What is a futurist?

What is a futurist? What is this strange profession that dabbles in the future? It is 2am on a Wednesday morning. Rob, who is the CEO of a medium-sized tour operator based in California, is awake and incredibly worried. A … Continued

When Humans Are Sheltered in Place, Wild Animals Will Play

Goats in Wales; coyotes in San Francisco; rats, rats, everywhere: With much of the world staying home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, animals have ventured out where normally the presence of people would keep them away. Under the … Continued

Anti-solar panels can generate electricity at night

In order to develop solar panels that generate electricity at night, you just need them to operate in the exact opposite way solar panels work during the day. One of the problems with solar panels is that they don’t generate … Continued

Team Builds the First Living Robots

Tiny ‘xenobots’ assembled from cells promise advances from drug delivery to toxic waste clean-up A book is made of wood. But it is not a tree. The dead cells have been repurposed to serve another need. Now a team of … Continued

Scientists turn nuclear waste into diamond batteries

They’ll reportedly last for thousands of years. This technology may someday power spacecraft, satellites, high-flying drones, and pacemakers. Nuclear energy is carbon free, which makes it an attractive and practical alternative to fossil fuels, as it doesn’t contribute to global … Continued

Scientists set out how to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030

Greenhouse gas emissions could be halved in the next decade if a small number of current technologies and behavioural trends are ramped up and adopted more widely, researchers have found, saying strong civil society movements are needed to drive such change. … Continued

Organoids Are Not Brains. How Are They Making Brain Waves?

Clusters of living brain cells are teaching scientists about diseases like autism. With a new finding, some experts wonder if these organoids may become too much like the real thing. Two hundred and fifty miles over Alysson Muotri’s head, a … Continued

How scientists built a ‘living drug’ to beat cancer

IN 2010, EMILY Whitehead was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a cancer of certain cells in the immune system. THIS IS THE most common form of childhood cancer, her parents were told, and Emily had a good chance to beat it with … Continued

The Science Behind Eureka Moments

Aha experiences aren’t as serendipitous as you may think. Here’s how to proactively produce them. It’s the third century, B.C., and the King of Syracuse is suspicious. He has commissioned a new gold crown. But upon receiving the crown from … Continued

Shell Carbon-Capture Plant Hits 4 Million Ton Milestone Early

A Royal Dutch Shell Plc-operated carbon capture and storage project in Canada has hit a milestone of sequestering 4 million tons of carbon dioxide about six months ahead of schedule and at a lower cost than estimated, helped by better-than-expected reliability. … Continued

Humans Make Up Just 1/10,000 of Earth’s Biomass

Plants make up 80 percent, but human activity chopped that number in half over the last 10,000 years The human population on Earth is about 7.6 billion people (and counting). But according to a new global census of biomass, humans … Continued