Liquid cooling technology for semiconductor chips is 10 times more efficient than previous record

AI data centers are power-hungry. Not only do artificial intelligence computations consume enormous amounts of electricity, but a significant amount of energy is also required to cool the semiconductor chips that heat up during operation. As AI chips continue to deliver higher performance, the amount of heat they generate increases rapidly. As a result, conventional air cooling and external copper heat spreaders are approaching their practical limits. To address this challenge, a KAIST research team has developed an ultra-high-efficiency liquid-cooling technology that cools semiconductor chips from within.

A joint research team led by Professor Sung Jin Kim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Ikjin Lee of the School of AI and Computing has developed a highly e...

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New study assesses Titan’s resources and their potential uses

Artist’s rendering of Titan’s interior, with the Cassini spacecraft in orbit and Saturn in the distance. Credit: NASA

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is a unique environment in our solar system. It is the only moon (or body beyond Earth) to have a dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere, and its methane cycle is very similar to Earth’s hydrological cycle, in which solid and liquid methane evaporate to form clouds and return to the surface as precipitation. In addition, its prebiotic surface environment and rich organic chemistry make it a prime destination for astrobiology missions, such as NASA’s Dragonfly mission (set to launch no earlier than July 2028).

And as Robert Zubrin said in his book, “Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization,” Saturn’s moons could become the “Persian Gu...

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Sugar-free diets may disrupt the gut microbiome, animal study indicates

Eliminating sugar from your diet may be more detrimental than previously thought, according to an animal study presented at ENDO 2026, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago.

“Completely removing sucrose from a low-fat diet may unexpectedly disrupt gut health and promote inflammation and metabolic dysfunction, highlighting that balanced nutrition is more important than simply eliminating sugar,” said Rasheed Ahmad, Ph.D., principal scientist and head of the Immunology & Microbiology Department at the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait City, Kuwait. The institute was founded by Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences.

Researchers investigated the effects of a sucrose-free low-fat diet compared with a sucrose-containing low-fat control diet in two groups of m...

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Copper thin films reveal ballistic electron transport that could reshape future chip wiring

Ballistic transport demonstrated in thin films of copper, an industry-standard metal
a, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of a Hall bar device with a channel width (W) of 150 nm. b, Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image of the Hall bar device. c, Schematic illustration of the bend resistance measurement. d, Temperature dependence of the bend resistance measured in Hall bar devices with channel widths of 10 μm, 1 μm, 250 nm, and 150 nm. Credit: POSTECH

A joint research team has experimentally observed ballistic transport in single-crystalline copper thin films, demonstrating that ballistic transport is achievable in an industry-standard metal at interconnect-relevant dimensions. The study, titled “Ballistic transport in nanodevices based on single-crystalline Cu thin films,” was published in Nature Communications.

Ballistic transport r...

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