Recently, electric vehicles (EVs) are everywhere, from passenger cars, and buses, to taxis. EVs have the advantage of being eco-friendly and having low maintenance costs, but their owners must remain wary of fatal accidents in case the battery runs out or reaches the end of its life. Therefore, precise capacity and lifespan predictions for lithium-ion batteries – commonly used in EVs – are vital.A joint research team led by Professor Seungchul Lee (ME), Ph.D. candidate Sung Wook Kim (ME Ph.D. Candidate, advisor Prof. Seungchul Lee), and Prof. Ki-Yong Oh (Hanyang University) conducted research

Tactile sensors have been used as the basic platform of an artificial sensory system for fabricating robotic skins, prosthetics, haptic devices, and wearable or implantable devices. Several technological issues to produce practical tactile sensors have been intensively investigated and have seen remarkable advances. However, low power consumption and simple device structure are still big technological challenges. Among the potential power sources for tactile sensors, self-powered high potential signal generation with a weak external stimulus could be obtained through a triboelectric nanogenera

A prediction was raised that Apple’s own charging port which was first released in 2012 would finally be discontinued. In the last decade, Apple has stuck to their charging type, ‘Lightning’, but it is predicted that Apple will change it into ‘USB-C’ which is an international standard due to the recently emerging environmental issues, increase in consumer complaints, and EU sanctions. Accordingly, consumers and the mobile market show a hospitable position.Almost every company adopted USB-C since the mid to late 2010s and port standardization seems to be achieved, but Apple continued to use lig

People in the cryptocurrency industry believed that stable coins, like the Terra coin, are a brilliant idea and predicted that stable coin methodology is the direction that coin methodology would develop in the future. As the name suggests, the purpose of a stable coin is to remain stable, as they are pegged to fiat currency, such as the dollar. Furthermore, the Luna system promised investors an interest rate of 20% per year and made it into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. In the case of the Terra system, one Terra was pegged on one USD by additionally creating a new coin, Luna, tha

Distribution of waste cooking oil extracted from sewage or food waste caused controversy. In fact, how clean is the cooking oil we eat? Professor Young-Tae Chang’s team developed a sensor for detecting waste cooking oil (WCO) using fluorescent substances. Now, anyone can easily measure the degree of deterioration of any variety of cooking oil. The technology of filtering waste cooking oil like a highlighter pen measures how clean the cooking oil is.The research team led by Professor Young-Tae Jang of the Department of Chemistry and Dr. Xiao Liu of IBS developed “Bad Oil Sensor (BOS)” the first

The dream of fully autonomous vehicles is slowly becoming closer to reality, but obstacles still litter the way to commercialization. One such example is adverse weather conditions, e.g., fog, rain, and snow, which substantially degrade visibility, and consequently performance of visual recognition systems of autonomous vehicles. Since safety is a critical feature of autonomous vehicles, their visual perception systems must be robust against these impediments.Professor Suha Kwak of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Sohyun Lee (GSAI Ph.D/M.S. Candidate, advisor Prof. Suh

You would be hard pressed to find someone who has not subscribed to a streaming service nowadays. Starting with Netflix in 2007, streaming services have been regarded as a blue ocean for businesspeople and investors alike due to their convenience, cost-effectiveness, and entertainment value. The notion of being able to log onto one platform and watch TV shows and movies ranging from Disney animations to Steven Spielberg in the comfort of one’s own home was something that most people had only dreamed of. During COVID-19, the prospects of streaming services only rose, as lockdown made it impossi

Controversy over delivery fees has become a hot topic as major delivery apps have suspended promotions. Coupang Eats (a popular delivery application) launched a food delivery service in May 2019 and brought in a “single-order-per-delivery” system. Previously, it was common for deliverers to handle three to four cases of orders at once. Single deliveries could solve the problem of delays and food cooling. It had a short delivery time because only one order was handled at a time.The condition of the single delivery was 15% of the fee and 6,000 KRW for delivery, but Coupang Eats offered a promoti

A technology that allows organic photodiodes (OPDs) to detect objects in strong light by adding small molecules has been developed. OPDs are optical sensors that detect color and brightness by converting light energy into electrical energy. Originally, objects could not be easily detected when receiving strong light such as sunlight.A research team led by Professor Chung Dae-sung (CE) and Dr. Kang Min-kyun (CE) succeeded in enhancing the performance of OPDs by synthesizing molecular switches. These research results were published in Advanced Materials.Unlike inorganic semiconductors, organic s

Google’s Contact lens, which diagnosed diabetes by analyzing glucose in tears, had become a hot topic. However, clinical trials have been suspended because the correlation between blood and tear glucose has not been verified, due to the low sensitivity of the glucose sensor. However, a new smart contact lens that can accurately diagnose blood glucose in real-time has recently been developed.Professor Hahn Sei Kwang, Dr. Kim Su-Kyoung, and Lee Geon-Hui in the Department of Material Science and Engineering developed smart contact lenses for continuous glucose monitoring in collaboration with Pro

Chelsea FC is experiencing financial problems. In an interview about the lack of money for away games, Chelsea player Kai Havertz said “That is not a big deal. I think that a lot of harder moments are in the world right now and I will pay, it’s simple.” What could have made them fall?Chelsea’s former owner Roman Abramovich suffered financial sanctions and his corporate account was blocked to prevent these assets from being repatriated to Russia. The resulting freezing of assets is increasing in real-time and it is the largest asset freeze action in U.K. history. As a result, Roman gave up all

On April 11, the 20th presidential transition team said, “We will push for a plan to unify the legal and social age calculation method based on ‘international age’ in accordance with president-elect Yoon Seok-yeol’s pledge.”First, the team plans to establish the “international age” and marking regulations through the Civil Act and the General Act On Public Administration to ensure the use of “international age” in the civil and administrative fields. After that, they will promote revising laws that use the existing age calculation and using only “international age” in official documents. In ad

Conducting clinical trials before approving and marketing a new pharmaceutical product is a crucial process in verifying its effects and safety. Clinical trials are most accurate when conducted on humans, but obstacles such as strict ethical standards, the number of patients, and the cost exists for human clinical trials. Therefore, animal models, most commonly rats, are used instead. An important area of research is reducing the difference between humans and animal models so that the effects of clinical tests can be accurately displayed.The research team led by Professor Sanguk Kim of the Dep

An optical encryption device that prevents forgery via a double-lock mechanism using visible and ultraviolet (UV) lights has been developed. The technology is driven by metasurfaces that freely manipulate the properties of light and has overcome the challenge of using metasurfaces within the UV regions.A research team led by Professor Junsuk Rho (ME and CE) and Kim Joo-hoon (ME Ph.D. Candidate, advisor Prof. Junsuk Rho) has developed an encryption device system that operates simultaneously in both visible and UV regions and published it in ACS Nano, an international journal under American Chem

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), there are more than 9,200 tons of space objects in orbit around the earth. Scientists reported that they are becoming an increasing threat to astronomy. Research published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters found that objects that orbit earth elevate the brightness of the night sky by at least 10% over natural light levels. Since this increase in brightness causes great inconvenience to astronomical research through telescopes, astronomers are working to come up with countermeasures.On Feb. 2, the International Astronomica

The practice of remote work/education/socializing has long been present, but the pandemic has established a completely new definition and stretched the boundaries of remoteness. After three long years, the world begins to see the way out from this convoluted mayhem. During this great transition, some lifestyles will revert back to how it was pre-COVID, others such as the Metaverse and the “remoteness” are to stay. The open secret is that the future of the Internet – the Web3 – will be built upon the concept of the Metaverse (as well as blockchain technology). The formerly-called Facebook has g

A Korean research team has developed a method to control the flexoelectricity of nanometer-sized materials by pressing with the AFM tip. A joint team of researchers led by Professor Daesu Lee (PHYS), Prof. Tae Won Noh and Dr. Sung Min Park (Seoul National University), and Prof. Sang Mo Yang (Sogang University) has succeeded in producing flexoelectricity in solids using the atomic force microscopy (AFM) and published a comprehensive guideline that outlines the process for the first time. Many components in a smartphone use piezoelectricity to create an electric field. Piezoelectricity is the pr

A research team led by Professor Won Jong Kim (CHEM) has developed a lymph-directed self-immolative nitric oxide prodrug that is readily conjugated to the protein albumin in order to remove cancer cells in lymph nodes. Prodrugs are drugs that need to be metabolized in the body to be therapeutic.Since nitric oxide (NO) can trigger various biological reactions in the body, studies have been conducted to use it for anti-cancer therapy. However, conventional NO drugs are difficult to use for medical purposes since they spontaneously release NO gas due to their innate structural instability.The dru

While electronic vote counting machines have been part of our democratic system for decades, the implementation of an electronic voting system has yet to take place. The trust in analog stamp-and-paper voting has been accumulating over many years of voting and the public has reached a consensus that it is trustworthy enough to accurately count our votes.However, electronic voting has yet to reach such a status, as security loopholes and general mistrust in internet technology have held it back. These doubts are within reason, as security vendor Panda Labs had reported in 2012 that an estimated

Global job openings and resignation rates have continued to record all-time highs from April 2021 according to the International Labor Comparisons (ICL). Although the job opening rate in Korea has remained at a similar rate compared to pre-pandemic times, this global change can be witnessed in Pohang. This is because this new “antiwork” movement is most actively taking place in the U.S. and China, the two biggest global exporters and import partners of Korea. In November last year, most fast-food chains such as Burger King in many countries, including Korea, substituted French fries for other