Technology

First-ever visualizations of electrical gating effects on electronic structure could lead to longer-lasting devices in the future!

Electronic structure of a semiconductor device – how it behaves when voltage is applied – visualized for the first time. Insights from the technique will help development of high performance electronics with low power consumption. This will help to to pave the way for two dimensional semiconductors in future electronics

Four ways blockchain could make the internet safer, fairer and more creative

Four ways blockchain could make the internet safer, fairer and more creative

The internet is unique in that it has no central control, administration or authority. It has given everyone with access to it a platform to express their views and exchange ideas with others instantaneously. But in recent years, internet services such as search engines and social media platforms have increasingly been provided by a small number of very large tech firms.

Commercial supersonic aircraft could return to the skies

Flying faster than the speed of sound still sounds futuristic for regular people, more than 15 years after the last commercial supersonic flights ended. The planes that made those journeys, the 14 aircraft collectively known as the Concorde, flew from 1976 to 2003. It traveled three times faster than regular passenger aircraft, but the airlines that flew it couldn’t make a profit on its trips.

Very cool: The ESA’s SpaceBok Robot Will Hop Its Way Around Low-Gravity Worlds

The ESA is helping a group of students from Zurich test and develop their hopping exploration robot. Called SpaceBok, the robot is designed to operate on low-gravity bodies like the Moon or asteroids. It’s based on the concept of ‘dynamic walking’, something that animals on Earth use.