Technology

Enhancing the virtual experience with the touch sensation has become a hot topic, but today’s haptic devices remain typically bulky and tangled with wires. A team led by the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) researchers recently developed an advanced wireless haptic interface system, called WeTac, worn on the hand, which has soft, ultrathin soft features, and collects personalised tactile sensation data to provide a vivid touch experience in the metaverse.

The study is an important step towards the understanding of long-term changes in the water cycle and will aid in more informed decisions when assessing and managing regional water systems.

Researchers from Osaka University have shown that a system known as the GET pathway is essential for efficient mitophagy, the process by which mitochondria are removed from cells. The GET pathway targets a protein assembly called the Ppg1–Far complex, which inhibits mitophagy, to the membrane of a part of the cell called the endoplasmic reticulum. When the GET pathway is defective, this complex instead becomes targeted to mitochondria, where it acts to suppress mitophagy.

Everyday electronics, such as our phones, employ surface acoustic wave devices for frequency filtering and sensing. But this consumes a lot of energy, serving as a drain on battery life. Now, a team of researchers has developed a new acoustic waveguide based on the mathematical concept of topology, which will help alleviate this problem.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are a stem-cell based therapy for pets with cancer, how meditation could affect our gut microbiome, and an edible mushroom that contains a deadly nerve gas.

Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) took an important step forward in heralding a new cinematic experience for the future by establishing the Visualisation Research Centre recently. The Centre is home to the world’s first 360-degree immersive LED Visualisation Cinema and the 180-degree iDome Cinema.

Overeating mechanism: why "eating just one chip"🍟 is impossible, Measuring hidden energy of gamma-ray bursts, Marine species that can adapt to ocean acidification & A rough start can lead to a strong bond, Read all in our first Editor's Choice of 2023. Plus our interview on what dengue vaccine approval in EU💉means for global dengue protection.

The natural abilities of squid tissues and the creativity of chemists combine to take hydrogel research in new directions.

Imagine if your t-shirt could take your sweat and analyze it for health abnormalities. Well, this is much closer to reality after a recent breakthrough by a research group led by a Tohoku University assistant professor. The group created the first microelectronic fiber with microscopic parameters that is capable of analyzing electrolytes and metabolites in sweat.

Controlling a material’s thermal conductivity can help insulate our homes, improve the performance of electronic devices, conserve power consumption in cars, and generate greater power efficiency. Now, a group of researchers has unveiled a novel mechanism that leads to further suppression of thermal conductivity in thermoelectric materials, something that will help develop new guidelines for producing high-performance thermoelectric materials.

A research group at Osaka Metropolitan University has succeeded in significantly reducing the measurement time of a glass standard sample by applying Bayesian estimation to X-ray fluorescence analysis. The ability to perform rapid non-contact elemental analysis in a nondestructive manner could lead to the widespread use of this technique in many fields, including the analysis of moving industrial products and waste materials while being carried on conveyor belts.

Researchers at The University of Tokyo simulate the phase separation of self-spinning particles, and show that the process differs from other unmixing processes, which may shed light on the organization of bacteria and other organisms

The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) has won three gold medals and two silver at the 2022 International Innovation and Invention Competition. The winning innovations cover different application areas, such as emotion recognition, EdTech for music and sport, and intelligent public health education.

The living environment of subdivided flats in Hong Kong has aroused extensive public concerns. A lot of community groups and research teams are committed to providing support for improvement. The Lingnan Entrepreneurship Initiative (LEI) of Lingnan University in Hong Kong strives for driving the development of humanitarian technology for the betterment of humankind. Under its pilot project, a low-cost mini air purifier is developed to fit in sub-divided flats. The LEI collaborated with Sham Shui Po District Office of Home Affairs Department and Sham Shui Po Residents Association Limited today (23 December 2022) to arrange volunteers to distribute 1,000 free air purifiers, spreading care to families living in sub-divided units before the Christmas.

A research team co-led by a scientist at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has developed a novel antenna that allows manipulation of the direction, frequency and amplitude of the radiated beam, and is expected to play an important role in the integration of sensing and communications (ISAC) for 6th-generation (6G) wireless communications.

Researchers at The University of Tokyo develop a simple but effective method of bonding polymers with galvanized steel, a material ubiquitous in the automobile industry, to cheaply and easily create a lightweight and durable product.

Scientists from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia have reported a novel way to produce reinforced concrete materials using tin slag aggregates, which is a by-product of the smelting process. This way of producing concrete enables tin slag to become a useful material, as well as reducing the amount of natural resources used, which in turn contribute to reducing carbon footprint in the construction industry.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are how we determine which animals we would eat or not, a robot with sticky magnetic feet that can climb, and coriander seeds that had a great holiday in space.

A research team led by the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has invented an all-water robotic system that resolves the constraints of bio-inspired robots through revolutionary scientific advances.

Understanding how bats tolerate viral infections, Material separates water from...water, The virtual sense of touch polished to next level and COVID-19 negatively impacted early-careers and female researchers. Read all in the December's Editor's Choice.

Researchers at The University of Tokyo show how including the effects of the surrounding water during the aggregation of charged particles can improve the accuracy of simulations, which may help elucidate biological self-assembly

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are a coat that can make you invisible to AI cameras, a fossilized whale skeleton found in a river valley, and hope for humans after our Y chromosome disappears.

As the revolution in machine learning and AI takes place, the limits of conventional computers are being reached. Probabilistic computers, which harness naturally stochastic building blocks called probabilistic bits, are likely to usher in an era of more sophisticated computing. Now, an international collaborative research group has announced the development of a scaled-up a spintronic probabilistic computer.

Magnetic nozzle plasma thrusters are thought of as the future of space travel. But one problem has hampered their development – plasma detachment. A recent study has shown that spontaneously excited plasma waves help magnetic nozzles overcome the plasma detachment problem, a rare instance of plasma instabilities having a positive effect on engineering.

A research group has announced a new iPMA-type Hexa-technology in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions (MTJ) that unlocks the door to improving ultra-low power in IoT edge-devices, mobile, automotive, consumer electronics, and applications operating in harsh environments, such as autonomous vehicles, industrial robots, and space applications.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are a “smart ranch” featuring connected cows, a way to see what a 1 600-year-old woman looked like, and a new bird-like dinosaur.

Scientists from 4 Asian universities, namely Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, and Newcastle University in Singapore have reported a novel way to produce lightweight reinforced resin composite materials using clay particles with the potential to lower carbon emission, compared to conventional carbon particles.

A research team at Osaka Metropolitan University has developed a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) piezoelectric vibration energy harvester, which is only about 2 cm in diameter with a U-shaped metal vibration amplification component. The device allows for an increase of approximately 90 times in the power generation performance from impulsive vibration. Since the power generation performance can be improved without increasing the device size, the technology is expected to generate power to drive small wearable devices from non-steady vibrations, such as walking motion.

Theory-guided development of an easier, more versatile process for synthesizing unsymmetric ligands provides new avenues of exploration in transitional metal catalysis.

Study can help to assess effectiveness of Minamata Convention on Mercury