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Case Western Reserve University researcher advances zinc-sulfur battery technology. Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries power everything from electric vehicles to wearable devices. But new research from Case Western Reserve University suggests that a more sustainable and cost-effective alternative may lie in zinc-based batteries.

In a study published recently in Angewandte Chemie, researchers announced a significant step toward creating high-performance, low-cost zinc-sulfur batteries.

“This research marks a major step forward in the development of safer and more sustainable energy storage solutions,” said Chase Cao, a principal investigator and assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Case School of Engineering. “Aqueous zinc-sulfur batteries offer the potential to power a wide range of applications — from renewable energy systems to portable electronics — with reduced environmental impact and reliance on scarce materials.”

Meta has appointed three new members to its board of directors, the company announced Monday: UFC president and CEO Dana White, European investment company Exor CEO John Elkann, and tech investor and entrepreneur Charlie Songhurst.

In a press release, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that White, Elkann, and Songhurst “will add a depth of expertise and perspective” that’ll help Meta “tackle the massive opportunities ahead with AI, wearables, and the future of human connection.”

White was named CEO of UFC in 2023, after the organization merged with WWE to form a new public company, TKO Group Holdings. He’s responsible for the overall strategic direction of UFC’s global business, including its live events series.

Stretchable electronics have drawn intensive research attention over the past decade due to their potential impact in various applications, including displays, soft robots, wearable electronics, digital healthcare, and many other areas Considering that intrinsically stretchable technology is relatively new, the predominant approach to realizing current stretchable applications leverages the structure of stretchable interconnects. Therefore, one of the primary challenges in stretchable electronics is designing an optimal stretchable interconnect structure, such as mechanically compliant electrodes, capable of significant stretching without compromising electrical functionality. Numerous techniques for designing stretchable interconnects, including wavy, serpentine, and kirigami structures, have been developed to maximize the stretchability of stretchable electrodes.

Despite achieving high stretchability in structural designs, accurately measuring the strain distribution in real-time during dynamic stretching remains challenging.


To address the current technical limitations in comprehensively understanding the full mechanism of strain behavior and the geometrical effects of serpentine structures without physically breaking the structure, we carefully investigated strain-induced color changes reflecting the complex strain distribution of serpentine-shaped CLCEs. To achieve optimal serpentine CLCEs, specially tailored high-modulus and shape-designed serpentine CLCEs were investigated, incorporating controlled non-uniform strain distribution for serpentine structures. By examining the aspect shape factor in the mechano-optical color changes of the CLCEs, it was visually and quantitatively confirmed that if the CLCE samples were aligned parallel to the direction of stretching, the strain increased, whereas if they were aligned perpendicular to the direction of stretching, the strain decreased. In addition to structural design factors, a sequential study of the modulus effect on the mechano-optical visualization of the serpentine structure revealed that a serpentine CLCE with a high modulus exhibited results that are consistent with conventional serpentine stretching behavior, with the associated structural color changes and photonic wavelength shifts. In a further study on the shape design parameters (angle, width, and length) of serpentine CLCE with a high modulus, the critical factors that determine the complex and varied stretchable serpentine properties were investigated. It was found that the angle (α) shape factor is the most crucial serpentine design parameter that ensures stretchability, whereas the width wordpress is the parameter that diminishes stretchability. Furthermore, to assess the structural color changes and photonic wavelength shifts according to practical stretching mechanisms, a 2 × 2 arrayed multi-interconnected serpentine CLCE structure under multiaxial (uniaxial and biaxial) stretching conditions was investigated. It was confirmed that elongation parallel to the direction of mechanical stretching could induce serpentine stretching characteristics in the arrayed CLCE devices. These experimental results of structural color changes and photonic wavelength shifts, which enhance the reliability of many studies through comparison with strain distributions, are also supported by the FEM. Considering that stretchable CLCEs also enable molecular arrangement changes, and based on the findings of this study, it was confirmed that serpentine CLCEs can optimize serpentine design through optical visualization methods.

A QUT-led research team has developed an ultra-thin, flexible film that could power next-generation wearable devices using body heat, eliminating the need for batteries.

This technology could also be used to cool electronic chips, helping smartphones and computers run more efficiently.

Professor Zhi-Gang Chen, whose team’s new research was published in the prestigious journal Science , said the breakthrough tackled a major challenge in creating flexible thermoelectric devices that converted body heat into power.

Energy-efficient AI module for wearables, medical devices, and activity recognition.


Ambient Scientific has unveiled its new AI module, the Sparsh board, which operates on a coin cell battery, making it suitable for a wide array of on-device AI applications.

The module aims to offer solutions for tasks such as human activity recognition, voice control, and acoustic event detection.

This innovation is notable for its ability to function continuously for months without frequent battery replacements.

A new technology that can generate electricity from vibrations or even small body movements means you could charge your laptop by typing or power your smartphone’s battery on your morning run.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a tiny, wearable generator in response to the urgent need for sustainable, clean energy. It is also scalable for larger machines. Their paper, “Breaking Dielectric Dilemma: Polymer Functionalized Perovskite Piezocomposite with Large Current Density Output,” is published in the November edition of Nature Communications.

“This is a real game changer,” said Dr. Asif Khan, the project’s lead researcher and a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Waterloo. “We have made the first device of its kind that can power electronics at low cost and with unprecedented efficiency.”

’The world’s best’ graphene ink, which can be used for printed electronics—such as an intelligent t-shirt that measures your pulse—has been developed in collaboration with the Danish Technological Institute in a MADE demonstration project. The newly developed ink has already opened new markets for the company Danish Graphene.

Imagine a super-strong spider web that can bend and stretch without breaking.

This spider web can conduct electricity better than almost anything else. That’s how graphene works.

Noting that recent advances in artificial intelligence and the existence of large-scale experimental data about human biology have reached a critical mass, a team of researchers from Stanford University, Genentech, and the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative says that science has an “unprecedented opportunity” to use artificial intelligence (AI) to create the world’s first virtual human cell. Such a cell would be able to represent and simulate the precise behavior of human biomolecules, cells, and, eventually, tissues and organs.

“Modeling human cells can be considered the holy grail of biology,” said Emma Lundberg, associate professor of bioengineering and of pathology in the schools of Engineering and Medicine at Stanford and a senior author of a new article in the journal Cell proposing a concerted, global effort to create the world’s first AI virtual cell. “AI offers the ability to learn directly from data and to move beyond assumptions and hunches to discover the emergent properties of complex biological systems.”

Lundberg’s fellow senior authors include two Stanford colleagues, Stephen Quake, a professor of bioengineering and science director at the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, and Jure Leskovec, a professor of computer science in the School of Engineering, as well as Theofanis Karaletsos, head of artificial intelligence for science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Aviv Regev executive vice president of research at Genentech.