The Institute for Basic Science (IBS) research team led by Professor Kim Kimoon (CHEM, director of the Center for Self-assembly and Complexity at IBS) successfully visualized and controlled chemical reactions in a solution using audible sound for the first time.Audible sound cannot directly affect chemical processes like bond formation or dissociation due to its low energy. Therefore, previous teams focused solely on the effect of sound on water surface movement or used sound to control floating and sediment particles. However, the IBS team hypothesized that if they could regulate gas solubili

On June 26, triathlete Choi Suk-hyun chose to leap to death at the age of 22. Before committing suicide, she asked her mother to disclose the crimes of her assailants. The young athlete had withstood constant physical and verbal assault for several years ever since she became part of the triathlon team of Gyeongju City Hall. The team coach, Kim Kyu-bong, and senior athletes, Jang Yun-jung and Kim Do-hwan, were charged with violence, while the so-called team doctor, Ahn Ju-hyeon, who turned out to not have a doctor’s license at all, was also reported for many other types of harassment.It was re

Plastic got its name—‘the present from god in the 20th century’—for its light weight, cheapness, and thermoplasticity. However, plastic transforms sensitively depending on the process condition. It also takes time to change a settled process. Hence, real-time optimization of plastic process was regarded as impossible.The research team of Professor Junsuk Rho (ME and CE), Chihun Lee (ME Ph.D. Candidate, advisor Prof. Junsuk Rho), Prof. Seungchul Lee (ME), Juwon Na (ME Ph.D. Integrated Candidate, advisor Prof. Seungchul Lee), and Prof. Seongjin Park (ME) developed a system recommending the condi

On Aug. 13, notices were posted on various online shopping malls that delivery of ordered items will be delayed from Aug. 14 to Aug. 16. This is because the courier industry set Aug. 14 as “No Courier Delivery Day”. Major courier companies decided to completely stop courier services, such as courier delivery, item collection, sorting, and transportation, for three days.“No Courier Delivery Day” was discussed and decided as a result of the incident in which three courier workers died due to overwork this year. Earlier this year, people began ordering daily necessities online as COVID-19 spread.

On May 26, a 30-year-old man assaulted a woman and fled at Seoul Station. He approached the woman, hit her shoulder, and attacked her with his fist. She collapsed and hit her head on the floor, and fractured her left cheekbone. She was also diagnosed with a 1.5 centimeter tear next to her left eye.Furthermore, on June 10, another woman waiting for the bus was indiscriminately assaulted by a man, and a woman who was trying to stop the violence was also assaulted.Amid such increase in violence against women, various points of view have been suggested on the definition of “Misogyny crime”.The Seo

Moon Jae-in, the president of Korea, vowed to turn all unstable employment in the public sector into permanent employment within his term. Following his pledge, the Incheon International Airport Corporation (IIAC) announced its plans to convert nearly 10,000 contract employees to permanent payroll on June 22. A total of 9,785 employees are to be affected, and, among them, 2,143 will be directly hired by IIAC, and the remaining will be hired by three different affiliated companies. However, the decision of turning 2,143 irregular employees to permanent employees directly hired by IIAC is facing

Professor Lee Jang-Sik (MSE) and Prof. Lee Donghwa (AMS)’s co-research team recently succeeded in designing a new halide perovskite (HP) with high environmental stability and low-operating voltages, making it suitable for resistive switching memory (RSM). Combined first-principles screening based on quantum mechanics and experimental verification have been utilized to establish such findings.Even with the consistent development in memory technology, the exponentially increased usage of fast and high-quality data transfer requires further improvement in memory technology to increase overall sta

On July 2, POSTECH and KCC announced their success in generating eco-friendly electricity from waste heat produced by one of KCC’s plants. This is the first time in Korea that factory waste heat has been converted into electricity. POSTECH and KCC conducted a thermoelectric power generation experiment at KCC’s Gimcheon Plant, using the “thermoelectric module-based energy generation technology” developed by Professor Baek Chang-ki (CiTE)’s research team. Thermoelectric power generation is a technology that directly converts heat energy into electrical energy using the temperature difference bet

The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSI) declared that Cheongju, Ochang-eup is determined as a site for the 4th generation circular radiation accelerator. Radiation accelerator forces charged particles to pass through magnetic fields at the speed of light to generate radiation. The light generated by the accelerator is more than 100 million times brighter than the sun and is used to analyze nanostructues such as protein structure, cell division, and nanoparticles. Radiation accelerator is a symbol of cutting-edge technology as it is largely used in fundamental science researches and future indust

A research team led by Professor Rho Jun-suk (ME, CE) and Dr. Yoon Gwan-ho (ME) of POSTECH along with the research team of Professor Lee Heon (MSE) and researcher Kim Kwan (MSE) from Korea University have jointly developed a new nanomaterial and large-scale nano-printing technology for the commercialization of metamaterials. The research findings solve the issue of device size and high production costs that were problematic in previous research. The findings were recently published in Nature Communications, a prestigious scientific journal.Metamaterials are substances made from artificial atom

“The Korean Council for Justice and remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Korean Council)” and “House of Sharing”, private organizations that have led the resolution of the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery(JMSS) in World War II during the past 30 years, have been surrounded by suspicions such as fraudulent accounting.The Korean Council has been organizing the “Wednesday demonstration” since 1991. The Wednesday demonstration is a rally regular held every Wednesday to demand the apology from the Japanese government for the JMSS and to condemn the unfairness of the JMSS

Professor Min Seung-ki and Dr. Paik Seung-mok of Division of Environmental Science and Engineering of POSTECH and researchers of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and University of Edinburgh discovered that El Niño produced by volcanic eruptions plays a key role in the decrease in global precipitation. Such finding was published in Science Advances, a sister journal of Science.After volcanic eruptions, an immense amount of sulfur dioxide dust is emitted, and the global average temperature decreases due to such dust reflecting s

On Dec. 31, 2019 China reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) of the cases of pneumonia occurring in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. A month later, on Jan. 30, WHO declared the Novel Coronavirus as a global emergency. There are a total of 40,653 confirmed cases of Novel Coronavirus and 910 deaths around the world. The virus has already spread in 28 different countries officially, however as diagnosis tests for the 2019-nCoV requires certain medical infrastructures, it is suspected by experts to have already been exported out to other countries as well.2019-nCoV is a new strain of

The Korean Army said it decided not to allow a noncommissioned officer (NCO) who underwent gender reassignment surgery to continue to serve in the military as a female soldier. The decision was made in a military committee meeting that looked into the case of Byun Hee-soo, who had the surgery late last year and expressed a desire to keep serving in the military.The NCO who served as a staff sergeant in a unit located in northern Gyeonggi received gender reassignment surgery in Thailand during official leave in November last year. The NCO’s unit said it detected that the soldier was struggling

The founder of “Bad Fathers”–a website that publicly identifies parents owing child support– was found not guilty of defamation on Jan. 15 as the local court recognised the public interest the website served. Koo Bon-chang, the founder of “Bad Fathers”, launched the website in July 2018, publicising the portrait, name, age, home address, and workplace of parents whose former partners accused them of refusing to pay child support. The website denotes that the purpose of the website is to pressure bad fathers who have failed to pay child support to pay up, explaining that ‘a child’s right to lif

Mussels are well known for strong underwater adhesion that is not even affected by heavy waves or storms. Mussels secrete adhesive proteins when producing tough fibers called byssus to attach itself to the surface of a rock.Professor Cha Hyung-joon (CE) and his research team analyzed the adhesive proteins secreted by mussels and confirmed two molecules, Dopa and Lysine, which have strong adhesion even underwater. Also, they discovered that these molecules have a synergetic effect on mussel adh0esions in various conditions.Previous researchers emulated the shape of Dopa to make underwater adhes

In the movie Black Panther (2018), there is a hologram image communication scene. Meta-materials enable communication using holograms. Professor Noh Joon-seok (ME, CE) and Prof. Noh’s research team have developed meta-hologram optical elements that can produce different hologram images simultaneously. The research result was published on the cover of the Jan. 2020 issue of Nanoscale Horizon.While television or beam projectors have only delivered information on the intensity of light, holographic technology can store information on the intensity and phase of light, allowing images to be replaye

Ministry of Science and ICT selected five universities in Korea as an AI graduate school to cultivate an advanced workforce and to foster national competitiveness concerning AI. POSTECH was selected as an AI graduate school among KAIST, GIST, sungkyunkwan, and Korea university last year. A total of 24.5 billion KRW will be invested in the AI graduate school, 10 billion from POSTECH and others aided by the government, Pohang-si and many corporations. AI graduate school starts its first course in March 2020 with 3 tracks: MS, Ph.D. and integrated Ph.D. 50 students are selected each year; 30 for

The POSTECH National Institute for Nanomaterials Technology (NINT) was selected as a national facility for semiconductor research by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) last October and was presented with the certificate of designation by MSIT minister Choi Ki-young on Dec. 11. NINT is expected to play a pivotal role as a highway that connects R&D and commercialization in the future.NINT has been recognized for its achievements in integrating state-of-the-art research equipment, and continuously linking and supporting the industry, science, and technology for next-gen semiconductors and dis

The Assembly’s transportation committee passed a revision to the Passenger Transport Service Act that would require the start-up to stop offering rides within a year and a half, or greatly alter its way of operating. The revision is set to be voted on the floor of the full Assembly. It is being called the “anti-Tada law.” Tada’s current business model is based on a clause in the domestic transportation services law that allows 11 passenger vans to be rented with drivers- an exception to a general ban on unlicensed operators offering paid ride services. The revision will eliminate that clause f