Engineering Design
- Environment
Bacterial ‘living wires’ could help protect the seas and climate
Long, thin bacteria that conduct electricity may be able to help clean up oil spills and reduce emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
- Chemistry
Explainer: What is a hydrogel?
These unusual materials have a host of unusual properties. You can even make a starch-infused version in your kitchen.
- Health & Medicine
Should we use a genetic weapon against mosquitoes carrying malaria?
One gene drive to eliminate malaria seems to work in the lab. Now it’s time to ask local people if they want it released in the wild.
- Tech
A shape-shifting robotic tooth-cleaner might one day brush for you
A swarm of billions of magnetic, bacteria-killing nanoparticles can be shaped into bristles to fit any surface, including between teeth.
- Chemistry
Could we make vibranium?
The ‘perfect’ metal may belong to the fictitious Marvel world of Wakanda, but scientists hope to one day mimic some of its key traits.
- Materials Science
These fabrics change color as they stretch
Stretchy, color-shifting cloth may lead to new art, fashions and sensors. A century-old Nobel-prize-winning invention served as its inspiration.
- Animals
Sea creatures’ fishy scent protects them from deep-sea high pressures
TMAO’s water-wrangling ability protects a critter’s critical proteins — including muscle — from crushing under deep ocean pressures.
- Life
Let’s learn about modern Frankensteins
Modern scientists are creating strange new combinations of living tissue and trying to give dead things new life.
- Tech
Can computers think? Why this is proving so hard to answer
In 1950, Alan Turing proposed a test to tell a human from a computer. Today, that Turing test may tell us more about ourselves than about machines.
- Chemistry
Lego-like way to snap molecules together wins 2022 chemistry Nobel
This so-called ‘click chemistry’ allows scientists to build complex molecules in the lab and in living cells.
- Animals
Science is just starting to understand what animals feel
Animal-welfare researchers are studying the feelings and experiences of horses, octopuses and more.
- Physics
Experiments on ‘entangled’ quantum particles won the physics Nobel Prize
Three pioneers in quantum physics share the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics.
