Picture the blades of a turbine turning, creating renewable energy as the wind blows. Now picture the same thing, but without the blades, gently swaying in the wind. Yes, this exists. The most common complaints about traditional wind turbines, aside from their impact on the visual landscape, concern noise. Their rotating blades can be loud […]
Celebrating Accessibility on International Day of Persons with Disabilities December 3 marks the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, a global reminder of our shared responsibility to create societies where everyone can participate fully. As the World Health Organization (WHO) explains, this day is about promoting the rights and well-being of the 1.3 billion people with disabilities […]
Snagging the Energy Slipping through the Cracks As the world grapples with the twin challenges of rising energy demand and urgent climate goals, one of the biggest puzzles we face is how to store and distribute energy more efficiently. A surprising hero has emerged in this story: heat. More specifically, the kind of heat […]
In the lead up to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024, here’s some high-level information on what it takes to get more women to pursue careers as scientists and engineers. The US National Academy of Sciences affirms that “Women already show their proficiency with scientific content in fields like biology and medicine. They make […]
The Good Times ends our series on new and not so new technologies that benefit mankind with this short video, courtesy of the World Economic Forum, on three ways the world of sports is using artificial intelligence. Featured image: Artificial intelligence (Flickr, Attribution 2.0 Generic – CC BY 2.0)
Batteries power our daily lives. From communications and information technology in phones and laptops, to mobility in cars, motorcycles, and scooters, and beyond, most electronic objects have a battery-powered version. While this has many positive impacts, what we do with the batteries in these objects at the end of their lives still needs some work. […]
The news is full of stories about how plastics are further encroaching into even the most remote regions of the Earth, the latest example being the discovery of microplastics in fresh Antarctic snow, probably the result of traveling through the atmosphere. While the news is indeed dire and the need to curb the production and […]
It looks a bit like a beehive, this 3D printed home located in Massa Lombarda, a town in northern Italy near Ravenna. It took a large 3D printer about 200 hours spaced out over a few months to print this 60-square-meter (645-square-foot) house that looks like no other. Certainly it is not the only 3D […]
In 1900, a group of sponge divers found the Antikythera wreck off Point Glyphadia on the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the wreckage was the oldest example of an analogue computer – a hand-powered orrery, or mechanical model of our solar system that predicts the positions and motions of the planets and moon, including eclipses. […]
A new tool will help future communities become fairer and easier to manage equitably. It’s called a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO. In simple terms, “a DAO is just a way to organize people towards a collective aim.” Based on the blockchain (“a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking […]
