Tech
- Agriculture
Fleets of drones could pollinate future crops
Chemist Eijiro Miyako turned a lab failure into a way to rethink artificial pollination.
- Tech
Virtual reality has a motion sickness problem
Virtual reality games and experiences can make some people sick, and women are more susceptible.
- Science & Society
Choosing the right cyberattack response is a complicated game
Public shaming or retaliation aren’t necessarily the best strategies in the world of cyber warfare, an analysis reveals
- Computing
Winning against a computer isn’t in the cards for poker pros
Poker-playing computers beat professional players at heads-up no-limit Texas Hold’em.
- Quantum Physics
Readers amazed by Amasia
Quantum spookiness, shifting landmasses and more in reader feedback.
- Planetary Science
Europa lander mission takes another step toward reality
NASA is working on a possible lander mission in which the main science goal would be to search for signs of life on Jupiter’s moon Europa.
- Astronomy
Citizen scientists are providing stunning new views of Jupiter
A camera aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft is giving citizen scientists a crack at discovering never-before-seen features of Jupiter.
- Computing
Speech recognition has come a long way in 50 years
Early versions of computer speech recognition relied on word sounds. Now, they add pattern recognition and a lot of statistics.
- Materials Science
Germanium computer chips gain ground on silicon — again
Having pushed silicon to its limit, engineers are turning back to germanium.
- Tech
Bat robot takes wing
Unlike other aerial robots that use whirling rotor blades to fly, the Bat Bot relies on soft, silicone-based wings to glide, swoop and turn.
- Tech
Legos inspire versatile fluid-filled devices
Tiny devices shuttle fluid around using reconfigurable Lego-like bricks.
- Tech
Heart-hugging robot does the twist (and squeeze)
A robotic sleeve that slips around the heart mimics the heart’s natural movement, squeezing and twisting to pump blood in pigs. If it works in humans, it could buy time for heart failure patients awaiting a transplant.
