Technology

Clean tech, engineering breakthroughs and space exploration

The Technology section covers clean tech, engineering breakthroughs, space exploration, desalination, advanced materials and green innovation. Inventions and cutting-edge projects that could help solve environmental challenges and change everyday life.

Buoys carrying the Prat undersea internet cable ashore on a beach in Arica, Chile, with a ship offshore

Chile is turning 2,175 miles of undersea internet cable into an earthquake sensor, and a study found it can size a quake five seconds after the first waves

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 30, 2026 at 3:30 PM

Julian Jauk, Milena Stavric and Kristijan Ristoski in front of the TU Graz ceramic cooling wall made of 3D-printed clay cubes

Engineers in Austria stacked 3D-printed clay cubes into a ceramic cooling wall that soaks up water, and in a hot attic one cube cooled the air beside it by almost 12.6°F

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 27, 2026 at 5:01 PM

Battleship Wisconsin at its Norfolk pier with the Crofton tug Huntsman at the bow and a Crofton crane barge alongside

A tugboat and a crane barge helped move the 45,000-ton Battleship Wisconsin about five feet off its Norfolk pier, its first move since 2000, so crews could replace the fender cushioning its hull

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 26, 2026 at 3:01 PM

Multistory buildings on concrete pillars line a mountain river in Yanjin County, Yunnan, home of the so-called world’s narrowest city

In Yunnan’s Yanjin, the so-called world’s narrowest city squeezes homes into a river valley that narrows to about 98 feet, and the famous 400,000 population figure actually covers the whole county, not the town

By ECONEWS

—

October 23, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Inexpensive blue pigment copper phthalocyanine on carbon converting CO2 into methane, with a chart of its 79.5% Faradaic efficiency

In Japan, researchers led by Tohoku University used an inexpensive blue pigment to turn carbon dioxide into methane with 79.5% Faradaic efficiency, and methane selectivity stayed above 60% for about 80 hours

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 22, 2026 at 5:03 PM

Village of Rășinari in Sibiu County, Romania, near the Valea Dobra magnesium deposit, with wooded hills behind

A company won a mining license for a magnesium deposit it estimates at more than 50 million metric tons near Rășinari, in Romania’s Sibiu County, and the EU gets 97 percent of its magnesium from China

By ECONEWS

—

October 22, 2026 at 12:31 PM

Masahiro Hara, the DENSO WAVE engineer who created the QR code in 1994

At Japan’s car parts shipping sites, workers read about 10 barcodes per product until DENSO’s Masahiro Hara created the QR code in 1994, and it now tracks glass eels for an expected 10,000 traders a year

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 20, 2026 at 6:31 AM

The Pegasus drone launching from its catapult in Queensland

Pegasus, a 16-foot-wide drone built by three Australian companies, flew for almost 2 hours over Queensland on a single lithium-sulfur battery pack, and its makers now expect missions of 5 to 8 hours

By ECONEWS

—

October 14, 2026 at 10:16 AM

Aerial view of Lake Peigneur and Jefferson Island in Louisiana

Louisiana’s Lake Peigneur emptied into a salt mine within hours in 1980 while a Texaco rig drilled on the lake, and about 50 miners escaped, but federal investigators never pinned down the exact cause

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 11, 2026 at 5:02 PM

Aerial view of the Ultium Cells battery plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee

GM and LG will mass-produce LMR battery cells in Tennessee and add 500 jobs

By ECONEWS

—

October 9, 2026 at 6:33 PM

Large vacuum chamber and laser equipment at an experimental station of a high-power laser facility

Physicists fired a laser at the plastic used in drink bottles and recovered nanodiamonds just 3 nanometers wide, after each shot hurled about 10 trillion of them at more than 22,000 mph into a soft gel

By ECONEWS

—

October 6, 2026 at 6:27 PM

Rows of solar panels cleaned by Ecoppia robots

Robots built by the Israeli company Ecoppia roll along desert solar panels every night and brush off the dust without a drop of water, saving about 2.6 billion gallons so far, according to the company

By ECONEWS

—

October 5, 2026 at 11:49 AM

Three sarcophagi in a vaulted marble chamber, with a gray-green stone sarcophagus on the left

Norway’s King Harald V now lies in a boat-shaped sarcophagus carved from olivine, a green Norwegian rock that can bind CO2, but no one has measured how much carbon the royal tomb will actually take up

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 5, 2026 at 8:46 AM

A wall-mounted computer built from hundreds of vacuum tubes arranged in a cross shape next to a tall yellow numeric display

A retired hobbyist built a vacuum tube computer from 460 recycled 1950s tubes, and the 8-bit machine needs about 10 minutes to stabilize and, in his words, heats the entire room

By ECONEWS

—

October 5, 2026 at 6:31 AM

Coated steel samples held by a researcher

University of Queensland engineers made a coating that releases rust-fighting molecules where it is damaged, and lab tests showed corrosion over 600 times slower than some top paints

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 1, 2026 at 6:33 PM

Autonomous underwater vehicle being prepared for launch at a test event

Anduril’s three-ton Dive-LD underwater robot lets seawater flood through its outer body to survive depths of 6,000 meters, can operate for up to 10 days and is now being developed for tasks ranging from military missions to inspecting offshore wind cables on the seafloor

By Adrian Villellas

—

September 26, 2026 at 3:02 PM

SpaceX Starship rocket standing on its launch mount before a test flight

SpaceX recovered Ship 40 after its 171-foot Starship upper stage survived reentry, splashed down in the Indian Ocean and spent about 24 days at sea, giving engineers the first largely intact spacecraft of its kind to inspect for clues hidden in its battered heat shield

By ECONEWS

—

September 25, 2026 at 10:13 AM

Autonomous underwater vehicle being lowered into the sea from a ship

A 132-pound underwater robot surveyed North Sea drilling sites without a dedicated survey ship, and its developer says the system cut costs by up to 92% while producing detailed seabed maps in water more than 100 meters deep

By Adrian Villellas

—

September 23, 2026 at 12:35 PM

Geodesic Cinerama Dome theater on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood

Hollywood’s iconic Cinerama Dome closed during the pandemic in 2020, but Sony is now restoring the 1963 landmark built from 316 interlocking concrete panels and plans to reopen it in early 2028 with its famous curved screen and midcentury character intact

By ECONEWS

—

September 22, 2026 at 12:34 PM

Lava and ash cloud from the La Palma volcano at night above the town lights

Scientists recreated magma from La Palma’s 2021 Tajogaite eruption and found that extreme heating could delay crystal formation from about 20 minutes to more than eight hours, keeping the magma fluid for longer and potentially helping produce towering lava fountains

By ECONEWS

—

September 21, 2026 at 3:04 PM

Technology

Chile is turning 2,175 miles of undersea internet cable into an earthquake sensor, and a study found it can size a quake five seconds after the first waves

Engineers in Austria stacked 3D-printed clay cubes into a ceramic cooling wall that soaks up water, and in a hot attic one cube cooled the air beside it by almost 12.6°F

A tugboat and a crane barge helped move the 45,000-ton Battleship Wisconsin about five feet off its Norfolk pier, its first move since 2000, so crews could replace the fender cushioning its hull

In Yunnan’s Yanjin, the so-called world’s narrowest city squeezes homes into a river valley that narrows to about 98 feet, and the famous 400,000 population figure actually covers the whole county, not the town

In Japan, researchers led by Tohoku University used an inexpensive blue pigment to turn carbon dioxide into methane with 79.5% Faradaic efficiency, and methane selectivity stayed above 60% for about 80 hours

A company won a mining license for a magnesium deposit it estimates at more than 50 million metric tons near Rășinari, in Romania’s Sibiu County, and the EU gets 97 percent of its magnesium from China

At Japan’s car parts shipping sites, workers read about 10 barcodes per product until DENSO’s Masahiro Hara created the QR code in 1994, and it now tracks glass eels for an expected 10,000 traders a year

Pegasus, a 16-foot-wide drone built by three Australian companies, flew for almost 2 hours over Queensland on a single lithium-sulfur battery pack, and its makers now expect missions of 5 to 8 hours

Louisiana’s Lake Peigneur emptied into a salt mine within hours in 1980 while a Texaco rig drilled on the lake, and about 50 miners escaped, but federal investigators never pinned down the exact cause

GM and LG will mass-produce LMR battery cells in Tennessee and add 500 jobs

Physicists fired a laser at the plastic used in drink bottles and recovered nanodiamonds just 3 nanometers wide, after each shot hurled about 10 trillion of them at more than 22,000 mph into a soft gel

Robots built by the Israeli company Ecoppia roll along desert solar panels every night and brush off the dust without a drop of water, saving about 2.6 billion gallons so far, according to the company

Norway’s King Harald V now lies in a boat-shaped sarcophagus carved from olivine, a green Norwegian rock that can bind CO2, but no one has measured how much carbon the royal tomb will actually take up

A retired hobbyist built a vacuum tube computer from 460 recycled 1950s tubes, and the 8-bit machine needs about 10 minutes to stabilize and, in his words, heats the entire room

University of Queensland engineers made a coating that releases rust-fighting molecules where it is damaged, and lab tests showed corrosion over 600 times slower than some top paints

Anduril’s three-ton Dive-LD underwater robot lets seawater flood through its outer body to survive depths of 6,000 meters, can operate for up to 10 days and is now being developed for tasks ranging from military missions to inspecting offshore wind cables on the seafloor

SpaceX recovered Ship 40 after its 171-foot Starship upper stage survived reentry, splashed down in the Indian Ocean and spent about 24 days at sea, giving engineers the first largely intact spacecraft of its kind to inspect for clues hidden in its battered heat shield

A 132-pound underwater robot surveyed North Sea drilling sites without a dedicated survey ship, and its developer says the system cut costs by up to 92% while producing detailed seabed maps in water more than 100 meters deep

Hollywood’s iconic Cinerama Dome closed during the pandemic in 2020, but Sony is now restoring the 1963 landmark built from 316 interlocking concrete panels and plans to reopen it in early 2028 with its famous curved screen and midcentury character intact

Scientists recreated magma from La Palma’s 2021 Tajogaite eruption and found that extreme heating could delay crystal formation from about 20 minutes to more than eight hours, keeping the magma fluid for longer and potentially helping produce towering lava fountains

Westminster Abbey’s Roman stone coffin was made for a Londoner named Valerius Amandinus in the fourth century, yet the man inside died between 987 and 1052, and the Abbey’s archaeologist has narrowed him down to two Saxon abbots

BirdCast tracked 1.25 billion birds over the US on the night of October 8, 2025, and most bird migration happens after dark, where city lights can pull flocks off course

Morocco built the Noor solar complex to keep the lights on after sunset, and the World Bank says a cracked molten salt tank at its 820-foot tower caused two long outages

Goodbye to the solar bike path: the Netherlands paved a cycle lane with solar panels that reportedly made 9,800 kilowatt-hours in a year, and the weak spot was the surface cyclists rode on

NASA tomato seeds stranded in orbit after the Challenger disaster ended up with 3.3 million students, and the plants they grew were not the mutant tomatoes many of them hoped for

Satellites counted 39,619 icebergs stuck in place around Antarctica, and the small grounded icebergs that surveys usually overlook may be holding coastal sea ice together like posts in a picket fence

Antarctica has its own soil bacteria just as it has its own penguins, with 90 percent of the strains scientists tracked found nowhere else on Earth, and lab tests revealed something odd about them

In Abauntz Cave in northern Spain, archaeologists have found the first Neanderthal remains ever identified in Navarre, six bones from a man’s right hand dated to about 46,000 years ago, and at first nobody realized they were human

Technology

Latest Post

Get the most relevant environment stories as soon as we publish them

Sections

Our editions

Contact