Photo credit: Konstantin Makarenko | Skoltech via SCMP
Scientists from Northeastern University in Shenyang in China have developed a new kind of steel that is not only extremely strong, but also stretchable. A fingernail-sized piece can reportedly hold up a 2-ton car without facturing, thanks to its ability to stretch by up to 25%. Creating this material required the team to melt raw alloyed material at 650-800&Deg; degrees Celsius and let it air cool, resulting in the special structure.
China Customs discovered that a woman was trying to smuggle a batch of semiconductor chips and iPhones when attempting to cross from Macau into Zhuhai on November 25th. When questioned, the woman stated that she was around 5-6 months pregnant, despite her bump being the size you’d typically see in the third trimester (27 to 40 weeks).
Photo credit: Tengden
Though not as practical as the EHang EH216 manned drone for law enforcement purposes, the Scorpion D does take the title of world’s first four-engine large drone, and it just completed its maiden flight in China. This twin-tailed, unmanned aerial vehicle is capable of transporting heavier payloads, thanks to 20-meter fixed wings equipped with four engines.
Researchers from Chengdu’s Southwest Jiaotong University are testing the world’s first maglev car that uses magnetic propulsion on a raised track in east China’s Jiangsu province. Put simply, they modified a normal vehicle with a permanent magnet array and then installed a corresponding conductor rail on 4.8-miles (7.8-kilometers) of road, resulting in magnetic levitation.
While Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster is on its way to Mars, the SSC SC-01 electric sports car is ready to take on the all-new second generation model in China. The Small Sports Car (SSC) SC-01 will arrive in 2023, powered by two electric motors in the front and back, generating a combined 429 hp, enabling it to hit 62 mph in a zippy 3.9-seconds.
Photo credit: Xinhua | Jin Liwang
Chinese scientists might be busy building an artificial moon right here on Earth, but earlier this week they announced the discovery of a new mineral found in lunar samples retrieved from the Chang’e-5 mission. Officially named Changesite-(Y), this mineral looks like a colorless transparent columnar crystal and found in lunar basalt particles by a research team from the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology.
Scientists have built Red Rail, the world’s first maglev ‘Sky Train’ that uses magnets to float without power. Located in in southern China’s Xingguo county, Jiangxi province, this experimental 2,600-foot Red Rail boasts powerful magnets that produce a constantly repelling force strong enough to lift a train with 88 passengers in the air, even without a power supply.
Shanghai-based AutoFlight recently completed yet another successful test flight of its ‘Prosperity’ electric vertical takeoff and landing air taxi. The eVTOL in production form will be able to safely transport four passengers up to 155-miles on a single charge while cruising at 124 mph. This unmanned prototype took the company approximately 3-months to build and already has over two dozen flights under its belt.
DeepRoute.ai successfully tested their self-driving SUV with Level 4 autonomy in Shenzhan, China without human intervention. It comes equipped with Driver 2.0, a production-ready L4 solution that consists of five solid-state LiDARs, eight cameras, and a computing platform integrated with its proprietary inference engine.
China’s Tianwen-1 probe just transmitted high-resolution images of Phobos, a natural Martian satellite, thus marking the 2-year anniversary of the mission launch. Mars has two small natural satellites, Phobos and Deimos, with the former being the innermost. This potato-shaped object has a mean radius of 11 km and it orbits 6,000 km from the Martian surface in a near circular trajectory.