1. Bridge in a box: Unlocking origami’s power to produce load-bearing structures

    For the first time, load-bearing structures like bridges and shelters can be made with origami modules — versatile components that can fold compactly and adapt into different shapes. It’s an advance that could enable communities to quickly rebuild facilities and systems damaged or destroyed during natural disasters, or allow for construction in places that were previously considered impractical, including outer space.

  2. Can you hear the music: Q&A with Ann Jeffers

    Ann Jeffers, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, recently released the memoir ‘Can You Hear the Music: My Journey Through Madness.’ She details her struggle with bipolar disorder and psychotic episodes while trying to establish her career and family.

  3. AI in society: Perspectives from the field

    Experts working in artificial intelligence, from technological to public policy roles, discuss the critical turning point we are experiencing in AI and what it means for the future

  4. Senate testimony: AI risks to the financial sector

    COE Professor Michael Wellman recently testified in front of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to alert lawmakers to the potential dangers to security, safety, and equity posed by AI’s use in financial systems.

  5. Cracking in lithium-ion batteries speeds up electric vehicle charging

    Rather than being solely detrimental, cracks in the positive electrode of lithium-ion batteries reduce battery charge time, a U-M research team reports. This runs counter to the view of many manufacturers, who try to minimize cracking because it decreases battery longevity.

  6. Largest U.S. investment in particle self-assembly seeks to deliver on nanotechnology’s promise

    With applications in transportation, energy, health care and more, the center includes African universities and creates opportunities for overlooked talent in the U.S.

  7. A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

    Skyrocketing vehicle theft rates have drawn attention to an inconvenient truth: the increasing amount of technology in our vehicles can make them more vulnerable to hacking or theft. U-M researchers have found a solution, though, leveraging perhaps the lowest-tech feature of today’s vehicles — the cigarette lighter.

  8. AI could run a million microbial experiments per year

    An artificial intelligence system enables robots to conduct autonomous scientific experiments — as many as 10,000 per day — potentially driving a drastic leap forward in the pace of discovery in areas from medicine to agriculture to environmental science.

  9. Building curious machines — and finding shipwrecks

    We know more about Mars than our own oceans and lakes. Artificial intelligence could change all that.– by combining robotics, naval architecture and computer science to build a software system that can trawl through sonar data much as a human would.