Engineering Design

  1. Tech

    Clear, stretchy sensor could lead to wearable electronics

    Researchers have combined plastics and metal to make a transparent, stretchable sensor. It could soon find use in touchscreens, wearable electronics and more.

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  2. Earth

    Earth’s tectonic plates won’t slide forever

    Earth’s surface morphs, owing to the movement of its tectonic plates. But those plates didn’t use to move so quickly. And in a few billion years they’ll grind to a halt, new research suggests.

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  3. Climate

    Volcanic rocks can quickly turn pollution into stone

    A test program in Iceland injected carbon dioxide into lava rocks. More than 95 percent of the gas turned to stone within two years.

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  4. Ink leads way to terminating termites

    Inspired by a classroom experiment, a teen has built a way to lure troublesome termites to their death — using the power of ink.

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  5. Animals

    Catching ‘Dory’ fish can poison entire coral reef ecosystems

    More than half of saltwater-aquarium fish sold in the United States may have been caught in the wild using cyanide, new data show.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Adult diseases may be linked to childhood weight

    Danish scientists find that very overweight kids grow up with a heightened risk of colon cancer and stroke.

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  7. Physics

    Cool Jobs: Solar sleuthing

    No star is closer than the sun, and yet there’s much science still don’t know about how it actually works. These scientists are helping solve the mysteries.

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  8. Environment

    Fighting big farm pollution with a tiny plant

    Fertilizer runoff can fuel the growth of toxic algae nearby lakes. A teen decided to harness a tiny plant to sop up that fertilizer.

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  9. Tech

    Concrete science

    Teen researchers are exploring ways to strengthen this building material, use it for safety purposes and use its discarded rubble.

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  10. Physics

    Famous physics cat now alive, dead and in two boxes at once

    Splitting Erwin Schrödinger’s famous — and fictitious — cat between two boxes brings scientists one step closer to building quantum computers from microwaves.

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  11. Brain

    Teen drinking may damage ability to cope with stress

    Teens are often tempted to drink alcohol. Drinking too much — and repeatedly — can hurt their ability to manage stress, a study in rats indicates.

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  12. Climate

    Zapping clouds with lasers could alter Earth’s climate

    Scientists zapped ice crystals in a lab. They were exploring whether this approach might be used to break those crystals in clouds — potentially as a way to cool Earth’s fever.

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