Tag: engineering

AITechnology

Would you wear this ‘shoe-like vessel’ made from genetically engineered bacteria?

 Naomi  0 233 

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…

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A 3,200-megapixel digital camera is ready for its cosmic photoshoot

 Naomi  0 30 

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…

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Flexible, resilient origami-inspired bridges could help navigate disaster zones

 Ingle  0 92 

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…

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A cargo ship’s ‘WindWing’ sails saved it up to 12 tons of fuel per day

 sykes  0 88 

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…

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Researchers propose fourth traffic signal light for hypothetical self-driving car future

 sykes  0 45 

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…

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Huge 60-foot-tall buoy uses ocean waves to create clean energy

 sykes  0 100 

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…

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Oh good, the humanoid robots are running even faster now

 sykes  0 81 

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,…

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Odie the lunar lander is not dead yet

 admin  0 157 

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…

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The Apple Car is dead

 Ingle  0 58 

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…

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A 3D-printed titanium ‘metamaterial’ design solved a longtime engineering issue

 Emma  0 26 

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…

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

 admin  0 157 

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…

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This DVD-sized disk can store a massive 125,000 gigabytes of data

 admin  0 26 

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…