[Science Bulletin] MSIT and KOFAC recruit 2,000 students for 2026 online gifted science program

&■ The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity introduced on the twelfth that they’ll recruit 2,000 students on a primary‑come, first‑served foundation from the fifteenth to the seventeenth for the “2026 Joint Online Pre‑Education Program of University‑Affiliated Science Gifted Education Centers,” focusing on fifth–sixth grade elementary college students and 1st grade center college students nationwide. This program is a joint math, science and info (informatics) curriculum developed by 27 college‑affiliated science gifted schooling facilities throughout the nation. It will run for a complete of 30 classes over the summer season trip via online lectures, actual‑time video courses, assignments and tutoring. All contributors who full the course will obtain a certificates of completion, and round 180 excellent students shall be eligible to attend a science gifted camp in September. This yr, a complete of 2,000 students (667 per grade) shall be recruited on a primary‑come, first‑served foundation throughout three areas, and students can apply individually by way of the Gifted Education Integrated Database web site. Detailed info is accessible within the recruitment discover on the joint web site of the college‑affiliated science gifted schooling facilities.

■ The Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI) introduced on the twelfth that it held a “Railway Science and Culture Capacity‑Building Workshop” on the tenth at its important campus in Uiwang for 30 railway tradition docents from the Korea Railroad Corporation’s Railway Museum. The occasion was designed to assist the docents perceive not solely the historical past of railways but additionally present railway applied sciences and future growth instructions. Participants obtained briefings on KRRI’s R&D achievements, excessive‑pace and city railway techniques, railway security applied sciences and future railway applied sciences, and toured analysis services. KRRI and the Railway Museum plan to proceed their collaboration to advertise the function and worth of railways as eco‑pleasant public transportation.

■ Korea University introduced on the twelfth {that a} analysis crew led by Professor Baek Seo‑in on the KU‑KIST Graduate School of Converging Science and Technology has recognized the atomic‑stage response mechanism by which formic acid is produced in the course of the electrochemical discount of carbon dioxide. Through molecular dynamics simulations that thought-about water molecules, response intermediates and electrolyte cations, along with spectroscopic evaluation, the crew discovered that, opposite to the prevailing view in academia, the carbon‑bonded intermediate (*COOH), relatively than the oxygen‑bonded intermediate (*OCHO), serves as the important thing pathway for formic acid formation on bismuth (Bi)‑primarily based catalysts. Formic acid is a promising materials that can be utilized as a hydrogen service. The researchers count on that this achievement will contribute to catalyst design for changing carbon dioxide into excessive worth‑added compounds, and to atomic‑stage mechanism research of assorted electrochemical reactions.

■ The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) introduced on the twelfth {that a} analysis crew led by Dr. Yang Hye‑younger has developed TRACE, a know-how for evaluating the reasoning course of of enormous language fashions (LLMs), and that their paper has been accepted by ICML 2026, a number one convention on synthetic intelligence and machine studying. TRACE decomposes AI‑generated reasoning textual content into eight elements—together with declare, proof, warrant, counterargument and monitoring—to research its logical construction and self‑checking course of. After coaching the mannequin on about 100,000 reasoning sentences, the crew evaluated 26,000‑plus reasoning situations produced by seven main language fashions and confirmed a robust correlation between the TRACE rating and the precise accuracy of the solutions. The researchers count on that this know-how will overcome the constraints of standard analysis strategies that centered solely on closing solutions by quantitatively assessing the AI’s reasoning course of, and that it may be used to enhance reasoning efficiency.

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Korea University, Ministry of Science and ICT, science bulletin, Korea Railroad Research Institute