Category: TRENDS IN HI-TECH SCIENCE

Microplastic—particles of plastic invisible to the unaided eye that remain when  plastic bottles, film, and similar objects decompose—have become part of the human diet, with the typical person ingesting around 100,000 of the bits each year (“Drinking the Bottle Along With the Water,” 10 Jul 2019). Studies have shown that, once in the body, the...

Harvard University scientists have linked a newly discovered hormone they’ve named fabkin to the onset of diabetes and found a way to neutralize it, preventing and even reversing the disease in mice. They found the new hormone by tracking a protein called FAB4 on its journey through the body. Fat cells release the protein into...

United Airlines will take delivery of 50 jet engines that will run on compressed hydrogen, the airline has announced, and has an option to buy up to 50 more. The zero-emission engines can be retrofitted onto smaller jets that fly regional or short-hop routes, and will serve as testbeds for the technology while engineers figure...

There may be a shortage of electronic components but there’s never a shortage of houseplants.  For certain tasks, plants could take components’ place. At Sweden’s Linköping University, researchers turned bean plants into electrical circuits by watering them with a solution containing a polymer called poly polystyrene sulfonate, which conducts electricity. Coated by the polymer, the...

Signals from dense 5G networks, the newest update of wireless communications technology, could scramble airplanes’ navigation equipment, especially altimeters, which tell pilots how far above the ground a plane is when pilots are unable to see the ground themselves due to clouds, fog, or other obstructions. The warning was issued by the U.S. Federal Aviation...

Materials engineers at the University of Hong Kong have developed a stainless steel alloy that permanently deactivated 99.75 percent of COVID virus on its surface within three hours and 99.99 percent within six hours, according to a study the group published in Chemical Engineering Journal. The alloy is 80 percent stainless steel and 20 percent...

At the Netherlands’ University of Twente, scientists have taken yet another step towards relieving a major worry of drivers thinking about owning an electric vehicle—waiting around for 20 or 30 minutes at a public charging station while your EV fuels up. No matter that a typical EV can run for two days or more on...

Microplastics—the small-to-invisible granular decay from plastic containers and packaging—literally cover the Earth, from the depths of the ocean to atop the Himalayas (“1,000 Tons of Plastic Dust Falls on National Parks Each Year,” 28 Jul 2020). Researchers have long known that these microscopic bits lodge in sea creatures’ bodies, weakening muscle structures, impairing cognition in...

At the University of California San Francisco, scientists have successfully tested an implantable artificial kidney that not only works like the natural organ but that also doesn’t require anti-rejection drugs. In the device, blood is filtered through silicon membranes that remove waste. The blood then flows into a bioreactor of engineered cells that skims out...