Today’s Solutions: May 05, 2024

Technology

There has been no era like ours for the rapid development of technology. Stay updated on the hottest trends and advancements from all over the world.

Silhouette of person smelling whisky.

This e-nose can detect fraudulent whisky

Unless you are a whisky enthusiast, it’s pretty hard to pick out a great whisky purely from the smell. Most people rely on the drink’s label to tell the good from the bad or the ugly. The alcoholic beverage is one of the most popular worldwide, and with some labels charging hundreds (sometimes Read More...

Happy Earth Day

Love and Action: Happy Earth Day!

“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” — Marshall McLuhan, philosopher   As far as we know, Earth is the best place in the Universe.  The search for life beyond our planet and even our solar system is ongoing, and one day we could very well make the Read More...

bird's eye view of large solar park in Greece

Greece is home to Europe’s largest double-sided solar farm

In April 2022, the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis inaugurated an enormous two-sided 204-megawatt solar park—the biggest system in all of Europe. The installation of this bifacial solar farm is part of Greece’s aim to double its installed capacity from renewables to approximately 19 Read More...

3D illustration of a protein similar to NRPS machines.

Bacterial enzymes may be the future of medicine

We may think of machines as nuts, bolts, and maybe a CPU. Microorganisms, though, create many proteins and enzymes which perform a very machine-like function. A famous example of this is CRISPR-Cas9, which was originally an evolutionary adaptation observed in microorganisms. While Read More...

Baby red gas giant

Astronomers spot the beginnings of a “baby gas giant”

We can take up astronomy now, buy a good telescope, and go out on the right night to look up at the sky and marvel at the gaseous planets of our own solar system. These are of course Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. However, we average enthusiasts would need some different equipment, and Read More...

Solar panel at night

Nocturnal solar panels: not an oxymoron

While trying to do the impossible might seem like magical thinking, in many cases, it is simply science that hasn’t broken through yet. In the case of solar panels, it might seem counterintuitive to try to use them at night. This too, though, has been proven possible.  An engineering team Read More...

The spider climbs on the web.

Study: Spiders use their webs to hear

The Optimist Daily recently reported on how spiders use electricity to fly by hopping on electric fields for a ride. If you ask us, that’s pretty cool. Now we wanted to share a new study, from Binghamton University, that has revealed more intriguing secrets about these eight-legged Read More...

German Energy Indpendence

Germany accelerates schedule to become carbon neutral

People are more animated than ever before for green energy and calling on their governments to aim bigger. And it seems like they're listening. With increasing gas prices from the war in Ukraine and scientists' warnings about climate change, governments realize the need for a speedier change to Read More...

Virtual Reality Therapy

Virtual reality therapy helps those with agoraphobia

We’ve all spent a little too long inside before, especially with the pandemic restrictions of the last couple of years, and maybe we were a little nervous to rejoin public spaces. For those with agoraphobia — an anxiety disorder where someone can feel particularly fearful in public spaces — Read More...

Plastic recycling

This chemical treatment makes plastic waste absorb CO2

A huge focus of research in scientific fields is to make things more efficient. This can mean simplifying designs, and reducing energy consumption, or it can mean doing two things at once. In the case of researchers from Rice University, they are doing two things at once in what they’re calling a Read More...