A spaceship-like vessel glides silently through the Arctic’s icy heart but it’s just the Tara Polar Station, a floating laboratory that will spend the next 20 years to discover the Arctic Ocean’s secrets. Built to withstand temperatures as low as -52°C and the crushing pressure of shifting sea ice, this platform will change how we study one of Earth’s most isolated and critical ecosystems.
A company from Oxfordshire, England has turned the electric vehicle industry on its head. YASA, a leader in axial flux motors, has unveiled a prototype that pumps out 550kW—738hp—from a tiny 13.1kg (28.9lb) package. With a power-to-weight ratio of 42kW/kg it’s more than double the best in the business.
In a Shenzhen factory, a humanoid robot named Walker S2 walks to a charging station, removes its own battery and installs a new one in about 3 minutes. UBTECH Robotics claims it’s the world’s first humanoid robot to master autonomous battery swapping.
Columbia University’s latest engineering project is straight out of a sci-fi novel, but it’s based on a simple idea: what if robots could grow, heal and adapt by absorbing parts from other robots? They call it “robot metabolism” and it flips traditional robotics on its head, from stiff, electricity-driven machines to robots that act like living organisms, using materials from their environment to evolve.
Photo credit: NASA / Carla Thomas
The X-59 rolled out of the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works hangar in Palmdale, California on July 10, 2025 and is now taxiing on its own power for the first time. This is the final step before flight for the NASA Quesst mission aircraft. Central to the Quesst mission is the X-59 which will change the way we think about supersonic travel and potentially open the skies to commercial aviation.
Joby Aviation is disrupting urban travel, and charging towards a future where electric air taxis are real. The California company has announced a major expansion, doubling production at its Marina, California facility and opening a new plant in Dayton, Ohio. With a sixth aircraft already in the skies and a solid plan to grow, Joby is positioning itself as the leader in redefining city mobility.
In the vast expanse of New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, a DARPA team fired invisible light 5.3 miles and made history. They transmitted 800 watts of power, or enough to run a small appliance or light up a campsite, via a laser beam to a receiver that turned it back into electricity. For 30 seconds, the system held firm, transferring over a megajoule of energy. They even popped popcorn with some of that power, a playful tribute to the 1985 film ‘Real Genius’.
LG’s StanbyME 2 is out now, and it’s redefining what a TV can do. First shown at CES 2025, this 27-inch touchscreen display follows you wherever you go, whether you’re watching movies at home or turning a café table into a digital art gallery.
Rubber is everywhere—tires, seals, gloves, even the soles of our shoes. It’s flexible, strong and essential but it has a problem: it cracks easily. Once a crack appears it grows and ruins the material. A team at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has created a new natural rubber that’s 10 times tougher and better at stopping cracks than anything we’ve seen.
