Buzzwords like autonomy, artificial intelligence, electrification, and carbon fiber are common in the automotive industry, and it’s no surprise that they are hot topics: Manufacturers are racing to gain an advantage over competitors while balancing cost and demand. What might surprise you, however, is just how much 180-year-old agriculture equipment giant John Deere uses these […]
How fast is supersonic flight, and why does it create sonic booms?
To fly at supersonic speeds is to punch through an invisible threshold in the sky. Rocketing through the air at a rate faster than sound waves can travel through it means surpassing a specific airspeed, but that exact airspeed varies. On Mars, the speed of sound is different from the speed of sound on Earth. […]
Seals provided inspiration for a new waddling robot
It might be difficult to see at first, but if you squint just right, you can tell the latest animal-inspired robot owes its ungainly waddle to seals. Researchers at Chicago’s DePaul University looked at the movements of the aquatic mammal and its relatives for their new robot prototype—and while it may look a bit silly, […]
Watch NASA’s bizarre and bulbous Super Guppy cargo plane touch down in Alabama
After over half a century of loyal service, the world’s last remaining Super Guppy aircraft continues to dutifully transport NASA’s gigantic rocket parts in its cavernous, hinged cargo bay. On Tuesday, the Huntsville International Airport posted a video and accompanying images to social media of the rotund plane arriving from Kennedy Space Center. Perhaps somewhat […]
How a quantum computer tackles a surprisingly difficult airport problem
At first glance, quantum computers seem like machines that only will exist in the far-off future. And in a way, they are. Currently, the processing power that these devices have are limited by the number of qubits they contain, which are the quantum equivalent of the 0-or-1 bits you’ve probably heard about with classical computers. […]
Name a better duo than NASA’s hard-working Mars rover and helicopter
On April 19, 2021, a little more than a century after the Wright Brothers’ first test flight on Earth, humans managed to zoom a helicopter around on another planet. The four-pound aircraft, known as Ingenuity, is part of NASA’s Mars2020 exploration program, along with the Perseverance rover. The dynamic duo made history again this month, […]
Watch a heavy-lifting drone land a perfect delivery on an offshore wind turbine
An autonomous drone with the wingspan of an albatross is now trialing cargo restocks for a giant offshore wind farm in the North Sea. Overseen by the Danish wind power company Ørsted, the 128-pound unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—roughly the weight of “a large baby giraffe”—is meant to cut down on time and costs, while also […]
New AI-based tsunami warning software could help save lives
To mitigate the death and disaster brought by tsunamis, people on the coasts need the most time possible to evacuate. Hundred-foot waves traveling as fast as a car are forces of nature that cannot be stopped—the only approach is to get out of the way. To tackle this problem, researchers at Cardiff University in Wales […]
Cloud computing has its security weaknesses. Intel’s new chips could make it safer.
Intel and Google Cloud have just released a joint report detailing a months-long audit of a new security feature on Intel’s latest server chips: Trust Domain Extensions (TDX). The report is a result of a collaboration between security researchers from Google Cloud Security and Project Zero, and Intel engineers. It led to a number of […]
Arctic researchers built a ‘Fish Disco’ to study ocean life in darkness
During the winter, the Arctic doesn’t see a sunrise for months on end. Although completely immersed in darkness, life in the ocean goes on. Diurnal animals like humans would be disoriented by the lack of daylight, having been accustomed to regular cycles of day and night. But to scientists’ surprise, it seems that even the […]