MS-ETS1-1
Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
- Tech
Easy for you, tough for a robot
Robots still can’t do many things that we find easy. Can engineers reduce how klutzy robots are and boost their common sense?
- Physics
Future cars may offer personal sound zones — no earphones needed
Zones that offer each passenger personal listening are closer to reality. A new design improves performance by adapting to the conditions in your car.
- Humans
Researchers role-played as Neandertals to learn how they hunted birds
By pretending to be Neandertals, researchers show that the ancient hominids likely had the skills to hunt crowlike birds called choughs.
- Chemistry
Scientists find a ‘greener’ way to make jeans blue
When coated onto jeans, a plant-based polymer reduces water and cuts the amount of toxic chemicals needed.
- Chemistry
Chemists win Nobel Prize for faster, cleaner way of making molecules
Both scientists independently came up with new process — asymmetric organocatalysis. That name may be a mouthful, but it’s not that hard to understand.
- Brain
A sense of touch could upgrade virtual reality, prosthetics and more
Scientists and engineers are trying to add touch to online shopping, virtual doctor appointments and artificial limbs.
- Tech
Synthetic trees could tap underground water in arid areas
They also could also help coastal residents mine fresh water from salty sources.
- Animals
Cloning boosts endangered black-footed ferrets
A cloned ferret named Elizabeth Ann brings genetic diversity to a species that nearly went extinct in the 1980s.
- Materials Science
Tiny swimming robots may help clean up a microplastics mess
Big problem, tiny solution. Researchers in the Czech Republic have designed swimming robots that can help collect and break down microplastics.
- Tech
Headphones or earmuffs could replace needles in some disease testing
A new system that uses earmuffs to collect gases coming out the skin could help doctors diagnose a variety of diseases, scientists say.
- Climate
Warming cities may see more rain — and frequent flooding
Scientists are seeking to understand why and how to mop up excess precipitation.
- Climate
Stores and malls buy into ponds and rain gardens for flood control
An extra bonus: These rainy-day ponds clean up that dirty water running off parking lots.
