Researchers at the University of Toronto and Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology used machine learning to design a nano-material that is strong as steel and light as foam and can be 3D printed at the micro and nano scale.
Researchers at Stanford University and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals have developed a method of producing ammonia at room temperature and at standard atmospheric pressure, without electricity. Scaling up the technology would eliminate the need for the Haber-Bosch process, which contributes to 1.2% of global GHG emissions when producing the high pressure and high temperature needed during the process.
The Life Nieblas project in the Canary Islands uses a plastic mesh to imitate how pine needles trap water, and is used to milk the clouds of fog on the islands for water. The captured water is used to irrigate reforested tree saplings until they are big enough to capture water from the air themselves. The system is also used in Chile to provide drinking water and water for irrigation.
REMspace has successfully sent messages between two people while dreaming. Their system allowed a chat word to be injected into a lucid dream of a person, who responded with another word in their dream. Their response word was recorded bythe system and injected into a lucid dream of a second person, who confirmed the response word when they woke up!
Engineers at MIT have developed 3D printed glass bricks that are as strong as concrete blocks and can be stacked like lego as a building material. They can also be melted down and reused.
A new think tank focussed on helping solve housing, infrastructure, and innovation issues in Ireland has launched. In their founding essay, Progress Ireland describe how emulating solutions from other countries on problems that are important, tractable, and neglected, can be used to jump start Ireland's economic growing pains.
Inspired by Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest sculptures, Giliam de Carpentier built a walking pod coffee table, which is controlled wirelessly using a Wii remote. He also open-sourced the leg linkage design.
