Our first encounter with extraterrestrial life isn’t likely to be a spaceship landing on the White House lawn, but tiny fossils in the rocks of another planet. To aid in that search, scientists at the University of Hawaii at M?noa have developed a portable device called the Biofinder that can highlight organic residue in fossils tens of millions of years […]

Plastic wraps and containers may be great at preserving food, but they generate huge amounts of waste that can end up in the environment. Researchers at Harvard and Rutgers have developed a new plant-based, antimicrobial coating that can be sprayed onto food to keep it fresh, and is easily washed off before consumption. The new coating consists of biopolymer fibers, […]

Engineers at MIT have developed a modular computer chip with components that can communicate using flashes of light. This could allow for electronics that can easily be upgraded with new sensors or processors, rather than replacing the whole chip. The electronics market has gotten to a point where many consumers will turn over a smartphone every year for a newer, […]

Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have broken the world record for solar cell efficiency. Reaching almost 40 percent, the new device boasts the highest efficiency recorded for any type of solar cell in real-world conditions. The team’s new solar cell clocked an efficiency of 39.5 percent, under lighting conditions equivalent to that of the Sun. That’s an […]

Renewable energy is intermittent, so energy storage and release will be critical in the next few decades. IIASA researchers have put forth a fascinating solution, proposing to turn skyscrapers into giant gravity batteries for remarkably cheap renewable energy storage. The concept is simple enough: excess renewable energy can be stored as potential energy, by using it to lift something heavy up to […]

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a powerful new optical chip that can process almost 2 billion images per second. The device is made up of a neural network that processes information as light without needing components that slow down traditional computer chips, like memory. The basis of the new chip is a neural network, a system modeled on […]

Today’s filtration technologies do a wonderful job of producing potable water, but the spread of plastic waste throughout the environment means there are new threats to contend with. A new study has investigated the performance of different techniques when it comes to removing nanoplastics from water, and shown that biologically active systems known as slow sand filters can remove the […]

Insta360 has been helping content creators capture immersive photos and videos for a number of years, most recently updating its One R modular actioncam with a new 4K Boost Lens. Now the company has announced a dedicated 360-degree camera setup for DJI’s Mavic Air 2 and 2S camera-drones that effectively cuts the drone out of recorded aerial images altogether. It is possible to strap a 360-degree camera […]

3D printing typically involves depositing layers of molten plastic, laser-melting powdered metal, or using UV light to harden gelatinous resin. A new technique takes yet another approach, however, by utilizing sound waves. Developed by a team of scientists at Canada’s Concordia University, the technology is known as direct sound printing (DSP). In the current version of the technique, a transducer […]