Although optical fibers are highly effective at data transmission, they’re also relatively brittle. An experimental new type of optical fiber addresses that limitation, by incorporating a core made of liquid glycerol. Ordinarily, optical fibers are made of either solid glass or a solid transparent plastic. The former is able to carry light pulses over a longer distance, but will break […]

As renewable forms of power like wind and solar continue to gain prominence, there will be a need for creative solutions when it comes to storing energy from sources that are intermittent by nature. One potential solution is known as a molten salt battery, which offers advantages that lithium batteries do not, but have their share of kinks to iron […]

It’s no secret that the medical industry is one of the most critical industries in our society. Everyone depends on having competent and effective healthcare, from scheduling an appointment to receiving treatment to eventually paying the bill or using insurance.  Healthcare is more than just a one-on-one consultation between a patient and doctor, though. There are so many more sectors […]

Ordinarily, if you’re building something, you don’t want the materials to buckle under pressure. In a new Harvard University-designed system, however, that buckling action allows flat-packed objects to be twisted into useful three-dimensional forms. Most existing “buckling-induced deployable structures” consist of linked straight pieces that are popped into shape via straight linear motion, which often requires a fair bit of […]

The Sun doesn’t always shine exactly when you want to boil a kettle; the more we rely on renewable energy, the more energy storage we’ll need. You can store your excess electricity by using it to pump water up a hill. You can use it to compress air, or to spin up a giant flywheel, or lift a huge concrete […]

While on the face of it, the lithium-batteries that power electric vehicles play an important role in our ongoing shift to sustainable transport, they aren’t without environmental problems of their own. Batteries that use organic, readily available materials in place of rare metals are seen as a promising part of the solution to this dilemma, and new research led by […]

By substituting graphite for high-density pure lithium metal, scientists may be able to dramatically improve the performance of battery technology, but there are hurdles still to overcome. Scientists at Germany’s Friedrich Schiller University in Jena have now demonstrated how a finely tuned carbon membrane can prevent these types of batteries from failure, and enable them to be safely charged over […]

The US Army is working on a technique that will allow teams of robots on the battlefield to work together effectively, even when communications become spotty. Called ?-shape, the approach helps groups of autonomous robots achieve their mission goals without conflict or duplication of efforts, despite not being able to consult with one another. If robots are to be any […]

  Saab and Varjo Technologies are developing a new low-cost, high-resolution mixed-reality (XR) technology for flight simulators to train pilots of the Saab Gripen E/F multi-role fighter aircraft. Called Bionic Display, it cuts the computing power required by taking advantage of the way the human eye works. Simulators have become indispensable for training pilots, especially when it comes to high-performance […]

Flashover is a very dangerous phenomenon, in which all of the exposed combustible materials in an enclosed area near-simultaneously ignite. Thanks to a new AI-based system, however, firefighters may soon receive warnings when flashover is imminent. Typically, flashovers occur when a structure fire causes the temperature in an enclosed space to reach at least 593 ºC (1,100 ºF) – this […]