Flow batteries have the potential to help store energy on a large scale, but there are a few issues still to overcome. Stanford engineers have developed a new type of flow battery that might be scalable, safe, efficient and inexpensive, using a metal mixture that remains liquid at room temperature.
Continue Reading
Saturn’s moon Titan is one of the most interesting bodies in the solar system – but at a glance it looks like a dull yellow ball, thanks to a soupy atmosphere. Now, using 13 years’ worth of infrared data from Cassini, astronomers have stitched together the clearest images yet of Titan’s surface.
Continue Reading
Archaeologists have opened the giant black sarcophagus discovered in the city of Alexandria a few weeks ago. Three skeletons were found inside – as well as a tepid pool of sewage.
Continue Reading
Limiting the expansion, and ultimate ubiquity, of the Internet of Things has been the cost, power and size of the enabling electronics – all things that have been addressed by a new fabrication method for tiny, thin-film electronic circuits.
Continue Reading
The International Chronostratigraphic Chart has officially been revised. That means our current point in Earth’s geological timeline has been updated so that we’re now living in the Meghalayan age, which began 4,200 years ago with a two-century drought that destroyed several civilizations.
Continue Reading
As a lung infection, the most direct route to treat pneumonia would be inhalable drugs. Now researchers at Georgia Tech have made a step towards that goal, with breathable viruses that hunt down and kill disease-causing bacteria in the lungs.
Continue Reading
By their nature, stars burn bright – so when they start dimming and fading, scientists pay attention. Now, astronomers have observed a strangely-twinkling star and found that it might be the result of a collision between proto-planets orbiting it, and the star gobbling up the remains.
Continue Reading
A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket lifted off from the company's Texas launch site at 10:11 am CDT on July 19. On its ninth test flight, engineers studied how the launch system operates on the edge of its design envelope.
Continue Reading
We've all heard about ancient insects getting preserved in amber (fossilized tree resin), with similarly-preserved items including dinosaur feathers, mammalian red blood cells and a bizarre spider. Now, for the first time, scientists have found an amber-encased prehistoric snake.
Continue Reading
Astronomers at the Paranal Observatory in Chile have achieved first light with a cutting-edge adaptive optics mode for the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), designed to remove interference caused by Earth’s atmosphere.
Continue Reading
See the stories that matter in your inbox every morning