Researchers at ETH Zurich have made a significant breakthrough in building artificial muscles that can be manipulated using ultrasonic sound waves. The technology is based on a silicone base material that has been molded into thin, flexible membranes with teeny small pores on one side, each around 100 micrometers across. Each of these holes contains a tiny air pocket, which forms a trapped bubble.
The expression “lightning in a bottle” has long been linked with poets and visionaries. Yet, one creator has really gotten it off, using a particle accelerator and a clear two-inch acrylic cylinder to generate the image of lightning: branching electric patterns frozen in a tube, glowing with captured energy.
Radiant Nuclear just finished a fundraising round totaling more than $300 million. Investors contributed funds to bring the startup’s compact, movable nuclear reactors one step closer to being something you might use every day, which is precisely what the California-based firm has been striving toward. They’ve got some breathing room now to actually make it happen, as this fresh investment comes just a few months after a previous round that brought in $165 million, helping Radiant reach the half-billion-dollar threshold.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a planet that is unlike anything we’ve ever seen, far beyond our solar system. They named it PSR J2322-2650b, and it has some fairly weird features for where it is. This planet is orbiting a pulsar, which is essentially the spinning remnant of a big star that went supernova. According to the scientists, its shape resembles a lemon, although one that has been stretched out by its host’s gravitational pull.
Photo credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU Boulder
Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed a novel material that can affect how humans deal with heat simply by applying it to everyday surfaces such as windows. Physicists led by Ivan Smalyukh developed something dubbed MOCHI, which stands for Mesoporous Optically Clear Heat Insulator. MOCHI is a silicone-based gel that you may apply to a glass surface in the form of a thin sheet or even a slab.
Soft robots have long been considered the underdogs of the robotics world. They’re comprised of flexible materials that bend and stretch in ways that seem startlingly similar to living flesh, allowing them to fit into tight areas and handle delicate goods with far more care than a stiff bot could. The only hitch is that without a good method to see where they’re going, these adaptable machines slog along, half-blind and relying on cumbersome add-ons that kind of contradict the idea of their pliable design.
Photo credit: 2025 CREATE Lab EPFL CC BY SA
In a small quiet lab tucked away in the Swiss countryside, a team of engineers has figured out a method to repurpose discarded langostino lobster shells into grippers that can pick up pens or tomatoes with amazing ease. These aren’t the conventional metal claws you see attached onto assembly lines; instead, they employ the leftovers from seafood dinners, combining biology’s trash with a few basic mechanical adjustments to make tools that bend and hold like something very much alive.
Drake Anthony, the mastermind behind the wildly successful StyroPyro YouTube channel, has a reputation for turning household oddities into objects of raw, utterly unexpected power. In his most recent jaw-dropping project, he takes an ordinary incandescent bulb and transforms it into an electrical powerhouse that give even a small power station a run for its money. This 24,000-watt monster is one of the biggest bulbs you’d ever want to try to use in your home.
In the soft glow of the operating room at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, Dr. Michael Mimouni locked in a moment of suspense that would be remembered for a lot longer than the time he spent in that room. October was rolling into November in 2025, and on the 29th, his team accomplished something incredible: the world’s first transplant of a fully 3D-printed corneal implant manufactured from actual living human cells.
Archivists and technologists have been looking for a way to keep data forever, but their efforts have proven ineffective. That all changes now with Atlas Data Storage’s Eon 100, a technology that converts regular files into DNA strands. This all comes at a time when everyone is battling to keep up with the enormous volume of data we’re producing – and the Eon 100 appears to be a serious competitor in this fight.