The exponential growth of technology has once again delivered a smorgasbord of fascinating stories to our pages in 2021, and what better way to distill the most interesting among them than to take a look at your favorites. Here's this year's 10 most read New Atlas science and technology articles, topped by an 800-foot-high wind turbine and featuring, in a sober nod to the times we live in, a study into the phenomenon of Zoom fatigue.
Popular stories 2021
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![The bigger the wind turbine, the better the production and the economics. Hence, they're scaling up to ludicrous proportions.]()
August 22, 2021China's MingYang Smart Energy has announced an offshore wind turbine even bigger than GE's monstrous Haliade-X. The MySE 16.0-242 is a 16-megawatt, 242-meter-tall behemoth capable of powering 20,000 homes per unit over a 25-year service life. -
![Two particles ready to collide with one another]()
June 09, 2021A subatomic particle has been found switching between matter and antimatter, in Large Hadron Collider data. It turns out an unfathomably tiny weight difference between two particles could have saved the universe from annihilation soon after it began. -
![A single Windcatcher floating offshore grid could power 80,000 European homes at grid-parity prices]()
June 07, 2021Norway's Wind Catching Systems has made a spectacular debut with a colossal floating wind turbine array it says can generate five times the annual energy of the world's biggest single turbines – while reducing costs to be immediately competitive. -
![The Lavo home hydrogen battery is not a battery, it's an electrolysis system, hydrogen storage array and fuel cell power system rolled into one attractive cabinet]()
January 22, 2021Australian company Lavo has debuted a hydrogen production, storage and conversion system for the home. It stores up to two days' worth of energy from your rooftop solar – and should outlast a lithium battery by many years. So what's the catch? -
![A new study explores the common recent trend of Zoom Fatigue and suggests some ways to avoid exhaustion from a day of videoconferencing]()
February 23, 2021A new study from Stanford University is investigating the very modern phenomenon of "Zoom Fatigue." The research suggests there are four factors that make videoconferencing so uniquely tiring, and some simple solutions that could reduce exhaustion. -
![A new material could find applications in medical implants and aerospace components in advanced aircraft like that being developed by Raytheon]()
June 11, 2021Australian researchers have created what may be one of the most thermally stable materials ever discovered. This remarkable advanced material, made of scandium, aluminum, tungsten and oxygen, doesn't change in volume at all between 4 and 1,400 Kelvin. -
![The newly discovered Nano-Chameleon (Brookesia nana) is the smallest known reptile in the world]()
January 31, 2021A tiny new species of chameleon has been discovered, and it may be the smallest reptile in the world. Known as Brookesia nana, or the nano-chameleon, the petite species can perch on a fingertip and may have the smallest adult males of any vertebrate. -
![A new study has shown how microplastics can infiltrate the blood brain barrier of mice]()
November 23, 2021Scientists in Korea have turned their attention to the effects of microplastics on mammals by exploring the threat these particles pose to mouse brains and human cells, where they were found to act as toxic substances. -
![Quantum computing on the desktop... And soon even in mobile devices]()
September 27, 2021An Australian/German company is developing powerful quantum accelerators the size of graphics cards. They work at room temperature, undercutting and outperforming today's huge, cryo-cooled quantum supercomputers, promising industry-wide disruption. -
![UCF researchers have successfully fired up a new hypersonic detonation engine that harnesses the raw power of a sustained, trapped explosion. The new engine could power aircraft up to 17 times the speed of sound.]()
May 12, 2021UCF researchers say they've trapped a sustained explosive detonation, fixed in place, for the first time, channeling its enormous power into thrust in a new detonation engine that could propel a hypersonic aircraft up to 17 times the speed of sound.
