On Tuesday, Virgin Atlantic flew a large passenger jet from London to New York using 100% "Sustainable Aviation Fuel" (SAF). The flight was meant to show that it's possible to fly using cleaner fuels, but experts disagree about the effects of SAF on the climate.
Published in “Technology”
As the world struggles to deal with the climate crisis, some companies are working to remove polluting carbon dioxide from the air. That's a huge and challenging goal, but two US companies have recently made important progress.
Hydrogen is a gas that burns cleanly and produces a lot of energy. It will play an important part in tackling the climate crisis. Until recently, producing hydrogen created pollution. Now, scientists say there may be large amounts of natural hydrogen hidden underground.
Roughly 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Now a group of scientists is working to decode one of the great mysteries of that time - the scrolls of Herculaneum.
A team of students in the Netherlands has designed and built a tough car that's completely powered by the sun. The car, called Stella Terra, is the first solar-powered car that can travel off-road for long distances without needing a recharging station.
October 14 was International E-Waste Day - a day meant to highlight the problems of electronic waste. This year, the day was focused on "invisible" e-waste - things most people don't think of as electronics. The surprising category at the top of this group was toys.
On Monday, the Nobel Prize in medicine was given to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman - two scientists whose work led to the development of mRNA vaccines. Their ideas about mRNA were a huge scientific breakthrough, and saved millions of lives during the coronavirus pandemic.
On Sunday, a capsule carrying samples of a distant asteroid landed safely in the desert in Utah. The samples, collected by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, are the largest amount of asteroid material ever returned to Earth.
On August 21, a cargo ship traveling from Singapore to Brazil became the first to try out a new kind of sail. The sail is expected to save fuel and cut pollution. If it works well, similar sails could become common on cargo ships over the next few years.
Recently, fans of self-driving cars have gotten some good news, followed by bad news. Two self-driving taxi companies were given permission to expand their work in San Francisco. But a string of accidents has led to new concerns about how safe the cars actually are.
A recent report from a United Nations group warns that using technology in classes may not help as much as many people believe. The report suggests that technology should be used less in schools, and that smartphones should be banned from classrooms.