Birds have long inspired humans to create their own ways to fly. We know that soaring bird species that migrate long distances use thermal updrafts to stay in the air without using up energy flapping their wings. And glider pilots similarly use thermals currents and other areas of rising air in order to remain airborne for longer.

For several years, civil society groups have been calling for a ban on what they call “killer robots”. Scores of technologists have lent their voice to the cause. Some two dozen governments now support a ban and several others would like to see some kind of international regulation.

Most Americans use rare earth elements every day – without knowing it, or knowing anything about what they do.

New research sheds light on why computers are so bad at a class of tasks that even young children have no problem with: determining whether two objects in an image are the same or different.

Why do batteries die? And, why can they only be recharged so many times before they won’t hold a useful amount of charge? My young son asked me about that years ago when his battery-powered toy car stopped moving, wondering about what he called an “everlasting battery.” And this same question has probably crossed the mind of every cellphone user trying to send one last text before the screen blinks off.

The 50,000 ships sailing the sea at any one time have joined an ever-expanding list of objects that can be hacked. Cybersecurity experts recently displayed how easy it was to break into a ship’s navigational equipment. This comes only a few years after researchers showed that they could fool the GPS of a superyacht into altering course. Once upon a time objects such as cars, toasters and tugboats only did what they were originally designed to do. Today the problem is that they all also talk to the internet.

Spring construction season is underway, and many tons of concrete will be used in the coming months. Unfortunately, concrete is a brittle material: Placed under stress, it cannot bend very far before it fractures. Some pavements that are being poured now will crack within a few years and require expensive repairs. New concrete will be mixed, and the cycle will start again

Researchers have demonstrated how infrared laser pulses can shift electrons between two different states, the classic 1 and 0, in a thin sheet of semiconductor. The technique could help to solve a major issue with quantum computing.

A new water-based battery could provide a cheap way to store wind or solar energy for later, researchers say.

If wearing a virtual reality or augmented reality headset is ever to become commonplace, hardware manufacturers will need to figure out how to make the devices small and lightweight while ensuring their images are sharp and clear. Unfortunately, this task faces a key limitation in optics: Conventional lenses are curved glass objects that focus different wavelengths of light in different locations, which would show viewers blurry images. As a result, pretty much anything with a lens – from tiny smartphone cameras to large-scale projectors – uses multiple lenses, which add weight, thickness and complexity, increasing cost.

The first Thursday in May is World Password Day, but don’t buy a cake or send cards. Computer chip maker Intel created the event as an annual reminder that, for most of us, our password habits are nothing to celebrate. Instead, they – and computer professionals like me – hope we will use this day to say our final goodbyes to “qwerty” and “123456,” which are still the most popular passwords.