Engineering Design

  1. Climate

    Cool Jobs: The power of wind

    Science and engineering careers explore all aspects of wind, from terrible tornadoes to aeronautics and clean energy.

    By
  2. Brain

    When smartphones go to school

    Students who use smartphones and other mobile technology in class may well be driven to distraction. And that can hurt grades, studies show.

    By
  3. Health & Medicine

    Ouchless measles vaccine could save lives

    A new ‘ouchless’ vaccine patch that uses dissolving microneedles could make efforts to vaccinate against measles more practical.

    By
  4. Animals

    Picking a better porch light

    Lights can vary in brightness and ‘color’ — even those that are sold as white. A new study tested which lights attracted the most bugs.

    By
  5. Health & Medicine

    Flexible electronics track sweat

    A flexible, wireless health monitor that can wrap around the wrist tracks temperature and analyzes sweat to detect signs of too much water loss.

    By
  6. Physics

    Explainer: What are gravitational waves?

    Albert Einstein had predicted that large catastrophes, like colliding black holes, should produce tiny ripples in the fabric of space. In 2016, scientists reported finally detecting them

    By and
  7. Physics

    How to catch a gravity wave

    Physicists have just announced finding gravity waves. The phenomenon was predicted a century ago by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Here’s what it took to detect the waves.

    By
  8. Animals

    Picture This: Plesiosaurs swam like penguins

    A computer model suggests plesiosaurs — ancient marine reptiles — swam like penguins, using front flippers for power and back flippers for steering.

    By
  9. Tech

    Powered by poop and pee?

    Scientists are developing methods to not only remove human waste from wastewater, but also to harness the energy hidden within it.

    By
  10. Chemistry

    Olive oil untangles plastic

    Vegetable oils can make plastic fibers stronger. And the process is safer and better for the environment than other detanglers.

    By
  11. Health & Medicine

    Cool Jobs: Researchers on the run

    Researchers are taking running to extremes, from Olympic lizards to treadmills in space. The goal is to learn how athletes of all kinds can stay healthier.

    By
  12. Fossils

    Predatory dinos were truly big-mouths

    Large meat-eating dinosaurs could open their mouths wide to grab big prey. Vegetarians would have had a more limited gape, a new study suggests.

    By