer, and electrodes out of organic waste material has been created.

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An atomic level layer of graphene could provide protection for next-generation accelerators.

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