Not all wastewater is created equal – it may not be drinkable, but some of what goes down the drain is perfectly fine for watering the garden or flushing toilets. Water used for hand-washing is relatively easy to treat for reuse, and now engineers at ETH Zurich have built and tested a standalone hand-washing station for use in public places […]

Carbon fiber as we know it is one of the most impressive materials in our toolkit. Its incredible lightness and strength has seen it take hold in everything from competitive cycling, to supercar design to cutting edge aircraft. But could it also play a role in energy storage? One team of scientists has been exploring the possibilities, and say that […]

Two years ago, XPrize extended its list of pioneering technology competitions with a new contest aimed at the problem of global water security. After revealing the five finalists earlier in the year, the foundation has today announced the grand prize winner, which outshone almost 100 competitors with its superior ability to harvest fresh water from thin air. The Water Abundance […]

Researchers at MIT may have found an innovative way to reduce greenhouse gases from getting into the atmosphere. A new type of battery they’re working on could be made partly from carbon dioxide captured from power plants. Rather than attempting to convert carbon dioxide to specialized chemicals using metal catalysts, which is currently a very difficult process, this battery could […]

Given how permanent they are, it’s no surprise that tattoos are pretty darn personal things. Whether it’s the date of your child’s birthday or some other marking which commemorates a significant moment or aspect of your life, tattoos provide a means to carry around a visual reminder about something important to us. They could be about to get a whole […]

Dutch artist and designer Daan Roosegaarde has a knack for raising environmental awareness through spectacular and symbolic pieces of art, and his freshly launched Space Waste Lab might be his most impressive installation yet. The project uses real-time data and LEDs to call attention to the mounting problem of space debris, but his plans aren’t limited to simply shining a […]

As green energy continues to rise as an alternative to traditional power grids, more people are looking towards how renewable energy sources can reach people in underdeveloped or remote areas. One California-based company, NantEnergy, might have an answer: rechargeable zinc-air batteries. Still relatively unknown, the innovative energy storage system could have major global impact. The green rechargeable battery is an air-breathing cell […]

Further to opening our eyes to new perspectives on our environment, we are beginning to see how drones can also play very active roles in its construction. Walkable rope bridges and shapeshifting sun shelters are just a couple of manmade objects to lean on these flying robots recently, and now there’s an enterprising team of researchers hoping to use them […]

Computer scientists at the University of California, Riverside, have discovered a security flaw that affects all Wi-Fi routers. Hackers could exploit the weakness in the transmission control protocol (TCP) and perform a web cache poisoning attack to steal passwords, login information, and other private data. Unfortunately, a fix isn’t possible, as the vulnerability stems from a 20-year-old design based on […]

In many parts of the world – particularly developing nations, where air conditioning isn’t practical or affordable – people paint buildings’ roofs white in order to reflect sunlight and thus keep those buildings cooler. It’s an approach known as passive daytime radiative cooling, and a new paint-like polymer could make it more effective than ever. The problem with conventional white […]