A new machine-learning system helps robots understand and perform certain social interactions.Robots can deliver food on a college campus and hit a hole-in-one on the golf course, but even the most sophisticated robot can't perform basic social interactions that are critical to everyday human life.MIT researchers have now incorporated certain socia...

 The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022 include more than 1,600 universities across 99 countries and territories, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date.The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution's performance across four areas: teaching, res...

Cardiff University has climbed five places and remains the number one university in Wales, according to the latest rankings by The Complete University Guide 2022.The Guide ranks UK universities nationally and in 70 different subject areas, using a range of different measures including student experience and academic performance.Cardiff University i...

A team of experts led by Professor Gillian Foulger from Durham University, believes they have identified a remarkable geological secret; a sunken continent hidden under Iceland and the surrounding ocean, which they have dubbed 'Icelandia'.The sunken continent could stretch from Greenland all the way to Europe, covering an area of around 600,000 km2...

Featuring 1,300 universities from around the world, this year's university rankings are the largest ever. Each institution has been assessed according to five key metrics, in accordance with QS methodology.You can use the rankings to easily compare universities . Each university included in the rankings also has a profile page full of details ...

Water volumes in rivers worldwide have changed significantly in recent decades. An international research team including Goethe University has now been able to corroborate that climate change plays a critical role. Project coordinator was ETH Zurich.Climate change influences the Earth's water balance: Depending on region and season, it can lead to ...

EPFL scientists are beginning to understand why corals in the Gulf of Aqaba, along with their symbiotic algae and bacteria, resist higher temperatures particularly well.Even under the most optimistic scenarios, most of the coral reef ecosystems on our planet – whether in Australia, the Maldives or the Caribbean – will have disappeared or be in very...

 Quantum mechanics can be used to create more stable and more easily produced organic solar cells. These are the findings of new research from the University of Gothenburg.Organic solar cells have many advantages compared with traditional silicon-based solar cells. They can be manufactured cheaply at a large scale using printing presses, and t...

Celebrating 20 remarkable years, MIT OCW looks to the future, informed by learning needs underscored by the Covid-19 pandemic."It is typical of our faculty to come up with something as bold and innovative as this," said then-MIT president Charles Vest at a special gathering of community members and press in April 2001. "OpenCourseWare looks counter...

Using an ordinary light microscope, researchers can now obtain images with unprecedented accuracy.Using an ordinary light microscope, MIT engineers have devised a technique for imaging biological samples with accuracy at the scale of 10 nanometers — which should enable them to image viruses and potentially even single biomolecules, the researchers ...

Discovery may offer clues to carbon's role in planet and star formation.      Much of the carbon in space is believed to exist in the form of large molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Since the 1980s, circumstantial evidence has indicated that these molecules are abundant in space, but they have not been di...

 The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) has announced the start of works on its new visionary headquarters. This world-first for a retrofitted sustainable office building will set new standards for low energy use, carbon emissions and impact on natural resources as well as user experience and wellbeing.The E...

 Dr. Jelle Zijlstra was the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, President of the Central Bank of the Netherlands, and President of the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland, with long-standing engagement with the Swiss Chamber of Commerce in The Netherlands. In honour of this renowned economist, we recognize international lea...

The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021 cover a total of 51 disciplines, grouped into five broad subject areas.The QS World University Rankings by Subject are compiled annually to help prospective students identify the leading universities in a particular subject. Research citations, along with the results of major global surveys of employ...

No one raised an eyebrow when Mark Zuckerberg bought tiny Instagram in 2012 for US$1 billion. Now regulators want to unwind the deal, by forcing Facebook to sell Instagram, and WhatsApp. This move may spell the disintegration of the Facebook empire.But this is not only about Facebook, or Amazon, Google, and Apple. It is a global shift of the bounda...

COVID-19 has prompted reflection on many previous pandemics, above all the outbreaks of plague in the 17th century and the Black Death in the 14th. I want to go still further back to the great plague of Athens in the fifth century B.C., which hit the Athenians shortly after they began the great Peloponnesian War against Sparta and her allies in 431...

EPFL startups raised CHF 293 million in 2020 – the highest they've achieved so far. Four of the young firms, including Kandou and Sophia Genetics, brought in over CHF 20 million each. The pipeline of new businesses also looks solid, as 25 new EPFL spin-offs were launched last year.The pandemic-related uncertainty doesn't seem to have dampened inves...

Skylo, co-founded by an MIT alumnus, is transforming fishing, farming, and shipping with an inexpensive network for transmitting data through satellites.On Nov. 26, seven fishermen aboard a small fishing boat off the coast of Maharashtra in western India were struck with panic when their vessel was damaged and began to sink. The panic was warranted...

 Each seismic wave that travels through the Earth's crust slightly changes this layer. Cutting-edge sensor technology now allows us to reevaluate risks such as landslides or the stability of bridges and buildings. Prof. Dr. Céline Hadziioannou of Universität Hamburg coordinates the European-wide development of new methods for observing the Ear...

 The year's popular research stories include astronomical firsts, scientific breakthroughs, and engineering milestones addressing Covid-19 and other global problems.Although 2020 has been a year most of us would prefer to forget, it still featured a number of research breakthroughs worth celebrating. Despite the new challenges brought on by Co...