Superyachts are notoriously dirty luxury toys, with a single billionaire’s boat emitting as much as 7,020 tons of CO2 per year. And while it’s unlikely uber-wealthy shoppers are going to forgo from their statement vessels anytime soon, at the very least there’s now a chance to make superyachts greener. That’s the idea behind the new Project 821, billed as the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell superyacht.

Announced over the weekend by Danish shipyard cooperative Feadship, Project 821 arrives following five years of design and construction. Measuring a massive 260-feet-long, the zero-diesel boat reportedly sails shorter distances than standard superyachts on the market, but still operates its hotel load and amenities using completely emissionless green hydrogen power.

Hydrogen cells generate power by turning extremely lightweight liquid hydrogen into electricity stored in lithium-ion batteries. But unlike fossil fuel engines’ noxious smoke and other pollutants, hydrogen cells only emit harmless water vapor. The technology remained cost-prohibitive and logistically challenging for years, but recent advancements have allowed designers to start integrating the green alternative into cars, planes, and boats.

There are still hurdles, however. Although lightweight, liquid hydrogen must be housed in massive, double-walled -423.4 degrees Fahrenheit cryogenic storage tanks within a dedicated section of the vessel. According to Feadship, liquid hydrogen requires 8-10 times more storage space for the same amount of energy created by diesel fuel. That—along with 16 fuel cells, a switchboard connection for the DC electrical grid, and water vapor emission vent stacks—necessitated adding an extra 13-feet to the vessel’s original specifications. But these size requirements ironically makes superyachts such as Project 821 arguably ideal for hydrogen fuel cell integration.

And it certainly sounds like Project 821 fulfills the “superyacht” prerequisites, with five decks above the waterline and two below it. The 14 balconies and seven fold-out platforms also house a pool, Jacuzzi, steam room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, gym, pantry, fireplace-equipped offices, living room, library, and a full walkaround deck.

Such luxuries, however, will need to remain relatively close-to-harbor for the time being. Project 821 still isn’t capable of generating and storing enough power to embark on lengthy crossings, but it can handle an “entire week’s worth of silent operation at anchor or [briefly] navigating emission-free at 10 knots while leaving harbors or cruising in protected marine zones,” according to Feadship.

[Related: This liquid hydrogen-powered plane successfully completed its first test flights.]

“We have now shown that cryogenic storage of liquified hydrogen in the interior of a superyacht is a viable solution,” Feadship Director and Royal Van Lent Shipyard CEO Jan-Bart Verkuyl said in the recent announcement, adding that “additional fuel cell innovations… are on the near horizon.”

Of course, the greenest solution remains completely divesting from ostentatious, multimillion-dollar vanity flotillas before rising sea levels (and angry orcas) overwhelm even the wealthiest billionaires’ harbors. But it’s at least somewhat nice to see a new eco-friendly advancement on the market—even if it still looks like a Bond villain’s getaway vehicle.

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After a five-year reign, the world’s largest 3D printer located at the University of Maine has been usurped—by a newer, larger 3D printer developed at the same school.

At a reveal event earlier this week, UMaine designers at the Advanced Structures & Composite Center (ASCC) showed off their “Factory of the Future 1.0,” aka the FoF 1.0. At four times the size of their previous Guinness World Record holder from 2019, MasterPrint, FoF 1.0 is capable of printing 96-by-32-by-18-foot tall structures and objects. Such sizable creations also require an impressive amount of building materials, however. According to its creators, FoF 1.0 can churn through upwards of 500-pounds of eco-friendly thermoplastic polymers per hour.

[Related: 3D printers just got a big, eco-friendly upgrade (in the lab)]

Global construction projects generate around 37 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the carbon-heavy production of aluminum, steel, and cement. Transitioning to more sustainable architecture and infrastructure projects is a key component of tackling climate change, spurring interest in massive 3D printer endeavors like FoF 1.0.

But just because there’s a new printer on the block doesn’t mean UMaine’s previous record-holder is obsolete. Designers created FoF 1.0 to print in tandem with MasterPrint, with the two machines even capable of working together on the same building components.

ASCC researchers and engineers aim to utilize these industrial-sized 3D printers to help construct some of the estimated 80,000 new homes needed in Maine over the next six years. FoF 1.0’s predecessor, MasterPrint, has already helped build the surprisingly stylish, sustainable, 600-square-foot BioHome3D prototype a few years back. 

“It’s not about building a cheap house or a biohome,” ASCC director Habib Dagher said at this week’s event. “We wanted to build a house that people would say, ‘Wow, I really want to live there.’”

With FoF 1.0’s help, those plans could potentially expand to encompass whole neighborhoods. According to Engadget’s calculations, the new machine could make “a modest single-story home in around 80 hours.”

Of course, such biofriendly projects don’t only catch the eye of sustainable architects. Funding for FoF 1.0 came in part from contributors such as the Department of Defense, as well as the Army Corps of Engineers. UMaine’s announcement also notes these backers hope to harness such machines for other projects, including “lightweight rapidly deployable structures and vessel technologies.”

Going forward, ASCC researchers hope to experiment with additional bio-based polymer sources, particularly wood residuals from Maine—which just so happens to be the country’s most forested state.

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NASA hitched a ride aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron Launcher in New Zealand yesterday evening, and is preparing to test a new, highly advanced solar sail design. Now in a sun-synchronous orbit roughly 600-miles above Earth, the agency’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) will in the coming weeks deploy and showcase technology that could one day power deep-space missions without the need for any actual rocket fuel, after launch.

The fundamentals behind solar sails aren’t in question. By capturing the pressure emitted by solar energy, thin sheets can propel a spacecraft at immense speeds, similar to a sailboat. Engineers have already demonstrated the principles before, but NASA’s new project will specifically showcase a promising boom design constructed of flexible composite polymer materials reinforced with carbon fiber.

Although delivered in a toaster-sized package, ACS3 will take less than 30 minutes to unfurl into an 860-square-foot sheet of ultrathin plastic anchored by its four accompanying 23-foot-long booms. These poles, once deployed, function as sailboat booms, and will keep the sheet taut enough to capture solar energy.

[Related: How tiny spacecraft could ‘sail’ to Mars surprisingly quickly.]

But what makes the ACS3 booms so special is how they are stored. Any solar sail’s boom system will need to remain stiff enough through harsh temperature fluctuations, as well as durable enough to last through lengthy mission durations. Scaled-up solar sails, however, will be pretty massive—NASA is currently planning future designs as large as 5,400-square-feet, or roughly the size of a basketball court. These sails will need extremely long boom systems that won’t necessarily fit in a rocket’s cargo hold.

To solve for this, NASA rolled up its new composite material booms into a package roughly the size of an envelope. When ready, engineers will utilize an extraction system similar to a tape spool to uncoil the booms meant to minimize potential jamming. Once in place, they’ll anchor the microscopically thin solar sail as onboard cameras record the entire process.

NASA hopes the project will allow them to evaluate their new solar sail design while measuring how its resulting thrust influences the tiny spacecraft’s low-Earth orbit. Meanwhile, engineers will assess the resiliency of their novel composite booms, which are 75-percent lighter and designed to offer 100-times less shape distortion than any previous solar sail boom prototype.

Don’t expect the ACS3 experiment to go soaring off into space, though. After an estimated two-month initial flight and subsystem testing phase, ACS3 will conduct a weeks-long test of its ability to raise and lower the CubeSate’s orbit. It’s a lot of work to harness a solar force NASA says is equivalent to the weight of a paperclip in your palm. Still, if ACS3’s sail and boom system is successful, it could lead towards scaling up the design enough to travel across the solar system.

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For the first time since November 2023, NASA is receiving meaningful communication from its Voyager 1 probe. The agency has spent months troubleshooting a glitch in why the famed probe was sending home messages that looked like garbled up gibberish and not scientific data. The probe is now coherent, but according to NASA, the next step is to enable Voyager 1 to begin to return usable science information again. 

[Related: Voyager 1 is sending back bad data, but NASA is on it.]

Alongside its twin Voyager 2, these probes are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space–or the region between stars beyond the influence of the sun. Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes launched in 1977. Their mission initially included detailed observations of Jupiter and Saturn, but it continued on exploring the outer reaches of the solar system. Voyager 1 became the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2 followed Voyager 1 into interstellar space in 2018. 

On November 14, 2023, Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth for the first time. Mission controllers could tell that the spacecraft was still receiving their commands and otherwise operating normally, so they were not sure why it was sending back such incoherent information. In March, the Voyager engineering team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) confirmed that the issue was related to one of the spacecraft’s three onboard computers, called the flight data subsystem (FDS). The FDS packages science and engineering data before it’s sent to Earth so that NASA can use it.

The team pinpointed the code responsible for packaging the spacecraft’s engineering data. The glitch was only on one single chip representing around 3 percent of the FDS memory, according to Space. They were unable to repair the chip. On April 18, JPL engineers migrated the code to other portions of the FDS memory. This required splitting the code up into several sections to store them at multiple locations in the FDS. The code was adjusted to work from multiple locations as one cohesive process and references to its new directories were updated. 

“When the mission flight team heard back from the spacecraft on April 20, they saw that the modification worked: For the first time in five months, they have been able to check the health and status of the spacecraft,” NASA wrote in an update on April 22.

[Related: When Voyager 1 goes dark, what comes next?]

As of now, the usable data returned so far relates to how the spacecraft’s engineering systems are working. The team plans more software repair work in the next several weeks so that Voyager 1 can send valuable science data about the outer reaches of the solar system that is readable once again. As of now, Voyager 2 is still operating normally.

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Before astronauts leave Earth’s gravity for days, weeks, or even months at a time, they practice aboard NASA’s famous parabolic flights. During these intense rides in modified passenger jets, trainees experience a series of stomach-churning ups and downs as the aircraft’s steep up-and-down movements create zero-g environments. Recently, however, a robot received similar education as their human counterparts—potentially ahead of its own journeys to space.

A couple years back, eight students at ETH Zürich in Switzerland helped design the SpaceHopper. Engineered specifically to handle low-gravity environments like asteroids, the small, three-legged bot is meant to (you guessed it) hop across its surroundings. Using a neural network trained in simulations with deep reinforcement learning, SpaceHopper is built to jump, coast along by leveraging an asteroid’s low-gravity, then orient and stabilize itself mid-air before safely landing on the ground. From there, it repeats this process to efficiently span large distances.

But it’s one thing to design a machine that theoretically works in computer simulations—it’s another thing to build and test it in the real-world.

Sending SpaceHopper to the nearest asteroid isn’t exactly a cost-effective or simple way to conduct a trial run. But thanks to the European Space Agency and Novespace, a company specializing in zero-g plane rides, the robot could test out its moves in the next best thing.

Over the course of a recent 30 minute parabolic flight, researchers let SpaceHopper perform in a small enclosure aboard Novespace’s Airbus A310 for upwards of 30 zero-g simulations, each lasting between 20-25 seconds. In one experiment, handlers released the robot in the middle of the air once the plane hit zero gravity, then observed it resituate itself to specific orientations using only its leg movements. In a second test, the team programmed SpaceHopper to leap off the ground and reorient itself before gently colliding with a nearby safety net.

Because a parabolic flight creates completely zero-g environments, SpaceHopper actually made its debut in less gravity than it would on a hypothetical asteroid. Because of this, the robot couldn’t “land” as it would in a microgravity situation, but demonstrating its ability to orient and adjust in real-time was still a major step forward for researchers. 

[Related: NASA’s OSIRIS mission delivered asteroid samples to Earth.]

“Until that moment, we had no idea how well this would work, and what the robot would actually do,” SpaceHopper team member Fabio Bühler said in ETH Zürich’s recent highlight video. “That’s why we were so excited when we saw it worked. It was a massive weight off of our shoulders.”

SpaceHopper’s creators believe deploying their jumpy bot to an asteroid one day could help astronomers gain new insights into the universe’s history, as well as provide information into our solar system’s earliest eras. Additionally, many asteroids are filled with valuable rare earth metals—resources that could provide a huge benefit across numerous industries back at home.

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As droughts continue to deplete the Panama Canal’s water levels, the maritime trading hub’s operators are planning a workaround. On Wednesday, Panama officials announced a new Multimodal Dry Canal project that will begin transporting international cargo across a “special customs jurisdiction” near the 110-year-old waterway.

The Panama Canal, which connects Atlantic and Pacific trading routes, has been in dire straits for some time. To function, ocean vessels pass through a series of above-sea-level “locks” filled with freshwater provided by nearby Lake Gatún and Lake Alajuela. Older Panamax locks require about 50 million gallons of freshwater per ship, while a small number of “Neo-Panamax locks” built in 2016 only require around 30 million gallons.

[Related: When climate change throws the Pacific off balance, the world’s weather follows.]

But the canal’s upgrades can’t keep up with climate change’s cascading effects. Lake Gatún and Lake Alajuela are replenished with rainwater, and a lingering drought compounded by El Niño has resulted in the second-driest year in the Panama Canal’s existence. To compensate, the daily average number of ships allowed to pass through the lock system has been reduced from 38 to 27, while each vessel is also now required to carry less cargo. Operators hope to soon raise that average to pre-drought levels, but likely at a cost to local marine ecosystem health and local drinking water supplies. Meanwhile, as the AFP reports, marine traffic jams routinely see over 100 ships waiting to pass through the 50-mile passage.

The new Multimodal Dry Canal project announced this week will attempt to further alleviate a global trade problem that particularly affects the Panama Canal’s most frequent users—the US, China, Japan, and South Korea.

Ship crews shouldn’t need to wait for a yearslong engineering process before seeing some relief to the passage’s congestion. During a presentation of project plans this week, Panamanian representatives said no additional investment or construction is needed. Instead, the dry thoroughfare will function as a complement to the canal by employing “existing roads, railways, port facilities, airports and duty-free zones,” according to the AFP on Wednesday.

Speaking with the BBC earlier this month (before the dry canal’s reveal), a shipping company general manager said such landbased detour routes could be costly—expenses that are “usually passed onto the consumer.”

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Japan has offered to provide the United States with a pressurized moon rover—in exchange for a reserved seat on the lunar van. Per NASA, the two nations have themselves a deal. 

According to a new signed agreement between NASA and Japan’s government, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will “design, develop, and operate” a sealed vehicle for both crewed and uncrewed moon excursions. NASA will then oversee the launch and delivery, while Japanese astronauts will join two surface exploration missions in the vehicle.

[ Related: SLIM lives! Japan’s upside-down lander is online after a brutal lunar night ]

‘A mobile habitat’

Japan’s pressurized RV will mark a significant step forward for lunar missions. According to Space.com, the nation has spent the past few years working to develop such a vehicle alongside Toyota and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Toyota offered initial specs for the RV last year—at nearly 20-feet-long, 17-feet-wide, and 12.5-feet-tall, the rover will be about as large as two minibusses parked side-by-side. The cabin itself will provide “comfortable accommodation” for two astronauts, although four can apparently cram in, should an emergency arise.

Like an RV cruising across the country, the rover is meant to provide its inhabitants with everything they could need for as long as 30 days at a time. While inside, astronauts will even be able to remove their bulky (and fashionable) getups and move about normally—albeit in about 16.6 percent the gravity as on Earth. Last week, NASA announced it had narrowed the search for its new Artemis Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) to three companies, but unlike Japan’s vehicle, that one will be unpressurized.

[Related: It’s on! Three finalists will design a lunar rover for Artemis ] 

“It’s a mobile habitat,” NASA Administrator Nelson said during yesterday’s press conference alongside Minister Moriyama, describing it as “a lunar lab, a lunar home, and a lunar explorer… a place where astronauts can live, work, and navigate the lunar surface.”

Similar to the forthcoming Lunar Terrain Vehicle, the Japanese RV can be remotely controlled if astronauts aren’t around, and will remain in operation for 10 years following its delivery.

“The quest for the stars is led by nations that explore the cosmos openly, in peace, and together… America no longer will walk on the moon alone,” Nelson added.

A total of 12 astronauts—all American men—have walked across the moon’s surface. When the U.S. returns to the moon with NASA’s Artemis missions, it will also be the first time a woman and a person of color will land on the moon.

After some rescheduling, NASA currently intends to send its Artemis II astronauts on a trip around the moon in late 2025. Artemis III will see the first two humans touchdown in over 50 years in either late 2026 or early 2027. The Artemis IV mission is currently intended to occur no earlier than 2030. Meanwhile, China is trying to land its own astronauts on the lunar surface in 2030. 

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Google DeepMind is now able to train tiny, off-the-shelf robots to square off on the soccer field. In a new paper published today in Science Robotics, researchers detail their recent efforts to adapt a machine learning subset known as deep reinforcement learning (deep RL) to teach bipedal bots a simplified version of the sport. The team notes that while similar experiments created extremely agile quadrupedal robots (see: Boston Dynamics Spot) in the past, much less work has been conducted for two-legged, humanoid machines. But new footage of the bots dribbling, defending, and shooting goals shows off just how good a coach deep reinforcement learning could be for humanoid machines.

While ultimately meant for massive tasks like climate forecasting and materials engineering, Google DeepMind can also absolutely obliterate human competitors in games like chess, go, and even Starcraft II. But all those strategic maneuvers don’t require complex physical movement and coordination. So while DeepMind can study simulated soccer movements, it hasn’t been able to translate to a physical playing field—but that’s quickly changing.

To make the miniature Messi’s, engineers first developed and trained two deep RL skill sets in computer simulations—the ability to get up from the ground and how to score goals against an untrained opponent. From there, they virtually trained their system to play a full one-on-one soccer matchup by combining these skill sets, then randomly pairing them against partially trained copies of themselves.

[Related: Google DeepMind’s AI forecasting is outperforming the ‘gold standard’ model.]

“Thus, in the second stage, the agent learned to combine previously learned skills, refine them to the full soccer task, and predict and anticipate the opponent’s behavior,” researchers wrote in their paper introduction, later noting that, “During play, the agents transitioned between all of these behaviors fluidly.”

Thanks to the deep RL framework, DeepMind-powered agents soon learned to improve on existing abilities, including how to kick and shoot the soccer ball, block shots, and even defend their own goal against an attacking opponent by using its body as a shield.

During a series of one-on-one matches using robots utilizing the deep RL training, the two mechanical athletes walked, turned, kicked, and uprighted themselves faster than if engineers simply supplied them a scripted baseline of skills. These weren’t miniscule improvements, either—compared to a non-adaptable scripted baseline, the robots walked 181 percent faster, turned 302 percent faster, kicked 34 percent faster, and took 63 percent less time to get up after falling. What’s more, the deep RL-trained robots also showed new, emergent behaviors like pivoting on their feet and spinning. Such actions would be extremely challenging to pre-script otherwise.

There’s still some work to do before DeepMind-powered robots make it to the RoboCup. For these initial tests, researchers completely relied on simulation-based deep RL training before transferring that information to physical robots. In the future, engineers want to combine both virtual and real-time reinforcement training for their bots. They also hope to scale up their robots, but that will require much more experimentation and fine-tuning.

The team believes that utilizing similar deep RL approaches for soccer, as well as many other tasks, could further improve bipedal robots movements and real-time adaptation capabilities. Still, it’s unlikely you’ll need to worry about DeepMind humanoid robots on full-sized soccer fields—or in the labor market—just yet. At the same time, given their continuous improvements, it’s probably not a bad idea to get ready to blow the whistle on them.

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It could have been the perfect crime, had they used better spray paint.

Recently, authorities have seized over 320 lbs worth of suspected smuggled gold during a cargo freight search at Hong Kong International Airport, according to yesterday’s customs announcement. Bound for Tokyo on March 27, investigators recovered the roughly $10.7 million haul from within two actual air compressors, the bureau’s largest ever in terms of overall gold value. But these weren’t goldbond bricks or stacks of doubloons stashed deep within the machinery—they were hunks of precious metal molded into the shapes of compressor parts, then camouflaged with silver-colored spray paint.

Customs agents first noticed something suspicious after running the 1,708 lbs pair of air compressors through a security X-ray late last month during a standard screening process. As Business Insider explains, similar air compressors are made from aluminum or iron, and usually intended for industrial and mining projects, as well as to fill divers’ gas cylinders.

Speaking with the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Monday, the assistant superintendent of Hong Kong International Airport’s customs air cargo division said technicians removed the motor casing and found a rotor “wrapped in a cord wheel which was tied to tape.”

“It was not similar to a normal motor,” he added.

After examining the rotor, authorities found traces of glue at both ends of the machinery part. Using a hammer, they then tapped the part and “noticed unevenness,” indicating the metal was far more malleable than it should have been. Scraping away at an outer layer of silver paint showed flecks of gold. At that point, the whole situation was pretty clear—these were dummy parts made of precious metal. Authorities believe the air compressor scheme was an attempt to evade Japan’s precious metals tariff that would have cost smugglers around $1.07 million, were they to go through official channels.

[Related: Montana traffickers illegally cloned Frankensheep hybrids for sport hunting.]

To create their industrial decoys, authorities believe smugglers must have first melted their gold down before pouring it into molds shaped to resemble motor rotors, screw shafts, and a gear piece. This probably was no easy feat, given that gold’s melting point is 1,948 degrees Fahrenheit.

According to Hong Kong Customs, police arrested the director of a local company on April 3 after finding his firm’s name listed as the shipment’s consignor. An initial investigation appears to show the company having no actual business dealings, potentially indicating it’s a shell outlet for smuggling. The investigation is still ongoing and the man has since been released on bail. Under Hong Kong’s Import and Export Ordinance, anyone found guilty of smuggling cargo could receive over $255,000 in fines alongside a maximum 7 year prison sentence.

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A team of international researchers have developed an adaptation to potentially help with 3D printing’s polymer problem. 

For quick prototyping jobs, designers often turn to fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printers. In these machines, molten polymers are layered atop one another using a heated nozzle. This process is underpinned by what’s known as slicer software, which informs the device of all the little details like temperature, speed, and flow necessary to make a specific desired product, instead of an amorphous blob of congealed goo. But a slicer only works for a reliably uniform material—that wouldn’t be too much of a problem, except most of those materials are often unrecyclable plastics.

But thanks to engineers collaborating between MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the National Center for Scientific Research in Greece, a little computational fine-tuning can now allow an off-the-shelf device to analyze, adjust, and successfully utilize previously unrecognizable printing materials in real-time to create more eco-friendly products.

3D printers often rely on unsustainable materials, but you can’t simply swap out those polymers for potentially more sustainable alternatives. Unlike artificial polymers, eco-friendly options contain a mix of various ingredients that result in widely varying physical properties. Plant-based polymers, for example, can change based on what’s available season-to-season, while recyclable resins fluctuate depending on its source materials. Those can still be used, but a device’s software parameters would need tweaking for each and every batch. And considering how a 3D printer’s programming usually contains as many as 100 adjustable parameters, this makes recyclable workarounds a difficult sell.

[Related: A designer 3D printed a working clone of the iconic Mac Plus.]

In a new study published in Integrating Materials and Manufacturing Innovation, engineers detailed a newly designed mathematical function that allows off-the-shelf 3D-printer’s extruder software to use multiple materials—including bio-based polymers, plant-derived resins, or other recyclables.

First, researchers took a 3D printer built to provide data feedback while it is working, then outfitted it with three new tools to measure various factors such as pressure, filament thickness, and speed. Once installed, the team created a 20-minute test during which those instruments measured varying flow rates as well as their associated temperatures and pressures. After some trial-and-error, engineers realized the best approach to this was to set the hottest temperature possible for a 3D printer’s nozzle, also known as a “hotend,” for obvious reasons. In this case, the hotend’s maximum temperature lived up to the name—290 degrees Celsius, or about 554 Fahrenheit. They then set it to extrude filament at a steady rate, turned off the heater, and let it run.

“It was really difficult to figure out how to make that test work. Trying to find the limits of the extruder means that you are going to break the extruder pretty often while you are testing it,” CBA graduate student and study first author Jake Read said in a statement on Monday. “The notion of turning the heater off and just passively taking measurements was the ‘aha’ moment.”

Read and their collaborators then entered the information gleaned from their test into a new mathematical function that automatically computed workable printing parameters and machine settings depending on material. Once those were available, the team simply entered the parameters into the 3D printer software and let it run normally.

To test their system, researchers used six different materials to 3D print a small toy tugboat. Even including eco-friendly options derived from algae, wood, and sustainable polylactic acid, engineers reported no “failures of any kind” in their small model vessels—although from an aesthetically standpoint, the wood and algae resins did make for rather stringy-looking final products. 

But while the new alterations may not yet offer a “complete reckoning with all of the phenomenology and modeling associated with FFF printing,”  the team believes the system shows that “even simple methods in combination with instrumented hardware and workflows that connect machines to slicers can have promising results.”
Next up, researchers hope to expand on their computational modeling efforts, as well as design a way so testing parameters can automatically apply to a 3D printer instead of requiring manual entry. In the meantime, they have made their mechanical and circuit designs, as well as firmware, framework, and experiment source codes available online for others to try for themselves.

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Sharks and owls are evolutionarily optimized in surprisingly similar ways. When it comes to the ocean’s apex predator, their skin’s textured patterns, known as riblets, help cut down on drag. With owls, their tiny feather ridges called serrations allow them to fly silently while hunting prey.

Although the naturally-occurring aids have inspired biomimicry-based aeronautic designs in the past, a collaborative team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and MIT Lincoln Laboratory recently investigated if these same principles could also apply to underwater tools. Their findings, published in a new study in Extreme Mechanics Letters, indicate the designs could be adapted to improve the towed sonar arrays (TSAs) utilized by ships and submarines.

TSAs are vital for marine vessels engaged in underwater security or exploration projects. But if ships start cruising at decent speeds, the ensuing drag around the equipment can generate extra noise that interferes with sonar capabilities.

[Related: Did sonar finally uncover Amelia Earhart’s missing plane?]

Utilizing computational modeling, researchers tested various riblet shapes and patterns interacting with simulated water environments. From calm currents to the more commonly unpredictable flows seen in oceans, the team observed how smooth, triangular, trapezoidal, and scalloped riblets might affect fluid dynamics and acoustics.

Of these variations, the rectangular form showed the most promising results in choppy water—reducing noise by over 14-percent alongside a roughly 5 percent reduction in drag. When the riblets were finer and closer to one another, drag could be reduced by as much as an additional 25 percent.

These simulations not only showcased potential riblet patterns for sonar casings, but also illuminated new fluid dynamics that underpin noise reduction during turbulent water flows. In a process researchers call “vortex lifting,” flows are elevated and redirected away from the textured surfaces while also lowering their rotational strength.

“This elevation is key to reducing the intense pressure fluctuations that are generated by the interaction between the water flow and the array wall, leading to noise production,” Zixiao Wei, a mechanical engineering graduate student and study first author, said in a recent statement.

The team also noted that adding the animal-inspired textures to TSAs and other underwater vehicles wouldn’t just help humans—it could improve habitat conditions for marine wildlife, as well. Systems reliant on riblet patterns could make for quieter operating, thereby reducing the chances of artificially disturbing their surrounding ecosystems.

That said, it’s one thing to simulate shark skin—actually replicating it has proven extremely difficult. But with additional testing and deployment, Wei believes the new designs will showcase “the vast potential of biomimicry in advancing engineering and technology.”

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The quest to harness the holy grail of clean energy is potentially moving a step in the right direction thanks to the same principles behind refrigerator magnets. Earlier this week, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) revealed their new stellarator–a unique fusion reactor that uses off-the-shelf and 3D-printed materials to contain its superheated plasma.

First conceptualized over 70 years ago by PPPL’s founder, Lyman Spitzer, a traditional stellarator works by employing electromagnets precisely arranged in complex shapes to generate magnetic fields using electricity. Unlike tokamak reactors, stellarators do not need to run electric current specifically through their plasma to create magnetic forces—a process that can interfere with fusion reactions. That said, tokamaks still effectively confine their plasma so well that they have been the preferred reactor choice for researchers, especially when factoring in a stellarator’s comparative costs and difficulties. Because of all this, Spitzer’s design has remained largely unused for decades.

[Related: The world’s largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor is live.]

Engineers behind the new stellarator known as MUSE, however, say their workaround could solve these barriers. Instead of electromagnets, the device uses permanent magnets—albeit much more powerful and finely tuned than ones found in everyday novelty and souvenir collectibles. MUSE requires permanent magnets made using rare-earth metals that can exceed 1.2 teslas, the unit of measurement for magnetic flux density. In comparison, standard ferrite or ceramic permanent magnets usually exhibit between 0.5-to-1 teslas.

“I realized that even if they were situated alongside other magnets, rare-earth permanent magnets could generate and maintain the magnetic fields necessary to confine the plasma so fusion reactions can occur, and that’s the property that makes this technique work,” Michael Zarnstorff, a PPPL senior research physicist and MUSE principle investigator, said in a statement.

Building a stellarator with permanent magnets is a “completely new” approach, PPPL graduate student Tony Qian added. Qian also explained that the stellarator alteration will allow engineers to both test plasma confinement ideas and build new devices far more easily than before.

Atop the promising design alterations, MUSE reportedly manages what’s known as “quasisymmetry” better than any previous stellarator—more specifically, a subtype called “quasiaxisymmetry.”

In extremely simplified terms, quasisymmetry is when a magnetic field’s shape inside a stellarator isn’t the same as the field around the stellarator’s physical shape. Nevertheless, the overall magnetic field strength remains uniform, thus effectively confining plasma and increasing the chances for fusion reactions. According to Zarnstorff, MUSE pulls off its quasisymmetry “at least 100 times better than any existing stellarator.”

From here, the researchers intend to further investigate the nature of MUSE’s quasisymmetry, while also precisely mapping its magnetic fields—all factors influence the odds of achieving stable, net positive fusion reactions.

Whether or not scientists will discover the breakthroughs necessary to make green fusion energy a reality anytime soon remains to be seen. But thanks to some creative problem-solving using what are ostensibly very heavy duty fridge magnets, the long-overlooked stellarator could prove a valuable tool.

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NASA has announced three finalists to pitch them their best moon car ideas by this time next year to use on upcoming Artemis lunar missions. During a press conference yesterday afternoon, the agency confirmed Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab will all spend the next 12 months developing their Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) concepts as part of the “feasibility task order.”

According to Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the final LTV will “greatly increase our astronauts’ ability to explore and conduct science on the lunar surface while also serving as a science platform between crewed missions.”

While neither Lunar Outpost nor Venturi Astrolab have been on the moon yet, they are planning uncrewed rover missions within the next couple years. In February, Intuitive Machines became the first privately funded company to successfully land on the lunar surface with its NASA-backed Odysseus spacecraft. Although “Odie” officially returned the US to the moon after an over-50 year hiatus, touchdown complications resulted in the craft landing on its side, severely limiting the extent of its mission.

[Related: NASA’s quirky new lunar rover will be the first to cruise the moon’s south pole.]

The last time astronauts zipped around on a moon buggy was back in 1971 during NASA’s Apollo 15 mission. The new LTV, like its Apollo predecessor, will only accommodate two people in an unpressurized cockpit—i.e. exposed to the harsh moon environment.

Once deployed, however, the LTV will differ from the Lunar Roving Vehicle in a few key aspects—most notably, it won’t always need someone at the steering wheel. While astronauts will pilot the LTV during their expeditions, the vehicle will be specifically designed for remote control once the Artemis crew is back home on Earth. In its initial May 2023 proposal call, the agency explained its LRV capabilities will be “similar to NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers.” When NASA isn’t renting the LTV, the winning company will also be free to contract it out to private ventures in the meantime.

But while a promising lunar rover design is great to see on paper, companies will need to demonstrate their vehicle’s capabilities before NASA makes its final selection—and not just on some desert driving course here on Earth.

After reviewing the three proposals, NASA will issue a second task order to at least one of the finalists, requesting to see their prototype in action on the moon. That means the company (or companies) will need to plan and execute an independent lunar mission, deliver a working vehicle to the moon, and “validate its performance and safety.” Only once that little hurdle is cleared does NASA plan to greenlight one of the company’s rovers.

If everything goes smoothly, NASA’s Artemis V astronauts will use the winning LTV when they arrive near the moon’s south pole in 2030.

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Transitioning towards sustainable clothing practices is a must for combating climate change, so researchers are turning to bacteria for their fashion inspiration. As detailed in the research journal Nature Biotechnology, a team at Imperial College London has genetically engineered new microbial strains capable of being woven into wearable material, while simultaneously self-dyeing itself in the process. The result is a new vegan, plastic-free leather that’s suitable for items such as wallets and shoes—although perhaps not the most fashionable looking shoes at the moment. 

As much as 200 million liters of water is consumed across the global textile industry every year, and 85 percent of all used clothing in the US winds up in landfills. Meanwhile, the particulates shed from washing polyester and other polymer-based fabrics already make up 20-and-35 percent of the oceans’ microplastics. Then there’s all the pesticides used in industrial cotton farming. And when it comes to animal leather production, the statistics are arguably just as bad. Basically, from an ecological standpoint, it costs a lot to dress fashionably.

Sustainable, microbial-based textile alternatives haven increasingly shown promise for greener manufacturing, especially the utilization of bacterial cellulose.

[Related: A new color-changing, shape-shifting fabric responds to heat and electricity.]

“Bacterial cellulose is inherently vegan, and its growth requires a tiny fraction of the carbon emissions, water, land use and time of farming cows for leather,” Tom Ellis, a bioengineering professor at Imperial College London and study lead author, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Unlike plastic-based leather alternatives, bacterial cellulose can also be made without petrochemicals, and will biodegrade safely and non-toxically in the environment.”

Unfortunately, synthetically dyeing products like vegan leather remains some of the most toxic stages within the fashion industry. By combining both the manufacturing and dyeing processes, researchers believe they can create even more environmentally friendly wearables.

To harness both capabilities, Ellis and his colleagues genetically modified bacteria commonly used in microbial cellulose to self-produce a black pigment known as eumelanin. Over a two-week period, the team then allowed their new material to grow over a “bespoke, shoe-shaped vessel.” Once completed, the leather-like cellulose was loaded into a machine that gently shook it for about 48-hours at roughly 86-degrees Fahrenheit, which stimulated the bacteria to begin darkening from the inside out. Finally, the material was attached to a pre-made sole to reveal… well, if not a “shoe,” then certainly a “shoe-shaped vessel.” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course. But if the bulbous clogs aren’t your style, maybe the team’s other example—a simple bifold wallet—makes more sense for your daily outfit.

According to their study, the team notes they still want to cut down the cellulose’s water consumption even further, as well as engineering their bacterial cellulose to allow for additional colors, materials, and even patterns.

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What time is it on the moon?

Well, right now, that’s somewhat a matter of interpretation. But humanity is going to need to get a lot more specific if it intends to permanently set up shop there. In preparation, NASA is aligning its clocks in preparation for the upcoming Artemis missions. On Tuesday, the White House issued a memo directing the agency to establish a Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC), which will help guide humanity’s potentially permanent presence on the moon. Like the internationally recognized Universal Time Zone (UTC), LTC will lack time zones, as well as a Daylight Savings Time.

It’s not quite a time zone like those on Earth, but an entire frame of time reference for the moon. 

As Einstein famously noted, time is very much relative. Most timekeeping on Earth is tied to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which relies on an international array of atomic clocks designed to determine the most precise time possible. This works just fine in relation to our planet’s gravitational forces, but thanks to physics, things are observed differently elsewhere in space, including on the moon.

“Due to general and special relativity, the length of a second defined on Earth will appear distorted to an observer under different gravitational conditions, or to an observer moving at a high relative velocity,” Arati Prabhakar, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTB), explained in yesterday’s official memorandum. 

Because of this, an Earth-based clock seen by a lunar astronaut would appear to lose an average of 58.7 microseconds per Earth day, alongside various other periodic variational influences. This might not seem like much, but it would pose major issues for any future lunar spacecraft and satellites that necessitate extremely precise timekeeping, synchronization, and logistics.

[Related: How to photograph the eclipse, according to NASA.]

“A consistent definition of time among operators in space is critical to successful space situational awareness capabilities, navigation, and communications, all of which are foundational to enable interoperability across the U.S. government and with international partners,” Steve Welby, OTSP Deputy Director for National Security, said in Tuesday’s announcement.

NASA’s new task is about more than just literal timing—it’s symbolic, as well. Although the US aims to send the first humans back to the lunar surface since the 1970’s, it isn’t alone in the goal. As Reuters noted yesterday, China wants to put astronauts on the moon by 2030, while both Japan and India have successfully landed uncrewed spacecraft there in the past year. In moving forward to establish an international LTC, the US is making its lunar leadership plans known to everyone.

[Related: Why do all these countries want to go to the moon right now?]

But it’s going to take a lot of global discussions—and, yes, time—to solidify all the calculations needed to make LTC happen. In its memo, the White House acknowledged putting Coordinated Lunar Time into practice will need international agreements made with the help of “existing [timekeeping] standards bodies,” such as the United Nations International Telecommunications Union. They’ll also need to discuss matters with the 35 other countries who signed the Artemis Accords, a pact concerning international relations in space and on the moon. Things could also get tricky, given that Russia and China never agreed to those accords.

“Think of the atomic clocks at the US Naval Observatory. They’re the heartbeat of the nation, synchronizing everything,” Kevin Coggins, NASA’s space communications and navigation chief, told Reuters on Tuesday. “You’re going to want a heartbeat on the moon.”

NASA has until the end of 2026 to deliver its standardization plan to the White House. If all goes according to plan, there might be actual heartbeats on the moon by that point—the Artemis III crewed lunar mission is scheduled to launch “no earlier than September 2026.”

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The world’s largest digital camera is officially ready to begin filming “the greatest movie of all time,” according to its makers. This morning, engineers and scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announced the completion of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera, a roughly 6,610-pound, car-sized tool designed to capture new information about the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Following a two-decade construction process, the 3,200-megapixel LSST Camera will now travel to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory located 8,900-feet atop Chile’s Cerro Pachón. Once attached to the facility’s Simonyi Survey Telescope later this year, its dual five-foot and three-foot-wide lenses will aim skyward for a 10-year-long survey of the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, and beyond.

Just how much detail can you get from a focal plane leveled to within a tenth the width of a human hair alongside 10-micron-wide pixels? Aaron Roodman, SLAC professor and Rubin Observatory Deputy Director and Camera Program Lead, likens its ability to capturing the details of a golf ball from 15-miles away “while covering a swath of the sky seven times wider than the full moon.” The resultant images will include billions of stars and galaxies, and with them, new insights into the universe’s structure.

[Related: JWST takes a jab at the mystery of the universe’s expansion rate.]

Among its many duties, the LSST Camera will search for evidence of weak gravitational lensing, which occurs when a gigantic galaxy’s gravitational mass bends light pathways from the galaxies behind it. Analyzing this data can offer researchers a better look at how mass is distributed throughout the universe, as well as how that distribution changed over time. In turn, this could help provide astronomers new ways to explore how dark energy influences the universe’s expansion.

To achieve these impressive goals, the LSST Camera needed to be much more than simply a scaled-up version of a point-and-shoot digital camera. While lenses like those within your smartphone often don’t include physical shutters, they are still usually found within SLR cameras. That said, their shutter speeds aren’t nearly as slow as the LSST Camera. 

“The [LSST] sensors are read out much more slowly and deliberately… ” Andy Rasmussen, SLAC staff physicist and LSST Camera Integration and Testing Scientist, tells PopSci. “… the shutter is open for 15 seconds (for the exposure) followed by 2 seconds to read (with shutter closed).” This snail’s pace allows LSST Camera operators to only deal with lower noise—only around 6 or 7 electrons—resulting in capturing much darker skies.

“We need quiet sensors so that we can tell that the dark sky is actually dark and also so that we can measure very dim objects in the sky,” Rasmussen continues. “During this 2 second readout period, we need to block any more light from entering the Camera, so that’s why we have a shutter (one of several mechanisms inside the Camera).”

To further ensure operators can capture the measurements of dim objects, they also ostensibly slow atomic activity near the LSST Camera’s focal point by lowering surrounding temperatures as low as -100C (173 Kelvin).

Beyond dark matter and dark energy research, cosmologists intend to use the LSST Camera to conduct a new, detailed census of the solar solar system. Researchers estimate new imagery could increase the number of known objects by a factor of 10, and thus provide additional insight into how the solar system formed, as well as keep track of any errant asteroids that may speed by Earth a little too close for comfort.

“More than ever before, expanding our understanding of fundamental physics requires looking farther out into the universe,” Kathy Turner, the Department of Energy’s Cosmic Frontier Program manager, said in today’s announcement. With LSST Camera’s installation, Turner believes researchers will be on the path to “answer some of the hardest, most important questions in physics today.”

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Each day an estimated 95 percent of the world’s data travels across the roughly 900,000 miles of submarine fiber optic cables criss-crossing the ocean floor. Modern life as we know it—from internet communications to video calls to streaming services—would look significantly different without this massive infrastructure. To keep up with the world’s insatiable data needs, construction could soon begin on a new cable located within a once-inaccessible environment.

Politico reports that a consortium of companies intends to move forward with the Far North Fiber project—a deep sea cable that would stretch over 9,000 miles through the Northwest Passage, connecting Europe to Japan, alongside additional landing sites in Alaska, Canada, Norway, Finland, and Ireland. Ironically, the potential endeavor is only possible due to one of the most pressing threats facing humanity.

As our digital lives travel along these submarine cables, they devour gigantic amounts of energy and further exacerbate climate change. The Arctic, for example, is currently warming almost four times faster than the rest of the planet, causing its sea ice to shrink by roughly 13 percent per decade. According to one Far North Fiber developer, however, all that terrifying environmental decimation creates a new business opportunity.

[Related: A 10-million-pound undersea cable just broke an internet speed record.]

The Arctic’s previously unthinkable thaws will present a “sweet spot where it’s now accessible and allows us a time window when we can get the cable safely installed,” Ik Icard, chief strategy officer at Far North Digital, told Politico.

Far North Fiber’s backers claim that, once constructed, their cable would also be better protected compared to similar lines elsewhere in the world. An estimated 100 to 150 lines are damaged every year globally, be it from accidental encounters with boat anchors and fishing equipment, or due to intentional sabotage.

The threat of sabotage is an increasing concern to the telecom companies overseeing deep sea cable systems. More than 90 percent of all Europe-Asia data traffic travels along cables within the Red Sea trading corridor. Thanks to a recent increase in the region’s geopolitical unrest and violence, cable lines face greater risk of damage. Just last month, three such lines were cut during ongoing Houthi rebel attacks on nearby shipping vessels.

Company representatives believe establishing a new route through the Northwest Passage could avoid similar issues in the future—at an estimated cost of €1 billion ($1.08 billion). That’s about four times the cost of laying a cable across the Atlantic Ocean, and around three times as much to do so in the Pacific. But despite the exponential price tag, the European Union has signaled its interest with a €23 million investment in Far North Fiber. The project’s developers also hope to convince the US and Canada to get involved. 

“Nobody wants to cut a cable under the ice, it’s really hard to do,” Far North Digital co-founder Ethan Berkowitz said.

A study published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment estimates the Arctic could experience seasonally ice-free waters as soon as 2035—less than a decade removed from Far North Fiber’s proposed 2026 launch date.

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In the average American house, any download rate above roughly 242 Mbs is considered a solidly speedy broadband internet connection. That’s pretty decent, but across the Atlantic, researchers at UK’s Aston University recently managed to coax about 1.2 million times that rate using a single fiber optic cable—a new record for specific wavelength bands.

As spotted earlier today by Gizmodo, the international team achieved a data transfer rate of 301 terabits, or 301,000,000 megabits per second by accessing new wavelength bands normally unreachable in existing optical fibers—the tiny, hollow glass strands that carry data through beams of light. According to Aston University’s recent profile, you can think of these different wavelength bands as different colors of light shooting through a (largely) standard cable.

[Related: No, ‘10G internet’ is not a thing.]

Commercially available fiber cabling utilizes what are known as C- and L-bands to transmit data. By constructing a device called an optical processor, however, researchers could access the never-before-used E- and S-bands.

“Over the last few years Aston University has been developing optical amplifiers that operate in the E-band, which sits adjacent to the C-band in the electromagnetic spectrum but is about three times wider,” Ian Phillips, the optical processor’s creator, said in a statement. “Before the development of our device, no one had been able to properly emulate the E-band channels in a controlled way.”

But in terms of new tech, the processor was basically it for the team’s experiment. “Broadly speaking, data was sent via an optical fiber like a home or office internet connection,” Phillips added. 

What’s particularly impressive and promising about the team’s achievement is that they didn’t need new, high-tech fiber optic lines to reach such blindingly fast speeds. Most existing optical cables have always technically been capable of reaching E- and S-bands, but lacked the equipment infrastructure to do so. With further refinement and scaling, internet providers could ramp up standard speeds without overhauling current fiber optic infrastructures.

[Related: An inside look at how fiber optic glass is made.]

“[It] makes greater use of the existing deployed fiber network, increasing its capacity to carry data and prolonging its useful life & commercial value,” said Wladek Forysiak, a professor at the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies. In doing so, Forsyiak believes their solution may also offer a much greener solution to the world’s rapidly increasing data demands.

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SLIM, Japan’s first successful lunar lander, isn’t going down without a fight. After making history—albeit upside down—in January, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon continues to surprise mission control at Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) by surviving not one, but now two brutally frigid lunar nights.

“Last night, we received a response from #SLIM, confirming that the spacecraft made it through the lunar night for the second time!” JAXA posted to X on Wednesday alongside a new image of its likely permanent, inverted vantage point near the Shioli crater. JAXA also noted that, because the sun is currently high above the lunar horizon, SLIM’s equipment is currently extremely hot (212-degrees Fahrenheit or so), so only the navigation camera can be used for the time being.

Last night, we received a response from #SLIM, confirming that the spacecraft made it through the lunar night for the second time! Since the sun was still high and the equipment was still hot, we only took some shots of the usual scenery with the navigation camera. #GoodAfterMoon pic.twitter.com/5BjIr7vxMG

— 小型月着陸実証機SLIM (@SLIM_JAXA) March 28, 2024

Based on their newly acquired data, however, it appears that some of the lander’s temperature sensors and unused battery cells are beginning to malfunction. Even so, JAXA says “the majority of functions that survived the first lunar night” are still going strong after yet another two-week stretch of darkness that sees temperatures drop to -208 Fahrenheit.

It’s been quite the multi-month journey for SLIM. After launching last September, SLIM eventually entered lunar orbit in early October, where it then spent weeks rotating around the moon’s surface. On January 19, JAXA initiated SLIM’s landing procedures, with early indications pointing towards a successful touchdown. After reviewing lander data, JAXA confirmed the spacecraft stuck the landing roughly 180-feet from an already extremely narrow 330-feet-wide target site—thus living up to SLIM’s “Moon Sniper” nickname.

[Related: SLIM lives! Japan’s upside-down lander is online after a brutal lunar night.]

The historic moment wasn’t a flawless mission, however. In the same update, JAXA explained that one of its lander’s main engines malfunctioned as it neared the surface, causing SLIM to tumble over, ostensibly on its head. In doing so, the craft’s solar panels now can’t work at their full potential, thus limiting battery life and making basic functions much more difficult for the lander.

JAXA still managed to make the most of its situation by using SLIM’s sensors to gather a ton of data on the surrounding lunar environment, as well as deploy a pair of tiny autonomous robots to survey the lunar landscape. On January 31, mission control released what it cautioned could very well be SLIM’s last postcard image from the moon ahead of an upcoming lunar night. The lander wasn’t designed for a lengthy life even in the best of circumstances, but its prospects appeared even dimmer given its accidental positioning.

Roughly two weeks later, however, SLIM proved it could endure in spite of the odds by booting back up and offering JAXA another opportunity to gather additional lunar information. A repeat of JAXA’s same warning came a few days later—and yet here things stand, with SLIM still chugging along. From the start, researchers have employed the lander’s multiple tools, including a Multi-Band Camera, to analyze the moon’s chemical composition, particularly the amounts of olivine, ““will help solve the mystery of the origin of the moon,” says JAXA.

At this point, it’s anyone’s guess how much longer the lander has in it. Perhaps it’s taking a cue from NASA’s only-recently-retired Mars Ingenuity rotocopter, which lasted around three years longer than intended.

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Researchers at Australia’s Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) have combined brute force with high tech manufacturing to create a new silicon material for hospitals, laboratories and other potentially sensitive environments. And although it might look and feel like a flat, black mirror to humans, the thin layering actually functions as a thorny deathtrap for pathogens.

As recently detailed in the journal ACS Nano, the interdisciplinary team spent over two years developing the novel material, which is smooth to the human touch. At a microscopic level, however, the silicon surface is covered in “nanospikes” so small and sharp that they can impale individual cells. In lab tests, 96-percent of all hPIV-3 virus cells that came into contact with the material’s miniscule needles either tore apart, or came away so badly damaged that they couldn’t replicate and create their usual infections like pneumonia, croup, and bronchitis. With no external assistance, these eradication levels could be accomplished within six hours.

Interestingly, inspiration came not from vampire hunters, but from insects. Prior to designing the spiky silicon, researchers studied the structural composition of cicada and dragonfly wings, which have evolved to feature similarly sharp nanostructures capable of skewering fungal spores and bacterial cells. Viruses are far more microscopic than even bacteria, however, which meant effective spikes needed to be comparably smaller.

[Related: A once-forgotten antibiotic could be a new weapon against drug-resistant infections.]

To make such a virus-slaying surface, its designers subjected a silicon wafer to ionic bombardment using specialized equipment at the Melbourne Center for Nanofabrication. During this process, the team directed the ions to chip away at specific areas of the wafer, thus creating countless, 2-nanometer-thick, 290-nanometer tall spires. For perspective, a single spike is about 30,000 times thinner than a human hair.

Researchers believe their new silicon material could one day be applied atop commonly touched surfaces in often pathogenic-laden settings.

“Implementing this cutting-edge technology in high-risk environments like laboratories or healthcare facilities, where exposure to hazardous biological materials is a concern, could significantly bolster containment measures against infectious diseases,” Samson Mah, study first author and PhD researcher, said on Wednesday. “By doing so, we aim to create safer environments for researchers, healthcare professionals, and patients alike.”

By relying on the material’s simple, mechanical methods to effectively clean spaces (i.e., stabbing virus cells like they’re shish kabobs), the designers believe overall chemical disinfectant usage could also decrease—a major concern as society contends with the continued rise of increasingly resilient “superbugs.”

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For people dealing with spina bifida, paralysis, and various bladder diseases, determining when to take a bathroom break can be an issue. To help ease the frequent stress, researchers at Northwestern University have designed a sensor array that attaches to the bladder’s exterior wall, enabling it to detect its fullness in real time. Using embedded Bluetooth technology, the device then transmits its data to a smartphone app, allowing users to monitor their bodily functions without far less discomfort and guesswork.

The new tool, detailed in a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), isn’t only meant to prevent incontinence issues. Lacking an ability to feel bladder fullness extends far beyond the obvious inconveniences—for millions of Americans dealing with bladder dysfunctions, not knowing when to go to the bathroom can cause additional organ damage such as regular infections and kidney damage. To combat these issues, the new medical device mirrors the bladder’s own elasticity. 

[Related: This drug-delivery soft robot may help solve medical implants’ scar tissue problem.]

“The key advance here is in the development of super soft, ultrathin, stretchable strain gauges that can gently wrap the outside surface of the bladder, without imposing any mechanical constraints on the natural filling and voiding behaviors,” John Rogers, study co-lead and professor of material sciences and biomedical engineering at Northwestern University, said in a statement.

As a bladder fills with urine, its expansion stretches out the sensor material, which in turn wirelessly sends data to a patient’s smartphone app. This also works as the organ contracts after urination, providing users with the real-time data throughout the day’s ebbs and flows. In small animal lab tests, the battery-free device could accurately monitor a bladder for 30 days, while the implant lasted in non-human primates as long as 8 weeks.

“Depending on the use case, we can design the technology to reside permanently inside the body or to harmlessly dissolve after the patient has made a full recovery,” regenerative engineer and study co-lead Guillermo Ameer said on Monday. 

Researchers believe their device could reduce the need for uncomfortable, infection-prone catheters, as well as limiting the use of more invasive, in-patient bladder monitoring procedures. But why stop there?

The team is also testing a separate, biodegradable “patch” using a patient’s own stem cells. Called a pro-regenerative scaffold (PRS), the new material also expands and contracts alongside the bladder’s movements while encouraging the growth of new organ cells. New tissue remains in place as the patch dissolves, allowing for faster, more effective healing possibilities. Researchers hope to one day combine their PRS work alongside their wireless monitoring sensors.

“This work brings us closer to the reality of smart regenerative systems, which are implantable pro-regenerative devices capable of probing their microenvironment, wirelessly reporting those findings outside the body… and enabling on-demand or programmed responses to change course and improve device performance or safety,” said Ameer.

For even more restored functionality, the team believes their sensors could eventually incorporate additional technology to stimulate urination on demand using the smartphone app. Taken as a whole, the trio of medical advances could one day offer a far less invasive, comfortable, and effective therapy for patients dealing with bladder issues. 

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The race to reboot commercial supersonic travel is well underway, and one company just took a major step forward. On Friday, Boom Supersonic announced the successful first flight of its XB-1, a prototype jet built to test the plane’s construction materials and aerodynamic designs meant for the company’s eventual full-size passenger aircraft, Overture.

XB-1 took off from Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, California on March 22—near the site where the Bell X-1 became the first plane to break the sound barrier in 1947. Boom’s test craft flew for about 12 minutes at a maximum altitude of 7,120 feet, achieving a top speed of 238 knots (273 mph) with 12,300-pounds of thrust in the process. 

Interestingly, XB-1 is powered by three GE J85-15 turbojet engines, which have been around for over 20 years. That means XB-1 is far slower than the roughly 741 mph required to achieve Mach 1, but that was never the goal for Friday’s takeoff. Instead, Boom’s engineers intended the flight to showcase technology such as the cockpit’s augmented reality vision system, as well as a frame almost entirely built using carbon fiber composite materials. The company is currently developing its sustainable engine fuel, 35,000-lb thrust Symphony jet engine meant for the final Overture plane.

[Related: This test plane could be a big step towards supersonic commercial flights.]

“I’ve been looking forward to this flight since founding Boom in 2014, and it marks the most significant milestone yet on our path to bring supersonic travel to passengers worldwide,” Boom Supersonic founder and CEO Blake Scholl said on Friday.

It was a long road to this weekend’s milestone, however. Boom Supersonic first unveiled the XB-1 prototype back in late 2020, with an eye to begin test flights the following year. While that development phase was ultimately delayed until Friday’s event, such pushbacks are commonplace in the aviation industry, however, especially when attempting to revitalize supersonic travel.

[Related: All your burning questions about sustainable aviation fuel, answered.]

The nearly 63-foot-long XB-1 is just one-third the size of Overture, the company’s proposed commercial supersonic jet. If completed, Overture will zip 64-80 passengers around the world at speeds as fast as Mach 1.7 (about 1,260 mph), around twice the speed of current subsonic planes. That’s still a big “if,” of course, given that the public has only seen is a one-third scale model of the Symphony engine revealed last year at the Paris Air Show. And given the time it took to get XB-1 off the ground, Boom Supersonic’s proposed 2029 debut for the Overture seems a bit optimistic.

[Related: NASA plans to unveil experimental X-59 supersonic jet.]

Still, plenty of people seem pretty confident about Boom Supersonic’s chances of making the Overture a reality. The company reports it already has received 130 orders and pre-orders from American Airlines, United Airlines, and Japan Airlines. It also previously received a $60 million influx of cash from a partnership with the US Air Force—a reminder of the military’s own interest in expanding supersonic air travel. 

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A team of miniature drones recently entered the radioactive ruins of one of Fukushima’s nuclear reactors in an attempt to help Japanese officials continue planning their decades’ long cleanup effort. But if the images released earlier this week didn’t fully underscore just how much work is still needed, new footage from the tiny robots’ excursion certainly highlights the many challenges ahead.

On Thursday, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), the Japanese utility organization that oversees the Fukushima Daiichi plant reclamation project, revealed three-minutes of video recorded by a bread slice-sized flying drone alongside a snake-like bot that provided its light. Obtained during TEPCO’s two-day probe, the new clip offers viewers some of the best looks yet at what remains of portions of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility—specifically, the main structural support in its No. 1 reactor’s primary containment vessel.

🎥 Fukushima: Vídeo de drone mostra interior do reator da usina nuclear danificado em 2011 pic.twitter.com/xs6HIGBLyV

— UOL Notícias (@UOLNoticias) March 22, 2024

The Fukushima plant suffered a catastrophic meltdown on March 11, 2011, after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the Japanese coast produced a 130-foot-tall tsunami that subsequently bore down on the region. Of the three reactors damaged during the disaster, No. 1 is considered the most severely impacted. A total of 880 tons of molten radioactive fuel debris is believed to remain within those reactors, with No.1 believed to contain the largest amount. An estimated 160,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding areas, with only limited returns allowed the following year. Around 20,000 people are believed to have been killed during the tsunami itself.

Last week’s drone-gathered images and video show the remains of the No. 1 reactor’s control-rod drive mechanism, alongside other equipment attached to the core, which indicate the parts were dislodged during the meltdown. According to NHK World, “agglomerated or icicle-shaped objects” seen in certain areas could be nuclear fuel debris composed of “a mixture of molten nuclear fuel and surrounding devices.”

[Related: Japan begins releasing treated Fukushima waste water into the Pacific Ocean.]

Experts say only a fraction of the damage could be accessed by the drones due to logistical difficulties, and that the robots couldn’t reach the core bottom because of poor visibility. Similarly, radiation levels could not be ascertained during this mission, since the drones did not include instruments such as dosimeters so as to remain light enough to maneuver through the plant.

TEPCO now plans to analyze the drone data to better establish a plan of action to collect and remove the radioactive debris within Fukushima. In August 2023, officials began a multiphase project to release treated radioactive wastewater from the plant into the Pacific Ocean. While deemed safe by multiple agencies and watchdogs, the ongoing endeavor has received strong pushback from neighboring countries, including China.

The Japanese government and TEPCO have previously estimated cleanup will take 30-40 years, although critics believe the timeline to be extremely optimistic.

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Got around 40 free weekends in the near future? Possess a 3D printer, extensive knowledge of vintage computer coding, soldering techniques, and near-superhuman patience? Then you, too, could be the proud owner of a “Brewintosh Plus,” a maddeningly accurate, completely working clone of Apple’s iconic Macintosh Plus computer system.

It might be hard to imagine, but there was a time when 1Mb of RAM was a big deal—and in 1986, the Mac Plus contained such immense processing power. To call Apple’s third Macintosh release a success is arguably an understatement. Until 2018, it remained the company’s longest-produced Macintosh model, with operating system updates made regularly until 1996.

It’s a pivotal piece of tech history, but finding one in decent condition, let alone complete working order, can be difficult after nearly four decades since its debut. For some collectors like Kevin Noki, however, the allure of tinkering with the iconic, retro hardware is too strong to resist. Unfortunately, it can be even harder to obtain a Mac Plus in places like Germany—where Noki happens to live.

But after scouring eBay for some time, Noki finally found and purchased an original, worse-for-wear 1Mb Macintosh Plus from eBay. Despite a broken power supply and missing floppy disk drive, one could technically emulate the original computer system simply by installing a Raspberry Pi and calling it a day—but that wouldn’t be much of a challenge, would it?

[Related: Macs are better at video gaming (emulators) than PCs. Here’s how to set up yours.]

Instead, Noki decided to use his vintage piece of tech history as a template for something much more accurate, if a bit more complicated: He built his own Mac Plus computer from the literal ground up.

“We are talking a properly sized, colored, and textured box, which takes wall power, swallows 3.5-inch disks, works with both telephone-cord and ADB Apple keyboards and mice, has a screen dimmer, and makes the startup sound (the beep, not the chord),” Ars Technica summarized earlier this week.

But even that laundry list of features doesn’t properly do Noki’s journey justice. At least 40 individual parts were measured, rendered into production specs through AutoDesk Fusion 460, and 3D-printed to create exact clones of the desktop’s many components. Then there was augmenting a USB floppy drive reader to use an Arduino-controlled motor that Noki coded himself, installing said floppy drive… not to mention soldering and wiring internal speakers, dyeing external parts to match the exact Mac Plus case color scheme, and even creating replicas of all its original labels, stickers, and raised-text stereotypes. But when it comes to picking the most difficult aspect of the entire saga, however, Noki doesn’t mince words.

“Honestly, everything was somewhat tough,” he tells PopSci, although he would wager that figuring out how to use an emulator to communicate with the rebuilt hardware was his biggest hurdle. “For instance, determining when to eject the floppy disk was particularly tricky, especially given my limited programming skills,” Noki says.

“Limited programming skills” is honestly pretty humble after watching Noki’s nearly hour-long YouTube rundown, which is genuinely worth an entire watch. Now that the job is done, the designer tells PopSci he’s gained an even greater respect for emulator programmers, “particularly the team responsible for the Mini vMac,” which simulates classic multiple Macintosh OS versions.

“Their dedication not only preserves computing history but also ensures its accessibility for generations to come, and for that, I’m incredibly thankful,” he says.

That thanks can certainly be extended to Noki, whose Brewintosh Plus and accompanying step-by-step guide now offers its own unique contribution to computing history preservation and accessibility.

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Origami traditionally involves the creation of extremely delicate paper structures, but the art form’s underlying principles could soon be adapted to help navigate tough construction situations. That’s the theory behind a new series of collapsible components designed by a team of University of Michigan engineering professors. When unfolded and assembled using hinges and locks, the researchers’ pieces combine to become extremely sturdy modular structures. Given their design’s impressive durability and spatial economy, the new origami-inspired constructions could be deployed across natural disaster zones, or even in outer space.

The collaborators have detailed their work in a new study published on March 15 in Nature Communications. While the creators used mid-density fiberboard frames alongside aluminum hinges and locking mechanisms in their first tests, they believe materials such as plastic, encased glass, or metal could all work in future iterations.

In one lab example, engineers utilized a single square-foot’s worth of their lattice-like, repeating triangular fiberboard pieces and metal hinges. Despite altogether weighing barely 16-pounds, the parts could combine into a 3.3-foot-tall column capable of supporting over 2 tons of weight. In another scenario, a 1.6-foot-wide cube’s worth of the origami parts could unfold and assemble into multiple structures, such as a 6.5-foot-tall “bus stop,” a 13-foot-tall vertical building column, or same-sized walking bridge.

To pull off their improved construction design, the engineers realized that uniformity beat out selective reinforcements.

[Related: Microflier robots use the science of origami to fall like leaves.]

While other engineers in the past attempted to strategically thicken certain regions of their origami building materials, researchers created their components with a standardized thickness to allow for more evenly distributed weight loads. The result—the Modular and Uniformly Thick Origami-Inspired Structure (MUTOIS) system—not only solves this long-standing stress distribution problem, but allows for immense customizability depending on a user’s needs, such as size, purpose, and materials.

Certain parts can either be completely solid, or contain partial openings within the repeating triangular framework. The pedestrian bridge, for example, employed solid panels for its base alongside trussed panels on either side for “efficient load-carrying,” according to the team’s paper. These modules also allow individual pieces to be replaced and repaired as needed.

The MUTOIS system currently relies on simple connectors instead of more specialized, self-latching designs. As such, the structures require people to manually construct their intended projects, as opposed to robotic-assisted or factory assembly. That said, however, the team believes further research could continue to expand the MUTOIS system’s potential utility to help build “aerospace systems, extra-terrestrial habitats, robotics, mechanical devices, and more.”

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A shipping vessel left China for Brazil while sporting some new improvements last August—a pair of 123-feet-tall, solid “wings” retrofitted atop its deck to harness wind power for propulsion assistance. But after its six-week maiden voyage testing the green energy tech, the Pyxis Ocean MC Shipping Kamsarmax vessel apparently had many more trips ahead of it. Six months later, its owners at the shipping company, Cargill, shared the results of those journeys this week—and it sounds like the vertical WindWing sails could offer a promising way to reduce existing vessels’ emissions.

Using the wind force captured by its two giant, controllable sails to boost its speed, Pyxis Ocean reportedly saved an average of 3.3 tons of fuel each day. And in optimal weather conditions, its trips through portions of the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans reduced fuel consumption by over 12 tons a day. According to Cargill’s math, that’s an average of 14 percent less greenhouse gas emissions from the ship. On its best days, Pyxis Ocean could cut that down by 37 percent. In all, the WindWing’s average performance fell within 10 percent ts designers’ computational fluid dynamics simulation predictions.

[Related: A cargo ship with 123-foot ‘WindWing’ sails has just departed on its maiden voyage.]

In total, an equally sized ship outfitted with two WindWings could annually save the same amount of emissions as removing 480 cars from roads—but that could even be a relatively conservative estimate, according to WindWing’s makers at BAR Technologies.

“[W]hile the Pyxis Ocean has two WindWings, we anticipate the majority of Kamsarmax vessels will carry three wings, further increasing the fuel savings and emissions reductions by a factor of 1.5,” BAR Technologies CEO John Cooper said in a statement on Tuesday.

The individual success of Pyxis Ocean is encouraging news, but that’s just one of the 110,000-or-so merchant ships in the world. On top of that, ports are currently designed to accommodate shipping vessels’ traditional proportions—that 125-feet of height added by WindWings could potentially complicate docking in many locations. According to Jan Dieleman, president of Cargill’s Ocean Transportation business, they’re already working to address such issues.

“Cargill is creating ways for all [wind assisted propulsion] vessels—not just the Pyxis Ocean—to operate on global trade routes,” they said in this week’s announcement, adding that the company has begun talking to over 250 ports to figure out the logistics needed to accommodate such ships.

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Fully self-driving cars, despite the claims of some companies, aren’t exactly ready to hit the roads anytime soon. There’s even a solid case to be made that completely autonomous vehicles (AVs) will never take over everyday travel. Regardless, some urban planners are already looking into ensuring how such a future could be as safe and efficient. According to a team at North Carolina State University, one solution may be upending the more-than-century-old design of traffic signals.

The ubiquity of stop lights’ Red-Yellow-Green phases aren’t just coincidence—they’re actually codified in an international accord dating back to 1931. This has served drivers pretty well since then, but the NC State team argues AVs could eventually create the opportunity for better road conditions. Or, at the very least, could benefit from some infrastructure adjustments.

Last year, researchers led by civil, construction, and environmental engineering associate professor Ali Hajbabaie created a computer model for city commuting patterns which indicated everyday driving could one day actually improve from a sizable influx of AVs. By sharing their copious amounts of real-time sensor information with one another, Hajbabaie and colleagues believe these vehicles could hypothetically coordinate far beyond simple intersection changes to adjust variables like speed and break times.

To further harness these benefits, they proposed the introduction of a fourth, “white” light to traffic signals. In this scenario, the “white” phase activates whenever enough interconnected AVs approach an intersection. Once lit, the phase indicates nearby drivers should simply follow the car (AV or human) in front of them, instead of trying to anticipate something like a yellow light’s transition time to red. Additionally, such interconnectivity could communicate with traffic signal systems to determine when it is best for “Walk” and “Do-Not-Walk” pedestrian signals. Based on their modeling, it appeared such a change could reduce intersection congestion by at least 40-percent compared to current traffic system optimization software. In doing so, this could improve overall travel times, fuel efficiency, and safety.

[Related: What can ‘smart intersections’ do for a city? Chattanooga aims to find out.]

But for those concerned about the stressful idea of confusing, colorless lights atop existing signals, don’t worry—the “white” is just a theoretical stand-in until regulators decide on something clearer.

“Research needs to be done to find the best color/indication,” Hajbabaie writes in an email to PopSci. “Any indication/color could be used as long as it does not associate with any existing message and does not create confusion.”

This initial model had a pretty glaring limitation, however—it did not really take pedestrians into much consideration. In the year since, Hajbabaie’s team has updated their four-phase traffic light computer model to account for this crucial factor in urban traffic. According to their new results published in Computer-Aided Civil Infrastructure and Engineering, the NC State researchers determined that even with humans commuting by foot, an additional fourth light could reduce delays at intersections by as much as 25-percent from current levels.

Granted, this massive reduction is dependent on an “almost universal adoption of AVs,” Hajbabaie said in a separate announcement this week. Given the current state of the industry, such a future seems much further down the road than many have hoped. But while not a distinct possibility at the moment, the team still believes even a modest increase in AVs on roads—coupled with something like this fourth “white” phase—could improve conditions in an extremely meaningful way. What’s more, Hajbabaie says that waiting for fully autonomous cars may not be necessary.

“We think that this concept would [also] work with vehicles that have adaptive cruise control and some sort of lateral movement controller such as lane keeping feature,” he tells PopSci. “Having said that, we think we would require more sensors in the intersection vicinity to be able to observe the location of vehicles if they are not equipped with all the sensors that smart cars will be equipped with.”

But regardless of whether cities ever reach a driverless car future, it’s probably best to just keep investing in green urban planning projects like cycling lanes, protected walkways, and even e-bikes. They’re simpler, and more eco-friendly. 

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Giant buoys over 60-feet tall may one day generate clean energy to feed into local power grids—but making it a reality isn’t as simple as going with the ocean’s flow. To successfully keep the idea afloat, it’s all about timing.

Swedish company CorPower recently announced the completion of its first commercial scale buoy generator demonstration program off the coast of northern Portugal. Over the course of a six-month test run, CorPower’s three-story C4 Wave Energy Converter (WEC) endured four major Atlantic storms and adapted to constantly shifting wave heights. Although final analysis is still ongoing, CorPower believes the technology offers a promising new way to transition towards a sustainable future.

As New Atlas explains, the basic theory behind CorPower’s C4 is relatively straightforward. As its air-filled chassis bobs along the rolling waves, an internal system converts the up-and-down movement into rotational power for energy generation. At the same time, however, a tensioned, internal pneumatic cylinder reacts in real-time to wave phases—slightly delaying its movements behind the waves amplifies the buoy’s bobbing, thus creating even more energy production. According to CorPower, using this system can boost power generation as much as 300-percent.

But what about when the sea inevitably gets choppier, as was the case during storms that produced waves nearly as high as the C4 itself? When this happens, the pneumatic cylinder switches off its active control to allow the machine to enter “transparent” mode, during which time it simply rides out the adverse ocean conditions until it’s time to spring back into action. CorPower compares this “tuning and detuning” feature to similar systems in wind turbines, which adjust the pitch of their blades in response to surrounding weather conditions.

[Related: Huge underwater ‘kite’ turbine powered 1,000 homes in the Faroe Islands.]

CorPower says its team recorded as much as 600kW of peak power production during the C4 trial, although they believe it’s possible for the buoy’s current version to ramp that up to around 850kW. While that by itself isn’t much compared to a single offshore wind turbine’s multi-megawatt range, CorPower’s plan is to eventually deploy thousands of more efficient WEC machines to create a much more powerful generator network. If it can scale a farm up to produce 20 gigawatts of energy, it estimates the buoys could offer something between $33-$44 per megawatt-hour. That’s pretty attractive to investors, especially given C4’s aquatic power source operates virtually 24/7, unlike wind or solar generators.

Right now, however, 20 gigawatts would require over 20,000 buoys, so a more economical and efficient buoy system is definitely needed before anyone starts seeing fleets of these canary yellow contraptions floating out there on the open oceans. CorPower seems confident it can get there, and is next planning a new trial phase that will see multiple C4 buoys in action.

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Step aside, Atlas: A new bipedal bot reportedly laid claim to the world’s fastest full-sized humanoid machine. According to the Shanghai-based startup, Unitree Robotics, its H1 V3.0 now clocks in at 7.38 mph while gingerly walking along a flat surface. With the previous Guinness World Record set at 5.59 mph by the Boston Dynamics robot, H1’s new self-reported achievement could be a pretty massive improvement. If that weren’t enough, if pulled off its new feat while apparently wearing pants. (Or, more specifically, chaps.) 

[Related: OpenAI wants to make a walking, talking humanoid robot smarter.]

In a new video, Unitree’s H1 can also be seen trotting across a park courtyard, lifting and transporting a small crate, jumping, as well as ascending and descending stairs. It also can perform a choreographed, TikTok-esque dance troupe routine—basically an industry requirement, at this point. It’s also wearing pants, for some reason.

At 71-inches tall, H1 is about as tall as an average human, although considerably lighter at just 100 pounds. According to Unitree, the robot utilizes both a 3D LiDAR sensor alongside a depth camera to supply 360-degree visual information. One other interesting feature in H1’s overall design is its hollow torso and limbs, which house all of the bot’s electrical routing. Although it currently doesn’t currently include articulated hands (they sort of look like wiffle balls at the moment), Unitree is reportedly developing the appendages to integrate into future versions.

Alongside its quadrupedal B1 robot, Unitree aims to take on existing competitors like Boston Dynamics by offering potentially more affordable products. H1’s current estimated price tag is somewhere between $90,000 and $150,000—that’s likely more than most people are willing to shell out for a robot (even a world record-holder) but with Atlas rumored to cost $150,000 minimum, it might prove attractive to researchers and other companies.

Major companies like Hyundai and Amazon (not to mention the military) are extremely interested in these two- and four-legged robots—either through integrating them into increasingly automated workplaces, or… strapping guns to them, apparently. In the meantime, startups including OpenAI are aiming to make these machines “smarter” and more responsive to real-time human interactions.

But while H1 is allegedly the fastest humanoid robot for the time being, it still doesn’t appear to be nearly as agile as the parkouring Atlas… or, it should be noted, as egg-friendly as Tesla’s latest Optimus prototype. And although both H1 and Atlas can walk faster than a lot of humans and keep pace with most joggers, their biological inspirations can still break away at a full sprint. For now, at least…

Oh, wait.

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It took less than 30 minutes for Varda Space Industries’ W-1 capsule to leave its orbital home of eight months and plummet back to Earth. Such a short travel time not only required serious speed (around 25 times the speed of sound), but also the engineering wherewithal to endure “sustained plasma conditions” while careening through the atmosphere. In spite of these challenges, Varda’s first-of-its-kind reentry mission was a success, landing back on the ground on February 21. To celebrate, the company has released video footage of the capsule’s entire descent home.

Check out W-1’s fiery return below—available as both abbreviated and extended cuts:

Below is a longer 5-minute edit from separation to touchdown:

The full unedited raw footage and audio from separation to touchdown is available on our YouTube: https://t.co/ipdBvx93iB pic.twitter.com/ggIRHUvnnI

— Varda Space Industries (@VardaSpace) February 28, 2024

Installed on a Rocket Lab Photon satellite bus, Varda’s W-1 capsule launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket June 12, 2023. Once in low-Earth orbit, its mini-lab autonomously grew crystals of the common HIV treatment drug ritonavir. Manufacturing anything in space, let alone pharmaceuticals, may seem like overcomplicating things, but there’s actually a solid reason for it. As Varda explains on its website, processing materials in microgravity may benefit from a “lack of convection and sedimentation forces, as well as the ability to form more perfect structures due to the absence of gravitational stresses.”

In other words, medication crystals like those in ritonavir can be grown larger and more structurally sound than is typically possible here on Earth.

Although the experiment wrapped up in just three weeks, Varda needed to delay reentry plans multiple times due to issues securing FAA approval. After finally getting the go-ahead, the W-1 readied for its return earlier this month. All the while, it contained a video camera ready to capture its dramatic fall.

After ejecting from its satellite host, W-1 begins a slightly dizzying spin that provides some incredible shots from hundreds of miles above Earth. At about the 12-minute mark, the planet’s gravitational pull really takes hold—that’s when things begin to heat up for Varda’s experimental capsule.

[Related: First remote, zero-gravity surgery performed on the ISS from Earth (on rubber)]

At Mach 25 (around 17,500 mph), exterior friction between the craft and Earth’s atmosphere becomes so intense that it literally splits the chemical bonds of nearby air molecules. This results in a dazzling show of sparks and plasma before W-1’s parachute deploys to slow and stabilize its final descent. Finally, the capsule can be seen touching down in a remote region of Utah, where it was recovered by the Varda crew.

Next up will be an assessment of the space-grown drug ingredients, and additional launches of capsules for more manufacturing experiments. While they might not all include onboard cameras to document their returns, W-1’s is plenty mesmerizing enough.

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Despite landing on its side and struggling to maintain power, Odysseus, the first US spacecraft to land on the moon in over half a century, is still somewhat operational. Built by the Houston-based company, Intuitive Machines, “Odie” marked a historic return to the lunar surface, and became the first privately funded venture ever to successfully reach the moon.

On Tuesday morning, Intuitive predicted that the spacecraft “may continue up to an additional 10-20 hours.” Yet, mission control plans to put the lander to sleep later tonight. Odie “continues to generate solar power,” said Intuitive Machines co-founder and president Steve Altemus during today’s mission update. Altemus also confirmed that engineers will attempt to revive Odysseus in 2-to-3 weeks following the upcoming lunar night’s conclusion.

“We’ve gotten over 15 megabytes of data,” said CLPS project scientist Sue Lederer when discussing the data the team is retrieving from Odysseus on Wednesday. “We went from basically a cocktail straw of data coming back to a boba tea size straw of data coming back.”

Launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on February 15 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Odysseus spent the next week traveling 230,000-miles towards the moon—and even documented its journey in the process.

[Related: ‘Odie’ makes space history with successful moon landing.]

For a moment, it seemed as though Odysseus might meet a recent predecessor’s similar fate. Less than a week before the Odysseus launch, the Peregrine lunar lander built by Astrobotics experienced a “critical loss of propellant” on its way to the moon, forcing the private company to abandon its mission.

While circling the moon ahead of last week’s descent, Odysseus ground engineers discovered they failed to turn on the spacecraft’s navigating laser system. As luck would have it, Odysseus housed an experimental NASA laser navigation device intended for testing once it reached its final destination. Mission controllers managed to boot up the laser, which allowed the lander to finish its trip. On February 22, Odysseus arrived close to the Malapert A crater within a mile of its target, approximately 185 miles from the moon’s south pole—but not without a debilitating setback.

While landing, a faster-than-intended descent caused one of its six legs to malfunction and tip Odysseus on its side. According to mission representatives, the resulting position blocked a number of Odie’s antennas, and angled solar panels in a way that limited their ability to draw power. A similar issue plagued yet another recent historic lunar landing mission, when Japan’s SLIM spacecraft arrived to the moon last month intact, if upside down.

[ Related: SLIM lives! Japan’s upside-down lander is online after a brutal lunar night ]

But even if it perfectly stuck the landing, Odysseus would still only have had another two-to-three days of life before powering down as the moon entered its next lunar night. Designers did not intend Odie to survive the harsh, 14.5-day phase that sees temperatures plummet as low as -208 Fahrenheit.

During a February 28 mission update, representatives say NASA Adminstrator Bill Nelson considers Odie’s landing a “success” despite setbacks.

Odysseus contained six NASA experiments (including that aforementioned laser nav system) intended to help plan for future Artemis program missions, a camera designed by university students, a lunar telescope prototype, as well as an art project containing 125 steel sculptures by Jeff Koons. According to Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus, Odysseus tipped so that only the Koons cargo faces downward into the lunar dirt.

This story is developing. We will update this article with more details.

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It turns out that last month’s report on Apple kicking its tortured, multibillion dollar electric vehicle project down the road another few years was a bit conservative. During an internal meeting on Tuesday, company representatives informed employees that all EV plans are officially scrapped. After at least a decade of rumors, research, and arguably unrealistic goals, it would seem that CarPlay is about as much as you’re gonna get from Apple while on the roads. RIP, “iCar.”

The major strategic decision, first reported by Bloomberg, also appears to reaffirm Apple’s continuing shift towards artificial intelligence. Close to 2,000 Special Projects Group employees worked on car initiatives, many of whom will now be folded into various generative AI divisions. The hundreds of vehicle designers and hardware engineers formerly focused on the Apple car can apply to other positions, although yesterday’s report makes clear that layoffs are imminent.

[Related: Don’t worry, that Tesla driver only wore the Apple Vision Pro for ’30-40 seconds’]

Previously referred to as Project Titan or T172, Apple’s intentions to break into the automotive market date as far back as at least 2014. It was clear from the start that Apple executives such as CEO Tim Cook wanted an industry-changing product akin to the iPod or iPhone—an electric vehicle with fully autonomous driving capabilities, voice-guided navigation software, no steering wheel or even pedals, and a “limousine-like interior.”

As time progressed, however, it became clear—both internally and vicariously through competitors like Tesla—that such goals were lofty, to say the least. Throughout multiple leadership shakeups, reorganizations, and reality checks, an Apple car began to sound much more like existing EVs already on the road. Basic driver components returned to the design, and AI navigation plans downgraded from fully autonomous to current technology such as acceleration assist, brake controls, and adaptive steering. Even then, recent rumors pointed towards the finalized car still costing as much as $100,000, which reportedly concerned company leaders for the hyper-luxury price point.

This isn’t the first time Apple pulled the plug on a major project—in 2014, for example, saw the abandonment of a 4K Apple smart TV. But the company has rarely, if ever, spent as much time and money on a product that never even officially debuted, much less made it to market.

Fare thee well, Apple Car. You sounded pretty cool, but it’s clear Tim Cook believes its future profits reside in $3,500 “spatial computing” headsets and attempting to integrate generative AI into everything. For now, the closest anyone will get to an iCar is wearing Apple Vision Pro while seated in a Tesla… something literally no one recommends.

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Cellular structures made from metal alloys could strengthen everything from bone implants to rocket parts—if they didn’t keep cracking under pressure. Researchers have so far spent years attempting to solve for uneven weight distribution issues across these artificial “metamaterials” to little success. As detailed in a recent study published in Advanced Materials, however, a team at Australia’s RMIT University appears to have finally figured out the solution after drawing inspiration from plants and coral, with some help from a cutting-edge 3D-printing tool.

Using a common titanium alloy, engineers manufactured latticelike structures composed of hollow struts—each imbued with an additional, thin band running throughout it. According to Ma Qian, an RMIT Distinguished Professor of advanced manufacturing and study co-author, the team combined “two complementary lattice structures to evenly distribute stress, we avoid the weak points where stress normally concentrates.”

“These two elements together show strength and lightness never before seen together in nature,” Qian continued in a university profile published on Monday.

To construct their lattice metamaterials, researchers utilized a highly advanced manufacturing process known as laser powder bed fusion, in which a powerful laser beam flash-melts layered titanium granules directly into place. Subsequent stress tests of a cube made from the new, hollow latticework withstood 50-percent more weight than a similarly dense cast of WE54, a magnesium alloy commonly used for aerospace engineering.

Although the resilient metamaterial can already withstand temperatures up to 350-degrees Celsius (662 Fahrenheit), its makers believe that utilizing more heat-resistant titanium alloys could raise that threshold up to 600-degrees Celsius (1,112 Fahrenheit). If so, the metalwork could find more uses in rocketry manufacturing, and even firefighting drones.

[Related: Titanium-fused bone tissue connects this bionic hand to a patient’s nerves.]

Meanwhile, the team thinks these lattice structures could also prove useful in human bone implants, since their hollowness may allow for bone cell regrowth as the equipment fuses with a patient’s body.

That said, it might be a little while before the titanium metamaterial becomes commonplace. As study lead author and PhD candidate Jordan Noronha explained in RMIT’s feature, “Not everyone has a laser powder bed fusion machine in their warehouse.”

Still, Noronha, Qian, and their colleagues believe technological advances and increased equipment accessibility will eventually make it easier for others to also harness their metamaterial design.

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Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on Monday that its historic Smart Lander for Investigating Moon has defied the odds—after surviving a brutal, two-week lunar night while upside down, SLIM’s solar cells subsequently gathered enough energy to restart the spacecraft over the weekend. In an early morning post to X, JAXA reported it briefly established a communication relay with its lunar lander on Sunday, but the moon’s extremely high surface temperature currently prevents engineers from doing much else at the moment. Once SLIM’s instrument temperatures cool off in a few days’ time, however, JAXA intends to “resume operations” through additional scientific observations as long as possible.

[Related: This may be SLIM’s farewell transmission from the moon.]

SLIM arrived near the moon’s Shioli crater on January 19, making Japan the fifth nation to ever reach the lunar surface. Although JAXA’s lander successfully pulled off an extremely precise touchdown, it did so upside down after its main engines malfunctioned about 162-feet above the ground. The resulting nose-down angle meant SLIM’s solar cell arrays now face westward, thereby severely hindering its ability to gather power. Despite these problems, the craft’s two tiny robots still deployed and carried out their reconnaissance duties as hoped and snapped some images of the inverted lander. Meanwhile, SLIM transmitted its own geological survey data back to Earth for a few precious hours before shutting down.

Although JAXA officials cautioned that might be it for their lander, SLIM defied the odds and rebooted 10 days later with enough juice to continue surveying its lunar surroundings, such as identifying and measuring nearby rock formations.

“Based on the large amount of data obtained, analysis is now underway to identify rocks and estimate the chemical composition of minerals, which will help to solve the mysteries surrounding the origin of the Moon. The scientific results will be announced as soon as they are obtained,” JAXA said at the time.

But by February 1, the moon’s roughly 14.5-day lunar night was setting in, plunging temperatures down to a potentially SLIM-killing -208 Fahrenheit. Once again, JAXA bid a preemptive farewell to their plucky, inverted technological achievement—only to be surprised yet again over the weekend.

In the few days since the most recent lunar evening’s conclusion, SLIM apparently recharged its solar cells enough to come back online. But as frigid as the moon’s night phases are, its daytime temperatures can be just as brutal. According to JAXA, some of the lander’s equipment initially warmed up to over 212-degrees Fahrenheit. To play it safe, mission control is giving things a little time to cool off before tasking SLIM with additional scans, such as using its Multi-Band Camera to assess nearby regolith formations’ chemical compositions.

JAXA has a few more days before the moon enters another two-week night, during which SLIM will go into yet another hibernation. While it could easily succumb to the lunar elements this next time, it’s already proven far more resilient than its designers thought possible. It may not surpass expectations as dramatically as NASA’s Mars Ingenuity rotocopter (RIP), but the fact that SLIM made it this long is cause enough for celebration.

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Even in a digital-first world, optical disks like DVDs and Blu-rays still have their many uses. But despite being cheap, sturdy, and small, they can’t keep up with today’s storage needs. This is because, spatially speaking, optical disks almost always offer just a single, 2D layer–that reflective, silver underside–for data encoding. If you could boost a disk’s number of available, encodable layers, however, you could hypothetically gain a massive amount of extra space.

Researchers at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology recently set out to do just that, and published the results earlier this week in the journal, Nature. Using a 54-nanometer laser, the team managed to record a 100 layers of data onto an optical disk, with each tier separated by just 1 micrometer. The final result is an optical disk with a three-dimensional stack of data layers capable of holding a whopping 1 petabit (Pb) of information—that’s equivalent to 125,000 gigabytes of data.

[Related: Inside the search for the best way to save humanity’s data.]

This is a bonkers amount of data compared to what can currently reside on even the most high-end flash or hybrid hard drives (HHDs). As Gizmodo offers for reference, that same petabit of information would require roughly a six-and-a-half foot tall stack of HHD drives—if you tried to encode the same amount of data onto Blu-rays, you’d need around 10,000 blank ones to complete your (extremely inefficient) challenge.

To pull off their accomplishment, engineers needed to create an entirely new material for their optical disk’s film, known as (take a big breath here) “dye-doped photoresist with aggregation-induced emission luminogens.” For brevity’s sake, AIE-DDPR is apparently just fine, too. AIE-DDPR film utilizes a combination of specialized, photosensitive molecules capable of absorbing photonic data at a nanoscale level, which is then encoded using a high-tech dual-laser array.

Because AIE-DDPR is so incredibly transparent, designers could apply layer-upon-layer to an optical disk without worrying about degrading the overall data. This basically generated a 3D “box” for digitized information, thus exponentially raising the normal-sized disk’s capacity.

But how much is a petabit, really? According to ZME Science, datasets used to train generative AI can include roughly 5.8 billion indexed webpages, totalling about 56 Pb of data. So, hypothetically, instead of relying on unsustainably energy-hungry data centers, one could conceivably fit all of ChatGPT’s training material in one of those retro CD album trapper keepers from the 2000s.

Unfortunately, a CD folder containing enough data to train your own AI program isn’t likely to arrive anytime soon. Creating the cutting-edge optical disk reportedly takes quite a while, and is still comparatively energy inefficient. Still, researchers believe they can solve for both hindrances with further experimentation and innovation. If so, some of the biggest issues in modern data management could be tackled by literally building upon a decades’ old physical format.

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Looking for a change of pace from your day-to-day routine? Life on Earth feeling a bit overwhelming at the moment? How about a one-year residency alongside three strangers at a 3D-printed Mars habitat simulation?

On Friday, NASA announced it is now accepting applications for the second of three missions in its ongoing Crew Health and Performance Analog (CHAPEA) experiment. For 12 months, a quartet of volunteers will reside within Mars Dune Alpha, a 1,700-square-foot residence based at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where they can expect to experience “resource limitations, equipment failures, communication delays, and other environmental stressors.” 

[Related: To create a small Mars colony, leave the jerks on Earth.]

When not pretending to fight for your survival on a harsh, barren Martian landscape, CHAPEA team members will also conduct virtual reality spacewalk simulations, perform routine maintenance on the Mars Dune Alpha structure itself, oversee robotic operations, and grown their own crops, all while staying in shape through regular exercise regimens.

But if the thought of pretending to reside 300 million miles away from your current home sounds appealing, well… cool your jets. NASA makes it clear that there are a few requirements applicants must meet before being considered for the jobs—such as a master’s degree in a STEM field like engineering, computer science, or mathematics. Then you’ll need either two years professional experience in a related field, or a minimum of 1,000 hours spent piloting aircrafts. Also, only non-smokers between 30 and 55-years-old will be considered, and military experience certainly sounds like a plus.

Oh, and you’ll also need to fill out NASA’s lengthy questionnaire, which includes entries like, “Are you willing to have no communication outside of your crew without a minimum time delay of 20 minutes for extended periods (up to one year)?” and, “Are you willing to consume processed, shelf-stable spaceflight foods for a year with no input into the menu?”

It’s certainly a lot to consider. But as tough as it might be, simulations like CHAPEA are vital for NASA’s Artemis plans to establish a permanent human presence on both the moon and Mars. The truly intrepid and accomplished among you have until April 2 to fill out the official application. Seeing as how CHAPEA’s inaugural class is currently about halfway through their one-year stint, this second round of volunteers won’t need to report for duty until sometime in 2025. 

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Remember the old reality show competition stunt of getting contestants to eat live bugs on primetime television? Consuming “food” while it’s still alive spans numerous cultures around the world. In Japan, for example, odorigui (or “dance-eating”) is a centuries’ old tradition often involving squid, octopus, and tiny translucent fish known as ice gobies. Diners pop these still-living creatures into their mouths, as the wriggling is part of the overall meal experience.   

To potentially better understand the psychology and emotional responses associated with consuming odorigui dishes, researchers designed their own stand-in—a moving gelatin robo-food combining 3D-printing, kitchen cooking, and air pumps. The results appear not only tastier than your average reality show shock snack, but a potential step towards creative culinary and medical applications.

… And yet, judging from this video, it’s undeniably still a little odd.

Detailed in a study published earlier this month in PLOS One, a team at Japan’s University of Electro-Communications and Osaka University recently devised a pneumatically-driven handheld device to investigate what they dub “human-edible robot interaction,” or HERI. For the “edible” portion of HERI, researchers cooked up a gummy candy-like mixture using a little extra sugar and apple juice for flavor. 

After letting the liquid cure in molds that included two hollow airways, the team then attached the snack to a coffee mug-like holder. The design allowed researchers to inject air through the gelatin in different combinations—alternating airflow between each tube produced a side-to-side wagging motion, while simultaneous inflation offered a (slightly unnerving) pulsating movement.

And then, the taste tests.

The team directed 16 Osaka University students to grab the device holding their designated, writhing soft robot morsel, place the edible portion in their mouth, allow it to move about for 10 seconds, then chomp. Another (possibly relieved) group of control students also ate a normal, immobile gelatin gummy. Following their meals, each volunteer answered a survey including questions such as:

– Did you think what you just ate had animateness?

– Did you feel an emotion in what you just ate?

– Did you think what you just ate had intelligence?

– Did you feel guilty about what you just ate?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems that a meal’s experience can be influenced by whether or not the thing you just put in your mouth is also moving around in your mouth. Students described this sensation using the Japanese onomatopoeic terms gabu, or “grappling,” and kori-kori, meaning “crisp.” Movement also more frequently caused volunteers to feel a bit of guilt at eating a “still living” dish, as well as attach a sense of intelligence to it.

[Related: Scientists swear their lab-grown ‘beef rice’ tastes ‘pleasant’]

While only an early attempt at looking into some of the dynamics in odorigui, researchers believe more intricate soft robot designs can allow for more accurate experiments. Meanwhile, such research could lead to a “deepening understanding of ethical, social, and philosophical implications of eating,” as well as potential uses in medical studies involving oral and psychological connections. There’s also a possibility for “innovative culinary” experiences down the line, so who knows what might be coming to high-brow restaurants in the future—perhaps gyrating gyros, or wobbly waffles. Hopefully, nothing too macabre will wind up on menus. It’s certainly something researchers took into consideration during their tests.

“NOTE: During the experiment, we did not draw a face on the edible robot,” reads the fine print at the bottom of the demonstration video, presumably meaning they were just having a bit of fun with the project.

Which is good to hear. Otherwise, this whole thing might have come across as weird.

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It’s been over a decade since PopSci last checked in on Minesto’s underwater “kite” turbine technology. Since then, the Swedish green energy startup has made some big strides in their creative approach to generating clean electricity from swimming against the ocean currents. 

Last week, Minesto announced a major moment for their largest creation. A nearly 40-foot-wide, 30-ton, highlighter yellow Dragon 12 “tidal power plant” delivered its first 1.2 megawatts (MW) of energy to the Faroe Islands’ national grid. That’s enough power to sustain a small town of 1,000 homes.

[Related: Tidal turbines put a new spin on the power of the ocean.]

Although referred to as a “kite,” Dragon 12 arguably more resembles a biplane, and remains almost entirely below the ocean surface. Minesto’s video montage celebrating the inaugural voyage shows their tidal energy system leashed to a tugboat as it travels across an inland bay for installation.

Once installed, the Dragon 12 uses an onboard control system to steer its rudders. This allows continuous travel along a predetermined, countercurrent figure-8 pattern faster than surrounding water to rotate its turbine. The resulting generated energy then transfers down a subsea cable tether and to an onshore power facility through an umbilical line installed on the ocean floor.

The idea behind tidal green energy plants isn’t new, but for years the underlying technology has proven cost prohibitive and logistically difficult. Other designs are frequently massive endeavors. Scotland-based Orbital Marine Power’s 232-feet-long O2 turbine “superstructure,” for example, weighs in at nearly 700 tons while generating about 4 MW of power—a little more than four-times what Dragon 12 accomplished this month. Both approaches likely have their uses, but Minesto’s latest milestone indicates smaller, more modular, interlocked options could soon become available to energy providers.

And linking up multiple Dragon turbines is exactly what Minesto hopes to do next. According to The Next Web, the company intends to partner with a local Faroe Islands utility company to construct a 120MW system comprising around 100 tidal kite turbines. If successful, such a project could provide as much as 40-percent of the island archipelago’s entire electricity needs.

For microgrid plans, Minesto also has a smaller sibling to the Dragon 12. Dubbed the Dragon 4, this kite turbine system can generate 100kW of energy, and at just 13 x 16 x 9ft, can fit inside a standard shipping container for easy transport.

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Plenty of robots are inspired by existing animals, but not as many take their cue from extinct creatures. To design their own new machine, Carnegie Mellon University researchers looked over 500-million years back in time for guidance. Their result, presented during the 68th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, is an underwater soft robot modeled after one of the sea urchin’s oldest ancestors.

[Related: Watch robot dogs train on obstacle courses to avoid tripping.]

Pleurocystitids swam the oceans around half a billion years ago—about the same time experts now believe jellyfish first appeared. While an ancient precursor to invertebrates such as sea stars, pleurocystitids featured a muscular, tail-like structure that likely allowed them to better maneuver underwater. After studying CT scans of the animal’s fossilized remains, researchers fed the data into a computer program to analyze and offer mobility simulations.

While no one knows for sure exactly how pleurocystitids moseyed around, the team determined the most logical possibility likely involved side-to-side sweeping tail motions that allowed it to propel across the ocean floor. This theory is also reinforced by fossil records, which indicate the animal’s tail lengthened over time to make them faster without the need for much more energy expenditure. From there, engineers built their own tail-touting, soft robot pleurocystitid.

To the casual viewer, footage of the mechanical monster clumsily inching across the ground may seem to hint at why the pleurocystitid is long gone. But according to Richard Desatnick, a Carnegie Mellon PhD student under the direction of mechanical engineering faculty Phil LeDuc and Carmel Majidi, the ancient animal likely deserves more credit.

“There are animals that were very successful for millions of years and the reason they died out wasn’t from a lack of success from their biology—there may have been a massive environmental change or extinction event,” Desatnick said in a recent profile.

Geologic records certainly reinforce such an argument. What’s more, given that today’s animal world barely accounts for one percent of all creatures to ever roam, swim, or soar above the planet, there is a wealth of potential biomechanical inspirations left to explore. Desatnick and his colleagues hope that their proof-of-concept pleurocystitid will help inspire new entries into a field they call paleobionics—the study of Earth’s animal past to guide some of tomorrow’s robotic creations.

The Carnegie Mellon team believes future iterations of their soft robot could offer a variety of uses—including surveying dangerous geological locations, and helping out with underwater machine repairs. More agile robo-pleurocystitids may one day glide through the waters. Even if nearby sea stars and urchins don’t recognize it, neither would exist without their shared source of inspiration.

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After 40 years of major nuclear fusion milestones, the Joint European Torus (JET) facility finally shut down in December 2023—but not without one final record shattering achievement. On Thursday, representatives for the groundbreaking tokamak reactor confirmed its final experiment generated 69.26 megajoules of energy in only five seconds. That’s over 10 megajoules more than JET’s previous world record, and more than triple its very first 22 megajoule peak power level back in 1997.

[Related: The world’s largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor is up and running.]

Located in Oxfordshire, UK, the JET reactor facility began operations in 1983 in the hopes of edging the world closer to sustainable, economically viable fusion production. While fission emits massive amounts of energy through splitting atoms, fusion involves smashing atoms such as tritium and deuterium together at temperatures over 150 million degrees Celsius to create helium plasma, a neutron, and ridiculous amounts of energy. The sun—and every other star, by extension—are essentially gigantic celestial nuclear fusion reactors, so mimicking even a fraction of that kind of power here on Earth could revolutionize the energy industry.

The first tokamak—an acronym of “toroidal chamber with magnetic coils”—reactor came online in the USSR in 1958. Tokamaks resemble a huge, extremely high-tech tire filled with hydrogen gas fuel that is then spun at high speeds through magnetic coiling. The force of its rotations around the chamber then ionizes the atoms into helium plasma.

While multiple facilities around the world can produce nuclear fusion reactions, it remains extremely cost prohibitive. JET’s December record, for example, pulled off its all-time energy levels in only five seconds—but that 69 megajoules was still only enough to warm a few bathtubs’ worth of water.

Even the most optimistic realists estimate it could take another 20 years (at the very least) before affordable fusion energy is a viable option. Others, meanwhile, argue useful fusion reactors will never be a financially feasible solution. It currently costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to simply fire up a fusion reactor, much less sustain its processes indefinitely—which none can, since the technology isn’t available yet. On top of that, today’s climate emergency can’t wait for a solution two-or-more decades down the line. But if society ever does make fusion reactors a real and sustainable alternative, however, it will be largely owed to everything JET accomplished over its four decades of service.

Speaking with the BBC on Thursday, UK Minister for Nuclear and Networks Andrew Bowie called JET’s final experiment a “fitting swan song” for the reactor pushing the world “closer to fusion energy than ever before.”
With JET powered down for good, the world’s largest fusion reactor is now Japan’s six-story-tall JT-60SA tokamak located north of Tokyo. Although inaugurated in December 2023, if all goes as planned the JT-60SA won’t hold the title for long. Its European sibling, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is scheduled to go online sometime in 2025—although that project has not been without its difficulties and delays.

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Making aluminum is dirty work, and hasn’t improved much since the 1886 debut of its most widespread production method. Aside from all the carbon emissions, the ubiquitous metal’s smelting process also creates massive amounts of a toxic red mud byproduct with a pH level often rivaling commercial bleach or engine cleaner. The caustic gunk is usually relegated to giant landfills, unless something like an industrial accident unleashes torrents of the sludge, as was unfortunately the case for rural Hungarian residents back in 2010.

But if there’s anything worse than aluminum manufacturing, it’s steel, which accounts for about 8 percent of all CO2 emissions. In order to reduce the industry’s damaging impact, many researchers and companies are working towards a “green steel” future—strategies such as swapping out the dirty power sources in steel factories for renewable energy, and integrating hydrogen or electric energy into production.

As many engineers continue focusing on reducing industrial smelting’s notorious emission issues, a team at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung has developed a way to quickly and affordably recycle aluminum’s red mud byproduct for use in green steel projects with a little help from hydrogen plasma.

[Related: Inside the high-powered process that could recycle rare earth metals.]

The researchers’ paper, recently published in Nature, details how the aluminum industry could one day account for its annual generation of an estimated 198 million tons of red mud—a number expected to only grow larger as demand for the material increases.

For the scientists, it’s a (relatively) simple procedure. Red mud is deposited in an electric arc furnace, where it is subjected to the extremely high temperatures of a plasma containing 10 percent hydrogen. The intense heat then melts down the mud, which separates into liquid metal oxides. As much as 60 percent of red mud is iron oxide, which subsequently transforms into a liquid iron so pure that it can immediately be used in steel production. All told, the “plasma reduction” process takes just 10 minutes to complete.

Meanwhile, the furnace heat largely neutralizes any other leftover oxides’ corrosiveness, including heavy metals like chromium. Scientists believe with further investigations, these valuable metals could also be separated for reuse, thus lessening the chance for them to otherwise leach out of red mud into the environment. After all that, everything remaining in the furnace then cools into glass-like residuals that researchers think could be useful as various filling materials in the construction industry.

While the test utilized only 15g of red mud (yielding 2.6g of metallic iron), the team calculated that their process is both economically viable and industrially scalable. In a recent university profile, research group leader Isnaldi Souza Filho estimates that around 770 million tons of CO2-free steel could derive from the world’s existing 4.7 billion tons of red mud—about one-third of annual steel production’s needs.

“Our process could simultaneously solve the waste problem of aluminum production and improve the steel industry’s carbon footprint,” added Matic Jovičevič-Klug, another scientist involved in the study.

Because electric arc furnaces are already widespread within metal production, it would only take a proportionally small investment to ready them for this new process. With some additional research and adjustments, aluminum’s longtime, notoriously noxious waste could finally become something useful—and far more eco-friendly.

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In the age of omnipresent high-tech digital gadgetry, mechanical clocks are often (mistakenly) taken for granted. It’s sometimes easy to forget these everyday devices were once considered state-of-the-art technological wonders. Beginning in the mid-17th century, for example, European missionaries visiting China’s Qing dynasty regularly presented intricately engineered, astonishingly ornate musical timepieces to emperors as gifts meant to impress their hosts. These zimingzhong, Mandarin Chinese for “bells that ring themselves,” eventually numbered in the hundreds and were displayed in Beijing’s Forbidden City palace—not only as symbols of opulence, but as tools to accurately track celestial events such as eclipses.

[Related: A brief, 20,000-year history of timekeeping.]

A glimpse into this “time” is currently on display at the Science Museum in London at its new exhibit, Zimingzhong: Clockwork treasures from China’s Forbidden City. Each of the 23 examples on loan from The Palace Museum of Beijing necessitated the collaborative efforts of hundreds of skilled artisans.

A large part of zimingzhong allure was their ability to showcase the era’s “sophisticated music technology.” After designers converted musical scores into chiming mechanics, the clocks often played melodies such as the Chinese folk song “Molihua” (“Jasmine Flower”).

And while each zimingzhong’s craftsmanship is detailed and stunning, that doesn’t mean it always accurately depicts Chinese society. One clock, for example, displays a generic turbaned figure, revealing European’s limited understanding of the “East” that “highlights British people’s interest in China but also their lack of cultural understanding,” Science Museum Group Chief Executive and Director Sir Ian Blatchford explained.

Like any trend, zimingzhong timepieces eventually began to fall out of favor. After ascending to the throne in 1796, Emperor Jiaqing voiced his belief that the artform was both unnecessary and expensive, leading to the trade’s decline. Still, zimingzhong clocks remained a favorite heirloom for China’s posher families for years to come.

Today, the beautiful works of art symbolize a pivotal moment in world history and technological collaboration. Although none of the clocks currently on display are working (an effort to preserve the fragile artifacts’ integrity), they represent a monumental time in history.

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It’s a programming question nearly as old as the inspiration itself: “Can it run Doom?”

Released over 30 years ago, the seminal first-person shooter (FPS) is a touchstone classic of video gaming—not only for its influence on the medium, but for inspiring some pretty wild coding schemes. In 1997, Doom’s creators at iD Software released the game’s original source code for free online, allowing legions of hobbyists the ability to tinker and experiment to their demonslaying heart’s content.

[Related: Using ‘Doom’ to design a room.]

Since then, enthusiasts have hacked an ever-expanding list of devices to play the pixelated sci-fi horror adventure. From pregnancy tests, to tractors, to ATMs, to calculators—if it’s got at least some circuitry in it, chances are that, with a little ingenuity, it can run Doom.

…And now, “circuitry” apparently extends to gut biome bacteria.

Lauren “Ren” Ramlan, an MIT biotechnology PhD student researcher, recently released a paper documenting a truly stomach-churning feat: As highlighted by RockPaperShotgun, she programmed Doom to run on a display made from E. coli cells.

“To run Doom, all one needs is a screen and willpower,” Ramlan writes. “… Ultimately, this begs the question of how biological systems might be engineered to host this classic millennial FPS.”

According to Ramlan, for the project to work, E. coli cells must function as traditional pixels capable of being either “on” or “off.” They also need to collectively light up to form images like a computer monitor or TV screen. To make that happen, Ramlan first grew cells within a 32×48 1-bit well plate, then connected the makeshift screen to a controller capable of processing and translating binary code into the “addition or omission of a repressor controlling the fluorescence of the cells.” Basically, Ramlan swapped a traditional screen’s tiny light diodes for glowing bacterial cells.

While likely a tall endeavor to the average layperson, Ramlan made it happen by combining that aforementioned willpower alongside some dizzying coding and organic chemistry skills. The result is a functioning display screen of luminescent E. coli capable of showing off Doom in real time… sort of.

Ramlan’s invention reportedly takes roughly 70 minutes to fully illuminate, then another 8 hours and 20 minutes to dim back to its original state. All told, that’s basically about 9 hours to offer players a single frame of the video game. Given that the original Doom tops out at 35 frames per second, it would take quite a while to actually play through the entire game—like, 599 years “a while,” according to Ramlan’s calculations.

“This is an amazing find, because it means we are a small handful of generations away from the peak of human engineering… where Doom and life become one,” she deadpans in her explainer video.

It may not be the most efficient way to stave off the demon hordes of Mars, but it certainly is one of the more creative ones yet.

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Ingenuity—NASA’s tiny, overachieving Mars rotocopter—has officially ended its historic mission after three years of loyal, extended service. Despite initial plans to only conduct five-or-so test flights over roughly 30 days back in 2021, the four-pound, 19-inch-tall drone kept on trucking for another three years. Ingenuity ultimately spent over two hours buzzing through Red Planet’s thin, CO2-laden atmosphere during its 72 total flights, eventually traversing a whopping distance of roughly 11 miles.

On January 25, however, NASA confirmed its rotocopter damaged at least one blade while completing a flight on January 18. Although upright and still in communication with ground control, Ingenuity’s days of aerial exploration are definitely behind it.

Dubbed “the little helicopter that could” by NASA director Bill Nelson in a prerecorded message posted yesterday, Ingenuity “flew higher and farther than we ever imagined.”

“Through missions like Ingenuity, NASA is paving the way for future flight in our solar system and smarter, safer human exploration to Mars and beyond,” he continued.

The helicopter touched down alongside the Perseverance rover way back on February 18, 2021, but continued setting new records as recently as last month. On December 20, 2023, Ingenuity sped along at nearly 22.5 mph for 135 seconds, covering about 2,315 feet in the process. Another successful flight ensued on December 22, but Ingenuity’s 71st mission unfortunately ended in an emergency landing. A planned vertical takeoff to confirm its location on January 18 allowed Ingenuity to ascend 40 feet into the air for 4.5 seconds before starting a slow descent to the Martian surface.

At about three feet from landing, however, the rotocopter lost contact with Perseverance, which is (among many other things) responsible for relaying Ingenuity’s data back to Earth. NASA reestablished a link the following day, but later identified significant rotor blade damage.

[Related: NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter set a new flight distance record on Mars.] 

“Ingenuity is an exemplar of the way we push the boundaries of what’s possible every day,” Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in yesterday’s announcement. “I’m incredibly proud of our team behind this historic technological achievement and eager to see what they’ll invent next.”

According to NASA’s final tally, Ingenuity lived up to its name for nearly 1,000 Martian days—around 33 times longer than anticipated. During its tenure, the rotocopter received a software update beamed through space that allowed it to autonomously select the best landing sites, weathered destructive dust storms, contended with a dead sensor, and lived through Martian winter temperatures as low as -112 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Fare thee well, Ingenuity. For a trip down memory lane, check out NASA’s official mission website.

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Sierra Space’s inflatable Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) modules meant to one day house astronauts orbiting Earth keep exploding—just as intended, and better than expected.

On Monday, the private startup announced the results from its latest Ultimate Burst Pressure (UBP) test meant to help ensure the LIFE module’s eventual final design will withstand the vacuum of space, as well as handle any unwanted encounters with micrometeorites. To celebrate, Sierra Space released a mini documentary on the most recent trial run, highlighting the module’s complexities and progress. Of course, if you want to just see the gigantic space station balloon-home go “kaboom,” just fast forward to the 5:55 minute mark.

On Monday, the private startup announced the results from its latest Ultimate Burst Pressure (UBP) test meant to help ensure the LIFE module’s eventual final design will withstand the vacuum of space, as well as handle any unwanted encounters with micrometeorites. Although similar experiments ran in the past, this marked the first UBP test on a full-scale LIFE prototype. Sierra Space inflated its roughly three-story tall, 27-foot-wide model until it popped with a force equivalent to 164 sticks of dynamite. What’s more, the explosion only occurred after succumbing to an internal pressure of 77 psi—about 27 percent over NASA’s mandated pressure resiliency for space station habitats.

[Related: Watch a space station habitat prototype pop like a water balloon.]

The key to LIFE module’s promising construction is its reliance on highly advanced “softgoods” like Vectran, a resilient synthetic fiber spun from liquid crystal polymers that, once inflated, is stronger than steel. Upon deployment, the module’s framework is meant to be rigid and reliable enough to keep inhabitants insulated, safe, and comfortable while living in a space station’s low-Earth orbit environment.

The aced test arrives following two years of research, construction, and testing various smaller-scale versions of the inflatable space station module. Last September, for example, the private company released footage of a one-third scale prototype popping during a UBP test. If all goes as planned (still a big “if,” given funding, final plans, and the space industry’s habit to delay projects) Sierra Space’s LIFE modules could one day comprise portions of Blue Origin’s potential Orbital Reef station.

With the aging International Space Station’s looming 2030 retirement and subsequent de-orbit, NASA hopes to leave as little a gap as possible between orbital residency projects. This will likely come with a much larger reliance on private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Sierra Space—hence the latter’s race to put final touches on the LIFE module. Sierra Space signed a reimbursable Space Act agreement with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center late last year, and continues to conduct its LIFE module testing at the facility in Alabama. Meanwhile, NASA continues to work with Blue Origin, as well as Axiom Space on their own respective orbital station projects.

As wild as it may be to imagine a constellation of ostensibly superstrong, interconnected balloon tents as a space station, there are definite advantages to pursuing the design. For one thing, it would be much cheaper to both build and launch a module into orbit, given the current version’s ability to fit within a five-meter rocket. Once inflated, a single full-size LIFE module is roughly equivalent to one-third the volume of the ISS.

But why stop there? Sierra Space says it intends to “iterate on larger designs,” including a 1,400-cubic-meter variant packed into a seven-meter rocket—that alone would surpass the completed size of the ISS.

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An orbital satellite testing the technological feasibility of one day harvesting and transmitting solar energy down to Earth has concluded its year long mission, and researchers are eager to dive into the results. According to Caltech’s mission recap released today, engineers behind the Solar Space Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1) consider all three of 110-pound prototype’s onboard tools a success and believe the project “will help chart the future of space solar power.” That future, however, is still potentially decades away, if such projects are funded.

Launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in early January 2023, the SSPD-1 contained  a trio of experiments: First, its Deployable on-Orbit ultraLight Composite Experiment (DOLCE) investigated the durability and efficacy lightweight, origami-inspired solar panel structures, while ALBA (Italian for “dawn”) tested 32 different photovoltaic cell designs to determine which may best be suited for space. At the same time, the Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment (MAPLE) tested microwave transmitters meant to convey solar power harvested in orbit back to Earth.

[Related: A potentially revolutionary solar harvester just left the planet.]

Perhaps most importantly, MAPLE successfully demonstrated for the first time ever that solar power can be collected by photovoltaic cells and transmitted down to Earth via a microwave beam. Over the course of eight more months, SSPD-1 team members purposefully ramped up MAPLE’s stress tests, eventually leading to a drop in transmission capabilities. Researchers then reproduced the issue in a laboratory setting, eventually determining that complex electrical-thermal interactions and the wear-down of individual array components were to blame.

Ali Hajimiri, co-director of Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project (SSPP) and the Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering, announced today that the results “have already led to revisions in the design of various elements of MAPLE to maximize its performance over extended periods of time.”

“Testing in space with SSPD-1 has given us more visibility into our blind spots and more confidence in our abilities,” Hajimiri added.

Today’s solar cells used in satellites and other space technologies are as much as 100 times more expensive to manufacture than their terrestrial counterparts. Caltech explains this is largely due to the cost of adding protective crystal films known as epitaxial growth. ALMA determined that perovskite solar cells, although a promising design here on Earth, showed major performance variabilities in space. At the same time, gallium arsenide cells worked consistently well over a large period of time—but without the need for including epitaxial growth.

As for DOLCE, researchers readily admitted on Monday that “not everything went according to plan.” Although originally meant to deploy over three-to-four-days, DOLCE encountered multiple engineering issues, such as snagged wiring and jammed mechanical components. Thankfully, the team managed to sort out the issues by referencing onboard cameras to mimic the problems on a full-scale lab replica. Despite the headaches, DOLCE’s space test “demonstrated the robustness of the basic concept,” according to SSPP co-director and Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aerospace and Civil Engineering, Sergio Pellegrino.

[Related: Are solar panels headed for space?]

But even with SSPD-1’s overall successes, it still may be years before solar power could be efficiently and affordably amassed using satellite arrays. Previous estimates put solar power gathered in space at costing $1-2/kWh, while it is currently less than $0.17/kWh for US electricity. Material costs will need to drastically decrease, while also still remaining strong enough to endure space’s solar radiation and geomagnetic activity.

There are other issues that need addressing before space-derived solar power can ever contribute to humanity’s sustainable energy infrastructure. As The New York Times noted last year, the amount of energy transferred by SSPD-1 through a microwave beam was extremely negligible compared to what’s needed for everyday use, and such orbital solar arrays will likely need to be several thousand feet wide—the International Space Station, for reference, is just 357-feet-long. There are also questions of safety regarding beaming powerful microwaves and laser beams back to Earth.

SSPP researchers are aware that all these problems require solutions before orbital solar farms are truly possible. But their most recent progress indicates that, at the very least, they appear to be on a promising path.

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After over 180 years in operation, John Deere has adapted its mechanical farm equipment into a modern fleet of high-tech vehicles including driverless tractors, automated seed planters, and herbicide sprayers capable of distinguishing between crops and weeds. Then there’s the catalog of software tools enabling remote field monitoring to assess soil health, seed growth, and many other critical agricultural factors.

[Related: John Deere agrees to let farmers fix their own equipment, but there’s a catch.]

But all those cutting-edge agricultural tools require stable internet connections for over-the-air updates, data-sharing, diagnostics, self-repair solutions, and machine-to-machine communications, among many other needs. This is particularly a problem for rural regions that chronically lack reliable internet infrastructure—Deere estimates approximately 30 percent of farm acreage in the US does not possess reliable Wi-Fi access. 

To remedy this (and pursue a major revenue goal) John Deere has publicly announced a partnership deal with SpaceX’s Starlink subsidiary to begin offering satellite internet subscriptions in certain farming regions later this year.

As reported on January 15 by The Wall Street Journal, Deere currently supplies an estimated 60 percent of high-horsepower, high-tech farming vehicles across US and Canada, but intends to generate a tenth of its annual revenue stream from software subscriptions by 2030. This, however, would require many rural farmers to gain access to strong internet connectivity. In 2022, Deere solicited a call for proposals related to establishing satellite internet options to help “further connect its fleet of intelligent machines,” eventually selecting Starlink following eight-months of extensive testing of various companies’ satellite equipment installed on combines, trucks, grain carts, and other agricultural vehicles in real-world settings.

[Related: In photos: How John Deere builds its massive machines.]

SpaceX’s Starlink launched its first orbital equipment in 2019, and is now one of the most popular satellite broadband internet providers. Over 5,300 working satellites are now in orbit, with the company aiming to eventually support an estimated 36,700 more in the coming years. Starlink’s services are primarily intended for customers in remote regions of the world, as well as those residing in areas without reliable internet infrastructure—hence Deere’s interest.

Of course, satellite internet access, when finally available to farmers and licensed Deere equipment vendors, will come with fees. Official dealers will also need to purchase and install a “ruggedized Starlink terminal” on compatible machines alongside a 4G LTE JDLink modem to enable machine connectivity with the John Deere Operations Center.And then there will be the subscription bills—although Deere representatives say pricing for Starlink’s “pizza-box-size antennas,” as well as fees for software access have yet to be determined.

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The Federal Aviation Administration announced immediate “new and significant actions” to its increased oversight of Boeing’s aircraft manufacturing and production processes on Friday—one week after an Alaskan Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 plane made international headlines when one of its emergency door plugs blew off mid-flight, jettisoning travelers’ personal items, and forcing an abrupt return to its departing airport. National Transportation Safety Board officials recovered the door plug from the backyard of a Portland, OR, schoolteacher on Sunday.

Approximately six minutes after departing Portland International Airport on January 5, Alaskan Airlines Flight 1282 suddenly lost one of its emergency door plugs while at an altitude of 16,000-feet. Door plugs are installed in place of certain emergency exits if a jet is only outfitted for a lower number of passengers.  

Footage supplied by travelers aboard the plane to The New York Times shows a gaping hole on the 737 Max 9’s left side as yellow emergency oxygen masks dangle in front of frightened travelers. None of the flight’s 171 passengers and six crew members were reported seriously injured following its emergency return landing at PIA. An initial assessment provided by NTSB officials indicates none of the door plug’s four bolts had been installed. The 737-9 involved in last week’s emergency had previously been in service since November 2023.

After grounding 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes pending further inspections last week, the FAA has now announced that it will begin an audit of the Boeing 737 Max 9 production process, as well as the company’s suppliers. Results of the initial audit will determine if further investigations are required. Meanwhile, the FAA intends to increase its monitoring of Boeing 737 Max 9 in-service events, as well as assess safety risks, quality control, and delegated authority decisions with the potential to transfer these responsibilities to outside, independent entities.

“It is time to re-examine the delegation of authority and assess any associated safety risks,” said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker in Friday’s announcement. “The grounding of the 737-9 and the multiple production-related issues identified in recent years require us to look at every option to reduce risk.”

The FAA previously reported that the jets will remain grounded until all emergency door plugs are evaluated, and on Friday noted “the safety of the flying public, not speed, will determine the timeline for returning the Boeing 737-9 MAX to service.” Hundreds of 737-9 Max 9 flights have been canceled since January 5’s emergency landing, while United Airlines has discovered loose door plug bolts in at least one of its own 737 Max 9 planes.

[Related: Here’s what to know about the Japan Airlines collision.]

The FAA’s oversight announcement arrives one day after the agency issued a letter to Boeing informing the company of an investigation into its planes’ design and production safety. This is not the first time Boeing’s line of 737 planes has faced scrutiny after emergencies. Fatal international crashes in 2018 and 2019 resulted in Boeing grounding all its 737 Max aircraft for nearly two years, with the company ultimately paying $2.5 billion in a settlement with the Department of Justice to avoid criminal charges.

In the week since the emergency, Alaskan Airlines issued full refunds to all Flight 1282 passengers alongside $1,500 “to assist with any inconveniences.” Meanwhile, at least six passengers have already filed a lawsuit against Boeing, in which they allege some of the plane’s oxygen masks did not appear to function during the ordeal.

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As satellite constellations and space junk continue crowding orbital zones above Earth, researchers are searching for ways to prevent adding to the growing problem. According to one team of researchers, one solution may involve using the physical rocket to fuel its own launch.

Collaborators from the University of Glasgow say they have debuted the first successful, unsupported autophage (Latin for “self-eating”) rocket engine prototype. Revealed earlier this week during the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech Forum, the Ouroboros-3—named after the ancient Egyptian symbol of a snake eating its own tail—utilizes its own body as an additional fuel source. In a video of the tests, the Ouroboros-3 can be seen shrinking in length as its body is burned away during a simulated launch.

Today’s conventional rocketry stores its fuel in separate stages that are ejected once depleted, either to burn up during atmospheric re-entry or to become yet another piece of orbital space junk. Ouroboros-3 leaves very little trace once it completes its duties, given that it would only be tasked with launching and delivering a small, unpiloted payload into orbit.

After a first ignition using a main propellant composed of gaseous oxygen and liquid propane, Ouroboros-3’s high-density polyethylene plastic tubing encasement subsequently adds to the propulsion as the rocket continues its burn. Much like a candlestick flame consuming its wax, the case provided as much as one-fifth the total necessary propellant. In test-firings, Ouroboros-3 generated as much as 100 newtons of thrust.

“A conventional rocket’s structure makes up between five and 12 percent of its total mass. Our tests show that the Ouroboros-3 can burn a very similar amount of its own structural mass as propellant,” University of Glasgow engineering professor and project lead Patrick Harkness said in a statement earlier this week. “If we could make at least some of that mass available for payload instead, it would be a compelling prospect for future rocket designs.”

Subsequent tests also demonstrated how the team can control their autophage rocket’s burn, allowing it to restart, pulse in an on/off pattern, or be throttled.

“These results are a foundational step on the way to developing a fully-functional autophage rocket engine,” Harkness continued.

[Related: The FCC just dished out their first space junk fine.]

Although still an early prototype, the team hopes to scale future iterations of Ouroboros-3 enough to support the delivery of payloads, such as nanosatellites, into orbit without further cluttering the atmosphere. Speaking with Gizmodo on Thursday, Harkness intends to strengthen their autophage rocket by around two orders of magnitude—any more than that is probably unnecessary, since deliveries will likely be restricted to comparatively small payloads.

Still, autophage rockets could one day provide the space industry with an alternative to existing designs’ costly, cluttering problems. And besides, anything that helps avoid instigating a Kessler cascade is certainly good news.

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When it’s time for a snack, the miniscule sea creature known as Oikopleura dioica gets gross. At barely a millimeter long, the filter-feeding larvacean excretes and encases itself in a jelly-like substance to form what biologists dub a “mucus house” or a “snot palace.” 

A tadpole-like O. dioica’s tiny, temporary abodes are biological wonders—using its tail, the larvacean creates its own pump-filtration system capable of capturing and propelling food particles towards its mouth. Now, researchers believe the snot palace’s interior fluid dynamics could inspire a new generation of artificial pump systems for wastewater treatment plants and air filtration systems.

[Related: These animals build palaces out of their own snot.]

“It’s so cool. It’s a pretty complex structure,” University of Oregon biology research assistant Terra Hiebert said in a January 8 profile.

Hiebert and collaborators detailed their work in a study recently published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. To better understand a snot palace’s inner workings, Hiebert’s team traveled to a larvacean breeding facility in Bergen, Norway to analyze the creatures’ movements using a high-speed video camera attached to a microscope. In reviewing the footage, researchers noticed how an O. dioica’s tail shifted responsibilities depending on whether or not it was time to eat. While simply swimming near the ocean’s surface, the tail wriggles side-to-side to push the creature forward through water, but it’s a different story once inside the mucus house.

Once encased in the gelatinous substance, O. dioica’s appendage actually touches the interior in multiple locations. When the tail wiggles in these moments, the animal doesn’t move nearly as much. Instead, the tail sticks and unsticks from the casing “like Velcro,” according to the University of Oregon, and the snot palace subsequently inflates like a balloon as nearby particles collect on the surface. Each movement pushes these particles along, eventually in the direction of the larvacean’s mouth. Once the mucus filtration system is too clogged to function, O. dioica simply sheds its makeshift restaurant, which then sinks into the ocean and eventually decomposes. In approximately 3-to-4 hours, the larvacean repeats the process all over again.

Although O. dioica’s structure fits the bill for a peristaltic pump, it’s not the most common design. Usually, a peristaltic pump’s fluid motion originates through external pressure, such as contractions in your colon to push along waste. In a snot palace, however, the momentum derives from within the pump itself via the larvacean’s tail. Researchers believe designers could adapt this alternative setup for engineering new wastewater treatment plants or air filtration systems—hypothetically, locating any moving parts within the pump could protect the overall setup from wear-and-tear.

If this proves true, urban planners could have snot palaces to thank for cleaner, more efficient municipal water facilities. 

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Apart from their luxury connotation, diamonds are also desired for their far more tangible, useful property—being the hardest material on Earth. The glittering mineral’s durability measures somewhere between 70 and 150 gigapascals (GPa), making it a go-to component for heavy duty drill bits, dentist tools, and spacecraft protective coverings.

Unfortunately, mining and manufacturing diamonds both carry their pitfalls, so materials experts have long sought to synthesize a rival known as carbon nitride—all to no success. After more than three decades of trial and error, however, that losing streak is finally over thanks to researchers collaborating between the University of Edinburgh alongside Germany’s University of Bayreuth and Sweden’s Linköping University.

[Related: A buyer’s guide to ethically sourced diamonds.]

As detailed in a new study published in Advanced Materials, a team led by experts at the University of Edinburgh’s aptly named Center for Science at Extreme Conditions managed to create carbon nitrides—an achievement that has eluded researchers since 1989. As New Scientist explains, measuring between 78 and 86 GPa, the 5-micrometers-wide, 3-micrometers-deep samples are tougher than the world’s second-hardest material, cubic boron nitrade, which usually scores between 50 and 55 GPa. Although the carbon nitride creations confirm part of materials researchers’ early theory (namely, that they can be synthesized at all), the samples do not supplant diamond as the hardest known substance. Because of this, experts now believe diamonds may forever be the hardest material possible.

To make it all happen, researchers first subjected carbon nitride’s carbon and nitrogen precursors to roughly 700,000 times that of the planet’s atmospheric pressure by compressing them between two diamond points. At the same time, lasers heated the precursors to roughly 2732 degrees Fahrenheit. Basically, they simulated conditions only found thousands of miles within the Earth.

The resultant carbon nitride creations were then assessed using intensely strong X-ray beams at three separate particle accelerators across Europe. In doing so, the team determined three of their synthesized samples contained “necessary building blocks for super-hardness,” according to the University of Edinburgh’s December 14 announcement. Not only that, but the new materials retained their hardness after cooling and returning to normal atmospheric pressure.

“We were incredulous to have produced materials researchers have been dreaming of for the last three decades,” Dominique Laniel, a Future Leaders Fellow at University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Condensed Matter Physics and Complex Systems, said through the school’s announcement. “These materials provide strong incentive to bridge the gap between high pressure materials synthesis and industrial applications.”

After performing additional calculations and experiments, researchers believe synthetic carbon nitrides could also possess photoluminescence alongside a high energy density, meaning very small quantities could be capable of storing comparatively large amounts of energy. To put it a bit more bluntly: carbon nitride could make for some powerful explosives.

Cost is currently the main factor from preventing larger carbon nitride manufacturing efforts. To make bigger samples, researchers need even bigger diamonds to apply the prerequisite pressure—a costly lab tool, to say the least. That said, diamonds can’t generate electrical signals under pressure, and they certainly aren’t known for their explosive properties. Synthetic carbon nitrides may one day become the “ultimate engineering materials to rival diamonds” in many applications, but only if economic and industry viability is ensured, which would take a lot more work.

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Researchers at Drexel University are experimenting with imbuing concrete with living organisms to extend the building material’s lifespan. And although the new approach is based on cutting-edge technology, the underlying engineering strategy originates within the human body.

Concrete is second only to water as the most consumed material on Earth—a particularly problematic statistic, given the enormous carbon emissions of its manufacturing process. A number of promising, green updates to the millennia-old structural material are already in the works, but another avenue to reduce concrete’s environmental impact is to extend its longevity. Depending on the surrounding environment, concrete can begin to weaken and break down barely 50 years after setting. Delaying this degradation using innate real-time repair mechanisms could offer a solid way to get more out of the material.

[Related: Dirty diapers could be recycled into cheap, sturdy concrete.]

As detailed in a new paper recently published in Construction and Building Materials, a team of engineering researchers at Drexel University have developed a new polymer “BioFiber” coated in bacteria-infused hydrogel, all within a damage-responsive casing half a millimeter thick. The BioFiber is then arranged in layers of grid patterns as concrete is poured, serving as a reinforcing additive much in the way builders have used straw or horsehair to strengthen bricks for millennia. Of course, these reinforcements can only do so much—but when the team’s BioFibers begin to falter is when they really shine.

“In our skin, our tissue [repairs] naturally through multilayer fibrous structure infused with our self-healing fluid—blood,” Amir Farnam, an associate professor in Drexel’s College of Engineering and research co-lead, said in a December 8 university profile. “These BioFibers mimic this concept and use stone-making bacteria to create damage-responsive, living, self-healing concrete.”

Inside each BioFiber is a cache of Lysinibacillus sphaericus in their dormant, endospore form. Generally found in soil, the bacteria undergoes a process known as microbial induced calcium carbonate precipitation—basically, it generates a rock-like substance as it consumes its nutrients.

This could be particularly handy if the bacteria could be found near, say, a newly formed crack within a certain, popular building material. After the team’s BioFibers break under stress, water from the outside environment eventually finds its way into the concrete, where it comes into contact with the endoscopic bacteria. This then activates Lysinibacillus sphaericus, which begins to push out and up towards the surface—all while beginning its microbial-induced calcium carbonate precipitation. That calcium carbonate then fills the cracks in question, where it hardens into ostensibly a cement scab, much when dried blood covers and protects a cut. In recent tests, the concrete “healed” itself within two days.

Although researchers still need to better understand and control the BioFiber-imbued material’s repair time, self-healing materials may one day help reduce the need for additional, climate-costly concrete.

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Japan and the European Union have officially inaugurated testing at the world’s largest experimental nuclear fusion plant. Located roughly 85 miles north of Tokyo, the six-story, JT-60SA “tokamak” facility heats plasma to 200 million degrees Celsius (around 360 million Fahrenheit) within its circular, magnetically insulated reactor. Although JT-60SA first powered up during a test run back in October, the partner governments’ December 1 announcement marks the official start of operations at the world’s biggest fusion center, reaffirming a “long-standing cooperation in the field of fusion energy.”

The tokamak—an acronym of the Russian-language designation of “toroidal chamber with magnetic coils”—has led researchers’ push towards achieving the “Holy Grail” of sustainable green energy production for decades. Often described as a large hollow donut, a tokamak is filled with gaseous hydrogen fuel that is then spun at immense high speeds using powerful magnetic coil encasements. When all goes as planned, intense force ionizes atoms to form helium plasma, much like how the sun produces its energy.

[Related: How a US lab created energy with fusion—again.]

Speaking at the inauguration event, EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson referred to the JT-60SA as “the most advanced tokamak in the world,” representing “a milestone for fusion history.”

“Fusion has the potential to become a key component for energy mix in the second half of this century,” she continued.

But even if such a revolutionary milestone is crossed, it likely won’t be at JT-60SA. Along with its still-in-construction sibling, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Europe, the projects are intended solely to demonstrate scalable fusion’s feasibility. Current hopes estimate ITER’s operational start for sometime in 2025, although the undertaking has been fraught with financial, logistical, and construction issues since its groundbreaking back in 2011.

Experts alongside Simson believe creating sustainable nuclear fusion would mark a revolutionary moment that could ensure an emissionless, renewable energy future. Making the power source a feasible reality, however, is fraught with technological and economic hurdles. Researchers have chased this goal for a long time: The world’s first experimental tokamak was built back in 1958 by the USSR.

While researchers can now generate fusion energy at multiple facilities around the world, it is usually at a net loss. By advancing the technology further at facilities like JT-60SA, however, industry experts think that it is only a matter of time until fusion reactors regularly achieve net energy production gains.

[Related: Colorado is getting a state-of-the-art laser fusion facility.]

In the meantime, another possible road to fusion energy is making its own promising gains. Earlier this year, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Northern California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved a net energy gain for the second time using what’s the inertial confinement fusion method. In this process, a high-powered laser is split into 192 beams that then hit a capsule containing a pellet of tritium and deuterium. The resultant X-rays generate pressure and temperatures that then initiate fusion.

No matter which process—be it tokamak reactors or ICF lasers—a successful nuclear fusion facility could play a major role in finally shifting humanity away from fossil fuels.

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Every 13 or 17 years, the buzzy mating call of billions of cicadas is the soundtrack of the summer in some parts of the United States. Their clicky noises are so loud that they could potentially be detected by the same fiber optic cables that help deliver high-speed internet. A proof-of-concept study published November 30 in the Entomological Society of America’s Journal of Insect Science describes how this technology could help track the these loud and fleeting insects

[Related: The Brood X cicadas are coming, and you should eat them. Here’s how.]

When hung on a utility pole, fiber optic cables can be used as a sensor to detect changes in temperature, vibrations, and very loud noises. This emerging technology is called distributed fiber optic sensing and it was tested in the study. 

“I was surprised and excited to learn how much information about the calls was gathered, despite it being located near a busy section of Middlesex County in New Jersey,” study co-author and entomologist Jessica Ware said in a statement. Ware is the associate curator and chair of the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Measuring ‘backscatter’

According to the team, distributed fiber optic sensing is based on finding and analyzing the backscatter when an optical pulse is sent through a fiber cable. Backscatter occurs when small imperfections or disturbances in the cable cause a tiny amount of the signal to bounce back to the source. Technicians can time the arrival of the backscattered light to calculate exactly where along the cable the light bounced back. Monitoring how backscatter varies over time creates a signature of the disturbance. In acoustic sensing, this signature can indicate the frequency of the sound and volume in the cable. 

One sensor can also be deployed on a large segment of cable. According to the study, a 31-mile-long cable with a sensor can detect the location of disturbances at a scale as precise as 3.2 feet. The authors report that this is identical to installing 50,000 acoustic sensors in a tested region that not only synchronized, but don’t require an onsite power supply.

However, according to co-author and NEC Labs America photonics researcher Sarper Ozharar, acoustic sensing in fiber optic cables “is limited to only nearby sound sources or very loud events, such as emergency vehicles, car alarms, or cicada emergences.”

Return of Brood X

In 2021, the Brood X population of cicadas emerged from the ground in at least 15 states. Brood X is the largest of several populations of cicadas that emerge on 17-year cycles. Ozharar, Ware, and colleagues from NEC Laboratories America, Inc. took this opportunity to use the lab’s fiber-sensing test apparatus to see if they could pick up the Brood X cicadas buzzing in trees. The cable was cable strung on three 35-foot utility poles in Princeton, New Jersey between June 9 and June 24, 2021.

[Related: The world’s internet traffic flows beneath the oceans—here’s how.]

The cable picked up the insects’ sounds. The buzzing appeared as a strong signal at 1.33 kilohertz (kHz) via the fiber optic sensing. This matched the frequency of the cicadas’ call when it was measured with a traditional audio sensor in the same location. 

The team also saw the cicadas’ peak frequency varying between 1.2 kHz and 1.5 kHz. This pattern appeared to follow changes in air temperature. The fiber optic sensing also showed the overall intensity of the bugs’ noise over the course of the testing period. The signal decreased over time, as the cicadas’ sounds peaked and then faded as they approached the conclusion of their reproductive period.

“We think it is really exciting and interesting that this new technology, designed and optimized for other applications and seemingly unrelated to entomology, can support entomological studies,” said Ozharar. 

Fiber optic sensors are multifunctional, so they can be installed and used for any number of purposes, detecting cicadas one day and some other disturbance the next. They could also be used to detect a variety of different insects, according to Ware. 

“Periodical cicadas were a noisy cohort that was picked up by these systems, but it will be interesting to see if annual measurements of insect soundscapes and vibrations could be useful in monitoring insect abundance in an area across seasons and years,” said Ware.  

Brood X cicadas are back underground and will not emerge until 2038. The long gap between their appearances does allow entomologists to make technological leaps in the interim. Using a mobile smartphone or an app was not feasible when Brood X last emerged in 2004, but both technologies heavily documented the 2021 emergence. Fiber optic cables could lead to a similar technological leap in cicada chorus study. 

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Google’s first-of-its-kind geothermal power plant is now fully operational in Nevada, marking a major moment in the company’s overall goal to power its office campuses and data centers using carbon-free energy by 2030. Built in partnership with the green energy startup Fervo, the facility feeds clean electricity into a local grid connected to the tech company’s Google Cloud operations in Las Vegas, as well as data centers in Henderson and Reno.

[Related: An American start-up claims it just set a geothermal energy record.]

According to a November 28 announcement, Fervo’s geothermal energy procurement differs from traditional methods through its reliance on drilling techniques developed within the oil and gas industry. Known as an enhanced geothermal system (EGS), Fervo first drilled a pair of 7,700 feet deep wells into a gas reservoir before connecting them through nearly mile-long horizontal pipes. Fluid pumped into the reservoir then heats the underground region as high as 376 degrees Fahrenheit. Steam then travels to aboveground turbines, which generate clean electricity. During the entire procedure, fiber optic wiring within the wells provides real-time performance monitoring. 

Fervo successfully completed an industry-standard 30-day trial run over the summer at its Project Red commercial pilot site in Nevada. At the time, the geothermal plant produced 3.5 megawatts of sustained power—enough to power roughly 2,600 homes. Now, that same energy will help keep the lights on at a handful of Google’s local, resource-devouring data centers.

Geothermal production is an increasingly attractive alternative power source to other sustainable industries such as wind and solar, since it is capable of providing around the clock energy regardless of time or weather conditions. According to the US Department of Energy, the country rests above enough geothermal reserves to theoretically power the entire world—yet geothermal energy supplied roughly 0.4 percent of all US energy in 2022. Federal regulators estimate up to 120 gigawatts of geothermal energy could come online within the US by 2050, enough for about 15 percent of the country’s anticipated electricity needs.

[Related: How Google Search is helping ‘greenwash’ oil companies.]

Google first pledged carbon neutrality in 2007, and continues to pursue its ambitious goal of carbon-free power at all its office campuses and data centers by 2030. Such a feat remains a massive undertaking—current geothermal kilowatt-per-hour costs are about 90 percent more expensive than the Department of Energy’s current goal of $45/kWh by 2035. Over the summer, Fervo CEO Tim Latimer described the Nevada facility’s production costs as “significantly” higher than the DOE goal, but expects the price to significantly lower in the coming years as the technology scales. Fervo clearly wants to help with that scaling—the company is currently working on a 400 megawatt geothermal facility located in Utah scheduled to go online in 2026.

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Apart from their nasty stings, army ant colonies are often known for their stunning, intricate architectural feats using their own bodies. When worker ant hunting parties encounter obstacles such as fallen tree branches, gaps in foliage, or small streams, the tiny insects will join forces to create a bridge for the remaining ant brethren to traverse. It’s as impressive as it is somewhat disconcerting—these are living, crawling buildings, after all. But one research team isn’t studying the coordination between miniscule bugs to benefit future construction projects; they are looking into how army ant teamwork could be mimicked by robots.

“Army ants create structures using decentralized collective intelligence processes,” Isabella Muratore, a postdoctoral researcher at the New Jersey Institute of Technology specializing in army ant building techniques, explains to PopSci over email. “This means that each ant follows a set of rules about how to behave based on sensory input and this leads to the creation of architectural forms without the need for any prior planning or commands from a leader.”

[Related: These robots reached a team consensus like a swarm of bees.]

Along with engineers from NJIT and Northwestern University, Muratore and her entomologist colleagues developed a series of tests meant to gauge army ant workers’ reactions and logistical responses to environmental impediments. After placing obstacles in the ants’ forest paths, Muratore filmed and later analyzed the herds’ subsequent adaptations to continue along their routes. Utilizing prior modeling work, the team also tested whether the ant bridges could withstand sudden, small changes in obstacle length using an adjustable spacing device.

Muratore and others recently presented their findings at this year’s annual Entomological Society of America conference. According to their observations, army ants generally choose to construct bridges in the most efficient locations—places wide enough to necessitate a building project while simultaneously using the least number of ants possible. The number of bridges needed during a sojourn also influences the ants’ collective decisions on resource allocation.

David Hu, a Georgia Institute of Technology engineering professor focused on fire ant raft constructions during flooding, recently likened the insects to neurons in one big, creepy-crawly brain while speaking to NPR on the subject. Instead of individual ants determining bridge dimensions and locations, each ant contributes to the decisions in their own small way.

[Related: Robot jellyfish swarms could soon help clean the oceans of plastic.]

Muratore and her collaborators believe an army ant’s collaborative capabilities could soon help engineers program swarms of robots based on the insect’s behavior principles and brains. Ants vary across species, but they still can pack a surprising amount of information within their roughly 1.1 microliter volume brains.

Replicating that brainpower requires relatively low energy costs. Scaling it across a multitude of robots could remain comparatively cheap, while exponentially increasing their functionality. This could allow them to “flexibly adapt to a variety of challenges, such as linking together to form bridges over gaps of different lengths in the most efficient manner possible,” Muratore writes to PopSci.
Robotic teamwork is crucial to implement the machines across a number of industries and scenarios, from outer space exploration, to ocean cleanup projects, to search-and-rescue efforts in areas too dangerous for humans to access. In these instances, coordinating quickly and efficiently not only saves time and energy, it could save lives.

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After three years of construction and limited operations, the next-generation Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center production facility in Singapore is officially online and fully functioning. Announced on November 20, the 935,380-square-foot, seven-floor facility relies on 200 robots to handle over 60 percent of all “repetitive and laborious” responsibilities, allowing human employees to focus on “more creative and productive duties,” according to the company.

In a key departure from traditional conveyor-belt factories, HMGIC centers on what the South Korean vehicle manufacturer calls a “cell-based production system” alongside a “digital twin Meta-Factory.” Instead of siloed responsibilities for automated machinery and human workers, the two often cooperate using technology such as virtual and augmented reality. As Hyundai explains, while employees simulate production tasks in a digital space using VR/AR, for example, robots will physically move, inspect, and assemble various vehicle components.

[Related: Everything we love about Hyundai’s newest EV.]

By combining robotics, AI, and the Internet of Things, Hyundai believes the HMGIC can offer a “human-centric manufacturing innovation system,” Alpesh Patel, VP and Head of the factory’s Technology Innovation Group, said in Monday’s announcement. 

Atop the HMGIC building is an over 2000-feet-long vehicle test track, as well as a robotically assisted “Smart Farm” capable of growing up to nine different crops. While a car factory vegetable garden may sound somewhat odd, it actually compliments the Singapore government’s ongoing “30 by 30” initiative.

Due to the region’s rocky geology, Singapore can only utilize about one percent of its land for agriculture—an estimated 90 percent of all food in the area must be imported. Announced in 2022, Singapore’s 30 by 30 program aims to boost local self-sufficiency by increasing domestic yields to 30 percent of all consumables by the decade’s end using a combination of sustainable urban growth methods. According to Hyundai’s announcement, the HMGICS Smart Farm is meant to showcase farm productivity within compact settings—while also offering visitors some of its harvested crops. The rest of the produce will be donated to local communities, as well as featured on the menu at a new Smart Farm-to-table restaurant scheduled to open at the HMGICS in spring 2024.

[Related: Controversial ‘robotaxi’ startup loses CEO.]

HMGICS is expected to produce up to 30,000 electric vehicles annually, and currently focuses on the IONIQ 5, as well as its autonomous robotaxi variant. Beginning in 2024, the facility will also produce Hyundai’s IONIQ 6. If all goes according to plan, the HMGICS will be just one of multiple cell-based production system centers.

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A litany of issues has plagued Formula One’s highly anticipated (and derided) Las Vegas Grand Prix race for months, but the event’s most recent issues are perhaps its most ridiculous yet—the cars on-average 212 mph speeds are too fast for the Vegas Strip.

F1 racers can’t bolt down any standard roadway—they require specialized, carefully laid pavement. America’s other two F1 venues in Austin, Texas, and Miami, Florida, were both built specifically for the high-speed races, but the Las Vegas Grand Prix circuit presents a wholly different challenge, as it is located within the city itself. To prepare for this weekend’s competition, workers first removed the route’s top 5-to-10 inches of asphalt before replacing it with 60,000 tons of a base layer followed by another 43,000 tons of intermediate and top layer pavement.

Speaking to The Washington Post on Thursday, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief executive Steve Hill estimated the new circuit pavement would last 6-10 years, and only need piecemeal maintenance without requiring extensive road closures.

But according to event organizers on November 16, F1 drivers’ first, late evening practice run barely lasted eight minutes before abruptly being forced to end. Near the track’s final corner, racer Carlos Sainz suddenly stopped, reporting apparent damage to his Ferrari’s flooring. A quick investigation of the track revealed that the race car’s speed and accompanying force put too much stress on a drain cover’s concrete framing, causing it to protrude and significantly damage the Ferrari’s chassis—the main frame to which its engine and suspension are attached. If that weren’t enough, racer Esteban Ocon’s car received a similar blow from the dislodged debris shortly after Sainz.

[Related: How the Formula races plan to power their cars with more sustainable fuel.]

This isn’t the first time grates proved to be an F1 car’s Achilles heel—another vehicle suffered a similar fate at a practice during the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. In that instance, however, F1 organizers welded shut the track’s coverings—a solution unavailable to last night’s crew members since it’s illegal to do so under Nevada law. Instead, repairers raced (so to speak) down the Las Vegas track, applying quick-setting concrete to the remaining 20-to-30 coverings.

It was 2:30am local time before racers could return for a second practice run. By this point, they raced past attendee stands devoid of any fans. Labor laws prevented security workers from continuing to staff the event. Those who attempted to stick it out to see the racers return were forced to leave for the night around 1:3gett0am. The competitors completed their trial runs without further incident.

Both drivers and their team members haven’t minced words since the evening’s debacle. Belgian and Dutch racer Max Verstappen described the Vegas Grand Prix as “99 percent show and 1 percent sport,” while Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur called the incident “unacceptable.”

“The situation is we damaged completely the monocoque, the engine, the batteries. I’m not sure this is the topic for me today,” Vasseur told reporters at the time. “We had a very tough [first practice], it cost us a fortune, we fucked up the session for Carlos.”

Mercedes chief Toto Wolff, however, defended the race and described the issue as a “black eye,” but nothing else. “This is nothing… they’re going to seal the drain covers and nobody’s going to talk about that tomorrow morning anymore,” Wolff continued.

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Hindsight is not quite 20/20 for NASA’s historic Apollo missions. For instance, the Apollo 12 lander successfully touched down on the moon at exactly 6:35:25 UTC on November 19, 1969. What happened to the lunar environment as astronauts touched down, however, wasn’t recorded—and exact details on the reactions between nearby rocks, debris, and lunar regolith to lander engines’ supersonic bursts of gas aren’t documented. And physically replicating Apollo 12’s historic moment on Earth isn’t possible, given stark differences in lunar gravity and geology, not to mention the moon’s complete lack of atmosphere.

This is particularly a problem for NASA as it continues to plan for astronauts’ potential 2025 return to Earth’s satellite during the Artemis program. The landing craft delivering humans onto the lunar surface will be much more powerful than its Apollo predecessors, so planning for the literal and figurative impact is an absolute necessity. To do so, NASA researchers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are relying on the agency’s Pleiades supercomputer to help simulate previous lunar landings—specifically, the unaccounted information from Apollo 12.

As detailed by NASA earlier this week, a team of computer engineers and fluid dynamics experts recently designed a program capable of accurately recreating Apollo 12’s plume-surface interactions (PSI), the interplay between landing jets and lunar topography. According to the agency, the Pleiades supercomputer generated terabytes of data over the course of several weeks’ worth of simulations that will help predict PSI scenarios for NASA’s Human Landing System, Commercial Lunar Payload Services, and even future potential Mars landers.

[Related: Meet the first 4 astronauts of the ‘Artemis Generation’]

NASA recently showed off one of these simulations—the Apollo 12 landing—during its appearance at SC23, an annual international supercomputing conference in Denver, Colorado. For the roughly half-minute simulation clip, the team relied on a simulation tool called the Gas Granular Flow Solver (GGFS). The program is both capable of modeling interactions to predict regolith cratering, as well as dust clouds kicked up around the lander’s immediate surroundings.

According to the project’s conference description, GGFS utilizing its highest fidelities can “model microscopic regolith particle interactions with a particle size/shape distribution that statistically replicates actual regolith.” To run most effectively on “today’s computing resources,” however, the simulation considers just one-to-three potential particle sizes and shapes.

[Related: Moon-bound Artemis III spacesuits have some functional luxury sewn in.]

The approximation of the final half-minute of descent before engine cut-off notably includes depictions of shear stress, or the lateral forces affecting a surface area’s erosion levels. In the clip, low shear stress is represented by a dark purple hue, while the higher shear stress areas are shown in yellow.

Going forward, the team intends to optimize the tool’s source code, alongside integrating increased computational resources. Such upgrades will allow for better, higher fidelity simulations to fine-tune Artemis landing procedures, as well as potentially plan for landing missions far beyond the lunar surface.

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To call soft robotic hands “complex” is a bit of an understatement. These designs consider a number of engineering factors, including the elasticity and durability of materials. This usually entails separate 3D-printing processes for each component, often with multiple plastics and polymers. Now, however, engineers working together from ETH Zurich and the MIT spin-off company, Inkbit, can create extremely intricate products with a 3D-printer utilizing a laser scanner and feedback learning. The researchers’ impressive results already include a six-legged gripper robot, an artificial “heart” pump, sturdy metamaterials, as well as an articulating soft robotic hand complete with artificial tendons, ligaments, and bones.

[Related: Watch a robot hand only use its ‘skin’ to feel and grab objects.]

Traditional 3D-printers use fast-curing polyacrylate plastics. In this process, UV lamps quickly harden a malleable plastic gel as it is layered via the printer nozzle, while a scraping tool removes surface imperfections along the way. While effective, the rapid solidification can limit a product’s form, function, and flexibility. But trying to swap out the fast-curing plastic for slow-curing polymers like epoxies and thiolenes mucks up the machinery, meaning many soft robotic components require separate manufacturing methods.

Knowing this, designers wondered if adding scanning technology alongside rapid printing adjustments could solve the slow-curing hurdle. As detailed in their new paper published in Nature, their new system not only offers a solution, but demonstrates 3D-printed, slow-curing polymers’ potential across a number of designs.

Instead of scraping away imperfections layer-by-layer, three-dimensional scanning offers near-instantaneous information on surface irregularities. This data is sent to the printer’s feedback mechanism, which then adjusts the necessary material amount “in real time and with pinpoint accuracy,” Wojciech Matusik, an electrical engineering and computer science professor at MIT and study co-author, said in a recent project profile from ETH Zurich.

To demonstrate their new method’s potential, researchers created a quartet of diverse 3D-printed projects using soft-curing polymers—a resilient metamaterial cube, a heart-like fluid pump capable of transporting “liquids” through its system, a six-legged robot topped with a sensor-informed two-pronged gripper, as well an articulating hand capable of grasping objects using embedded sensor pads.
While refinements to production methods, polymers’ chemical compositions, and lifespan are still needed, the team believes the comparatively fast and adaptable 3D-printing method could one day lead to a host of novel industrial, architectural, and robotic designs. Soft robots, for example, offer less risk of injury when working alongside humans, and can handle fragile goods better than their standard, metal robot counterparts. Already, however, the existing advances have produced designs once impossible for 3D printers.

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To understand how electric cars work, it helps to keep in mind the ways in which they’re similar to regular gas-burning vehicles. They’re cousins from different generations, not machines from different universes. If you drive, you know the drill: Press down on the pedal with your right foot to get moving, point the vehicle where you want to go, maybe put on some music, and try not to crash. 

“An EV has four wheels,” says Chad Kirchner, the founder of evpulse.com, a news and information site about electric vehicles. “There’s a start button, there’s an accelerator pedal, there’s a brake. In a lot of ways, an EV—and the EV driving experience—is identical to a gas-powered experience.” 

That said, there are key differences in engineering, design, maintenance, and performance between electric cars and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.   

Electric car battery system 101

To begin with, an ICE vehicle relies on a tank of gasoline or diesel to get the energy it needs. An EV, on the other hand, requires a battery system, which consists of a multitude of individual cells. And just like a gas tank, the battery cells store energy. 

“But [a battery cell] also produces power—and the power is a result of the voltage of that particular cell, and the current it’s able to output,” says Charles Poon, the global director of Electrified Systems Engineering at Ford, which makes the Mach-E, the F-150 Lightning, and the E-Transit electric vehicles. He describes the battery as the car’s heart.

Battery design in EVs will differ between automakers, and one of the main ways is the shape of their cells. To make things a bit more tangible, consider the Mach-E, an electric car that descends from a famous line of gas-burning vehicles that gave birth to the term “pony car.” The cells in the Mach-E are in pouch form, whereas other batteries in the market have cylindrical cells (Tesla uses those) or prismatic cells. A Mach-E battery system has hundreds of cells. 

[Related: This giant bumper car is street-legal and enormously delightful]

The lithium-ion-based electric car batteries can also have slightly different chemistries. For example, a Mach-E can come with nickel, cobalt, and manganese (NCM) batteries or lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. The former are known for being able to hold power for longer and performing well in cold temperatures, while LFP batteries are less expensive and can charge up faster. 

How do electric motors work? 

The term AC/DC is not only the name of an Australian rock band, but also describes two forms of electricity: alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC). Both types of power are important for electric cars to work.

The electricity coming out of your wall outlet at home is in AC form, but batteries store their energy in DC form. Because of this, electric cars have a component known as a charger that takes the AC power flowing into the vehicle and switches it to the more battery-friendly DC. A quicker way to charge up one of these cars is by using a DC fast charger, which provides the car with juice in DC form, so the car doesn’t have to convert it. 

“It bypasses the AC charger [in the car], and goes directly into the battery,” Poon explains. 

[Related: What an electric vehicle’s MPGe rating really means]

So the batteries store power in DC form, but there’s a twist: electric motors work with AC power. This means the vehicle has to transform electricity yet again, which it does using a traction inverter that converts the DC back into AC. “And then that is what actually ends up spinning the electric motor, producing power,” Poon adds.  

There are two key components in an electric motor: a stator and a rotor. The rotor sits inside the stator and rotates using the wonders of magnetism that kick in when AC power hits the motor. 

“We send what we call three phases of alternating current through a stator that has wires that are wound radially, sequentially, around the stator,” he explains. “And we are able to create a rotating magnetic field—so the magnetic field rotates, and it pulls the rotor along with it.” 

And voilá! After passing through some gearing, that rotation turns the wheels on your electric vehicle. 

While an ICE car has one engine, Kirchner, from evpulse.com, notes that electric vehicles in the market can have as many as four motors. For example, the rear-wheel drive version of a Mach-E uses one motor, while the all-wheel drive version uses two—one for the front and one for the back. At the other end of the spectrum, a Rivian R1T can have as many as one motor per wheel. 

[Related: Electric cars are better for the environment, no matter the power source]

The pros and cons of driving an electric vehicle

Could you imagine if taking your foot off the gas pedal in an ICE vehicle magically made more gasoline appear in the tank? Something like that happens in an EV.

This cool trick is called regenerative braking, and allows drivers to start slowing down not by pushing the brake pedal as in regular cars, but by taking their foot off the accelerator. Don’t worry—that brake pedal is still there when you need it. In one-pedal or regen mode, things happen in reverse: the wheels turn the motors so they act like generators and send power back to the batteries. 

“You are actually taking the vehicle momentum and putting it back in as chemical energy into the battery,” Poon says.

Mach-E Chief Engineer Donna Dickson says one-pedal driving still remains an unfamiliar technique for drivers, but notes that it helps prevent wear on the brakes while also adding battery charge.

The power source is not the only difference between electric cars and ICE vehicles. There are other details that set the two apart. For example, Kirchner says that while combustion engines have to rev a little to make torque, EV motors make all of their torque from a complete standstill. This results in great acceleration. “Around town, even electric cars that you would not consider sporty by looking at them feel very quick, which makes them excellent city cars,” he continues. 

Another benefit of driving an electric vehicle is that they need less maintenance. There’s no need for an oil change, although their heavier weight means their tires experience more wear and tear. 

On the downside, you can’t charge up the batteries as rapidly or as easily as gasoline goes into a tank, but if you can charge at home, you have a unique perk: “You start every morning with a full tank,” says Kirchner. But that doesn’t always come as easy as it sounds. 

[Related: How does a jet engine work? By running hot enough to melt its own innards.]

“If you are an EV owner, it’s pretty much imperative at this point to have someplace to plug in and charge overnight,” says Paul Waatti, manager of industry analysis for AutoPacific. However, “there’s a good portion of America that doesn’t live in a single-family home.” People residing in condos, apartments, and other residential setups will have a more challenging time finding a charger to plug in their cars overnight. As for public chargers, Waatti says those networks are “very far off from being seamless at this point,” meaning there are too few and many don’t work properly.

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If you live in and around Gulkana, Alaska and recently saw some eerie lights in the sky—don’t worry; they were all part of a science experiment. Earlier this week, researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and several other US institutions created artificial auroras by sending radio pulses into the Earth’s ionosphere using HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) transmitters on the ground. The frequencies of these transmissions were between 2.8 and 10 megahertz. 

These transmitters act as heaters that excite the gasses in the upper atmosphere. When the gasses “de-excite,” they produce an airglow between 120 and 150 miles above ground, according to a notice about the project issued by the HAARP team. This is similar to how charged particles from the sun interact with gasses in the upper atmosphere to create natural auroras; the charged particles are steered by the Earth’s magnetic field to the north and south poles to form aurora borealis and aurora australis. Compared to those light displays, the artificial auroras are much weaker. 

So why did the researchers do all this? Studying this artificial airglow may provide insights on what happens when real aurora lights appear.

If you noticed a faint red or green splotch in the sky above Alaska between November 4 and November 8, chances are good that you saw the experiment in progress. HAARP also notes in its FAQ that these ionosphere-heating experiments have no detectable effects on the environment after 10 minutes or so. 

[Related: Why NASA will launch rockets to study the eclipse]

Additionally, the team also wants to understand how these superheated gasses in the ionosphere interact with each other. Insights into these dynamics could inform collision detection and avoidance features for satellite systems. Gathering more intel on auroras and other upper atmosphere phenomena like it can help scientists see how weather and particles from space are interacting with the environment around Earth, and how energy is transferred during these events. 

Disturbing the ionosphere is not the only way to study auroras. Launching rockets into the ionosphere, which sits just at the edge of space, is another popular approach. 

The goal of HAARP is to research the physical and electrical properties of the Earth’s ionosphere as it pertains to surveillance, military and civilian communications, as well as radar and navigation systems. Outside of studying auroras, HAARP has used its antenna array to peer inside a passing asteroid, observe solar storms, and conduct other tests related to space physics. Beyond the Earth, the team’s ambitions extend to the moon and to Jupiter. 

HAARP has had an interesting history. Despite conducting serious science, around 2014, controversy and conspiracy brewed around the program’s mysterious antenna field, then run by the US military, prompting scientists to host open houses with the public explaining what they can and can’t do with their technology. Its image problem remains despite the changes in ownership over the years. 

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This week, LTA Research revealed Pathfinder 1, a prototype electric airship, to the public. According to TechCrunch, the company founded by Sergey Brin will spend the next year putting its airship through airworthiness testing at Moffett Field, home of NASA’s Ames Research Center, and out over the seas of the southern San Francisco Bay. If all goes well, airships could one day be used for climate-friendlier air travel, cargo transport, and humanitarian aid missions. 

Pathfinder 1, LTA Research’s first prototype, is 400 feet long and 66 feet wide. That’s more than 150 feet longer than an Airbus A380, and is apparently the largest aircraft to take to the skies since the ill-fated Hindenburg in the 1930s. (Though, at over 800 feet long, the Hindenburg would dwarf Pathfinder 1.) 

Instead of explosive hydrogen, Pathfinder 1 uses helium as its lighter-than-air lift gas. The airship has 13 rip-stop nylon gas bags inside its rigid carbon-fiber and titanium frame that are continuously monitored using LIDAR to ensure the airship is properly balanced, buoyant, and performing well. LTA is obviously angling for nothing to go wrong, but just in case, the surface of the airship is coated with Tedlar, a laminated, strong, lightweight, and, crucially, non-flammable material.

[Related: The biggest hot air balloon in the US was built to carry skydivers]

While the helium gets Pathfinder 1 in the air, it moves around thanks to 12 electric motors that are powered by diesel generators and batteries. The motors can drive the airship at up to 75 mph and can rotate from +180º to -180º to allow it to maneuver carefully. The pilots steer using a joystick and fly-by-wire system that automatically integrates with sensor feedback data to control all the motors. 

Despite its massive size, Pathfinder 1 will only be able to carry a relatively small amount of cargo. Depending on how tests go and the specific requirements of the situation, LTA expects the airship to have a payload of between 4,400 and 11,000 pounds. By contrast, a C-17 Globemaster can carry almost 180,000 pounds. The advantage of an airship, then, isn’t so much in what it can do, but in what other aircraft can’t. 

LTA Research highlights the humanitarian angle. As its FAQs explain, “airships will have the ability to complement, and even speed up, humanitarian disaster response and relief efforts, so that many more lives can be saved. Airships do not require aviation infrastructure like airstrips and landing zones, allowing them to deliver food, equipment, supplies, and other life-saving aid to areas impacted by natural disasters.” It also suggests that if cell towers are knocked down, airships could hover in the area equipped with the necessary radio equipment and get service back online.

[Related: RIP Loon, Google’s balloon-based cellular network]

For now though, Pathfinder 1 has much simpler objectives: get through flight testing. The FAA’s airworthiness certificate mandates that it is tethered to a mobile mast for ground testing, before conducting low-level flights at up to 1,500 feet. If all goes well in California, it will then be taken to the historic Goodyear Airdock where LTA Research is already developing Pathfinder 3, another prototype that, at 590 feet long, will have even more potential for carrying humanitarian aid. 

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After over half a century of loyal service, the world’s last remaining Super Guppy aircraft continues to dutifully transport NASA’s gigantic rocket parts in its cavernous, hinged cargo bay. On Tuesday, the Huntsville International Airport posted a video and accompanying images to social media of the rotund plane arriving from Kennedy Space Center. Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, it sounds like a prop plane of that size can make a huge, rich racket on the tarmac.

[Related: Artemis II lunar mission goals, explained.]

Aboard the over 50-ton (when empty), turboprop plane this time around was the heat shield that protected last year’s Artemis I Orion spacecraft. The vital rocketry component capable of withstanding 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit resided in the Super Guppy’s 25-foot tall, 25-foot wide, 111-foot long interior during a nearly 690-mile journey to the Alabama airport, after which it was transported a few miles down the road to the Marshall Space Flight Center. From there, a team of technicians will employ a specialized milling tool to remove the heat shield’s protective Avcoat outer layer for routine post-flight analysis, according to NASA.

The Super Guppy is actually the third Guppy iteration to lumber through the clouds. Based on a converted Boeing Stratotanker refueling tanker and designed by the now defunct Aero Spacelines during the 1960s, an original craft called the Pregnant Guppy was supplanted by its larger Super Guppy heir just a few years later. This updated plane included an expanded cargo bay, alongside an incredibly unique side hinge that allows its forward section to open like a pocket watch. A final Super Guppy Turbine debuted in 1970, and remained in use by NASA for over 25 years. In 1997, the agency purchased one of two newer Super Guppy Turbines built by Airbus. This Guppy is the current and only such hefty boy gracing the skies. With its bulky profile, the Super Guppy’s travel specs are pretty impressive—it’s capable of flying as high as 25,000 feet at speeds as fast as 250 nautical miles per hour.

[Related: NASA’s weird giant airplane carried the future of Mars in its belly.]

Last PopSci checked in on the Super Guppy’s journeys was back in 2016, when it transported an Orion crew capsule potentially destined for a much further trip than the Artemis missions’ upcoming lunar sojourns—Mars. According to Digital Trends, the Super Guppy’s next flight could occur sometime next year ahead of NASA’s Artemis II human-piloted lunar flyby.

“Although much of the glory of America’s space program may be behind it, the Super Guppy continues to be one of the only practical options for oversized cargo and stands ready to encompass a bigger role in the future,” reads a portion of NASA’s official description.

Until then, feel free to peruse the official, 74-page Super Guppy Transport User’s Guide.

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To put it very simply: the Rimac Nevera electric hypercar is very, very fast. With 1,194-horsepower, a top speed of 256 MPH, and the ability to accelerate faster than an F1 racer, it’s not just one of the most powerful EVs in the world—it’s one of the most powerful cars, period. The $2.1 million Nevera has dashed past so many world records at this point that its makers are now forced to get creative in setting new ones. And they certainly have, judging from a new video released on November 7.

In addition to all its other feats, the Rimac Nevera is apparently now also the Guinness World Record holder for the “fastest speed in reverse.” How fast did it take to earn yet another laurel? 171.34 MPH—certainly an intense speed in any direction.

[Related: Behind the wheel of the bruisingly quick Rimac Nevera hypercar.]

On Tuesday, Nevera chief program engineer Matija Renić revealed that the new stunt actually began as a joke during the hypercar’s development stage.

“We kind of laughed it off,” Renić said via the company’s announcement. Renić noted its cooling and stability systems, not to mention aerodynamics, simply weren’t engineered for putting the pedal to the floor while in reverse. “But then, we started to talk about how fun it would be to give it a shot.”

Simulations indicated a Nevera likely would top 150 MPH while driven backwards, but there was no way to be sure just how stable it would remain while blazing down the road. “We were entering uncharted territory,” Renić added—an understatement if there ever was one.

But as these multiple videos attest, the Nevera is certainly up to the task should it ever improbably become necessary. According to the company’s record-setting test driver, pulling off the stunt “definitely took some getting used to.”

“You’re facing straight out backwards watching the scenery flash away from you faster and faster, feeling your neck pulled forwards in almost the same sensation you would normally get under heavy braking,” Goran Drndak said via Rimac’s November 7 announcement. “You’re moving the steering wheel so gently, careful not to upset the balance, watching for your course and your braking point out the rear-view mirror, all the while keeping an eye on the speed.” Although being “almost completely unnatural” to the car’s design, Drndak said the Nevera “breezed” through the stress test.

It’s hard to imagine what’s left for the Nevera to achieve, but if the latest record is any indication, chances are Rimac designers will think of something.

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A billionaire-backed Silicon Valley company says it now owns enough land to move forward with the next phases in creating a high-tech, utopian “city of yesterday.” In a recent email to PopSci, California Forever CEO Jan Sramek says he hopes “residents [will] keep an open mind [and] hear what we have to say,” while promising “we’ll do the same in kind.”

The news marked a turning point in the secretive, years-long campaign costing over $800 million, alongside a recently dropped $510 million lawsuit against local landowners. According to the project’s website, the group intends to build a new, green smart municipality from scratch atop its 53,000 acres. But despite promising “novel methods of design, construction and governance,” the project’s details remain vague.

[Related: Silicon Valley’s wealthiest want to build their own city outside of San Francisco.]

Founded by Sramek, a 36-year-old former Goldman Sachs trader, California Forever has quietly bought up tens of thousands of acres northeast of San Francisco since at least 2018. Investors include prominent venture capitalists, LinkedIn’s co-founder, as well as Lauren Powell Jobs, billionaire philanthropist and wife of the late Steve Jobs.

After years spent flying under-the-radar, Flannery Associate’s parent company finally launched a public-facing website in September featuring conceptual renderings and CGI walkthroughs of an idyllic townscape. The official site’s FAQ section argues the stealth campaign was “the only way to avoid creating a rush of reckless short-term land speculation.”

In a separate statement provided to PopSci on Monday, a Flannery spokesperson relayed the company “does not anticipate making any additional purchases” once it finalizes the “few remaining properties” under contract in the coming weeks. It is unclear if the final properties under contract differ from those recently purchased from local Solano County farmers following the contentious legal battle. Flannery filed its $510 million lawsuit in May 2023 against a group of local landowners, citing antitrust violations.

Speaking with PopSci last week via email, Flannery’s spokesperson contended this “small group” of residents engaged in a “targeted campaign” of slander, but denied that the company was suing local farmers for simply refusing to sell. The spokesperson cited an alleged incident from July 2022, when a farmer offered his property to Flannery for $32,000 per acre—nearly 10 times “fair market value” at the time, claims Flannery. After company representatives refused to buy at that price point, the farmer allegedly engaged in a “secret conspiracy” alongside fellow landowners to agree upon a standard selling price “so [Flannery] cannot play owners against owners,” the spokesperson said.

“Flannery has been reasonable when settling the case with many of the defendants, and has been willing to negotiate generous settlements with the remaining defendants,” the spokesperson concluded last week. On November 3, Bloomberg Business revealed the lawsuit’s defendants have since agreed to sell their remaining land to Flannery Associates for $18,000 per acre.

Critics, however, continue to voice concerns over the project’s logistical, legal, and governmental vagaries. Earlier this year, Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) argued to a local California news outlet that the area’s proximity to Travis Air Force Base meant “[foreign] spy operations or any other nefarious activity could take place” there. Rep. Garamendi added such issues “could detrimentally impact the [base’s] ability…  to operate in a moment of national emergency,” and criticized Flannery’s then-ongoing lawsuit against locals. PopSci has reached out to Rep. Garamendi’s office for comment, but did not receive a response at the time of writing.

“Travis Air Force Base is critical to both our national security and to Solano County. We fully support its mission and always will,” reads a portion of California Forever’s FAQ page.

[Related: Why the tech billionaires can’t save themselves.]

In August, Solano County residents began receiving text and email opinion polls regarding a potential future ballot initiative. The messages at the time described an urban project including “a new city with tens of thousands of new homes, a large solar energy farm, orchards with over a million new trees, and over 10,000 acres of new parks and open space.” In an interview with local Bay Area news outlet ABC 7 in September, Sramek also said he envisions it to be “one of the most walkable places in California, probably in America” while possessing a “very traditional feeling to it.”

“The idea of building a new community and economic opportunity in eastern Solano seemed impossible on the surface,” Sramek wrote to PopSci last week. “But after spending a lot of time learning about the community, which I now call home, I became convinced that with thoughtful design, the right long-term patient investors, and strong partnerships… we can create a new community,” Sramek said at the time.

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Studying the ocean is a daunting task. It requires machines that don’t corrode in the seawater, and are able to withstand the escalating, crushing pressures as they dive down. While robots have become better at surviving these challenging environments since they became part of the crew embarking on deep-sea explorations, animals like elephant seals and weddell seals do it naturally with ease. As a workaround to keep the tech expenses low but the science quality high, a group of researchers had the idea to attach trackers and basic measurement tools detecting temperature, salinity, and depth to these seals to learn more about their massive marine habitat. 

The tracker looks like a funny little hat, but don’t let its appearance fool you. It has proven to be conducive to serious science. 

Earlier this summer, the team of international scientists working on the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS) project published a report in the journal Communications Earth and Environment in which the seal divers wearing these satellite-paired, glued-on trackers revealed that the bottom of the sea in some areas is deeper than what’s stated on current maps. The seals also helped uncover a hidden underwater canyon in Antarctica’s seas that was then confirmed with other tools, Scientific American recently reported. 

This study is just one of the many planned projects for these blubbery, flippered research assistants. According to ABC Australia, the tracker-adorning seals are part of a 20-year project to understand the grooves and depths of the East Antarctic continental shelf and the seafloor below it. Turning the seals into effective free-roaming sensors can fill in gaps in data related to some of the most hard-to-get-to parts of the Antarctic ocean, as the seals are “tweeting” small packets of information they’ve collected to a satellite every time they surface. 

[Related: Tagging along with sharks to the ocean’s twilight zone]

Seals may know secret spots, too, that humans have never ventured to before, and they’re still actively exploring, diving down to the seafloor to forage, even when blankets of ice prevent ships and other human devices from accessing certain regions of Antarctica.  

This science is happening for an important reason. Getting a more accurate picture of the labyrinthic world under Antarctic ice is key to making predictions about how and how fast melting occurs as a result of climate change. The seals are definitely not the only tool scientists are deploying. Submersible robots like Boaty McBoatface and Icefin are also on a similar mission. 

There are many lacunas in the reams of scientific data regarding how the ocean is structured, and how its inhabitants traverse it. Part of the shortcoming is because researchers are approaching the task from a human perspective, and not seeing the environment the way an animal living there would. This could be why there are so many remaining mysteries around phenomena like, for example, where eels reproduce. Using an inside source, or an inside marine animal so to speak, may not be the worst idea to spy on their world. 

The method is already yielding results. Other than the seals, a team of scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have tagged sharks to study the quirks of the ocean’s twilight zone, and another team tagged turtles in the Indian Ocean to gather data that could be used to predict cyclones.

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One of the most ubiquitous sights on the road is an 18-wheel truck. These large, loud vehicles are a prolific presence on America’s interstates, and are made up of two big components: the tractor, which does the pulling and is where the driver is, and the trailer, where the stuff goes. 

In an effort to clean up the relatively large emissions that come from this part of the transportation sector, some companies are working on electric tractors that can pull trailers: Freightliner has a model called the eCascadia, Tesla has its Semi, Volvo its VNR, and others are working on it, too. But a relatively new company called Range Energy is focusing on the trailer itself, equipping it with batteries, a motor, and other intelligence. The trailer can be paired with a tractor burning diesel, or an electric one, like one of those eCascadias. 

Currently, there are about 3.5 million trailers in the United States, according to a company called ACT Research.

Range Energy is led by Ali Javidan, an early Tesla employee and veteran of Google and Zoox, the autonomous car company now owned by Amazon. Javidan also brings something else to the table: experience towing things. “I’ve always been around equipment, cars, trucks, stuff like that,” he says. “A few of my uncles had car dealerships, mechanic shops, lots of land in Sacramento. And so growing up, one of my first experiences driving was towing cars from the dealership to the service center, or moving boats around the farm, or things like that.” 

So while he points out that he has “very, very limited time in a class-8 tractor trailer,” which is a big 18-wheeler, he adds that he has “lots of towing empathy.” 

[Related: Futuristic aircraft and robotic loaders dazzled at a Dallas tech summit]

Range’s RA-01 product looks like a regular trailer—typically a big, boxy, and boring presence on the road—but has some key changes. There’s a motor that turns one of the axles at the back of the trailer. That motor gets the power it needs from an onboard battery pack, which isn’t inside the trailer (where it would interfere with cargo space) but is below it. There’s also what Javidan refers to as “smart kingpin.” A kingpin on a big 18-wheel truck is the point where the trailer connects to the tractor. What makes the Range Energy kingpin different from a regular kingpin is that it senses what the tractor is doing. “It’s a real-time measurement of how hard the tractor is pulling,” Javidan says.

Because it gathers this information, the trailer can be “kind of like an obedient dog on a leash,” he says, with the goal of making the trailer feel “essentially weightless” for the tractor. The trailer wouldn’t ever push the tractor, though. 

The result, according to Range, is that if this trailer is paired with a diesel-burning tractor, that tractor could get around 35 to 40 percent better fuel efficiency. And if it were paired with an electric tractor, it could add about 100 miles of range or more. 

Another benefit potentially arises from what happens when a truck towing a Range trailer goes downhill. That’s because of regenerative braking, which uses the motion from the wheels to charge the battery back up and simultaneously slow the whole rig down. That means that the truck’s brakes get less wear and tear, too. “The second-biggest maintenance item on a trailer is brakes,” he says. (Tires take the top slot.) Plus, Javidan says that the system has a stability boost going downhill, “because we’re dragging from the trailer.” 

The most obvious negative tradeoff that comes with electrifying the trailer is weight. “It adds about 4,000 pounds to the total system,” Javidan says. (A tractor-trailer rig has to stay below 80,000 pounds in total, although an electric tractor gets an additional 2,000 pound allowance.) For trucks hauling something heavy, like soda, this could affect the amount of goods they can transport in one load. But many trucks carrying stuff have “cubed out,” Javidan says—meaning that the truck’s interior space fills up before hitting the maximum weight limit. (Just think about an Amazon box filled packaging around something small, like toothpaste, and you get the idea.) 

Javidan says that they’ll start beta testing next year, with deliveries to customers planned for 2025. “You will start seeing these trailers on the roads in real volumes starting in 2026,” he predicts. 

There’s good reason for regulators and companies to work on cleaning up this transportation sector, both from a climate-change perspective and a public-health one. If you consider buses and medium- and heavy-duty trucks, those big rigs make up just 6 percent of vehicles on the roads in the US, but account for sizable portions of greenhouse gas emissions and nitrogen oxides (NOx). In other words, they are “disproportionately emitting emissions,” says Stephanie Ly, the senior manager of eMobility Strategy and Manufacturing Engagement at the World Resources Institute. 

The NOx emissions have “major public health impacts,” she says. Exposure to this diesel-heavy industry has serious ramifications for people, with repercussions like “years of life lost” as well as “asthma, cancer, infertility, and so many other negative effects, particularly for those that live nearest to high-traffic truck centers,” she says. And these groups, Ly adds, “are primarily communities of color, and communities that are lower income, or have less access to different types of employment, so they’re especially vulnerable.”

With Range Energy’s plan to electrify the trailer, Ly notes that “it’s absolutely fascinating what they are proposing.” That said, just as there are multiple companies working on creating electric tractors that do the pulling, other firms also are working on electrifying the trailer, too. ConMet eMobility, ZF, and Einride all represent potential competitors for Range. 

“I will say in the trucking sector, there’s quite a bit of brand loyalty within the supply chain,” Ly adds. In other words, any new player might have something of a long haul ahead of them as they try to pull onto the highway, get into the right gear, and travel down that open road.

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The wind energy company Ørsted has officially shuttered plans for two New Jersey offshore wind farms, citing rising inflation, interest rates, and supply chain problems. The blow to US green energy infrastructure arrives less than two weeks after the Danish wind industry giant promised to pay the Garden State a $100 million penalty if its Ocean Wind I turbines weren’t online by the end of 2025. But although the company’s plans off the coast of Atlantic City are canceled, similar projects are still underway across the US as the country transitions towards a sustainable energy infrastructure.

“We are extremely disappointed to have to take this decision, particularly because New Jersey is poised to be a US and global hub for offshore wind energy,” David Hardy, Ørsted Group EVP and CEO Americas, said in an October 31 statement. “I want to thank Governor Murphy and NJ state and local leaders who helped support these projects and continue to lead the region in developing American renewable energy and jobs.”

[Related: Atlantic City’s massive offshore wind farm project highlights the industry’s growing pains.]

According to the Associated Press on Tuesday, however, NJ Gov. Phil Murphy had strong words for the company, citing Ørsted’s recent statements “regarding the viability and progress of the Ocean Wind I project.”

“Today’s decision by Ørsted to abandon its commitments to New Jersey is outrageous and calls into question the company’s credibility and competence,” added Gov. Murphy per the AP. He also hinted at impending plans to pursue an additional $200 million Ørsted reportedly pledged for the state’s offshore wind industry. In the meantime, Gov. Murphy reiterated New Jersey’s commitment to offshore wind infrastructure, and said the state will solicit a new round of project proposals in the near future.

Both Ocean Wind endeavors had faced intense scrutiny and pushback from both Republican state legislators and locals, who criticized the farms’ alleged ecological impacts, ocean horizon views, as well as the millions of dollars in subsidies granted to Ørsted. Earlier this month, Ørsted received a lawsuit filed on behalf of an environmental group called Clean Ocean Action alongside multiple seafood and fishing organizations. In May 2023, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released an over 2,300 page Final Environmental Impact Statement on Ocean Wind 1, which deemed it responsibly designed and safe for the region’s ecological health.

If completed, Ocean Wind I would have included nearly 100 giant turbines roughly 15 miles off the southeast coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Once online, the farm would have annually generated 1.1 gigawatts of energy—enough to power over 500,000 homes. Ocean Wind II was slated for construction next to its sibling wind farm, and would have offered similar energy outputs.

[Related: Watch a heavy-lifting drone land a perfect delivery on an offshore wind turbine.]

While the Danish company’s plans in New Jersey are dashed, America’s wind farm buildup is still progressing elsewhere—and Ørsted remains a part of that trajectory. The same day as its Ocean Wind announcement, the company confirmed it is moving forward with a $4 billion project, Revolution Wind, off the coast of Rhode Island. If completed, the offshore wind farm will supply clean energy for residents in both Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Meanwhile, a utility company called Dominion Energy received crucial federal approval on Tuesday for plans to construct 176 turbines over 20 miles off the coast of Virginia. Dominion claims the project is the largest offshore project in the US, and will generate enough energy for nearly 660,000 homes upon its estimated late-2026 completion date. According to a 2015 report from the US Department of Energy, wind farms could supply over a third of US electricity by 2050.

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An autonomous drone with the wingspan of an albatross is now trialing cargo restocks for a giant offshore wind farm in the North Sea. Overseen by the Danish wind power company Ørsted, the 128-pound unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—roughly the weight of “a large baby giraffe”—is meant to cut down on time and costs, while also improving overall operational safety, and is billed as the first of its kind in the world.

“Drones mean less work disturbance as turbines don’t have to be shut down when cargo is delivered,” Ørsted’s October 30 announcement states. “They avoid risk, making it safer for personnel working on the wind farm and minimize the need for multiple journeys by ship, reducing carbon emissions and climate change impacts.”

In a video posted to the social media platform, X, the hefty drone is shown launching from a cargo ship’s deck while towing a large orange bag suspended by a cable beneath the UAV. From there, the transport soars over a few hundred feet of North Sea waters to hover above one of Hornsea 1’s 7-megawatt wind turbines. Once in place, the drone carefully lands its cargo on the platform before releasing its tether to return to its crew transfer vessel, where human pilots have overseen the entire process.

While Ørsted didn’t name its drone partner in the project announcement, additional promotional materials provided by the company confirm it is a Skylift, a UK-based business focusing on offshore wind farm deliveries.

[Related: Atlantic City’s massive offshore wind farm project highlights the industry’s growing pains.]

“[W]e want to use our industry leading position to help push forward innovations that reduce costs and maximize efficiency and safety in the offshore wind sector,” Mikkel Haugaard Windolf, head of Ørsted’s offshore logistics project, said via the company’s October 30 reveal, adding that, “Drone cargo delivery is an important step in that direction.”

Ørsted’s Hornsea 1 wind farm consists of 174 turbines installed across over 157-square-miles in the North Sea. Generating roughly 1.7Gw of power, the farm’s electricity is enough to sustainably power over 1 million homes in the UK.

Despite the company’s multiple Hornsea wind farm successes, Ørsted has encountered significant setbacks during attempts to expand into the US market. Earlier this month, local officials in Cape May County, NJ, filed a lawsuit attempting to block construction of a 1.1 gigawatt project involving nearly 100 turbines off the coast of Atlantic City, citing regulatory sidesteps and environmental concerns. In an email to PopSci at the time, the American Clean Power Association’s Director of Eastern Region State Affairs described the lawsuit as “meritless,” and reiterated that offshore wind energy production remains “one of the most rigorously regulated industries in the nation.”

According to a 2015 report from the US Department of Energy, wind farms could supply over a third of the country’s sustainable electricity by 2050.

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Virtual and augmented reality headsets are currently focused on visual experiences, but for a truly immersive environment, designers will need to integrate additional sensory inputs such as touch. Companies like Meta and HaptX are already testing iterations of VR/AR devices with haptic feedback support, but they currently remain clunky, heavy, and tethered to external power sources. There’s also the issue of price points: Meta’s Haptic Glove is estimated to cost around $15,000, while HaptX’s G1 sets owners back $6,000 alongside a $500 per month support fee.

But what if VR/AR systems could include a lightweight, form-fitting haptic glove that only requires lightweight batteries, all costing roughly two months’ of a G1 subscription? Fluid Reality is trying to make just such a device, well, a reality.

[Related: What’s the difference between VR and AR?]

The startup—spun out of the Future Interfaces Group at Carnegie Mellon University—unveiled their new device today, and hopes to offer a completely new approach to providing realistic haptic sensations for AR/VR environments. While many existing gloves rely on pneumatic designs to simulate touch, Fluid Reality’s wearable instead utilizes low-profile, self-contained motion-generating actuators that clip onto a user’s fingertips, all without the need for tubing or wiring connected to an external device. The entire array of components including a wireless controller, drive electronics, and rechargeable battery pack are strapped to the user’s hand and wrist, thus eliminating the need for a wired power source.

To simulate tactile sensations, the finger pads use liquid-like “pixels” powered by tiny electroosmotic valves—pumps controlled via the electric stimulation of fluid pressure and flow. The device is a solid state design, thus containing no moving components apart from the valve “pixels” themselves. Because each actuator is just 5mm thick, the pads are incredibly slim and far less bulky than existing haptic glove options.

In demonstration videos, wearers are shown manipulating 3D-simulated objects like a basketball, various shaped blocks, a water bottle, and a rock alongside the haptic finger clips’ responses. Depending on angle, pressure, and speed of movement, the electroosmotic-powered pixels can be seen inflating and deflating in realtime to approximate the real-life sensations.

Even with such seemingly precise responses, Fluid Reality’s prototype gloves are considerably smaller than options like the Meta Haptic Glove, both in terms of overall physical dimensions and pricing. According to the team, a Fluid Reality glove weighs less than half-a-pound, and could cost less than $1,000 per unit. In the designers’ research paper, the team concedes additional refinement is needed before the gloves can arrive on the market. Going forward, they hope to increase the density of haptic arrays on each finger pad, while also miniaturizing their drive electronics. Given humans’ entire hands are often employed in manipulating objects, Fluid Reality also wants future versions of the glove to include sensational abilities for regions such as the palms.

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Since 3D printers debuted in the 1980s, the devices have been used to build meat, chocolate, human organs, clothing, cars, and houses. It’s more mainstream than ever, and you can buy a machine for less than $200.

Also called additive manufacturing or rapid prototyping, 3D printing has many advantages over the more traditional subtractive manufacturing methods, where you start with a hunk of metal or wood and remove material using mills, drills, and other tools. The two main benefits are that 3D printers produce a lot less waste and can do a better job creating objects with complex shapes. Instead of an involved assembly process, everything can be made in one place.

“Mass manufacturing methods, almost all of them are quite fixed,” says Diana Haidar, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. “You can only remake the exact same parts over and over again. But people also want custom parts. That’s where 3D printing has a niche.”

So how, exactly, does a 3D printer work?

What is 3D printing?

Consider the type of printing most people are very familiar with: Printing with ink on paper. This is 2D printing, because there’s an area with an x-axis and a y-axis, so there are two degrees of freedom. With 3D printing, there’s a third dimension: height. The files you feed into 3D printers are 3D images that a software program then slices into horizontal layers.

“The idea is that I have a 3D object, and I’m going to slice it into many individual layers. We use slicer software for that,” Haidar explains. “Then there’s usually a two-axis head that will move around and build a singular layer. Then either the head goes up or the bed [that the object is being built on] will drop. But there is a z-axis change so we can build up one layer at a time.”

Popular methods for 3D printing

One of the most common types of 3D printing is fused deposition modeling, or FDM. “It’s the cleanest with regards to space,” says Haidar.

With this method, there’s a spool of winding filament (usually plastic or polymer) that is fed into the machine’s head. Inside the head, there’s a heating unit that melts the polymer. Polylactic acid (a type of plastic) is one of the most commonly printed 3D materials, because it’s cheap and has a fairly low melting point of around 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit). When it’s used as a feeding material, engineers usually set the 3D printer to around 200 Celsius (390 Fahrenheit) to make sure the material is going to be melted as it’s extruded from a little nozzle, but can then harden back into form. The smaller the nozzle, the more resolution there is in the printed object. 

The second most popular method for 3D printing is an older technique called stereolithography, or SLA. In this case, photo-curable resin is the print material instead of a solid spool. This technique involves a bath of sticky, goopy resin sitting in a glass tank that’s uncured; a UV laser beam and multiple mirrors cure one layer at a time. Every time a layer is cured, it becomes solid, gets sheared from the bottom glass in the tank, and then gets lifted from the bath—eventually a solid, cohesive structure emerges.

The third most popular 3D printing method is called laser powder bed fusion. This technique works well for printing or compressing together metals. To start, there is a big, flat bed of metal powder, and a laser carves out a shape, melting together the desired forms. Once a layer is complete, the bed drops, and a roller distributes a new fine layer of powder across the surface. 

Another common 3D printing method is polyjet printing, which allows engineers to work with a wide array of nozzles and materials (from hard to soft) in one print.

What kinds of materials can be 3D printed?

Although 3D printers most commonly print with plastics, they can also be tweaked to print metal-embedded materials, ceramic-embedded materials, and wood-embedded materials. Different types of fibers or particles can be mixed in with polymer binders to give objects varied properties.

When specialized machines print organs (such as a heart), multiple nozzles can be prefilled with syringes to inject different types of cells. Instead of a spool, the machine injects into a hydrogel. 

How much are 3D printers?

The cheapest 3D printer on the market is around $200, and those machines are the ones used by engineering students to make quick mockups. But spending less money on a machine like this comes with trade-offs. The cheap ones tend to be more finicky and break down more often. They’re also not as consistent at producing the same object over and over again. For example, the polymer, or plastic building material, can warp if there’s too drastic a change in temperature from the inside of the nozzle to the external environment. “You don’t see that as much in the big machines because they have clearly enclosed environments that are temperature-controlled, and they might even have a cooling cycle,” Haidar explains.

A midrange desktop machine for FDM printing will usually go for $3,000, and this price includes software packages. A more high-end machine that can manufacture bigger objects with a more durable starting material can cost $200,000. Spending all that money comes with big benefits down the line. “Your maintenance cost is quite a lot lower. It’s easier to print materials that the little machines would struggle with,” says Haidar. “Those machines give you the closest thing to a professionally manufactured part.” 

The fanciest machines print using metal, like aluminum. The metal 3D printers can cost up to $1 million, since they have to be operated in a room that’s very well-controlled, ventilated, and has the ability to suppress explosions (if they happen).

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When humans finally return to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program, they’ll arrive with a bevy of high-tech equipment to capture new, awe-inspiring glimpses of Earth’s satellite. But cameras have come a long way since the Apollo missions. In 2023, some incredibly advanced options are already almost moon-ready right off the shelf.

According to a recent update from the European Space Agency, engineers collaborating with NASA are finalizing a Handheld Universal Lunar Camera (HULC) with real-world testing in the rocky, lunar-esque vistas of Lanzarote, Spain. While resilient enough to travel to the moon, HULC’s underpinning tech derives from commercially available professional cameras featuring high light sensitivities and cutting-edge lenses. To strengthen the lunar documentation device, researchers needed to add a blanket casing that is durable enough to protect against ultra-fine moon dust, as well as the moon’s extreme temperature swings ranging between -208 and 250 degrees Fahrenheit. At the same time, the covering can’t impede usage, so designers also created a suite of ergonomic buttons compatible with astronaut spacesuits’ thick gloves.

[Related: Check out this Prada-designed Artemis III spacesuits.]

So far, HULC has snapped shots in near pitch-black volcanic caves, as well as in broad daylight to approximate the lunar surface’s vast spectrum of lighting possibilities. According to the ESA, HULC will also be the first mirrorless handheld camera used in space—such a design reportedly offers quality images in low light scenarios.

Even with the numerous alterations and adjustments, the HULC is still not quite ready for the Artemis III mission, currently scheduled for 2025. The ESA reports that at least one version of the camera will soon travel to the International Space Station for additional testing.

“We will continue modifying the camera as we move towards the Artemis III lunar landing,” Jeremy Myers, NASA lead on the HULC camera project, told the ESA on October 24. “I am positive that we will end up with the best product–a camera that will capture Moon pictures for humankind, used by crews from many countries and for many years to come.”

Images of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong striding across the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 moonwalk instantly became iconic photographs in 1969, but they were only a preview of many more to come. Over the next three years, 10 more astronauts documented their visits to the moon using an array of video and photographic cameras. When humans finally return as part of the Artemis program, HULC will be in tow to capture new, awe-inspiring glimpses of Earth’s satellite.

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Have you ever left the house without a jacket on a balmy day, only to regret overestimating your chilly weather tolerance? Instead of dashing back home for your coat, there may come a time in the near future when you simply use an app to control your clothing’s level of insulation.

Created by researchers at MIT, FibeRobo is a cheap, programmable, shape-changing smart fiber reliant on a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE). Among their many uses, garments imbued with their new LCE fiber could adjust their structure to become more insulated in colder temperatures, and vice versa for warmer weather. With an additional ability to combine with electrically conductive threads, a wearer could directly control their FibeRobo clothing or medical wearables like compression garments via wireless inputs from a controller or smartphone.

[Related: The US wants to dress military in smart surveillance apparel.]

As detailed in a recent institute profile, LCEs are composed of molecules possessing liquid-like properties that can also arrange into periodic crystal formations once cool and inert. Importantly, the team’s new synthetic LCE can morph between its phases at safe, comfortable temperature levels—an industry first.

The result is a fiber capable of contracting when exposed to heat, and self-reversing as temperatures drop without any external sensors or interwoven components. What’s more, FibeRobo is flexible and strong enough to use within traditional manufacturing methods like embroidery, weaving looms, and knitting machines.

To make the new threads, engineers first designed a glue gun-like machine that slowly excretes heated LCE resin through a nozzle. The fiber is then cured for the first time using UV lights, submerged in oil, then cured once again using even stronger UV rays. After its manufacturing is complete, the LCE thread is spooled and dipped in a powder to make it easier to install textile production machines. According to MIT, the team can produce roughly a kilometer of usable fiber within a single day.

As proof of concepts, the MIT team used an industrial knitting machine to weave a Bluetooth-controlled compression dog jacket to help with anxiety, then tested the vest on one of the researchers’ pets. Another prototype served as an adaptive sports bra, with FibeRobo embroidery that tightened the fabric as its user began to exercise.

Going forward, the team wants to fine-tune their LCE’s composition to make it either biodegradable or recyclable, as well as simply the overall design.

“At the end of the day, you don’t want a diva fiber,”  Jack Forman, an MIT graduate student and paper lead author, said in a statement. “You want a fiber that, when you are working with it, falls into the ensemble of materials—one that you can work with just like any other fiber material, but then it has a lot of exciting new capabilities.”

While many current smart textile projects are trying to reinvent how a person can interact with their clothing–from interwoven sensors that interpret health data to “SMART ePANTS” that aid in surveillance and security–these apparel ventures perhaps may one day expand the number of garments in your closet. Meanwhile, this newest iteration may actually downsize your wardrobe.

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Chicken feathers, much like human hair and fingernails, are composed mostly of a tough protein called keratin. And like with your own hair and nails, the birds produce a lot of feathers over the course of their lives. Generally speaking, this isn’t a big issue—but it’s another matter for the food industry. Each year, approximately 40 million metric tons of chicken feathers are incinerated during the poultry production process, releasing harmful fumes like carbon and sulfur dioxide.

Finding a new use for all those feathers could dramatically cut down on food waste and pollution, and a team of researchers may have figured out what to do with them: turn feathers into a vital component of green hydrogen fuel cells.

[Related: Why you should build a swing for your chickens.]

As detailed in a new paper published via ACS Applied Materials & Sciences, scientists from ETH Zurich and Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU) have developed a method to extract feathers’ keratin and spin it into thin fibers called amyloid fibrils. From there, these fibrils can be installed as a hydrogen fuel cell’s vital semipermeable membrane. Traditionally composed of highly poisonous “forever chemicals,” these membranes allow protons to pass through while excluding electrons. The blocked electrons are then forced to travel via an external circuit from negative anodes to positive cathode, thus creating electricity.

“Our latest development closes a cycle: [we took] a substance that releases CO2 and toxic gasses when burned, and used it in a different setting,” Raffaele Mezzenga, a professor of food and soft materials at ETH Zurich, said in a recent university profile. “With our new technology, it not only replaces toxic substances, but also prevents the release of CO2, decreasing the overall carbon footprint cycle.”

According to researchers, the keratin-derived membranes are already cheaper to produce in a lab setting than existing synthetic hydrogen fuel cell membranes, and hope similar savings will translate to mass production. The team has applied for a joint patent, and is now looking for partners and investors to make the product publicly available. Still, a number of hurdles remain for the fuel cells to become truly viable renewable energy sources. While hydrogen cells’ only emissions are heat and water, the power that actually helps generate their electricity still largely stems from natural gas sources like methane. Such a reliance arguably undercuts hydrogen fuel cells’ promise of green energy.

But even there, chicken feathers could once again come to the rescue. The keratin membranes reportedly also show promise in the electrolysis portion of hydrogen energy production, when direct current travels through water to split the molecules into oxygen and hydrogen.

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“I always build things,” says Dan Hryhorcoff. 

Case in point: Hryhorcoff has constructed an absolutely delightful giant bumper car, a project that he says began during the pandemic. The rest of us may have baked bread as COVID came down the pike, but Hryhorcoff, who lives in northeastern Pennsylvania and has also built a submarine, constructed an enormous blue bumper car. It gets its propulsion from a repurposed Chevrolet engine and is street-legal. 

Before he constructed the big bumper car, Hryhorcoff had made a different vehicle, starting on it around 2013 or so. “When I retired, I decided I kind of wanted to build a car,” he recalls. For that project, he chose to focus on a 1950s pedal car for children called a Murray “sad face.” “I decided to copy that and make a large one.” (Those Murray models have a front that does indeed look like a sad face, but anyone who sees Hryhorcoff’s work will probably smile.) 

Creating that big red vehicle provided him with further experience working with fiberglass, a material he had also worked with when building the submarine. “I had a lot of fun with that [Murray car] at car shows and things, and it got a lot of attention from a broad audience,” he says.

“Then COVID hit,” he adds. He wanted a new project. His thinking? “Another car project would be good.” 

Building the big bumper car

He settled on a bumper car. To get the source material he needed for the project, he turned to an amusement park in Elysburg, Pennsylvania called Knoebels, and the bumper cars they have there. Specifically, he focused on the 1953-model bumper car that was made by a company called Lusse. He liked that it had a “Chevrolet pickup truck sorta look” from the 1950s. 

“I decided to copy one of those,” he says. Spending some eight hours at Knoebels gave him the chance to get the information he needed. “I measured, and took photos, and made templates, and whatever I needed to, to copy the car as well as I can.” He chose to make his version of the car double the size of the base model. As the Scranton Times-Tribune noted in a story about Hryhorcoff in July, the bumper car ride at Knoebels dates back to the immediate post-World-War-II era.

[Related: This Florida teen is making a business out of rebuilding old-school auto tech]

Inside, the big bumper car’s power plant comes from a Chevrolet Aveo. “I took the front of the Aveo, and chopped it off, and put that in the back of the bumper car,” he explains. “And the front of the bumper car is a motorcycle wheel.” That single wheel up front means it can turn very sharply. The exterior is made out of fiberglass. All told, it measures 13 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 5.5 feet tall, making it twice the size of a regular bumper car. A pole in the back mimics the way actual bumper cars get their electricity, except this one connects to nothing. 

A project like this would likely be a bumpy ride for anyone without the experience that Hryhorcoff, 72, brings to the table. “I learned to run a lathe when I was 13 years old, with my dad, and he was kind of a jack-of-all-trades,” he recalls. (A lathe is a tool for forming metal into a round shape, and a wood lathe is the kind of equipment you could use to make a baseball bat.) He built a go-cart, tinkered with lawn mowers, and learned about auto repair in a garage. His interest, as he describes it, was “all around mechanical.” 

He spent four years after high school in the Navy in the early 1970s, where he worked stateside and repaired radios for F-4 jets, and then studied mechanical engineering at Penn State. After working for a drilling company, he started his own machine shop called Justus Machine. 

Always diving into something new

The submarine he built came from plans for a K350 model purchased from George Kittredge, and is called Persistence. “I knew I was building something that wasn’t gonna kill me, if I build it correctly,” he says. (Watch a video of the sub in action here.) That sub has gone as deep as 540 feet with no one on board, Hryhorcoff says, and he’s taken it down himself to about 150 feet deep. 

[Related: How does a jet engine work? By running hot enough to melt its own innards.]

Hryhorcoff describes himself as an engineer, not an artist, and prefers to follow plans and undertake projects in which he knows any challenges he might face are surmountable. “Any project I’ve ever chose was a project that I knew I can get through it, but I had something new to learn in the process,” he says. “There were always some unknowns.” But those unknowns, he adds, were within the realm of doable for him and his equipment, even if he had to learn new stuff along the way.

“I’d rather big projects, rather than a dozen little ones,” he adds. 

Watch a short video about Hryhorcoff and this project, below:

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On October 10, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary dedicated a ship called the Proteus in a ceremony on the River Thames. The vessel, which looks like someone started building a ship and then stopped halfway through, is the first in the fleet’s Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance program, and is a conversion from a civilian vessel. 

In its new role, the Proteus will keep a protective eye on underwater infrastructure deemed vitally important, and will command underwater robots as part of that task. Before being converted to military use, the RFA Proteus was the Norwegian-built MV Topaz Tangaroa, and it was used to support oil platforms.

Underwater infrastructure, especially pipelines and communications cables, make the United Kingdom inextricably connected to the world around it. While these structures are hard to get to, as they rest on the seafloor, they are not impossible to reach. Commercial vessels, like the oil rig tenders the Proteus was adapted from, can reach below the surface with cranes and see below it through remotely operated submarines. Dedicated military submarines can also access seafloor cables. By keeping an eye on underwater infrastructure, the Proteus increases the chance that saboteurs can be caught, and more importantly, improves the odds that damage can be found and repaired quickly.

“Proteus will serve as a testbed for advancing science and technological development enabling the UK to maintain the competitive edge beneath the waves,” reads the Royal Navy’s announcement of the ship’s dedication.

The time between purchase and dedication of the Topaz Tangaroa to the Proteus was just 11 months, with conversion completed in September. The 6,600-ton vessel is operated by a crew of just 26 from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, while the surveillance, survey, and warfare systems on the Proteus are crewed by 60 specialists from the Royal Navy. As the Topaz Tangaroa, the vessel was equipped for subsea construction, installation, light maintenance, and inspection work, as well as survey and remotely operated vehicle operations. The Proteus retains its forward-mounted helipad, which looks like a hexagonal brim worn above the bow of the ship.

Most striking about the Proteus is the large and flat rear deck, which features a massive crane as well as 10,700 square feet of working space, which is as much as five tennis courts. Helpful to the ship’s role as a home base for robot submersibles is a covered “moon pool” in the deck that, whenever uncovered, lets the ship launch submarines directly beneath it into the ocean.

“This is an entirely new mission for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary – and one we relish,” Commodore David Eagles RFA, the head of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, said upon announcement of the vessel in January.

Proteus is named for one of the sons of the sea god Poseidon in Greek mythology, with Proteus having domain over rivers and the changing nature of the sea. While dedicated on a river, the ship is designed for deep-sea operation, with a ballast system providing stability as it works in the high seas. 

“Primarily for reasons of operational security, the [Royal Navy] has so far said little about the [Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance] concept of operations and the areas where Proteus will be employed,” suggests independent analysts Navy Lookout, as part of an in-depth guide on the ship. “It is unclear if she is primarily intended to be a reactive asset, to respond to suspicious activity and potentially be involved in repairs if damage occurs. The more plausible alternative is that she will initially be employed in more of a deterrent role, deploying a series of UUVs [Uncrewed Underwater Vehicles] and sensors that monitor vulnerable sites and send periodic reports back to the ship or headquarters ashore. Part of the task will be about handling large amounts of sensor data looking for anomalies that may indicate preparations for attacks or non-kenetic malign activity.”

In the background of the UK’s push for underwater surveillance are actual attacks and sabotage on underwater pipelines. In September 2022, an explosion caused damage and leaks in the Nord Stream gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. While active transfer of gas had been halted for diplomatic reasons following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the pipeline still held gas in it at the time of the explosion. While theories abound for possible culprits, there is not yet a conclusive account of which nation was both capable and interested enough to cause such destruction.

The Proteus is just the first of two ships with this task. “The first of two dedicated subsea surveillance ships will join the fleet this Summer, bolstering our capabilities and security against threats posed now and into the future,” UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said in January. “It is paramount at a time when we face Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, that we prioritise capabilities that will protect our critical national infrastructure.”

While the Proteus is unlikely to fully deter such acts, having it in place will make it easier for the Royal Navy to identify signs of sabotage. Watch a video of the Proteus below:

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Back in 2015, the US Department of Energy estimated wind farms could supply over a third of the nation’s electricity by 2050. Since then, numerous wind turbine projects have been green-lit offshore and across the country. However, when it comes to building, it can get tricky, like in the case of a planned wind farm 15 miles off the southeast coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Danish wind farm company Ørsted recently promised to cut New Jersey a $100 million check if the company’s massive Ocean Wind 1 offshore turbines weren’t up and running by the end of 2025. Less than a week after the wager, however, officials in the state’s southernmost county have filed a US District Court lawsuit to nix the 1.1 gigawatt project involving nearly 100 turbines, alleging regulatory sidesteps and ecological concerns.

[Related: The NY Bight could write the book on how we build offshore wind farms.]

According to the Associated Press, Cape May County government’s October 16 lawsuit also names the Clean Ocean Action environmental group alongside multiple seafood and fishing organizations as plaintiffs. The filing against both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management claims that the Ocean Wind 1 project sidestepped a dozen federal legal requirements, as well as failed to adequately investigate offshore wind farms’ potential environmental and ecological harms. However, earlier this year, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released its over 2,300 page Final Environmental Impact Statement on Ocean Wind 1, which concluded the project is responsibly designed and adequately protects the region’s ecological health.

An Ørsted spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit for PopSci, but related the company “remains committed to collaboration with local communities, and will continue working to support New Jersey’s clean energy targets and economic development goals by bringing good-paying jobs and local investment to the Garden State.”

[Related: A wind turbine just smashed a global energy record—and it’s recyclable.]

Wind turbine farm companies, Ørsted included, have faced numerous issues in recent years thanks to supply chain bottleneck issues, soaring construction costs, and legal challenges such as the latest from Cape May County. Earlier this year, Ørsted announced its US-based projects are now worth less than half of their initial economic estimates.

Other clean energy advocates reiterated their support for the New Jersey wind farm. In an email to PopSci, Moira Cyphers, Director of Eastern Region State Affairs for the American Clean Power Association, described the lawsuit as “meritless.”

“Offshore wind is one of the most rigorously regulated industries in the nation and is critical for meeting New Jersey’s clean energy and environmental goals,” Cyphers continued. “Shore towns can’t wait for years and years for these projects to be constructed. The time to move forward is now.”

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There used to be a joke that if Microsoft made cars, your car would crash twice a day for no reason at all. But the reality of software-defined cars (that is, vehicles in which clever coding has as much say as masterful machining in determining a car’s characteristics) is demonstrated by the 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray, whose smart software lets the car’s new electric motor deliver supplemental power to the front wheels so imperceptibly that the driver would have trouble guessing that the latest version of America’s sports car has all-wheel drive.

That’s because the Corvette’s signature 6.2-liter, overhead-valve, LT2 small block V8 is still roaring, powering the rear wheels with its 495 horsepower, just like in the base Stingray model. But now there’s that 160-hp electric motor up front, running off a 1.9 kilowatt-hour array of LG lithium-ion batteries deftly tucked into the car’s central tunnel.

This $104,295 vehicle is a regular hybrid-electric, with no external power plug, so the battery is small and gets its juice entirely from the gas engine and from regenerative braking that turns the electric motor into a generator when the car slows. Having that extra 160 hp and 125 lb.-ft. torque on tap is “like having a nitrous oxide tank that fills itself,” remarked chief engineer Josh Holder, referring to the “NOS” gas made famous by The Fast and the Furious movie franchise for giving combustion engines a burst of extra power.

The quickest Corvette ever

But rather than the explosive power delivery from NOS, the E-Ray’s omnipresent electric motor “torque fill” just makes the car constantly more muscular. This power, combined with the traction of all-wheel-drive, makes the E-Ray the quickest Corvette ever, with a 0-60 mph acceleration of 2.5 seconds and a 10.5-second quarter mile time.

Those times are achieved using the E-Ray’s Performance Launch mode, which uses the car’s various software-controlled systems to optimize power delivery from the gas and electric motors to deliver the fastest possible acceleration.

The driver can keep the E-Ray’s battery topped off so that it is ready to deliver that boost by pressing the Charge+ button. If you ever watch Formula 1 races, you’ll see a car’s rear light flashing when the driver is building the state of charge in its battery in preparation for a passing attempt on a car ahead. The E-Ray’s Charge+ button on the center console, down by the driver’s right thigh, ensures that the battery’s virtual NOS tank is fully topped off with electrons.

The Corvette Z06 we tested last year is nearly as quick, but that car produces its power with more noise and drama. The E-Ray appeals to the enthusiast who wants a comfy ride that also happens to be ludicrously fast. And if you need to sneak out of your neighborhood in the morning without annoying the neighbors, let the small block V8 sleep late and cruise out on electric power alone using Stealth mode to reach speeds as high as 45 mph.

Other driving modes with pre-set performance parameters include Tour, Sport, Track, and Weather. Each of those optimizes the car’s sound, power delivery, stability control, traction control, and dynamically adjustable magnetic suspension damping to match those conditions. Additionally, drivers can select their own preferences in My Mode and Z Mode.

Driving the Corvette E-Ray on and off the track

The E-Ray rolls on the same wide wheels wrapped in meaty Michelin rubber and enclosed by the same 3.6-inch wider fenders as the Z06, but the rubber on those wheels is Michelin’s Pilot Sport all-season tire to make the E-Ray compatible with rain and snow. I didn’t encounter those conditions on the roads around Denver or during my track drive at Pikes Peak International Raceway, but I could feel the E-Ray’s stability and surefootedness.

In addition to the all-weather tires, the E-Ray is also available with the same Michelin Pilot Sport 4S summer tires as are used on the base Stingray version. And as on that car, these excellent tires provide the consistent grip, comfort, and durability drivers want in everyday driving. And as I found track testing the Stingray, these tires are really not at home on the track, where they quickly turn hot and greasy compared to true track tires, losing their grip after thrashing through just a few hard corners.

No matter, that’s not the E-Ray’s purpose. Yes, it is fast, but the similarly priced Z06 ($111,295) is the weapon of choice for track rats. The E-Ray is for drivers who want that kind of speed in a car they can enjoy every day in comfort.

Even with its all-wheel-drive traction, the E-Ray is not penalized by sluggish steering response on corner turn-in, as is typically the case with cars that route power through the front wheels. That’s because the computer is smart enough to know when and how much power to send from the electric motor to the front wheels.

It can even let the driver induce a drift in corners, spinning the rear wheels without the front-drive power interfering with the sideways-sliding fun. That car-straightening front power is welcome when driving home from work in bad weather, but it can spoil the fun on the track, so the E-Ray knows when to have the electric drive step back and let the V8 do the work.

A weighty issue 

Just as the E-Ray rolls on the same wide wheels as the Z06, it also packs the same Brembo carbon ceramic brakes inside them to help slow the car. This is in addition to the E-Ray hybrid-electric regenerative braking, which does much of the car’s stopping. 

But the big brakes are important, because while the hybrid system adds braking power, it also adds mass. Chevrolet says the E-Ray weighs 3,774 pounds as a coupe and 3,856 pounds as a convertible, which means that it is about 350 pounds heavier than the Z06 and 400 pounds heavier than the Stingray.

This is in spite of a huge effort by the car’s engineering team to minimize the weight penalty of the electric motor and battery pack. “We put the highest bounty on weight of any car we’ve ever done,” recalled Holder. Even with that effort, electric motors and batteries are still heavy. “It is the heaviest Corvette we’ve ever done,” Holder acknowledged, adding, “but it is the lightest hybrid we’ve ever done.” 

The E-Ray matches the slower Stingray’s EPA fuel economy rating of 19 mpg in combined driving, with a score of 16 mpg city and 24 mpg highway. The Z06’s rating depends on the exact equipment, but it is either 14 mpg or 15 mpg in combined driving. City driving in either case is a dismal 12 mpg.

The added mass is low in the chassis, with the electric motor between the front wheels and the battery pack in the central spine running between the seats in the cockpit, so the center of gravity is low. Engineers mask that weight with savvy chassis control with the magnetically controlled adaptive dampers and the aforementioned massive brakes, so the E-Ray never feels heavy on the road.

As with the seamless power delivery, credit the brainy calibration by the Corvette team’s programmers in creating the reality of their choice rather than the one suggested by physics. It turns out that software-defined vehicles are far better than the old Microsoft joke predicted.

Take a look at my track drive, below:

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Despite decades of innovation, solar powered cars remain comparatively expensive and difficult to mass produce—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t starting to pack a serious punch. At least one prototype reportedly handled an off-road sojourn across the world’s largest non-polar desert at speeds as fast as 90 mph.

Designed by a team of 21-to-25-year-old  college students at the Netherland’s Eindhoven University of Technology, their Stella Terra recently completed a 620 mile (1,000 km) test drive that began in Morocco before speeding through portions of Tangier and the Sahara. While miles ahead of what is currently available to consumers, the army green two-seater could be a preview of rides to come.

[Related: Sweden is testing a semi-truck trailer covered in 100 square meters of solar panels.]

As highlighted by The Guardian on Monday, the aerodynamic, comparatively lightweight (1,200 kg) Stella Terra can travel at least 440 miles on a clear, sunny day without recharging. This is thanks to the car’s solar converter designed in-house by the students, which turns 97 percent of its absorbed sunlight into an electrical charge. For cloudier situations, however, the vehicle also includes a lithium-ion battery capable of powering shorter excursions. For comparison, the most efficient panels available today only sustain roughly 45 percent efficiency, while the vast majority measure somewhere between 15 and 20 percent. According to The Guardian’s rundown, Stella Terra’s panels actually proved a third more efficient than designers expected.

In a September project update, Wisse Bos, Solar Team Eindhoven’s team manager, estimated Stella Terra’s designs are between 5 and 10 years ahead of anything available on the current market. But Bos also stressed their ride is meant to inspire similar experimentation and creativity within the automotive industry.

[Related: Swiss students just slashed the world record for EV acceleration.]

“With Stella Terra, we want to demonstrate that the transition to a sustainable future offers reasons for optimism and encourages individuals and companies to accelerate the energy transition,” Bos said at the time.

While the innovative, army green off-roadster is unlikely to hit American highways anytime soon, the students believe larger auto manufacturers’ could look to Stella Terra to help guide their own plans for more sustainable transportation options. Speaking with CNN on Monday, the team’s event manager, Thieme Bosman, hopes companies such as Ford and Chrysler will take notice of such a vehicle’s feasibility. “It’s up to the market now, who have the resources and the power to make this change and the switch to more sustainable vehicles,” Bosman said.

And if off-roading isn’t your thing, don’t worry: Solar Team Eindhoven’s previous teams have also designed luxury vehicles, self-driving cars, and even mobile tiny homes powered by the sun.

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Niobium can be found in steel, particle accelerators, MRI machines, and rockets, but sourcing it is largely limited to a handful of countries including Brazil and Canada. Earlier this month, however, Chinese news outlets announced the discovery of a never-before-seen type of ore deposit in Inner Mongolia containing potentially vast amounts of the superconductive rare earth element. According to Antonio Castro Neto, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the National University of Singapore speaking with the South China Morning Post, the new resource trove could even be so large that it would make China self-sufficient in its own niobium needs.

The ore found in Inner Mongolia—dubbed niobobaotite—also contains large quantities of barium, titanium, iron, and chlorine, according to a statement from China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) earlier this month.

Discovered in 1801, niobium is named after Tantalus’ daughter Niobe in Greek mythology due to its chemical relationship to tantalum. Almost 85-to-90 percent of all mined niobium in the world goes towards iron and steel processing production. Adding just 0.03-0.05 percent to steel, for example, can boost its strength by as much as 30 percent while adding virtually no extra weight. That prized performance enhancement is comparatively difficult to obtain, however. The element only occurs within the Earth’s crust at a proportion of roughly 20-parts-per-million.

[Related: New factory retrofit could reduce a steel plant’s carbon emissions by 90 percent.]

In addition to its many current uses, niobium is of particular interest to researchers hoping to further the development of niobium-graphene and niobium-lithium batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are currently the most widespread rechargeable power sources, but remain restricted in terms of charge times and lifespans, as well as safety concerns. Earlier this year, researchers working on improving niobium-graphene batteries estimated future iterations of the alternative could fully charge in less than 10 minutes alongside a 30 year lifespan—approximately 10 times longer than current lithium-ion options.

As promising as the discovery may be for China, labor concerns will almost undoubtedly be an issue for outside observers. The nation has a long and troubling history of exploitation within the mining industry. Rare earth mineral mining also generates a wide array of pollution issues.

Brazil is by far the world’s largest exporter of niobium, with Canada trailing far behind in second place. China currently needs to import about 95 percent of its niobium supplies, but the newfound deposits could dramatically shift their sourcing to almost complete independence. Meanwhile, the US is currently working towards opening the Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in southern Nebraska, which when opened will be the country’s first niobium mining and processing facility.

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On May 30, Canadian defense company Roshel Defence Solutions officially launched its new armored troop transport, the Senator model Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. Part of the launch was surviving a series of tests to prove that the vehicle can protect its occupants. 

The testing was conducted by Oregon Ballistic Laboratories and done to a standard called NATO “STANAG 4569” level 2. (STANAG means “standard agreement,” and 4569 is the numbering of that agreement.) What that means in practice is that the Senator MRAP is designed to withstand a range of the kinds of attacks that NATO can expect to see in the field. These include bullet fire from calibers up to 7.62×39mm at roughly 100 feet (30 meters). Why 7.62×39mm caliber bullets? That’s the standard Soviet bullet, which has outlasted the USSR itself and is common in weapons used across the globe.

In addition, STANAG 4569 dictates that the vehicle must survive a 13 pound (6 kg) anti-tank mine activated under any of the vehicle’s wheels, as well as survive a mine activated under the vehicle’s center. Beyond the bullets and mines, the vehicle also has to withstand a shot from a 155mm high explosive artillery shell burst landing 262 feet (80 meters) away. 

All of this testing is vital, because a troop transport has to advance through bullet fire, keep occupants safe from mines, and travel through an artillery barrage. That NATO standards are designed to withstand Soviet weapons is a convenience for any equipment exports aimed at Ukraine, but also means the vehicles are broadly useful in conflicts across the globe, as an abundance of Soviet-patterned weaponry continues to exist in the world. 

To showcase the Senator MRAP in simulated attack, Roshel released two videos of the testing. The first, published online on May 29, features a bright green checkmark in the corner, “all tests passed” clearly emblazoned on the video as clouds of destruction and detonations appear behind it.

A second video, released June 16, shows the Senator MRAP in slow motion enduring a large TNT explosive hitting it on the side. The 55 lbs (25kg) explosive is a stand-in for an IED, or Improvised Explosive Device. IEDs were commonly used by insurgent forces in Iraq against the United States, and in Afghanistan against the NATO coalition that occupied the country for almost 20 years. While anti-tank mines tend to be mass-produced industrial tools of war, IEDs are built on more of a small scale, with groups working in workshops generally assembling the explosives and then placing them on patrol routes.

It was the existence of IEDs, and their widespread use, that prompted the United States to push for, develop, and field MRAPs in 2006. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles were not a new concept. South Africa was one of the first countries to develop and field MRAPs in the 1970s, putting essentially a V-shaped armored transport container on top of an existing truck pattern. The resulting “Hippo” vehicle was slow and cumbersome, but could protect its occupants from explosives thanks to the V-shaped hull deflecting blasts away. 

MRAPS did not guarantee safety for troops on patrol, but they did drastically increase the amount of explosives, or the intensity of attack, needed to ambush armored vehicles.

“The presence of the MRAP also challenged the enemy, since the insurgents had to increase the size of their explosive devices to have any effect on these more survivable vehicles. The larger devices, and longer time it took to implant them, increased the likelihood that our troops would detect an IED before it detonated,” Michael Brogan, head of the MRAP vehicle program from 2007 to 2011, told the Navy’s CHIPS magazine in 2016.

The Senator MRAP features, like its predecessors, a V-shaped hull. It also benefits from further innovations in MRAP design, like mine-protected seats, which further reduce the impact of blast on their occupant. Inside, the Senator can transport up to 10 people, and Roshel boasts of its other features, from sensor systems to weapon turrets. For as long as IEDs and mines remain a part of modern warfare, it is likely we can expect to see MRAPs transporting soldiers safely despite them.

Watch one of the tests, below:

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This week, the US Food and Drug Administration gave the green light to a device that uses ultrasound waves to blast apart tumors in the liver. This technique, which requires no needles, injections, knives, or drugs, is called histotripsy, and it’s being developed by a company called HistoSonics, founded by engineers and doctors from the University of Michigan in 2009. 

According to a press release, this approval comes after the results of a series of clinical trials indicated that it can effectively destroy liver tumors while being safe for patients. Now hospitals can purchase the device and offer it to patients as a treatment option. The machine works by directing targeted pulses of high-energy ultrasound waves at a tumor, which creates clusters of microbubbles inside it. When the bubbles form and collapse, they stress the cells and tissues around them, allowing them to break apart the tumor’s internal structure, leaving behind scattered bits that the immune system can then come in to sweep up. 

Here’s the step-by-step process: After patients are under anesthesia, a treatment head that looks uncannily like a pair of virtual reality goggles is placed over their abdomen. Clinicians toggle through a control screen to look at and locate the tumor. Then they lock and load the sound waves. The process is reportedly fast and painless, and the recovery period after the procedure is short.

Through a paired imaging machine, clinicians can also see that the sound waves are targeted at the tumor while avoiding other parts of the body. A robotic arm can also move the transducer to get better aim at the tumor region. In this process, the patient’s immune system can also learn to recognize the tumor cells as threats, which prevented recurrence or metastasis in 80 percent of mice subjects.

While the approval of the device is a big step for broadening the options for cancer treatments, the use of sound waves in medicine is not new. Another platform called Exablate Prostate by Insightech was cleared by the FDA for human trials in prostate cancer patients (although clearance is not quite the same thing as an approval). Nonetheless, the results have been encouraging. The histotripsy technique is being applied in many preclinical experiments for tumors outside of the brain, such as in renal cancer, breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, and musculoskeletal cancer. 

Beyond tumors, a similar technique called lithotripsy, which uses shock waves, has been a treatment for breaking apart painful kidney stones so they become small enough for patients to pass. 

Watch the device at work below:

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An annular “ring of fire” eclipse is always a bewitching event. This year, timed just right to herald in spooky season, the October 14th solar spectacular will cut a path of near darkness in the Western hemisphere through Oregon, Texas, Central America, Colombia, and northern Brazil. 

Eclipses can be more than just emotionally stirring. Solar eclipses, when they happen, create waves of disturbances across electrically charged particles in the Earth’s ionosphere—a layer of the upper atmosphere that plays an important role in radio frequency communications. Here, the heated and charged ions and electrons swirl around in a soup of plasma that envelops the planet. 

To understand the effect that eclipses have on this plasma, scientists from NASA are planning to shoot a series of 60-feet-tall rockets up to collect information at the source.

The ionosphere sits between 60-300 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, which is roughly 37-190 miles up. “The only way to study between 50 kilometers and 300 kilometers in situ is through rockets,” says Aroh Barjatya, director of the Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab and principal investigator on the upcoming NASA sounding rocket mission, which is called Atmospheric Perturbations around the Eclipse Path. By in situ, he means quite literally in the thick of it. 

[Related: A new satellite’s “plasma brake” uses Earth’s atmosphere to avoid becoming space junk]

“Satellites, which are flying at 400 kilometers, can look down, but they cannot measure in the middle of the ionosphere. It can only be doing remote sensing,” he adds. “And the ground-based measurements are also remote sensing.” Rockets are a relatively low-cost way to get right into the ionosphere.

Along with the rockets, the team will be sending up high-altitude balloons that will measure the weather every 20 minutes. These balloons will cover the first 100,000 feet, or about 19 miles, above the ground. Then come the stars of the show: three sounding rockets fitted with both commercial and military surplus solid propellent rocket motors. The trio are designed to give a view of the changes in the ionosphere over time, and they will be launched directly into the shadow of the eclipse from a site at the White Sands facility in New Mexico. One of the rockets will be sent up right before the eclipse, one during, and one after. Because they’re sounding rockets, they will go up to the target height, and come back down, which means that they’re equipped with a parachute recovery system. 

“If you think of a big orbital vehicle sending a satellite up, they’re going to reach 14,000 miles/hour when they get into space. So they’re going to reach that orbital escape velocity and put their payload into orbit, and it’s going to stay up there for a long time,” Max King, deputy chief of the Sounding Rockets Program Office at NASA GSFC, Wallops Flight Facility, explains. “Ours are what we call suborbital. So they go up, but by the time we’ve gotten into space, we’ve slowed down to zero, and start falling back into the atmosphere. Over that curved trajectory, we get about 10 minutes in [the ionosphere] where we can take measurements and conduct science.” 

[Related: We can predict solar eclipses to the second. Here’s how.]

Ten minutes may not seem very long. But a lot of data can be gathered during that time. As the rockets reach the ionosphere, electrostatic probes will pop out, measuring plasma temperature, density, as well the surrounding electric and magnetic fields. There’s a telemetry system that sends data back to the ground continuously. 

The main objective of the mission is to study the plasma dynamics during the eclipse that can impact radio frequency communications. Any sort of unexpected turbulence can disrupt signals to a satellite, GPS, ham radio operators, or over-the-horizon radar that the military uses. “Ionosphere is the thing which bounces radio frequencies, and all of the space communications go through the ionosphere,” Barjatya says. 

After the October mission, they’ll search the desert for the fallen parts of the rockets and refurbish the remnants of them for a second set of launches in April 2024 during the next eclipse, just so they can study its effects on the ionosphere a bit further out from the direct path. Getting more details about what happens to the ionosphere when the sun is suddenly blotted out will give researchers insight into what radio frequencies get affected, and how widespread the disturbance is. It will allow models to better prepare for these potential disruptions in the future. 

NASA has launched quite a few rockets during eclipses. The last big campaign that NASA did was in 1970, where they launched 25 rockets in 15 minutes. “In 1970 the eclipse went right above the Wallops facility [in Virginia],” Barjatya says. But those rockets were mostly meteorological rockets. Today’s rockets each contain four small payloads filled with scientific instruments. “One rocket launch gives me five measurements at the same time,” he adds. “So one rocket of today is actually equal to five rockets of 1970.” 

These rockets are not specialized for only glimpsing at the sky during eclipses. In fact, NASA uses them in about 20 missions a year, worldwide. “We go where the science is,” King says. Sounding rockets can be used to launch telescopes for spying on celestial bodies, supernovas, star clusters, or even flares and emissions from our own sun. 

The main launch sites in North America are at the Wallops facility in Virginia, and the White Sands facility in New Mexico. Outside of the US, Norway is also a big launch site. There, scientists are using them to observe Northern lights and other auroral phenomena. Or, they could be used to take a gander at something called the cusp region, the closest portal in the sky to near-Earth space. “The cusp region is where the magnetic field lines all come into the same point,” King notes. “The only way you can really study that is to shoot a rocket through it.”

The agency will be live-streaming the launches, which you can watch here.

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The 2018 winner of PopSci’s annual Best of What’s New continues to impress. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is still edging closer to the sun than any other spacecraft has ever achieved, and it’s setting new speed records in the process. According to a recent status update from the space agency, the Parker Solar Probe has broken its own record (again) for the fastest thing ever made by human hands—at an astounding clip of 394,736 mph.

The newest milestone comes thanks to a previous gravity-assist flyby from Venus, and occurred on September 27 at the midway point of the probe’s 17th “solar encounter” that lasted until October 3. As ScienceAlert also noted on October 9, the Parker Solar Probe’s speed would hypothetically allow an airplane to circumnavigate Earth about 15 times per hour, or skip between New York City and Los Angeles in barely 20 seconds. Not that any passengers could survive such a journey, but it remains impressive.

[Related: The fastest human-made object vaporizes space dust on contact.]

The latest pass-by also set its newest record for proximity, at just 4.51 million miles from the sun’s plasma “surface.” In order not to vaporize from temperatures as high as nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, the Parker Solar Probe is outfitted with a 4.5-inch-thick carbon-composite shield to protect its sensitive instruments. These tools are measuring and imaging the sun’s surface to further researchers’ understanding of solar winds’ origins and evolution, as well as helping to forecast environmental changes in space that could affect life back on Earth. Last month, for example, the probe raced through one of the most intense coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever observed. In doing so, the craft helped prove a two-decade-old theory that CMEs interact with interplanetary dust, which will improve experts’ abilities in space weather forecasting.

Despite its punishing journey, NASA reports the Parker Solar Probe remains in good health with “all systems operating normally.” Despite its numerous records, the probe is far from finished with its mission; there are still seven more solar pass-bys scheduled through 2024. At that point (well within Mercury’s orbit), the Parker Solar Probe will finally succumb to the sun’s extreme effects and vaporize into the solar winds— “sort of a poetic ending,” as one mission researcher told PopSci in 2021.

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Officials from the US Coast Guard confirmed on Tuesday that a salvage mission successfully recovered the remaining debris from the OceanGate Titan submersible. The 22-foot-long vessel suffered an implosion en route to the Titanic almost four months ago. Five passengers died during the privately funded, $250,000-per-seat voyage intended to glimpse the historic tragedy’s remains, including OceanGate’s CEO and Titan pilot, Stockton Rush.

According to the Coast Guard’s October 10 press release, salvage efforts were underway via an agreement with the US Navy Supervisor of Salvage & Diving following initial recovery missions approximately 1,600-feet away from the Titanic wreckage. Searchers discovered and raised the remaining debris on October 4, then transferred them to an unnamed US port for further analysis and cataloging. The US Coast Guard also confirmed “additional presumed human remains” were “carefully recovered” from inside the debris, and have been sent for medical professional analysis.

[Related: OceanGate confirms missing Titan submersible passengers ‘have sadly been lost’.]

OceanGate’s surface vessel lost contact with the Titan submersible approximately 105 minutes into its nearly 2.5 mile descent to the Titanic on June 18. Frantic, internationally coordinated search and rescue efforts scoured over 10,000 square surface miles of the Atlantic Ocean as well as the North Atlantic ocean floor. On June 22, OceanGate and US Coast Guard representatives confirmed its teams located remains indicative of a “catastrophic implosion” not far from the voyage’s intended destination.

Submersible experts had warned of such “catastrophic” issues within Titan’s design for years, and repeatedly raised concerns about OceanGate’s disregard of standard certification processes. In a March 2018 open letter to the company obtained by The New York Times, over three dozen industry experts, oceanographers, and explorers “expressed unanimous concern” about the submersible’s “experimental” approach they believed “could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry.”

“Your [safety standard] representation is, at minimum, misleading to the public and breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavor to uphold,” reads a portion of the 2018 letter.

Although salvage efforts have concluded, the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) plans to continue conducting evidence analysis alongside witness interviews “ahead of a public hearing regarding this tragedy.” A date for the hearing has not yet been announced, although as The Washington Post notes, the Coast Guard could recommend new deep-sea submersible regulations, as well as criminal charges to pursue.

OceanGate announced it suspended “all commercial and expedition operations” on July 6.

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“Are you drinking enough water?”

The question is so ubiquitous that it’s become meme canon in recent years. But what may be an annoying reminder to one person is often a logistical challenge for people dealing with mobility issues like cerebral palsy (CP). After learning about the potential physical hurdles involved in staying hydrated, two undergraduate engineering students at Rice University set out to design a robotic tool to help disabled users easily access their drinks as needed. The result, appropriately dubbed “RoboCup,” is not only a simple, relatively easy-to-construct device—it’s one whose plans are already available to anyone online for free.

According to a recent university profile, Thomas Kutcher and Rafe Neathery began work on their invention after being approached by Gary Lynn, a local Houstonian living with CP who oversees a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness for the condition. According to Kutcher, a bioengineering major, their RoboCup will hopefully remove the need for additional caregiver aid and thus “grant users greater freedom.”

[Related: How much water should you drink in a day?]

RoboCup was by no means perfect from the outset, and the undergraduates reportedly went through numerous iterations before settling on their current design. In order to optimize their tool to help as many people as possible, Kutcher and Rafe spoke to numerous caregiving and research professionals about how to best improve their schematics.

“They really liked our project and confirmed its potential, but they also pointed out that in order to reach as many people as possible, we needed to incorporate more options for building the device, such as different types of sensors, valves and mechanisms for mounting the device on different wheelchair types,” Kutcher said in their October 6 profile.

The biggest challenge, according to the duo, was balancing simplification alongside functionality and durability. In the end, the pair swapped out an early camelback version for a mounted cup-and-straw design, which reportedly is both aesthetically more pleasing to users, as well as less intrusive.

In a demonstration video, Lynn is shown activating a small sensor near his left hand, which automatically pivots an adjustable straw towards his mouth. He can then drink as much as he wants, then alert the sensor again to swivel the straw back to a neutral position.

Lynn, who tested the various versions of RoboCup, endorsed the RoboCup’s ability to offer disabled users more independence in their daily lives, and believes that “getting to do this little task by themselves will enhance the confidence of the person using the device.”

Initially intended to just be a single semester project, Kutcher and Neathery now intend to continue refining their RoboCup, including investigating ways it could be adapted to people dealing with other forms of mobility issues. In the meantime, the RoboCup is entered in World Cerebral Palsy Day’s “Remarkable Designa-thon,” which promotes new products and services meant to help those with CP. And, as it just so happens, voting is open to the public from October 6-13.

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NASA’s Artemis III astronauts are apparently going to look incredibly fashionable walking the lunar surface. On October 4, the commercial aerospace company Axiom Space announced a new collaboration with luxury fashion house Prada to design spacesuits for the upcoming moon mission currently scheduled for 2025.

According to Wednesday’s reveal, Prada’s engineers will assist Axiom’s systems team in finalizing its Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) spacesuit while “developing solutions for materials and design features to protect against the unique challenge of space and the lunar environment.” Axiom CEO Michael Suffredini cited Prada’s expertise in manufacturing techniques, innovative design, and raw materials will ensure “not only the comfort of astronauts on the lunar surface, but also the much-needed human factors considerations absent from legacy spacesuits.”

[Related: Meet the first 4 astronauts of the ‘Artemis Generation’.]

NASA first unveiled an early prototype of the AxEMU spacesuit back in March, and drew particular attention to the fit accommodating “at least 90 percent of the US male and female population.” Given the Artemis mission has long promised to land the first woman on the lunar surface, such considerations are vital for astronauts’ safety and comfort.

In Wednesday’s announcement, Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada’s Group Marketing Director, cited the company’s decades of technological design and engineering experience. Although most well known for luxury fashion, Prada is also behind the cutting-edge Luna Rossa racing yacht fleet.

“We are honored to be a part of this historic mission with Axiom Space,” they said. “It is a true celebration of the power of human creativity and innovation to advance civilization.”

Despite Prada’s association with high fashion, the final AxEMU design will undoubtedly emphasize safety and function over runway appeal. After all, astronauts will need protection against both solar radiation and the near-vacuum of the lunar surface, as well as ample oxygen resources and space for HD cameras meant to transmit live feeds back to Earth. According to the BBC earlier this year, each suit will also incorporate both 3D-printing and laser cutters to ensure precise measurements tailored to each astronaut.

Although NASA’s first images of the AxEMU in March showcased a largely black-and-gray color palette with blue and orange accents, Axiom Space’s newest teases hint at an off-white cover layer more reminiscent of the classic Apollo moon mission suits. It might not be much now, but you can expect more detailed looks at the spacesuits in the coming months as the Artemis Program continues its journey back to the moon.

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Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, is getting a new supercomputer, Aurora, which its scientists will use to study optimal nuclear reactor designs. As of now, the lab is using a system called Polaris, a 44-petaflops machine that can perform about 44 quadrillion calculations per second. 

Aurora, which is currently being installed, will have more than 2 exaflops of computing power, giving it the capacity to do 2 quintillion calculations per second—almost 50 times as many as the old system. Once the unprecedented machine comes online, it’s expected to lead the TOP500 list that ranks the most powerful computers in the world. It was expected to start running earlier, but has had delays due to manufacturing issues. 

A more powerful supercomputer means that nuclear scientists can simulate the fundamental physics underlying the reactions with as much detail as possible, which will allow them to make better assessments of overall safety and efficiency of new reactor designs. Reactors are the heart of a nuclear power plant. Here, a process called fission happens, leading to a series of nuclear chain reactions that produce incredible levels of heat, which is used to turn water into steam to spin a turbine that then creates electricity.

“Anyone out there that’s actively designing a reactor is going to use what we call ‘faster running tools’ that will look at things on a system-level scale and make approximations for the reactor core itself,” Dillon Shaver, principal nuclear engineer at Argonne National Laboratory, tells Popsci. “[At Argonne] we are doing as close to the fundamental physical calculations as possible, which requires a huge amount of resolution and a huge amount of unknowns. It translates into a huge amount of computation power.”

Shaver’s job, in a nutshell, is to do the math that prevents reactors from melting down. That involves a deep understanding of how different types of coolant liquids behave, how fluid flows around the different reactor components, and what kind of heat transfer occurs. 

[Related: Why do nuclear power plants need electricity to stay safe?]

According to the Department of Energy, “all commercial nuclear reactors in the US are light-water reactors. This means they use normal water as both a coolant and neutron moderator.” And most active light-water reactors have a fuel pin geometry design, where large arrays of fuel pins (large tubes that contain the fuel, usually uranium, needed for fission reactions) are arranged in a rectangular lattice.

The next generation of reactor designs that Shaver and his team are investigating include wire-wrapped liquid metal fast reactors. The reactors are placed in a triangular lattice instead of a rectangular one, and are also layered with a thin wire that forms a kind of helix around the fuel pin. “This leads to some really complicated flow behavior because the [liquid metals like sodium] has to move around that wire and usually causes a spiral pattern to develop. That has some interesting implications on heat transfer,” Shaver explains. “A lot of time it enhances it, which is a very desirable thing” because it’s able to get more power out of a limited amount of fuel.  

However, with the advanced designs like the wire wrap, “it’s a little bit more complicated to pump the fluid around these wires compared to just an open model,” he adds, which means that it could take more input energy too.  

Another popular option is called a pebble bed reactor, which involves a series of graphite pebbles about the size of a tennis ball being embedded with the nuclear fuel. “You just randomly pat them into an open container and let fluid flow around them,” Shaver says. “That is a very different scenario compared to what we’re used to with light-water reactors because now all of the fluid can move through these random spaces between the pebbles.” Such a system has many benefits for low-energy cooling. 

With the newly proposed designs, the goal is to ultimately generate more power while putting less in. “You’re trying to enhance the heat transfer you get from it, and the price you pay is how much energy it takes to pump it,” says Shaver. “There’s an interesting cost-benefit there.” Some of the tradeoffs can be significant, and these supercomputer simulations promise to give more accurate numbers than ever, allowing upcoming nuclear power plants to work with reactors that are as efficient and safe as possible. 

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It took eight years and the collaborative efforts of over 600 interdisciplinary undergraduate students, but Estonia’s second satellite is finally on track to launch later this week. Once in orbit thanks to a lift aboard one of the European Space Agency’s Vega VV23 rockets, the tiny  8.5 lb ESTCube-2 will test an elegant method to potentially help clear the skies’ increasingly worrisome space junk issue using a novel “plasma brake.”

Designed by Finnish Meteorological Institute physicist Pekka Janhunen, the electric sail (E-sail) technology harnesses the physics underlying Earth’s ionosphere—the atmosphere’s electrically charged outer layer. Once in orbit, Estonia’s ESTCube-2 will deploy a nearly 165-foot-long tether composed of hair-thin aluminum wires that, once charged via solar power, will repel the almost motionless plasma within the ionosphere.

[Related: The FCC just dished out their first space junk fine.]

“​​Historically, tethers have been prone to snap in space due to micrometeorites or other hazards,” Janhunen explained in an October 3 statement ahead of the mission launch. “So ESTCube-2’s net-like microtether design brings added redundancy with two parallel and two zig-zagging bonded wires.”

If successful, the drag should slow down the tiny cubesat enough to shorten its orbital decay time to just a two-year lifespan. Not only that, but it would do so without any physical propellant source, thus offering a lightweight, low-cost alternative to existing satellite decommissioning options.

“It is exciting to see if the plasma break is going to work as planned… and if the tether itself is as robust as it needs to be,” Carolin Frueh, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue University, tells PopSci via email. “The longer a dead or decommissioned satellite is out there, the higher the risk that it runs into other objects, which leads to fragmentation and the creation of even more debris objects.”

According to Frueh, although drag sails have been explored to help with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites’ end-of-life maneuvers in the past, “the plasma brake technology has the potential to be more robust and more easily deployable at the end of life compared to a classical large solar sail.”

After just seven decades’ worth of space travel, junk is already a huge issue for ongoing private- and government-funded missions. Literally millions of tiny trash pieces now orbit the Earth as fast as 17,500 mph, each one a potential mission-ender. Such debris could also prove fatal to unfortunate astronauts in their path. 

Although multiple international efforts are underway to help mitigate the amount of space junk, even the process of planning such operations can be difficult. Earlier this year, for example, an ESA space debris cleanup pilot project grew more complicated after its orbital trash target reportedly unexpectedly collided with other debris. On October 2, the Federal Communications Commission issued its first-ever orbital littering fine after satellite television provider Dish Network failed to properly deorbit a decommissioned, direct broadcast EchoStar-7 satellite last year.

“As satellite operations become more prevalent and the space economy accelerates, we must be certain that operators comply with their commitments,” Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan A. Egal said at the time.

Estonia’s second-ever satellite is scheduled to launch on October 7 from the ESA’s spaceport in French Guiana.

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A crewed submarine is, at its most elemental level, a machine designed to preserve a bubble of air underwater and keep the rest of the ocean out. The complexities of submarine design— everything from propulsion to sensors to controls—have to be designed with this overriding purpose in mind. Because the whole of the submarine needs to maintain this careful containment at all times, what might otherwise be a nothing part, like a deck drain assembly, is crucial to the longer-term viability of the submarine. On September 25, shipbuilders General Dynamics Electric Boat, along with Huntington Ingalls Industries, announced that they had successfully used additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, to create a part for the Virginia-class submarine Oklahoma.

The part printed is a deck-drain, and it was manufactured on land out of copper-nickel. The part still needs some machining to refine it before it is installed, but the printing of a replacement piece is a big step forward towards easier, on-demand parts for submarine repair in the future.

“This collaborative project leverages authorizations made by the Navy that streamline requirements for low-risk additive manufacturing parts. It is possible due to the foresight and longer-term development efforts by our engineers to deploy additive manufacturing marine alloys for shipbuilding,” said Dave Bolcar in a release. Bolcar is the vice president of engineering and design at the Newport News Shipyard, the Huntington Ingalls Industries division that worked on the 3D printed part.

[Related: An exclusive look inside where nuclear subs are born]

Additive manufacturing has appeal and utility across the hobbyist, commercial, and industrial spaces for a host of reasons. The ability to rapidly prototype parts, and then produce physical approximations to refine, is useful. It’s still a major step to go from exploring a part through a printed design to a printed part being up to the task required of a completed piece.

Printing parts on land for repair allows naval suppliers to prove the technology is workable, and apply it to immediate needs.

On a ship, and on a submarine more than most other kinds of ships, every part needs to fit precisely, within set parameters so that the vessel can continue to remain watertight and airtight where it needs to be. Ships are also deeply constrained in space on board, so the availability of spare parts stockpiled for emergency or even just routine repair is finite and based on estimates before vessels embark. Onboard printers would allow repair underway, while printers at ports can ensure new parts are ready for docked vessels.

Just print it out

The Navy operates in confined spaces and on a global stage. With bases and ports scattered across the globe, managing the resupply of ships and planes means overseeing supply chains in places as far apart as Spain and Guam, and ports in-between. For the past decade, the US Navy has explored 3D printing as a way to ease that logistical load.

The premise of 3D printing is straightforward. If the raw material for many parts can be stored in undifferentiated form, and then produced as needed for repairs, that raw material and printer becomes far more flexible than having already assembled pieces stockpiled. Printers can produce errors in manufacturing, so the Navy has spent years working on how to create stuff with a minimum of error.

“We’re at the front end of this. There are parts that require airworthiness for approval and the non-air worthiness, the non-airworthiness are easier to do,” Lieutenant General Steven Rudder of the Marine Corps told USNI News in 2018. “You’re going to see additive manufacturing, both in industry and in our FRC’s [Fleet Readiness Center]. The Air Force is ahead of us on metal printing; you’re going to see that really take off. That’s just at the beginning of stages.”

The Navy also explored not just having 3D printers at ports of call, but also having printers onboard ships, ready to print spare parts while under way. 

In 2021, the Navy tested a large, almost room-sized, 3D printer from Xerox, which could create parts in aluminum at a base on land. In 2022, the Navy also installed an identical printer on board the USS Essex, a ship that in any other navy would count as a full-sized aircraft carrier, but for the US is classified as a Landing Helicopter Dock. The parallel trials of printers at sea and on land was to see if the conditions of being on the ocean, with the humidity and rocking waves, would produce different results than the same parts made on land. (Xerox ultimately sold its 3D printing division to another company in the additive manufacturing space.)

When it comes to printing parts for the submarine, space is already at a premium, even more so than on a surface vessel. Making the drain parts by additive manufacturing shows that, while submarines may not be able to print their own parts, the small, mundane yet vital pieces needed for ship operation can still be made to order. Every part of a ship seems mundane until it doesn’t work and needs to be replaced, and then suddenly it becomes crucial.

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Five mech suits capable of morphing between robotic and vehicular modes are now available for pre-order from a Japanese startup overseen by 25-year-old inventor Ryo Yoshida. At nearly 15-feet-tall and weighing in around 3.5 tons, one of Tsubame Industries’  “Archax” joyrides can be all yours—if you happen to have an extra $3 million burning a hole in your pocket.

News of the production update came courtesy of Reuters on Monday, who spoke with Yoshida about their thought process behind constructing the futuristic colossus, which gets its name from the famous winged dinosaur archaeopteryx. 

[Related: Robotic exoskeletons are storming out of sci-fi and onto your squishy human body.]

“Japan is very good at animation, games, robots and automobiles so I thought it would be great if I could create a product that compressed all these elements into one,” he said at the time. “I wanted to create something that says, ‘This is Japan.’”

To pilot the steel and iron-framed Archax, individuals must first climb a small ladder and enter a cockpit situated within the robot’s chest. Once sealed inside, a system of nine cameras connected to four view screens allows riders to see the world around them alongside information such as battery life, speed, tilt angle, and positioning. Depending on a user’s desire, Archax can travel upwards of 6 mph from one of two setups—a four-wheeled upright robotic mode, and a more streamlined vehicle mode in which the cockpit reclines 17 degrees as the chair remains upright. Meanwhile, a set of joysticks alongside two floor pedals control the mech suit’s movement, as well as its controllable arms and hands

Unlike countless other robotic creations on the market, however, Archax currently isn’t designed for rigorous real world encounters. It’s currently meant to be, per the company’s own description, “cool.” 

But that doesn’t mean Yoshida and his team at Tsubame aren’t hopeful to build future Archax models better equipped for real world uses. According to the inventor, he hopes such pilotable robotic suits could find applications within search-and-rescue operations, disaster relief, and even the space industry. For now, however, Tsubame sounds perfectly satisfied with its luxury toy status.

“Arcax is not just a big robot that you can ride inside. A person can climb into the cockpit and control the vehicle at will. Each part moves with sufficient speed, rigidity, and power,” reads the product’s description.

“And it’s cool,” Tsubame Industries reiterates.

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This week, Google announced a new transatlantic subsea cable that will connect the United States to Portugal via Bermuda. Dubbed “Nuvem,” after the Portuguese word for “cloud,” the new cable is expected to enter operation in 2026 and Google says it is intended to help “meet growing demand for digital services” and “improve network resiliency across the Atlantic.”

Despite all the talk of data being stored “in the cloud,” the internet mostly runs underwater—at least, internationally. Around 95 percent of international data transmission—and 99 percent of transcontinental data transmission—is sent through one of the subsea fiber optic cables that crisscross the planet. Whenever you visit a website hosted in another country or send an email to a friend who’s overseas, that data is almost certainly sent via one of these underwater cables. 

According to TeleGeography, a site that tracks subsea cables, there are more than 550 active or planned subsea cables. The number is constantly changing as old cables are replaced and new cables—like Nuvem—enter service. In total, they believe there are nearly 870,000 miles of underwater cabling connecting North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world. Some, like the CeltixConnect cable between Ireland and the United Kingdom, are less than 100 miles long, while others extend for more than thousands of miles. The Asia-America Gateway, for example, is more than 12,000 miles long and crosses the Pacific connecting Thailand, China, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii to the United States. Only the smallest, most isolated islands and Antarctica are out of the loop—anyone at the South Pole is stuck using slow satellite internet. If you want to see them all, TeleGeography has a fascinating map that shows just how many cables cross major oceans like the Atlantic and Pacific.

Understandably, these cables have incredible bandwidth. More than 5 billion people use the internet, and there are just a few hundred cables to transmit data between continents. For example, the MAREA cable, owned by Meta, Microsoft, and telecommunications company Telxius, transmits data in speeds measured in terabits between Virginia Beach in the United States and Bilbao in Spain and even set a speed record back in 2019.

Google has already invested in a number of subsea cables, including Dunant, which connects Virginia to France; Firmina, which will connect South Carolina to Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay; and Equiano, which connects Portugal, Nigeria, and South Africa. Nuvem will “add capacity, increase reliability, and decrease latency for Google users and Google Cloud customers around the world.” It’s all part of the search giant’s plan to “create important new data corridors connecting North America, South America, Europe, and Africa” that will allow it to transmit ever growing amounts of data. 

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Nuvem is that it passes through Bermuda. According to Google’s announcement, over the past number of years the Atlantic island’s government has “undertaken significant efforts to attract investment in subsea cable infrastructure and create a digital Atlantic hub.” These efforts included passing new laws and streamlining permitting to make things easier for tech companies. As a result, Nuvem will be the first subsea cable to connect Bermuda directly to Europe. 

In the announcement, Walter Roban, Bermuda’s deputy premier and minister of home affairs, said, “Bermuda has long been committed to the submarine cable market, and we welcome the Nuvem cable to our fast-growing digital Atlantic hub.” 

So, come 2026 when the cable is due to go live, your Google data might be passing through Bermuda on its route between the United States and Europe. That, or it will pass through one of the other 12 cables that cross the Atlantic.

Correction (October 2, 2023): The story previously stated that there are nearly 870 million miles of underwater cabling. It should be 870,000 miles.

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The Environmental Protection Agency is releasing guidelines to more clearly define what is considered a truly “zero-emission” building. Unveiled on September 28 at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, the nation’s largest annual gathering for sustainable architecture, the EPA’s new outline is reportedly based on a “three pillar” approach. These pillars include no on-site emissions, the use of 100 percent renewable energy, and adherence to strict energy efficiency guidelines.

The news, first revealed via White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi speaking to The Washington Post on Thursday morning, arrives as the Biden administration attempts to standardize concepts for an industry that generates nearly a third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions every year.

“Getting to zero emissions does not need to be a premium product. We know how to do this,” Ali Zaidi said during the interview. “It just has to get to scale, which I think a common definition will facilitate.”

[Related: Power plants may face emission limits for the first time if EPA rules pass.]

A truly “zero-emission” building is actually harder to define than it may first appear. Currently, the global green standard is generally considered Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. Developed by the US Green Building Council, an environmental nonprofit, and currently in its fifth iteration, LEED certification provides a comprehensive, tiered rating system for neighborhood developments, homes, and cities. However, it lacks the authority that could be granted by a major US federal department such as the EPA.

Lacking concise federal regulations, the US currently includes countless state and local benchmarks to meet their own ideas of eco-friendly urban planning—from California’s “zero net energy” standard for all new constructions by 2030, to reduced emission targets for 2030 and 2050 in New York. For California, a zero net energy project is defined as an “energy-efficient building where, on a source energy basis, the actual annual consumed energy is less than or equal to the on-site renewable generated energy.” Meanwhile, New York’s Local 97 law from 2019 sets carbon emission caps based on building sizes, along with multiple avenues to offset such emissions.

Although the EPA’s new definitional framework is not legally binding, the standardization could still prove incredibly attractive for real estate developers involved in projects across multiple states seeking a streamlined process.

“​​A workable, usable federal definition of zero-emission buildings can bring some desperately needed uniformity and consistency to a chaotic regulatory landscape,” Duane Desiderio, senior vice president and counsel for the Real Estate Roundtable, explained via WaPo’s rundown of the reveal.

Multiple projects in recent years have attempted to improve upon sustainable building practices in order to meet climate change’s steepest challenges. One such promising avenue is creatively incorporating recycled materials, such as diaper materials, to actually strengthen concrete mixtures for low-cost housing alternatives.

Meanwhile, termite mounds—the world’s tallest biological structures—are beginning to inspire eco-friendly cooling and heating systems, while fungi growth is providing the architectural underpinnings for a new generation of durable and sustainable building materials.

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Solar sails that leverage the sun’s photonic rays for “wind” are no longer the stuff of science fiction—in fact, the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 practical demonstration was deemed a Grand Award Winner for PopSci’s Best of What’s New in 2019. And while countless projects continue to explore what solar sails could hold for the future of space travel, a new study demonstrates just how promising the technology could be for excursions to Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor, and beyond.

According to a paper recently submitted to the journal Acta Astronautica, detailed computer simulations show tiny, incredibly lightweight solar sails made with aerographite could travel to Mars in just 26 days—compare that to conventional rocketry time estimates of between 7-to-9 months. Meanwhile, a journey to the heliopause (the demarcation line for interstellar space where the sun’s magnetic forces cease to influence objects) could take between 4.2 and 5.3 years. For comparison, the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes took a respective 35 and 41 years to reach the same boundary.

[Related: This novel solar sail could make it easier for NASA to stare into the sun.]

The key to such speedy trips is the 1 kg solar sails’ 720g of aerographite—an ultra-lightweight material with four times less density than most solar sail designs’ Mylar components. The major caveat to these simulations is that they involved an extremely miniscule payload weight, something that will most often not be the case for major interplanetary and interstellar journeys.

“Solar sail propulsion has the potential for rapid delivery of small payloads (sub-kilogram) throughout the solar system,” René Heller, an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and study co-author, explained to Universe Today earlier this month. “Compared to conventional chemical propulsion, which can bring hundreds of tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and deliver a large fraction of that to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, this sounds ridiculously small. But the key value of solar sail technology is speed.”

Another issue still that still needs addressing is deceleration methods needed upon actually reaching a destination. Although aerocapture—using a planet’s atmosphere to reduce velocity—is a possible option, researchers concede more investigation will be needed to determine the best, most efficient way to actually stop at a solar sail-equipped spacecraft’s intended endpoint. Regardless, the study only adds even more wind in the sails (so to speak) for the impressive interstellar travel method.

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As I’m riding through the wilds of southwest Colorado, up through Cinnamon Pass at over 12,000 feet in altitude, I’m thinking about the suspension on the Polaris Xpedition UTV (utility task vehicle) I’m piloting.

Yes, of course I’m also intently focused on the dirt road as we navigate across narrow cliffside paths and splash through mud puddles. But the premium Fox shocks in this off-road vehicle keep my tires planted as they flex with the ground beneath me, absorbing the dips, bumps, and rocks at an impressive rate. The all-new Xpedition, launched this May, seems to eat rocks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Here’s how it does that. 

Machined shocks 

Outdoorsy people—those who like camping, fishing, hunting, hiking, biking, and more—occupy Polaris’ sweet spot. The company says the 2024 Polaris Xpedition is best described as an “adventure side-by-side” as opposed to the utility vehicles used on ranches and farms or the recreational vehicles you might see tearing across sand dunes in California. Side-by-side in this case means it has at least two seats, which you don’t see in some all-terrain vehicles like quad bikes or snowmobiles.

This vehicle has a flat roof made for carrying kayaks, fishing poles, traction boards, and rooftop tents, all available as accessories. After driving the Xpedition all day and then testing out the rooftop tent to camp out next to a waterfall, I concur that it checks all the boxes. When carrying just two people, the vehicle’s second row can be folded down to hold even more stuff, or the Xpeditioncan accommodate five people and less cargo. It’s also now available as a completely-enclosed UTV with both warm and cool climate control, the only side-by-side on the market to do so.  

“We started from the ground up with a one-piece frame, which is going to make it a lot stronger,” Polaris sales manager Eric Borgen says. “Our older products had frames that would bolt together in the middle; having that one piece frame is obviously going to make it a lot more rigid, which is also going to help make sure that our roll cage doesn’t flex.”

Layered into the new frame, the FOX Podium QS3 shocks are one of the key factors for a smooth ride. The shocks use “position sensitive spiral technology,” and that means two things. One, the equipment uses damping force, which controls vibration; and two, spiral grooves inside the shock body allow fluid to flow around the piston assembly, refining the movement.

“If you look inside of the actual shock body and you take it apart and you look down the barrel, it’s very similar to what people do to rifles,” Borgen explains. “They’ve machined a groove—a corkscrew—in the body. So when the piston is going up and down inside the shock body, it allows the fluid to bypass the valving.”

What that means is when driving 20 miles an hour through rocky trails, or over a washboard road, a typical passenger vehicle would toss your head around inside the cabin uncomfortably. With these shocks, the ride in the Xpedition is smoothed out in a noticeable way. Instead of a handful of zones that get progressively stiffer, the UTV’s shocks are machined for a consistently composed ride for the passenger at various speeds and road conditions. Indeed, the only time I felt a significant impact across 100 miles in the San Juan mountains was when a rock got loose under me and hit the underside. The Xpedition crunched along and left it in the dust.  

GPS off the grid

One thing that can strike fear into the heart of a new off-roader is getting lost. As more and more people explore the great outdoors (the trend has ticked noticeably upward in the last several years) they’re looking for ways to do it safely, and Polaris’ contribution to that is its Ride Command technology. 

Ride Command provides a built-in GPS navigation and wayfinding system that works even if you’re out of cell coverage zones. It includes a million-plus miles of verified trails and allows riders to plan a route before heading out. Even more importantly, it can be set up as a group ride so the vehicles can band together and see each other on the map as a color-coded dot. 

As Borgen, a desert-racing champion himself, led our group on a pre-established route, I could see at a glance on the map display in front of me how far ahead he was and what speed he was going. As a result, if I saw that he was slowing way down to let vehicles pass from the other direction (riders going uphill have the right-of-way on the trails) I could adjust even before I could see him through my windshield.  

There is one thing Borgen tells our group before we set out, and it’s the most important thing we need to know above and beyond all of the technology and engineering: how to be a considerate off-road driver. Some drivers have sparked animosity by going too fast on the trails and creating an uncomfortable environment for others, squarely placing a spotlight on the industry. 

The Polaris representative stresses the magnitude of being a considerate consumer, watching out for those who don’t like the noise and the dust off-highway vehicles carry with them. In that vein, the company is working toward more electric vehicles, like its new 2024 Ranger XP Kinetic. 

“Hikers are trying to enjoy the public land too,” he says. “So slow down; don’t dust ’em out, please. We don’t want to ruin our places to ride, because even though Jeeps and dirt bikes and side-by-sides are all different, we’re all doing the same thing and we all need to work together to maintain our lands.” 

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A new high-tech surveillance drone developed by a California-based startup Skydio will include infrared sensors, cameras capable of reading license plates as far as 800 feet away, and the ability to reach top speeds of 45 mph. Skydio hopes “intelligent flying machines”–like its new drone X10–will become part of the “basic infrastructure” supporting law enforcement, government organizations, and private businesses. Such an infrastructure is already developing across the country. Meanwhile, critics are renewing their privacy and civil liberties concerns about what they believe remains a dangerously unregulated industry.

Skydio first unveiled its new X10 on September 20, which Wired detailed in a new rundown on Tuesday. The company’s latest model is part of a push to “get drones everywhere they can be useful in public safety,” according to CEO Adam Bry during last week’s launch event. Prior to the X10’s release, Skydio has reportedly sold over 40,000 other “intelligent flying machines” to more than 1,500 clients over the past decade, including the US Army Rangers and the UK’s Ministry of Defense. Skydio execs, however, openly express their desire to continue expanding drone adoption even further via a self-explanatory concept deemed “drone as first responder” (DFR).

[Related: The Army skips off-the-shelf drones for a new custom quadcopter.]

In such scenarios, drones like the X10 can be deployed in less than 40 seconds by on-the-scene patrol officers from within a backpack or car trunk. From there, however, the drones can be piloted via onboard 5G connectivity by operators at remote facilities and command centers. Skydio believes drones like its X10 are equipped with enough cutting edge tools to potentially even aid in stopping high-speed car chases.

To allow for this kind of support, however, drone operators are increasingly required to obtain clearance from the FAA for what’s known as beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights. Such a greenlight allows drone pilots to control fleets from centralized locations instead of needing to remain onsite. BVLOS clearances are currently major goals for retail companies like Walmart and Amazon, as well as shipping giants like UPS, who will need such certifications to deliver to customers at logistically necessary distances. According to Skydio, the company has already supported customers in “getting over 20 waivers” for BVLOS flight, although its X10 announcement does not provide specifics as to how. 

Drone usage continues to rise across countless industries, both commercial and law enforcement related. As the ACLU explains, drones’ usages in scientific research, mapping, and search-and-rescue missions are undeniable, “but deployed without proper regulation, drones [can be] capable of monitoring personal conversations would cause unprecedented invasions of our privacy rights.”

Meanwhile, civil rights advocates continue to warn that there is very little in the way of such oversight for the usage of drones among the public during events such as political demonstrations, protests, as well as even simply large gatherings and music festivals.

“Any adoption of drones, regardless of the time of day or visibility conditions when deployed, should include robust policies, consideration of community privacy rights, auditable paper trails recording the reasons for deployment and the information captured, and transparency around the other equipment being deployed as part of the drone,” Beryl Lipton, an investigative researcher for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells PopSci.

“The addition of night vision capabilities to drones can enable multiple kinds of 24-hour police surveillance,” Lipton adds.

Despite Skydio’s stated goals, critics continue to push back against claims that such technology benefits the public, and instead violates privacy rights while disproportionately targeting marginalized communities. Organizations such as the New York Civil Liberties Union cites police drones deployed at protests across 15 cities in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

[ Related: Here is what a Tesla Cybertruck cop car could look like ]

Skydio has stated in the past it does not support weaponized drones, although as Wired reports, the company maintains an active partnership with Axon, makers of police tech like Tasers. Currently, Skydio is only integrating its drone fleets with Axon software sold to law enforcement for evidence management and incident responses.

Last year, Axon announced plans to develop a line of Taser-armed drones shortly after the Uvalde school shooting massacre. The news prompted near immediate backlash, causing Axon to backtrack less than a week later—but not before the majority of the company’s AI Ethics board resigned in protest.

Update 09/26/23 1:25pm: This article has been updated to include a response from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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Here’s a fast fact you may not know: the Brits have dubbed driving 100 mph “doing the ton.” So it is perhaps appropriate that the British supercar-maker McLaren provided me with the opportunity to go two tons—yes, that’s 200 mph—in the company’s Artura hybrid-electric V6 model.

You remember the Artura from my test drive; it’s a $289,000 mid-engine supercar with 671 horsepower and 531 lb.-ft. torque. McLaren says it’ll accelerate to 60 mph in 3.0 seconds and through the quarter-mile in 10.7 seconds. For reference, if a car can do that run in less than 10.0, drag strips require a protective roll cage.

But when people look at a supercar and ask, What’ll it do? they mean top speed. Could the Artura reach the two tons of 200 mph?

It is hard to achieve top speed because, well, it is illegal on public roads outside portions of the German autobahn, and most race tracks don’t have straights long enough to achieve terminal velocity.

Enter the Sun Valley Tour de Force. This is an annual fund-raising charity event in Idaho’s Sun Valley ski region. With a hiatus for Covid, this year’s event was the sixth running of the Tour de Force, which, in exchange for a $2,950 entry fee, lets drivers take a blast along about a mile and a half of state route 75 just north of Ketchum to see how fast they can go. GPS transponders provide official results. The organization raised $1,000,000 this year for the benefit of The Hunger Coalition in Idaho.

I don’t know about you, but when I envision top speed runs, I think of the vast, desolate salt flats in Nevada and Utah. That’s not this. Route 75 is a rural two-lane highway, the sort that adventurous travelers seek out when avoiding the monotony of interstate driving.

[Related: An inside look at the data powering McLaren’s F1 team]

The road is relatively narrow and has little in the way of a shoulder on either side. The surface is old and uneven. The route isn’t even straight. Or flat!

Instead, the cars launch from a start line and drive about half a mile up a slight hill into a fast, gentle left turn that ends with a quick blind crest and then a drive onto the slightly downhill mile straight that is called Phantom Hill to the finish line. The checkered flags marking the finish are in a place called Frostbite Flats, which sounds like where your game piece goes for punishment in Candyland.

The prospect of driving faster than I’ve ever gone before in this setting is daunting. However, the event’s speed record is 253 mph, set by a driver in a Bugatti Chiron, so it is possible to go very fast on this road.

It is the sort of drive I’ve long since decided I wouldn’t do. Cars tend to become like aircraft with no control surfaces at speeds higher than about 150 mph. A generation ago, Car & Driver magazine senior technical editor Don Schroeder was killed during a 200-mph run on a test track, maybe due to a blown tire or seized wheel bearing.

I’ve briefly touched 180 mph at the end of the front straight at Estoril, former site of the Portuguese Grand Prix, in a McLaren Senna and a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ. Both of those cars have thoroughly sorted aerodynamics that kept them stable and on the ground at those speeds. The McLaren engineers were similarly thorough with the design of the Artura, which gave me confidence that the car wouldn’t take flight. This, and the chance to hit 200 mph, sealed the deal. I’d do it!

There is no practice run, though I did have the chance to drive on the highway the day before to scout the lay of the land and the condition of the asphalt. Talking it over with retired Formula 1 driver Stefan Johansson, who McLaren has brought in to drive another one of their cars, I set the powertrain mode to “Track” and put the suspension model on “Comfort” for compliance on the bumpy two-lane highway.

Event organizers station spotters along the route to watch for wildlife or spectators getting too close to the route and provide me a radio for reports of any trouble ahead. The police close off the road at both ends of the course long enough for each run. Mine will take 52 seconds.

Sliding into the Artura’s driver’s seat, I realize the benefit of gull-wing doors, which open the space above the seat when the door is open so it is easier to get in and out while wearing a helmet. I struggle to get my helmet-clad noggin under the roofline, but I’m comfortable once inside.

I’ve made sure to drive the car in the battery regeneration mode on the way to the event, so the hybrid-electric drive system’s battery pack stands at an 80 percent state of charge for the run. As a plug-in hybrid-electric, the Artura’s battery pack could have been fully charged ahead of time, but I couldn’t get a place to plug it in in the hotel’s garage. The ambient temperature is 50 degrees, perfect for making maximum power from the combustion engine.

Sitting behind the wheel, I can see spectators watching from the boundary 100 yards back from the road. In the tall grass, they look like wildlife photographers on the African savanna. By tradition, the first car away is the fellow with the vintage Volkswagen Rabbit pickup truck. He gets close to 90 mph every year and keeps coming back for more.

Next away is a woman in a modified McLaren 720S, whose 218-mph top speed proves to be the fastest time of the day, as warmer temperatures later prevent her father, the car’s owner, from topping her speed.

Then is Johansson, in the brand-new McLaren 750S. He hits 200 mph on the official scoreboard. Two tons!

Then it is my turn. Officials wave me off from the start line, and the Artura squirms, fighting for traction on the launch. It is at triple-digit speeds almost immediately and I ease off the gas as I bend into the left turn, looking for a clear view when I top the peak of the blind crest.

As I clear the hilltop and mat the accelerator pedal, I can’t even make out the finish line flags in the distance, out there on Frostbite Flats. But I do steal a glance at the speedometer: 172.

That seems like a solid foundation for building speed over the next mile. In the cockpit, the Artura sounds great. A hundred yards away from the road, McLaren Houston general manger Pablo Del-Gado is watching. After my run he excitedly reports that from the sidelines, the Artura’s 120-degree V6 was the best-sounding car of the day.

Now at serious speed, I place the Artura in the center of the road. Fortunately, as an arid area, Idaho builds very little water-draining crown into their roads, so there is no concern about getting too far from the centerline and having the car tug its way toward the ditch.

The Artura’s suspension absorbs the bumps and the steering tracks true, with the car going exactly where I want, but things have gotten busy. The drive plays out like a scene from the original Mad Max, when budget-limited director George Miller sped up the film for dramatic effect.

Modern sports cars are programmed to deliver maximum performance for the situation, so I’ve left the transmission in fully automatic mode. Most cars do not achieve their top speed in top gear because that takes the engine rpm out of the peak of the power band. I didn’t realize the Artura would shift to top gear when my foot was on the floor, seeking more speed, so in retrospect, I wish I’d shifted manually and left it in sixth gear rather than letting it upshift to seventh.

Hammering down the straight, the Artura pulled quickly from 172 mph to 199 mph on the speedometer. And stayed there. Thanks to what felt like time dilation in my situation, the digital display seemed to sit maddeningly near 200 mph for minutes. Finally, “199” flickered to “200.”

The speedometer stayed at 200 mph all the way through the finish line. That seemed sufficient to ensure the official results captured that outcome.

Coasting down from 200 mph, previously ludicrous speeds now seem pedestrian. Organizers have warned us to make extra effort to shed speed so that when we approach the parking lot at the end of the run, we are at a speed that is actually safe rather than one that seems safe to a driver who is pumped up on adrenaline and whose perception is distorted by having recently hit two tons.

I get to the parking lot, where attendants point me to my parking slot. Heading over to the official timing and scoring display, I get crushing results from the GPS: 194.98 mph. Not two tons. Dammit. Apparently, the Artura’s speedometer is slightly optimistic. By 2.5 percent, it looks like.

But the in-car GoPro captured the dashboard display, which shows “200.” I have photographic proof of having achieved that speed, even if it comes with a really big asterisk.

Weeks later, organizers whimsically sent me an official-looking speeding ticket from the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office, citing me for my official top speed of 194.98 mph. It is the first time I’ve ever wished for a bigger number on a speeding ticket.

Watch a video of my drive, below:

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At first glance, everything seems solid. Then, a small rip begins to spread across the middle of the structure as its siding expands. The module suddenly bursts apart, spraying debris in every direction as engineers cheer on from the safety of their control room. The sudden destruction—and the fifth such explosion—of a module intended for the International Space Station’s successor may not sound like the desired outcome, but, scientists say, it’s all part of the plan.

In Sierra Space’s September 20 progress update, the Colorado-based company released video of the explosion. The company aims to supply habitat spaces for Orbital Reef, Blue Origin’s NASA-backed space station project. During a recent Ultimate Burst Pressure (UPB) test, the engineering team essentially amped up the pressure within a one-third-scale LIFE module prototype until it popped. Said “pop” is certainly a sight to behold:

Unlike ISS construction materials, the LIFE modules are largely composed of “softgoods” such as Vectran, an incredibly strong and durable synthetic fiber spun from liquid-crystal polymers. When inflated, the LIFE module’s softgood design becomes rigid enough to withstand the low-earth orbit’s extreme environmental stresses. According to Sierra Space, the latest results offered a 33 percent margin over a full-scale LIFE module’s certification standard, nearly 20 percent better than the previous test design.

What makes the most recent UPB test especially impressive is that it was the first module prototype to include a steel “blanking plate” that acted as a cheaper stand-in for essential design features like windows.

[Related: NASA is spending big on commercial space destinations.]

“Inclusion of the blanking plate hard structure was a game-changer because this was the first time that we infused metallics into our softgoods pressure shell technology prior to conducting a UBP test,” Shawn Buckley, Sierra Space’s Senior Director Engineering and Product Evolution, said in the company’s announcement. “With this added component, once again, we successfully demonstrated that LIFE’s current architecture at one-third scale meets the minimum 4x safety factor required for softgoods inflatables structures.”

As Space.com notes, this marks the third UPB test for the module prototypes. Sierra Space has also overseen two “creep tests” in December 2022 and February 2023, during which the LIFE designs were subjected to higher-than-usual pressures for extended periods of time. With the latest success, Sierra Space says it’s now ready to move onto the next development phase—testing on full-scale LIFE module prototypes. If all goes as planned (a big “if,” given such endeavors’ complexities), future LIFE module iterations will be some of Orbital Reef’s central structures. Orbital Reef is currently intended to start construction in 2030.

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At the DSEI international arms show held in London earlier this month, German defense company FFG showed off a tank-like vehicle it had already sent to Ukraine. The Mine Clearing Tank, or MCT, is a tracked and armored vehicle, based on the WISENT 1 armored platform, designed specifically to clear minefields and protect the vehicle’s crew while doing so. As Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine continues well into its second year, vehicles like this one show both what the present need there is, and what tools may ultimately be required for Ukraine to reclaim Russian-occupied territory.

The current shape of the war in Ukraine is largely determined by minefields, trenches, and artillery. Russia holds long defensive lines, where mines guard the approaches to trenches, and trenches protect soldiers as they shoot at people and vehicles. Artillery, in turn, allows Russian forces to strike at Ukrainian forces from behind these defensive lines, making both assault and getting ready for assault difficult. This style of fortification is hardly unique; it’s been a feature of modern trench warfare since at least World War I. 

Getting through defensive positions is a hard task. On September 20, the German Ministry of Defense posted a list of the equipment it has so far sent to Ukraine. The section on “Military Engineering Capabilities” covers an extensive range of tools designed to clear minefields. It includes eight mine-clearing tanks of the WISENT 1 variety, 11 mine plows that can go on Ukraine’s Soviet-pattern T-72 tanks, three remote-controlled mine-clearing robots, 12 Ahlmann backhoe loaders designed for mine clearing, and the material needed for explosive ordnance disposal.

The MCT WISENT 1 weighs 44.5 tons, a weight that includes its heavy armor, crew protection features, and the powerful engines it needs to lift and move the vehicle’s mine-clearing plow. The plow itself weighs 3.5 tons, and is wider than the vehicle itself.

“During the clearing operation, the mines are lifted out of the ground and diverted via the mine clearing shield to both sides of the lane, where they are later neutralized by EOD forces. If mines explode, ‘only’ the mine clearance equipment will be damaged. If mines slip through and detonate under the vehicle, the crew is protected from serious injuries,” reports Gerhard Heiming for European Security & Technology.

One of the protections for crew are anti-mine seats, designed to divert the energy from blasts away from the occupants. The role of a mine-clearing vehicle is, after all, to drive a path through a minefield, dislodging explosives explicitly placed to prevent this from happening. As the MCT WISENT 1 clears a path, it can also mark the lane it has cleared.

Enemy mine

Mines as a weapon are designed to make passage difficult, but not impossible. What makes mines so effective is that many of the techniques to clear them, and do so thoroughly, are slow, tedious, time-consuming tasks, often undertaken by soldiers with hand tools. 

“The dragon’s teeth of this war are land mines, sometimes rated the most devilish defense weapons man ever devised,” opens How Axis Land Mines Work, a story from the April 1944 issue of Popular Science. “Cheap to make, light to transport, and easy to install, it is as hard to find as a sniper, as dangerous to disarm as a commando. To cope with it, the Army Engineers have developed a corps of specialists who have one of the most nerve-wracking assignments in the book.”

The story goes on to to detail anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, which are the two categories broadly in use today. With different explosive payloads and pressure triggers, the work of min-clearing is about ensuring all the mines are swept aside, so dismounted soldiers and troops in trucks alike can have safe passage through a cleared route. 

The MCT WISENT 1 builds upon lessons and technologies for mine-clearing first developed and used at scale in World War II. Even before the 2022 invasion by Russia, Ukraine had a massive mine-clearing operation, working on disposing of explosives left from World War II through to the 2014-2022 Donbass war. The peacetime work of mine clearing can be thorough and slow.

For an army on the move, and looking to break through enemy lines and attack the less-well-defended points beyond the front, the ability of an armored mine-sweeper to clear a lane can be enough to shift the tide of battle, and with it perhaps a stalled front.

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