Technology

By Stephanie Pappas A new “tractor beam” can levitate large objects in midair, using only sound. So far, researchers have floated spheres as large as 0.6 inches (16 millimeters) in diameter and moved orbs as large as 0.8 inches (2 cm) on a tabletop using tornadoes of sound waves. Theoretically, vortices made by an array …

By Nola Taylor Redd After 13 years in the Saturn system, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft had become an icon. The probe’s data and imagery reshaped scientists’ understanding of the ringed planet and its 60-plus moons, and brought Saturn’s beauty and mystery to the masses all over the world. All of that storied work came to an end on Sept. 15, 2017, …

By Laura Geggel How do intercontinental ballistic missiles — including the one North Korea launched Tuesday (Nov. 28) that flew more than 10 times higher than the International Space Station — work? The answer depends on the type of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), but most of these rockets launch from a device on the ground, travel …

By Davide Castelvecchi On 15 November, Argentina’s Navy lost contact with the ARA San Juan, a small diesel-powered submarine that had been involved in exercises off the east coast of Patagonia. About a week later, on 23 November, the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) announced that its International Monitoring System — a network of sensors designed …

By Pam Belluck For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a digital pill — a medication embedded with a sensor that can tell doctors whether, and when, patients take their medicine. The approval, announced late on Monday, marks a significant advance in the growing field of digital devices designed to monitor …

By Edwin Cartlidge Limited funding and a dearth of newly discovered particles are forcing physicists to cut back plans for their next major accelerator project: a multibillion-dollar facility known as the International Linear Collider (ILC) in Japan. On 7 November, the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA), which oversees work on the ILC, endorsed halving the machine’s …

By Mike Wall Uber’s planned “flying cars” will navigate crowded city skies with some help from NASA, if everything goes according to plan. The space agency has signed an agreement with Uber to help develop an air-traffic-control system for the flying-car project, which goes by the name Uber Elevate or UberAir, according to USA Today. “UberAir …

By Brandon Withrow What has improved American lives most in the last 50 years? According to a Pew Research study reported this month, it’s not civil rights (10 percent) or politics (2 percent): it’s technology (42 percent). And yet, according to other studies, most Americans are wary of technology, especially in areas of automation (72 percent), or robotic …

By Mika McKinnon Cosmic rays may have just unveiled a hidden chamber within Egypt’s most famous pyramid. An international team led by Kunihiro Morishima at Nagoya University in Japan used muons, the high-energy particles generated when cosmic rays collide with our atmosphere, to explore inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid without moving a stone. Muons can penetrate deep into rock, and get …

By Robert F. Service 3D printing has taken the world by storm, but it currently works best with plastic and porous steel—materials too weak for hard-core applications. Now, researchers have come up with a way to 3D print tough and flexible stainless steel, an advance that could lead to faster and cheaper ways to make everything …

By Alexandra Witze Hawaii’s board of land and natural resources granted a fresh construction permit to the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on 28 September, reviving the fortunes of the US$1.4-billion observatory — at least temporarily. The permit moves the international project closer towards restarting construction near the summit of the Hawaiian mountain of Mauna Kea. Some …

By Heidi Ledford Gene-edited human embryos have offered a glimpse into the earliest stages of development, while hinting at the role of a pivotal protein that guides embryo growth. The first-of-its-kind study stands in contrast to previous research that attempted to fix disease-causing mutations in human embryos, in the hope of eventually preventing genetic disorders. Whereas those studies raised …