In our technology-dominated world, it’s easy to forget the human minds that gave rise to the devices and digital tools that permeate everyday life. And the women behind those innovations are often the first to be forgotten. Whether you realize it or not, you owe women inventors a big thank you for creating many of […]
The World’s Hottest Engine Is Smaller Than a Cell and Hotter Than the Sun’s Corona
Technically speaking, an engine is a device that converts some form of energy into mechanical energy. Taking that definition to heart, physicists harnessed the strange rules of microscopic physics and created the hottest engine ever—which also happens to be the smallest engine ever made. In a forthcoming paper for Physical Review Letters, researchers describe a […]
This Monster Centrifuge Just Hit 300 Times Earth’s Gravity
To study extreme phenomena, scientists need some extreme equipment. In its second engineering breakthrough within the week, China has unveiled the world’s largest centrifuge—a device using centrifugal force to separate substances—and it’s just the first of even more powerful machines planned for construction. On September 29, Chinese media announced that the Centrifugal Hypergravity and Interdisciplinary […]
Watch a Reconstructed 250-Year-Old Robotic Painting Bring a Fiery Mount Vesuvius Back to Life
Sir William Hamilton was the British ambassador to the court of Naples and Sicily from 1765 to 1800, as well as a passionate volcanologist. During his time in Italy he must have seen Mount Vesuvius erupt a number of times—certainly enough to leave a lasting impression. So much so that in 1775 he designed a […]
How Super-Strong ‘Metal Foam’ Could Transform Space Travel and Defense
What’s as strong as steel, as light as aluminum, and capable of withstanding ballistic impact, fire, and radiation? Metal foam. Over a decade ago, engineer Afsaneh Rabiei of North Carolina State University invented Composite Metal Foam (CMF)—a material made of hollow metal “bubbles” embedded in steel, titanium, aluminum, or other alloys. From air and space […]