The anti-plastic movement is evolving from recycling. Its goal is to support an emerging industry and corresponding lifestyle shift that will grow strong in the next decade. There are movements under way that indicate the public is beginning to consider the collective plastic footprint as well as our carbon footprint. Some areas where growth will...
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Looming shortage of key minerals
An international team of scientists from five continents is warning of a looming shortage in key minerals used to make electronic and green energy technologies. The team studied supply-and-demand forecasts and lead times in finding and developing new sources of supply for minerals such as copper and iron ore, as well as for rare earth...
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Many of these materials, both base and exotic, can’t be replaced by substitutes in the devices in which they’re used. A shortage of these minerals could cause the price of electronic devices to rise and could curtail the manufacture of solar cells and other green energy systems. Investors able to play a long game can...
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Controlling robots with your mind
A human-robot mind-meld has been created by engineers at Boston University at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The researchers used a simple robot with arms, and programmed it to learn on the fly. Then they ran wires from the robot’s controls to electrodes attached to a person’s head. The electrodes picked up electrical signals generated...
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Enabling people to control robots by intuitive thought opens new worlds for people who are paralyzed or unable to speak. It also brings us closer to a science-fiction future in which robots do our bidding by reading our minds.
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Pulling water out of thin air
MIT scientists have devised a way to distill water out of air, even air without much humidity in it, using no energy other than the sun’s. The team uses a box filled with a powdery material that absorbs air into its microscopic pores. When the box is heated – by sitting in sunlight, for example...
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An estimated one-third of the world’s people live in regions with low humidity. As droughts become more frequent and widespread, and groundwater becomes more scarce, air-to-water technologies will become a crucial part of the global water harvest.
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Genetically engineered robots?
Bioengineers at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana have built prototypes of living robots – and they’ve just shared their blueprint in a journal so other scientists can build their own. The researchers genetically engineered a line of muscle cells that would contract in the presence of blue light, then 3D-printed the cells in rings that...
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With advances in micro-engineering and nanotechnology, the biobots could be among the first living robots to enter the body to perform biopsies or deliver targeted drugs.
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Researchers are looking for petroleum substitutes as well as ways to reduce or recycle food waste. This project is an example of new research directions that use nontoxic organic waste as feedstocks or ingredients in manufactured products.