Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines are developing a new aerospace engine class that combines both jet and rocket technologies. They call it the greatest advance in propulsion since the jet engine which will help potentially revolutionizing hypersonic flight and dramatically reducing the cost of space access. SABRE, which stands for Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine, is designed to enable aircraft to operate from a standstill on the runway to hypersonic flight in the atmosphere, and then tra...

AquaFresco provides the state-of-the-art filtration technology which regenerates 95% of laundry wastewater. Three MIT grad students have invented a washing-machine filter that cleans wastewater and reuses it over and over again. “Washing machines are one of the major sources of detergent pollution in rivers,” Huang says. “Current laundry technology is not sustainable. A regular washer discards the water right into the drain after one usage, but less than 1 percent is the actual waste component.”...

A new robot created by researchers at the University of Bristol has the mission of cleaning ponds and lakes. Powered by the microbes it scoops up from the water and digests, it doesn't need any recharging to keep going. The Row-bot is inspired by the water boatman insect and uses a similar mechanism to glide across the surface of water, in the robot's case, a paddle powered by a 0.75 Watt DC motor. Both bug and robot maximize surface area when making a power stroke and then minimize surface area...

Amazon Echo is a wireless speaker and voice command device from Amazon.com. The device consists of a 9.25-inch (23.5 cm) tall cylinder speaker with a seven-piece microphone array.[1] The device responds to the name "Alexa"; this "wake word" can be changed by the user (to one other choice at present: "Amazon").[2] The device is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, set alarms, stream podcasts, play audiobooks, provide weather, traffic and other real time information. I...

Researchers at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana are studying Ants to come up with new ways to get rid of them. One of the most common house ant species might have been built for living in some of the smallest spaces in a forest, but the ants have found ways to take advantage of the comforts of city living. Grzegorz Buczkowski, a Purdue University research assistant professor of entomology, found that odorous house ant colonies become larger and more complex as they move from forest...

Intellectual Ability and Heritability Many researchers have studied how our intellectual abilities are affected by genetics. Most believe that a large number of genes each play a small role in our intellectual abilities, but it is difficult to isolate and identify these genes. Imagine you have a number of necklaces with 20,000-25,000 similar beads strung together. Now imagine you are looking for 3,000 specific beads on each necklace, but you're not sure what they look like or even if they ...

Parts produced by some commercial 3D printers may be toxic according to a new study that raises concerns about how to dispose of parts and waste materials from the devices which are becoming increasingly popular. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside studied two common types of 3D printers, one that melts plastic to build a part, and another that uses light to turn a liquid into a solid part. They found that parts from both types of printers were measurably toxic to zebrafish em...

The brain of the house is Intel’s new Internet of Things Platform for connecting and controlling smart devices. It basically allows you to control all of a home’s systems from a single tablet app which you can swipe a slider to adjust the thermostat, change the color and brightness of the home’s lighting, and even open the door for a repairman while you’re away. Older non-connected appliances can also be controlled using smart outlets. All of the systems respond to voice control, and the platfor...

This amazing, interactive, world map from Falling Fruit is a map that charts known fruit trees on publicly accessible land, and as an added bonus, you and your family can add your own finds to the map and share your knowledge of where to forage local food with the world. Technology has dramatically changed our life even our way of eating. We would post the food we eat on social media and we even use applications to know where the best place to chow down is. An interactive crowd-sourced map ca...

Scientists from the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) and University of Pisa in Italy have developed an anthropomorphic robot that can use human tools and interact with its surrounding environment in the same way as a human. The researchers hope that the robot, colloquially known as Walk-Man, will find use in search and rescue situations that are too dangerous for humans to engage in. Lead researcher Nikos Tsagarakis believes Walk-Man will be well accommodated in ...

A new study has found that fish have emotions. The study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that zebrafish responded to stress by an increase in body temperature, or what it known as an “emotional fever.” It’s been suggested that such a thing only exists in mammals, birds and reptiles, but the new research proves otherwise. Scientists placed six zebrafish groups in tanks divided by plexiglass into six chambers, each containing water of a different temperature. Each tank w...

A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless is proposing a radical new way to generate wind energy .Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as conventional wind turbines, to turn breeze into kinetic energy that can be used as electricity but it goes about it in an entirely different way. When wind passes one of the cylindrical turbines, it shears off the downwind side of the cylinder in a spinning ...

LuminAID develops innovative, solar-powered products for humanitarian relief aid and outdoor recreation. The company’s first product, the LuminAID light, is a solar-powered, inflatable lamp that packs flat and inflates to create a lightweight, waterproof lantern suitable for outdoor recreation and emergency situations. The LuminAID light has been sold to individuals in more than 30 different countries, and outreach projects with NGO partners have put more than 10,000 donated lights on-the-ground...

The Mediterranean fruit fly, or medfly, is an invasive species that is now endemic to Western Australia. The female medfly “stings” fresh fruit and then lays her eggs in the puncture site. The hatching larvae then feast on the decomposing fruit. A British bioengineering firm called Oxitec has created genetically modified medflies that, when released into the environment, could mate with wild fruit flies and pass on a gene that would prevent their female offspring from reaching adulthood which wo...

US scientists have bred a genetically modified mosquito that is incapable of spreading malaria to humans, according to reports. A gene editing technique called Crispr was used to alter the genetic makeup of the insect, making it resistant to Plasmodium falciparum, one of the parasites that causes malaria in humans. Crucially, the GM mosquitoes passed on their anti-malarial DNA strain to 99.5% of their offspring, raising the prospect of the altered species being released in the wild one day to co...

Genome sequencing confirms that myxozoans, a diverse group of microscopic parasites that infect invertebrate and vertebrate hosts, are actually “highly reduced” cnidarians, the phylum that includes jellyfish, corals and sea anemones. “This is a remarkable case of extreme degeneration of an animal body plan,” said Paulyn Cartwright, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at KU and principal investigator on the research project. “First, we confirmed they’re cnidarians. Now we need...

According to a study published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, a team of researchers led by Bas Oldenburg, MD, PhD, University Medical Center Utrecht, analyzed data on 1,273 IBD patients (34% Crohn’s disease, 63% ulcerative colitis, and 3% unclassified) who had experienced a total of 4,327 surveillance colonoscopies between January 1, 2000 and January 1, 2014. Surveillance is recommended for patients with long-term inflammatory bowel disease because they have an incre...

Li-fi is a new means of delivering data using visible spectrum as against the radio waves used by most other methods. This new technology has already been tested in a functional office. What makes Li-fi stand apart is the astonishing speed at which can deliver access to the internet, often 100 times faster compared to Wi-fi at a mind-boggling speed of 1Gbps. You need a light source similar to an LED bulb, a photo detector and an internet connection to use Li-fi. The visible spectrum of light use...

This miracle berry that grows in West Africa contains Miraculin, a glycoprotein which was first extracted back in 1968. The local population knew the effects for much longer and chewed the fruit pulp to make sour maize bread tastier. The surface of our tongue is covered by a multitude of different receptors to detect tastes from sweet to umami. Just like sugar and artificial sweeteners like aspartame, the miraculin in the berry binds to your sweet taste receptors, but far more strongly. The acid...

Chen Levin has designed a small dishwasher powered by human kinetic energy that can fit in even the smallest of spaces. It is estimated that 75 percent of the global population will live in urban areas by 2050. While this urbanization presents great opportunities, it will be an enormous challenge to ensure that energy and space is distributed efficiently and equitably for who will call the city their home. This Independent dishwasher will hopefully help meet the demands of a dense urban future. ...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the chief cause of death and disability among children and adults from 1 to 44 years of age in the United States, leading to more than two million emergency department visits annually. A brain protein is thought to be the source of long-term cognitive impairments in those who have had seemingly mild, concussion-type head injuries, and a blood test may one day be available to predict such damage. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of...

This was the finding of a study led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD, and published in the journal Environmental Research. Previous research has already established that the DNA of cord blood from newborns is altered if the mother smokes during pregnancy. The difference is not in the genetic code itself but in the presence of "epigenetic" marks left on the DNA at 26 locations of the genome. Epigenetic markers are molecules that attach to genes and influence the...

Lighting is something that we take for granted in the developed world, but there are still many areas around the globe where people lack reliable access to light at night. Around one-fifth of the world’s population has no access to electricity. They often use kerosene lamps, which contribute to indoor pollution and have to be refilled with oil regularly. Also they are bad for the environment and human health. To solve this problem, an engineering start-up called SALt(Sustainable Alternative Ligh...

ANAMORPHIC ILLUSIONS Creating and Printing Your Own Anamorphic Illusions ANAMORPHIC ILLUSIONS a form of an optical illusion. If you’re looking for something fun and creative to do and want to spend some quality time with your printer, anamorphic illusions are just the thing for you. An anamorphic illusion is an optical illusion whose effect is based on the viewing angle; in other words what seems like a perfectly normal, two-dimensional printed image becomes a stunning, three-dimensional imag...

Stress is a common trigger for many health condition. Stress and anxiety sometimes make you feel short of breath and may cause your asthma symptoms to become worse. You cannot avoid stress; it is part of daily life. However, developing effective ways to manage stress and learning to relax can help you prevent shortness of breath and avoid panic. The physical effects of stress and a gush of emotions can act as asthma triggers. When people cry or get anxious and upset, breathing becomes hard...

Researcher have revealed the ultimate window one that can block out sound, but let fresh air in. It could be the answer to any city dweller's dreams. The double glazed windows have holes designed to let air in but block the most annoying frequencies. That tends to be the range of artificial sounds, leaving the natural sounds in the 0-500 Hz range largely undisturbed. After sending sound waves of 80 decibels, which is louder than a vacuum cleaner, through both windows, the pair discovered that th...

Over the past couple of hundred years, the strength of the Earth’s geomagnetic field has been waning, leading scientists to wonder if our planet’s polarity is on the verge of flipping. A new study suggests this won’t happen in the near future and that the intensity of today’s field is uncharacteristically strong. Predicting a geomagnetic flip is important for two primary reasons, one biological, one technological. The Earth’s magnetic field deflects solar wind and cosmic rays, so with a weakened...

There are more jeans in the world than people. That sparked an idea in the mind of University of Sheffield chemist Tony Ryan. Why not use people’s penchant for wearing denim to help purify the air? With thoughts of reducing pollutants such as the nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds emitted by vehicles, power plants, residential heating, cooking and various consumer products, Ryan, in partnership with former fashion designer Helen Storey, came up with the concept of “Catalytic Clothing...

Ants are well-known for building with their bodies, but a new study has shown that army ants can optimize traffic flow using bridges that move. Army ants are a predatory nomadic species, they raid other insect colonies and are always on the move, without a permanent nest. In this lifestyle, finding the shortest foraging path with sufficient workforce left over is crucial. The new research shows they adjust their bridges to find that balance. A gap in an ant’s path might be a daunting obstacle fo...

In an international study, Northwestern Medicine scientists and colleagues have identified a novel strategy for reducing the side effects of uncontrolled movement caused by the drug levodopa, commonly used to treat the stiffness, tremors and poor muscle control of Parkinson’s disease. These unwanted movements caused by levodopa significantly diminish the quality of life for Parkinson’s disease patients. A team lead by D. James Surmeier, PhD, chair and Nathan Smith Davis Professor of Physiology f...