Future Innovations

A flash of light lasting a fraction of a millisecond could help create better materials for solar energy. Researchers used ultrafast heating at rates of up to 10 million degrees Celsius per second to rearrange […]

The scales of a pine cone open in low humidity to scatter seeds but close in damp conditions to protect seeds from moisture. An artificial material with the same behavior could be useful in applications […]

On a sunny summer’s day, children build sandcastles on the beach. But behind every castle and crumbling dune lies a surprisingly difficult scientific problem. In fact, the physics of sand is not yet fully understood—which […]

MIT researchers have engineered bacteria that can function as transistors, allowing the team to create living “circuit boards” that can be printed onto a growth medium in a Petri dish.This post was originally published on […]

Many industrial processes, such as pasteurizing, dyeing and drying, need one thing above all: heat. Currently, factories often burn natural gas to reach the necessary temperatures. This reliance on fossil fuels remains a challenge in […]

In electronic devices, irregular fluctuations in signals are generally referred to as “noise.” Because noise interferes with accurate information processing, conventional semiconductor technology has mainly treated it as something to be reduced or eliminated.This post […]

Weaving is an ancient craft that is still practiced as a hobby by many people around the world. In recent years, it has found new life as more people have returned to hands-on making as […]

When air is blown across the neck of a bottle, it doesn’t just produce a pleasant tone: it also demonstrates a phenomenon called Helmholtz resonance. This occurs when airflow passing across an opening causes air […]

Photovoltaic panels generate electricity, solar thermal collectors provide heat, while cooling is usually supplied by air conditioning systems that themselves consume electricity. As a result, buildings require different technologies competing for the limited space available […]

Optical fiber has already transformed the modern world. New research now suggests it could do even more. A new flat-fiber fabrication technique produces a high-fidelity sensor for a wide range of applications, from batteries to […]