Engineering Design
- Tech
How to prevent the robot replication apocalypse
Today’s bot-building robots aren’t set on world domination. But scientists and philosophers want to keep future tech in check.
- Physics
Experiment: How well do different materials create static electricity?
Why are some materials more susceptible to static cling than others? Investigate by making your own electroscope.
- Climate
Hydrogen energy could help our climate — depending on its source
Hydrogen energy doesn’t emit greenhouse gases when it’s used. But how it’s produced will affect how useful it can be in slowing climate change.
- Tech
Explainer: The hydrogen rainbow
Hydrogen works the same, regardless of its source. But how clean or “green” it is very much hinges on its color-coded name — which points to how it was made.
- Tech
Engineers cook up a new way to tackle CO2: Make baking soda
Engineers have found a material that can collect carbon dioxide from the air. When later mixed with water, it forms baking soda that can be shed in the sea.
- Materials Science
A new hydrogel could help pull drinking water from the air
The salty gel absorbs more water from the air than similar gels, even in desert climates. This could provide clean water for drinking or farming.
- Science & Society
These teens are using science to make the world a better place
Finalists in the 2023 Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge are doing projects that aim to help others.
- Earth
Analyze This: Tropical forests have gotten patchier
Although many of the world's forests have gotten less fragmented since 2000, tropical forests have gotten more chopped up, putting animals at risk.
- Tech
New tech 3-D prints ouchless COVID-19 vaccine patches
A new compact 3-D printer can produce COVID-19 vaccine patches. These are less painful than the jab and can be stored more easily than liquid vaccines.
- Tech
Talking through a tube can trick AI into mistaking one voice for another
Researchers crafted tubes that can trick AI into mistaking one person’s voice for another’s. Bad guys could use such tricks to hack into accounts.
- Animals
Adult corals have been frozen and revived for the first time
Living corals could be frozen for safekeeping. Scientists could later revive them to restore reef ecosystems that are withering in warming seas.
- Tech
Human teleportation? This century we’re stuck doing it virtually
If teleportation is defined as being transported instantly to another place, then it’s already happening — via extended reality and holograms.
