The role of digital technologies, such as IoT, 3D printing, and digital platforms, holds significant potential for supporting a circular economy. However, digital technologies are not a magic fix that can instantly change how physical resources are used and produced to prevent waste and promote a circular economy.

In her doctoral thesis, Ida Eyi Heathcote-Fumador explores digitally mediated circular practices within ecosystems to understand the human–material interactions involved in enabling a digitally mediated circular economy. Heathcote-Fumador will defend the thesis on November 5.

Circular economy focuses on managing the use and creation of physical resources, products, residual materials, and by-products to prevent them from ending up in landfills as waste, while ensuring that organic materials safely return to the environment.

What challenges do you focus on in your research?

Material resources and their sustainable management are central to the circular economy, while digital technologies are often seen as more intangible, flexible, and having multiple functions. When examining the role of digital technologies, we often overlook the material characteristics that shape these technologies, as well as the human activities involved in ensuring that technological and material configurations align with the principles of sustainable material management.

How do you address the problem?

I studied two ecosystems, or groups of organizations working together: one in Ghana, Africa, and the other in Europe, specifically Sweden and Portugal. Both focused on using digital technologies to support the sustainable recovery of waste from the environment.

Through interviews, observations, and document analysis, I examined how physical materials, digital technologies, and human activities influence each other to create digitally mediated circular practices. I used a human-material tuning approach to understand the mutual roles of materials, digital technologies, and human actions in establishing circular practices.

What are the main findings?

I developed a model showing that the circular principles of resource care are central to activities leading to the emergence of digitally mediated circular practices. Human actions involve the collective imagination of sustainable futures for production and consumption, the prospecting of suitable materials and digital technologies, and their shaping to realize these visions. This shaping process, referred to as tuning—a term first introduced by Andrew Pickering (1993)—is akin to adjusting a radio to obtain a preferred signal.

For instance, the organizations I studied shared a strong commitment to reducing environmental waste by converting it into new products with the help of digital technologies. They identified discarded materials such as fishing nets and selected technologies like 3D printing to transform these wastes into new products.

However, because 3D printers are typically optimized for virgin materials, the process requires extensive experimentation to adapt the technology to recycled inputs. This perseverance, driven by care for both the material and the environment, enabled the successful realization of digitally mediated circular practices.

What do you hope your research will lead to?

My research aims to encourage both scholars and practitioners to consider the material and human activities of the circular economy when examining how digital technologies enable it. Circularity is based on specific principles, with materials at its center. Recognizing and documenting their influence can enhance our overall understanding of how material, digital, and human components interconnect, shaping digitally mediated circular practices. This comprehensive recognition will result in solutions that effectively promote a circular economy.

Data from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI suggest that more than a million of the people using its generative AI chatbot have shown interest in suicide.

In a blog post published on Monday, the AI company estimated that approximately 0.15% of users have “conversations that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent.”

With OpenAI reporting more than 800 million people use ChatGPT every week, this translates to about 1.2 million people.

The company also estimates that approximately 0.07% of active weekly users show possible signs of mental health emergencies related to psychosis or mania—meaning slightly fewer than 600,000 people.

The issue came to the fore after California teenager Adam Raine died by suicide earlier this year. His parents filed a lawsuit claiming ChatGPT provided him with specific advice on how to kill himself.

OpenAI has since increased parental controls for ChatGPT and introduced other guardrails, including expanded access to crisis hotlines, automatic rerouting of sensitive conversations to safer models, and gentle reminders for users to take breaks during extended sessions.

OpenAI said it has also updated its ChatGPT chatbot to better recognize and respond to users experiencing mental health emergencies, and is working with more than 170 mental health professionals to significantly reduce problematic responses.

© 2025 AFP

Imagine a road cyclist or downhill skier whose clothing adapts to their wind speed, allowing them to shave time just by pulling or stretching the fabric.

Such cutting-edge textiles are within reach, thanks to researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Led by SEAS mechanical engineering graduate student David Farrell, a study published in Advanced Materials describes a new type of textile that uses dimpling to adjust its aerodynamic properties while worn on the body. The research has the potential to change not only high-speed sports, but also industries like aerospace, maritime, and civil engineering.

The research is a collaboration between the labs of Katia Bertoldi, the William and Ami Kuan Danoff Professor of Applied Mechanics, and Conor J. Walsh, the Paul A. Maeder Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

On-demand golf ball dimples

Farrell, whose research interests lie at the intersection of fluid dynamics and artificially engineered materials, or metamaterials, led to the creation of a unique textile that forms dimples on its surface when stretched, even when tightly fitted around a person’s body. The fabrics utilize the same aerodynamic principles as a golf ball, whose dimpled surface causes a ball to fly farther by using turbulence to reduce drag. Because the fabric is soft and elastic, it can move and stretch to change the size and shape of the dimples on demand.

Adjusting dimple sizes can make the fabric perform better in certain wind speeds by reducing drag by up to 20%, according to the researchers’ experiments using a wind tunnel.

“By performing 3,000 simulations, we were able to explore thousands of dimpling patterns,” Farrell said. “We were able to tune how big the dimple is, as well as its form. When we put these patterns back in the wind tunnel, we find that certain patterns and dimples are optimized for specific wind-speed regions.”

Farrell and team used a laser cutter and heat press to create a dual-toned fabric made of a stiffer black woven material, similar to a backpack strap, and a gray, softer knit that’s flexible and comfortable. Using a two-step manufacturing process, they cut patterns into the woven fabric and sealed it together with the knit layer to form a textile composite. Experimenting with multiple flat samples patterned in lattices like squares and hexagons, they systematically explored how different tessellations affect the mechanical response of each textile material.

Lattice pattern

The textile composite’s on-demand dimpling is the result of a lattice pattern that Bertoldi and others have previously explored for its unusual properties. Stretch a traditional textile onto the body, and it will smooth out and tighten. “Our textile composite breaks that rule,” Farrell explained. “The unique lattice pattern allows the textile to expand around the arm rather than clamp down.

“We’re using this unique property that [Bertoldi] and others have explored for the last 10 years in metamaterials, and we’re putting it into wearables in a way that no one’s really seen before,” Farrell said.