Hi-Tech News

Around 4.4 billion people worldwide still lack reliable access to safe drinking water. Newly designed, thin floating films that harness sunlight to eliminate over 99.99% of bacteria could help change that, turning contaminated water into a safe resource and offering a promising solution to this urgent global challenge.... Read more

Concrete already builds our world, and now it's one step closer to powering it, too. Made by combining cement, water, ultra-fine carbon black (with nanoscale particles), and electrolytes, electron-conducting carbon concrete (ec3, pronounced "e-c-cubed") creates a conductive "nanonetwork" inside concrete that could enable everyday structures like walls, sidewalks, and bridges... Read more

A team of engineers from Polytechnique Montréal report a new and unique parachute concept inspired by the Japanese art of kirigami today in Nature. This simple, robust and low-cost approach has a wide variety of potential applications ranging from humanitarian aid to space exploration.... Read more

OpenAI and South Korean tech conglomerates Samsung and SK on Wednesday announced partnerships to provide chips and other solutions for Stargate, a $500 billion project aimed at building infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence.... Read more

Roads are subject to heavy wear from traffic and environmental factors. Over the long term, these things add up to cracks and other defects in the asphalt. Micro-cracks and damage to deeper layers cannot be detected by the naked eye, however.... Read more

New research led by the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (GZ) and Queen Mary University of London, could redefine how we interact with everyday tools and devices—thanks to a novel method for printing ultra-thin conductive microfibers.... Read more

A team of engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has announced the creation of an artificial neuron with electrical functions that closely mirror those of biological ones. Building on their previous work using protein nanowires synthesized from electricity-generating bacteria, the team's discovery means that we could see immensely efficient... Read more

Researchers have developed the first binder-free method for 3D printing glass, using light to trigger a chemical reaction that directly forms silica structures without the need for organic additives or extreme heat. This breakthrough makes glass printing faster, cleaner, and more precise, with the potential to revolutionize fields from optics... Read more

From texting on a smart phone to ordering train tickets at a kiosk, touch screens are ubiquitous and, in most cases, relatively reliable. But for people who are blind or visually impaired and use electronic braille devices, the technology can be vulnerable to the elements, easily broken or clogged by... Read more

In the near future, you may not need to touch a keypad to select a tip or pay for large purchases. All it may take is a swipe, tap or other quick gesture.... Read more

UBC researchers have launched the world's first mushroom-powered waterless toilet, the MycoToilet, at the UBC Botanical Garden. The prototype turns human waste into nutrient-rich compost using mycelia—the root networks of mushrooms—and features a modern, sustainable design that can be dropped into parks, remote communities and areas without plumbing.... Read more

A traditional digital camera splits an image into three channels—red, green and blue—mirroring how the human eye perceives color. But those are just three discrete points along a continuous spectrum of wavelengths. Specialized "spectral" cameras go further by sequentially capturing dozens, or even hundreds, of these divisions across the spectrum.... Read more

Inside the microchips powering the device you're reading this on, the atoms have a hidden order all their own. A team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and George Washington University has confirmed that atoms in semiconductors will arrange themselves in distinctive localized patterns that change the material's... Read more

People are increasingly turning to software to design complex material structures like airplane wings and medical implants. But as design models become more capable, our fabrication techniques haven't kept up. Even 3D printers struggle to reliably produce the precise designs created by algorithms. The problem has led to a disconnect... Read more

A Texas A&M University chemical engineering professor is helping chart the path for micro light-emitting diode displays—known as micro-LEDs—that could transform how future electronic devices are experienced.... Read more