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At number 20 on IE’s 22 best innovations of 2022, we take a look back at this intimate invention.

Can you imagine kissing someone you love long distance? As sci-fi films have showcased this is one innovation that is desired by many. In May of 2022, Carnegie Mellon University’s Future Interfaces Group released a new invention that consists of a headset that can achieve just that.

This impressive achievement was done using ultrasonic transducers.

Ibrahim Can/Interesting Engineering.

More specifically, the headset recreates the sense of touch on a wearer’s face — for example, a kiss on the mouth — without adding any parts that actually cover that area.

Continue reading “This virtual reality headset allows you to kiss over long distances” | >

Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission returned the sample to Earth in December 2020.

Japan’s asteroid mission Hayabusa2 returned a piece of the asteroid Ryugu to Earth almost two years ago now, and that sample is still revealing valuable insights into the history of the early solar system.

A study by a group of scientists from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Paris Cité and CNRS1 has just revealed the isotopic composition of zinc and copper of asteroid Ryugu, a press statement reveals.

The new findings shed new light on the chemical composition of the asteroid Ryugu, which was targeted precisely because it can reveal a great deal about the early Solar System.

Wikimedia Commons.

A study by a group of scientists from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Paris Cité and CNRS1 has just revealed the isotopic composition of zinc and copper of asteroid Ryugu, a press statement reveals.

Continue reading “Asteroid sample mission reveals more about Earth’s mysterious origins” | >

The technology could help make EVs more affordable as well as easier to charge.

A collaboration between researchers at the Yokohoma National University in Japan and the University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia has led to the development of a new electrode material that can be used in solid-state batteries. Thus the electrode doesn’t diminish after multiple charges and discharge cycles and can help in manufacturing durable batteries for electric vehicles.

As the world is turning over to electric modes of transportation in its bid to reduce carbon emissions, the battery has become a focal area of development.

Black_Kira/iStock.

While high charging times make the shift to electric vehicles unattractive, as the crucial component, the battery must also be cheap enough to encourage EV adoption. Although progress has been made in developing lithium-ion batteries, solid-state batteries (SSBs) have also gained traction as an alternative.

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Prefixes that stand for 27th and 30th powers of 10 were required due to the frequent creation of data.

At the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in November, measurement experts and government representatives from all over the world voted to add new prefixes to the International System of Units (SI), announced the United Kingdom’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL).

So, as an extension of the metric system, the International System of Units (SI), a global decimal system of weights and measurements, was suggested by the United Kingdom’s National Physical Laboratory.

iStock.

Scientists have been searching for new prefixes to represent their infinitesimally small and inconceivably vast results as the study of size continues to expand toward the extremes, both in terms of the greatest numbers and the tiniest numbers.

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“I wouldn’t want to be on the team figuring out how to build a Jupiter-sized spacecraft, but the odds aren’t zero.”

A team of scientists believes we may be able to detect alien spacecraft flying through distant solar systems using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US.

Though the scientists from Applied Physics, a research institute in New York, concede that gravitational wave (GW) detection is “in its infancy”, they also say it is “a sophisticated science” that could be used to “detect extra-terrestrial mega-technology,” in a paper available in pre-print server arXiv.

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Achieving a long-sought goal of regenerative medicine.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, (UCSF) engineered molecules that function as “cellular glue,” enabling them to precisely direct how cells bond with each other. This is a significant step toward regenerative medicine’s long-term goal of creating new tissues and organs, according to a press release.

Adhesive molecules are naturally present in the body and keep the tens of trillions of cells together in organized patterns. They build neural networks, develop structures, and direct immune cells to specific areas of the body. Adhesion also makes cell communication easier to maintain the body functioning as a self-regulating whole.

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Could video streaming be as bad for the climate as driving a car? Calculating Internet’s hidden carbon footprint.

We are used to thinking that going digital means going green. While that is true for some activities — for example, making a video call to the other side of the ocean is better than flying there — the situation is subtler in many other cases. For example, driving a small car to the movie theatre with a friend may have lower carbon emissions than streaming the same movie alone at home.

How do we reach this conclusion? Surprisingly, making these estimates is fairly complicated.

ATHVisions/iStock.

This is remarkable given that we have been able to estimate quite accurately phenomena that are much more complex. In this case, we would only need quantitative information – the electrical energy and the amount of data used – that can be determined with great accuracy. The current situation is not acceptable and should be addressed soon by policymakers.

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The Japanese are reliable partners in this mission.

Even before NASA’s Artemis I mission successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, NASA chief Bill Nelson was preparing for the next phase of the mission, of sending crewed missions to the Moon. In an interview with Nikkei.

While details on how the spacecraft performed during its 25.

Getty Images.

While details on how the spacecraft performed during its 25.5-day trip are still not public, an incident-free launch and recovery mean that NASA can largely stick to its schedule for sending crewed missions next and landing on the Moon before 2026. The last time U.S. astronauts went to the Moon, they were competing with Russia. This time around, it is China that is looking to achieve the same goals.

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FTX’s fallen CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, is scheduled to testify tomorrow as a witness before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services.

The committee is investigating the events that led up to FTX’s implosion, which resulted in the crypto exchange filing for bankruptcy last month. Prior to Bankman-Fried testifying, John J. Ray III, the new CEO of FTX, will speak to the House during its first panel.

The hearing, “Investigating the Collapse of FTX, Part I,” sounds like a movie title — and some parts of it probably feel like one, given how crazy this whole situation has become. But questions surrounding what really happened at FTX may remain unanswered; even though Bankman-Fried is scheduled to testify, there are still concerns he may get cold feet.

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Overnight, news broke that the National Ignition Facility, a U.S. government research lab, was the first to achieve net-positive nuclear fusion. When lasers hit the tiny fuel pellet, it created an explosion that released more energy than the lasers delivered.

For decades, fusion power has been just around the corner. Is this the moment we’ve all been waiting for?

Maybe.

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