IET EngX

Grid

List

A Must-Read for Engineering Leaders: Transform How You Manage Critical Documents

Rethinking Engineering Document Management in a Time of Complexity and Change Engineering teams face growing complexity—more data, tighter regulations, and increasing pressure to deliver. This white paper explores the challenges of document management in engineering environments and offers five key considerations for building a stronger foundation. Through real-world stories, it offers a deeper understanding of how smarter practices can unlock better outcomes. Complete the form to access your essential guide.

E+T Magazine
E+T Podcast: Episode 13 | Is the space industry doing more harm than good?

While most of us agree that it is not, there are issues causing increasing concern. Rocket launches, space debris and obsolete space equipment burning up on re-entry all have environmental consequences down here as well as up there. Should we be more careful with our space endeavours?

E+T Magazine
Hospital ‘superbug' that digests medical plastic raises infection concerns – new study

New research has challenged the widely held belief that pathogens cannot degrade medical plastics, such as those used in sutures, stents, wound dressings and implants. Researchers at Brunel University in London have discovered that a strain of bacteria commonly found in hospitals is able to ‘feed’ on plastic, potentially enabling these pathogens to survive longer in hospital wards and within patients. Much research is currently being undertaken into certain bacteria’s ability to break down various types of plastic to avoid them polluting the environment. Ronan McCarthy, professor in biomedical sciences at Brunel, led a study to discover whether pathogens in hospital settings had similar plastic-eating abilities. McCarthy said: “We were surprised to find that some hospital germs, such…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
SWR becomes first operator nationalised under Great British Railways reform plan

South Western Railway (SWR) has become the first operator to be nationalised by the government as part of its long-term strategy to create the publicly-owned body Great British Railways (GBR). In its manifesto, the Labour Party committed to the creation of GBR as a way to tackle ongoing issues such as high prices and poor punctuality facing many of the services run by private operators. The effective renationalisation of the UK’s rail system is planned to happen gradually as existing private contracts elapse. While SWR was the first operator to be nationalised over the weekend, all passenger services running under contracts with the department will return to public ownership by the end of 2027. Franchises C2C and Greater Anglia will be the next transferred into public ownership, with C2C…

E+T Magazine in Business Planning
Could you win a Women in Tech Employer Award?

The Women In Tech Employer Awards 2025 aim to celebrate companies that are supporting gender diversity and recognise that attracting the female workforce is essential to encouraging growth in the tech sector. Being nominated or winning one of these prestigious awards will benefit your business by attracting new candidates, profile your work and contribute to your diversity and inclusion journey, plus it is completely FREE to enter. The final entry deadline is Friday 30 May, so why not get started on an entry today to showcase the moves you have made to address the gender balance in tech? Check out the 26 categories open for entry this year and submit for your chance to be recognised for your exceptional work attracting female tech talent, and inspire others who share the same goal. …

E+T Magazine
Nanoparticle-infused contact lenses grant humans infrared vision – even with eyes closed

Researchers in China have developed contact lenses that overcome the limitations of human vision to open a “brand-new window onto the world”. Infrared light is invisible to the human eye. A form of electromagnetic radiation, its wavelengths fall outside the eye’s visible range of 400-700 nanometres. If humans want to see beyond this vision range – for instance, to be able to see in the dark – they use night-vision goggles or similar technology that can ‘see’ infrared wavelengths longer than 700 nanometres. However, this may no longer need to be the case following a study by researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, China. The team infused contact lenses with nanoparticles that convert near-infrared light in the 800–1,600 nanometre range into the…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
World’s tallest 3D-printed building completed using robot construction technique

The world’s tallest 3D-printed building, the 30-metre Tor Alva (White Tower), has been completed in Switzerland using a unique robotic construction technique. Built in the sparsely populated mountain village of Mulegns, the project was a collaboration between researchers at ETH Zurich and cultural foundation Origen. The White Tower consists of 32 sculptured white concrete columns that rise up over four storeys, becoming thinner and more branched as the tower extends upwards. The branches fan out like a tree to create a domed space at the top. Instead of relying on traditional concrete formwork, the construction team opted for an additive manufacturing process, whereby an industrial robot applies the concrete layer by layer into free-form elements without any supportive casting moulds…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
WWI wreck off California coast revealed for first time in stunning deep-sea images

Researchers have used advanced deep-sea imaging technology to provide detailed, high-definition images and video of a First World War submarine lying off the coast of California. On 17 December 1917, the US Navy submarine USS F-1 sank following a collision with its sister ship, which made a hole in the hull. It rapidly filled with water, resulting in the death of 19 crew members. The wreck, which was discovered in 1975 to still be intact, lies approximately 7.2km off the coast of La Jolla, California, in about 457 metres of water. During a series of deep-sea training and engineering dives earlier this year, researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), a non-profit marine research firm based in Massachusetts, managed to capture high-resolution images of the wreck for…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Microsoft Aurora AI shows off ‘first of its kind’ weather forecasting capabilities

Microsoft’s new AI approach to weather forecasting, Aurora, can accurately predict weather events and outperform traditional systems. Aurora is able to generate 10-day weather forecasts and predict extreme weather events more accurately, faster and at lower computational costs than traditional numerical forecasting and previous AI approaches. It does this by analysing a vast amount of diverse atmospheric data sources. The model does not only offer “greater accuracy in general, but it also means we are better at forecasting extreme events”, said Megan Stanley, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research. For instance, it predicted that Typhoon Doksuri, which wreaked havoc in the Philippines in July 2023, would reach land four days in advance of the event. Official predictions at the time…

E+T Magazine in Artificial Intelligence
Lithium-CO₂ ‘breathing’ batteries come closer to reality with new low-cost catalyst

University of Surrey researchers have made a breakthrough in developing lithium-CO₂ ‘breathing’ batteries. They revealed how the use of a different catalyst material can overcome issues with current Li-CO₂ batteries, making them more commercially viable and eco-friendly. Li-CO₂ batteries are considered to be the next frontier energy-storage technology because of their ability to greatly outperform today’s lithium-ion batteries. They have a high energy density and reduce carbon emissions by absorbing CO2. But key challenges to making the batteries commercially viable include wearing out quickly, failing to recharge and relying on expensive rare materials such as platinum. Recharging a Li-CO₂ battery requires breaking down lithium carbonate (Li₂CO₃), which is formed as part of the chemical…

E+T Magazine in Power Conversion
Industry insight: Businesses urged to act now as net-zero guidance enters new era

This article has been provided by Ruaridh Welsh, consultant at EcoAct, a subsidiary of Schneider Electric. In March, the SBTi launched the draft of its revised Corporate Net-Zero Standard for public consultation. The update marks an important step forward in aligning corporate net-zero strategies with climate science. With changes to how companies are categorised, strengthened expectations on emissions reduction, and new guidance on removals and transparency, the draft standard aims to close the credibility gap in climate target-setting. This revision comes amid growing concern about the gap between global climate ambition and action. Despite over 90% of global GDP being covered by national net-zero pledges, the UN’s latest Emissions Gap Report suggests the world remains on track for…

E+T Magazine in Business Planning
Liquid carbon created for the first time, offering breakthrough for nuclear fusion reactors

Liquid carbon, a material that could play a key role in future nuclear fusion reactors, has been made by a team of scientists for the first time. A high-performance laser called DiPOLE 100-X, which was developed in the UK, was used to create the material at the European XFEL facility near Hamburg. Due to its high melting point and unique structural properties, it is thought that liquid carbon could be useful in nuclear fusion plants as a way to cool the reactors and as a moderator that can help to slow down neutrons – a crucial way to maintain the chain reactions needed. The D100-X laser created conditions that enabled the liquification of solid carbon samples for just billionths of a second, while an X-ray beam captured diffraction patterns that reveal the atomic arrangement in the liquid…

E+T Magazine in Nuclear Power
Agentic AI is learning to think like us – without relying on your copyrighted content

Neuroscience is being used to build human-like agentic AIs – and you don’t need copyrighted data to do so. Ask ChatGPT to come up with party ideas, write a plan or analyse data and it will return an answer in seconds. Ask it follow-up questions and it will use memory and context to update its response. Ask it to use its initiative, however, and the AI suddenly becomes more cautious. It will not commit to making a decision because it has been designed to sit firmly on the fence – always acting as a servant, never as its own entity. This is partly deliberate, to negate claims of bias and similar, but it is also an inherent, technical limitation of the type of large language model (LLM) that has soared to prominence in recent months. In fact, this is one of a number of limitations, coupled…

E+T Magazine
Vessel-to-grid technology on River Thames could help balance London’s power grid

UK Power Networks (UKPN) is exploring how floating batteries on board electric vessels could support London’s electricity grid. The Electric Thames project, led by UKPN, aims to reduce the river’s carbon emissions. Partners include LCP Delta, Marine Zero, ev.energy and the Port of London Authority. The aim is to address critical challenges around electricity demand, infrastructure deployment and grid impact for vessel operators using the waterway. One area the project is exploring is vessel-to-grid or boat-to-grid technology. Electric vessels can store surplus renewable energy during periods of low demand and feed it back into the grid during peak times, helping to balance supply and demand.The electric vessels will act as floating batteries, feeding surplus power back into the electricity…

E+T Magazine in Marine Transport
National Highways to link habitats with three wildlife-only bridges

National Highways is to increase the number of wildlife-friendly bridges within the next two years. National Highways, a government-owned company responsible for England’s major A roads and motorways, has announced it is to construct three additional ‘green’ bridges in the UK. These include one across the A30 in Cornwall, one as part of the A417 Missing Link scheme near Gloucester and another at Wisley in Surrey as part of the M25 Junction 10 scheme. These will be in addition to the two that have already been built – over the A556 near Chester and the A21 at Scotney Castle in Kent. A feature for decades in European countries such as France and the Netherlands, green bridges are car-free zones covered in grass that offer safe crossing points for both wildlife and humans. Steve Elderkin…

E+T Magazine in Road transport systems
Copper crunch looms as IEA warns of fragile critical mineral supply chains

Supplies of critical minerals, such as copper, that are needed to manufacture electronics are facing “painful disruptions” in coming years due to export restrictions from a small handful of countries that control the bulk of the supply, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The document has identified a number of vulnerabilities in the supply chain over the next decade. Prices of copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and other rare earth elements soared in the wake of the pandemic, but have largely returned to their 2019 levels. The exception is copper, which has remained high. The materials are particularly important for the green energy transition as nations retool to tackle climate breakdown and move away from fossil fuels. The report finds that critical…

E+T Magazine in Management of Technology
Interview: How Fiona Erskine turns engineering know-how into page-turning fiction

Fiona Erskine is both a chemical engineer and a mainstream thriller writer. While the ‘engineer by day, writer by night’ dictum keeps her careers separate in real life, there is plenty of crossover in her fictional worlds. There have not been many engineering novelists. In fact, it is a profession that generates mainstream literary figures at a rate of roughly one per century. In the twentieth there was Nevil Shute, aeronautical engineer and designer of airships. In the twenty-first there is the UK’s Fiona Erskine – “engineer by day, writer by night” – who has “turned rock into fertilizer, recovered and recycled precious metals, brought medicines to market, made amazing new polymers, exported electricity and directed international construction projects”. Erskine would be the first to admit…

E+T Magazine in Recycling
India’s planned steel boom could derail global decarbonisation targets

Decarbonisation goals hinge on India increasing its plans for green steel manufacture, says the Global Energy Monitor (GEM) in its annual report on global iron and steel production. The report, Pedal to the Metal, evaluates the progress being made toward reaching 2030 iron and steel decarbonisation goals. Key to ‘greening’ the industry is to move away from coal-based blast furnaces and transition to electric arc furnaces (EAFs), which produce significantly fewer carbon emissions even if the grid is largely coal-based. The International Energy Agency requires 38% of global steel capacity to rely on EAFs by 2030. A key finding of this year’s GEM report is that this decarbonisation goal could feasibly be reached but all depends on India, which has the largest development pipeline of steelmaking…

E+T Magazine
Brain-inspired AI chip can process data locally without need for cloud or internet

An AI chip developed by researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany works without a cloud server or internet connections. Unlike existing chips, the AI Pro chip designed by the team at TUM features neuromorphic architecture. This is a type of computing architecture inspired by the structure and functioning of the human brain. This architecture enables the chip to perform calculations on the spot, ensuring full cyber security as well as being energy efficient. The chip employs a brain-inspired computing paradigm called ‘hyperdimensional computing’. With the computing and memory units of the chip located together, the chip recognises similarities and patterns, but does not require millions of data records to learn. The chip’s designer is Professor Hussam Amrouch…

E+T Magazine in Artificial Intelligence
Polar ice sheets may collapse even if 1.5°C target is met, scientists warn

The polar ice sheets are unlikely to remain intact even if the world manages to keep climate change to within the 1.5°C increase as established under the Paris Climate Agreement. According to a team of researchers led by Durham University, global temperatures should instead be closer to 1°C above pre-industrial temperatures to avoid significant losses from the polar ice sheets and prevent a further acceleration in sea level rises. The findings suggest a gloomy future for the world’s ice sheets as global warming is thought to have exceeded the 1°C threshold as far back as 2015. In January, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said 2024 even exceeded the 1.5°C threshold, albeit temporarily. The Durham team reviewed a wealth of evidence to examine the effect that the 1.5°C target would…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
E+T | Expert Engineering - Building the Thames Tunnel

An engineering marvel whose ingenuity can be traced back to the humble shipworm. This year sees the 200th anniversary of work beginning on the Thames Tunnel in London – the world’s first tunnel built underneath a navigable river. Built by father and son team, Marc Brunel and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, construction on the 400-metre long Thames Tunnel began in 1825 and was finished 18 years later having endured four floods, many deaths and near-bankruptcy.

E+T Magazine
Musk’s Grok AI chatbot sparks yet more controversy with Holocaust ‘scepticism’

Following controversial statements made by Elon Musk‘s Grok concerning ‘white genocide’ in South Africa, the AI chatbot is once again in hot water for making posts showing scepticism of facts about the Holocaust. Last week the Grok AI chatbot made headlines worldwide for bringing up ‘white genocide’ in unrelated chats on X (formerly Twitter). It replied to dozens of innocuous questions on X by providing the relevant answers and then tagging on unrelated information about ‘white genocide’ – a narrative that South African-born Musk has referenced many times through his own posts on X. He alleges that white farmers or Afrikaaners are being “brutally killed” and discriminated against under policies to remedy the legacy of apartheid. There was much speculation as to why the chatbot was doing…

E+T Magazine in Artificial Intelligence
Hybrid eVTOL makes ‘world first’ fan-in-wing mid-air transition from vertical to winged flight

Horizon Aircraft achieved a major milestone when its large-scale Cavorite X7 demonstrator became the first to transform between vertical lift and high-speed cruise modes using a fan-in-wing design. Many companies around the world are working on electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) solutions. Most of these are aimed at short-haul flights in urban areas. However, Horizon, a Canadian aerospace engineering company, is targeting various civilian and defence applications in the emerging regional air mobility market. Its hybrid eVTOL aircraft will take off like a helicopter but then convert into a plane, with projected speeds up to 450km/h and operational ranges over 800km with fuel reserves. The company first unveiled its Cavorite demonstrator prototype in 2021. Four years later…

E+T Magazine in Aerospace
Legal aid cyber attack exposes sensitive applicant data dating back to 2010

A cyber attack on the UK’s legal aid systems in April was able to extract a “large amount of information” relating to applicants including criminal records. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) believes the group accessed and downloaded a significant amount of personal data from those who have applied for legal aid through the government’s digital service since 2010. The breach is particularly concerning given the sensitive nature of the data leaked. It was originally detected on 23 April, following which the service took steps to bolster its security. But on Friday it discovered the attack was more extensive than originally understood. The data may have included contact details and addresses of applicants, their dates of birth, national ID numbers, criminal history, employment status and…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects

Community Rules & Guidelines