If you’ve been following environmental news over the past couple of decades, you’ve probably heard about PFAS – those pesky “forever chemicals” that seem to turn up everywhere from drinking water to polar bear blood. They’re bad for us, and we know it, but they’ve been leeching into the environment for decades, often as a […]
Today in material science news we have a report from [German Science Guy] about a new supermaterial which is as strong as steel and as light as Styrofoam! A supermaterial is a type of material that possesses remarkable physical properties, often surpassing traditional materials in strength, conductivity, or other characteristics. Graphene, for example, is considered […]
Genetic defects are exceedingly common, which is not surprising considering just how many cells make up our bodies, including our reproductive cells. While most of these defects have no or only minor effects, some range from serious to fatal. One of these defects is in the CPS1 gene, with those affected facing a shortened lifespan […]
To paraphrase The Simpsons: plastics are the solution to – and cause of – all of mankind’s problems. Nowhere is this more clear in the phenomenon of microplastics. Some have suggested that alternative bioplastics made out of starch, like PLA, could be the solution here, as the body might be able to digest and disassemble […]
Here’s one for our astronomy geeks. Our hacker [arrow] has made their own observatory! This particular video is a bit over ten minutes long and is basically a montage; there is no narration or explanation given, but you can watch clear progress being made and the ultimate success of the backyard facility. Obviously the coolest […]
Electrostatic droplet capture system installed on an HVAC condenser. (Credit: Infinite Cooling) As a common feature with thermal power plants, cooling towers enable major water savings compared to straight through cooling methods. Even so, the big clouds of water vapor above them are a clear indication of how much cooling water is still effectively lost, […]
Regular vs gene-edited spider silk with a fluorescent gene added. (Credit: Santiago-Rivera et al. 2025, Angewandte Chemie) Continuing the scientific theme of adding fluorescent proteins to everything that moves, this time spiders found themselves at the pointy end of the CRISPR-Cas9 injection needle. In a study by researchers at the University of Bayreuth, common house […]
Although the idea of containing a plasma within a magnetic field seems straightforward at first, plasmas are highly dynamic systems that will happily escape magnetic confinement if given half a chance. This poses a major problem in nuclear fusion reactors and similar, where escaping particles like alpha (helium) particles from the magnetic containment will erode […]
Normal people binge-scroll social media. Hackaday writers tend to pore through online tech news and shopping sites incessantly. The problem with the shopping sites is that you wind up buying things, and then you have even more projects you don’t have time to do. That’s how I found the MAKE-roscope, an accessory aimed at kids […]
Fabrication of uranium-based components via DLP. (Zanini et al., Advanced Functional Materials, 2024) Within the nuclear sciences, including fuel production and nuclear medicine (radiopharmaceuticals), often specific isotopes have to be produced as efficiently as possible, or allow for the formation of (gaseous) fission products and improved cooling without compromising the fuel. Here having the target […]