Israeli company Green Kinoko is preparing for the first public tests of a remarkable clean outdoor cooling system. The Kinsho system operates like the inverse of an outdoor cafe heater, cooling several tables per unit without using any electricity. The secret: liquid nitrogen. Standard tanks holding this frigid liquid at -196 °C (-321 °F) are loaded into the coolers, and […]

While greenhouses produce wastewater that may contain pollutants, microalgae-growing operations require a source of water – which is scarce in many regions. A new project aims to address both problems, by growing water-purifying algae in readily available greenhouse runoff. Although greenhouses can recycle their own irrigation runoff, the water may contain nitrogen, phosphorous or other nutrients which were applied to the crops. […]

There are now a number of systems in which “good” drones are used to disable “enemy” drones, such as those conducting spying missions. A new system takes a safer approach to the task, in that the captured drones don’t simply plummet to the ground. In many existing drone-vs-drone systems, the defending drone shoots a net at the enemy drone. The latter drone’s […]

Scientists have developed an efficient new way to convert methane into methanol at room temperature. The technique could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide a cleaner way to make key products. While carbon dioxide gets most of the attention, it’s not the only greenhouse gas changing the Earth’s climate. Methane is emitted in smaller amounts but is 34 times […]

Engineers at the University of Vienna have developed a new composite material that makes an efficient filter for removing organic pollutants from water. The system uses super-porous “nano-sponges” embedded on a sheet of graphene. The key to the new filters is a class of material called covalent organic frameworks (COFs). These structures are extremely porous, giving them a massive surface area contained […]

Scientists have improved on the natural process of photosynthesis, not only growing plants more efficiently, but doing so in the dark. This could expand agriculture to areas that don’t get enough sunlight, and even help feed future space explorers. As you may recall from elementary school science class, photosynthesis is where plants absorb energy from sunlight and use it to […]

Our first encounter with extraterrestrial life isn’t likely to be a spaceship landing on the White House lawn, but tiny fossils in the rocks of another planet. To aid in that search, scientists at the University of Hawaii at M?noa have developed a portable device called the Biofinder that can highlight organic residue in fossils tens of millions of years […]