Every year for more than twenty years, TIME editors compile a list of the most impactful ideas and products. This year, the editors focused on categories such as AI, accessibility, robotics, and sustainability. The list is an amazing collection of inventions and innovations that have the potential to change the way we live.   Image credit: TIME Magazine     The 2023 list didn’t disappoint. It contains products with various levels of complexity, from a design that makes it easier for arthritis sufferers to brush their teeth, to NASA technology that helps pinpoint sources ..read more

A Boston-based startup developed a non-invasive treatment for Alzheimer’s disease that slowed Alzheimer’s disease patients’ cognitive delay by 83% and functional decline by 84% after just six months. It’s as easy as wearing a specialized set of goggles and a headset once a day for an hour. Does this sound too good to be true? According to the Boston Globe, that’s precisely what the medical device designed by Cognito Therapeutics demonstrated in a recent study. “We made Alzheimer’s patients look like non-Alzheimer’s patients,” Cognito chief executive Brent Vaughan told the Globe.   Cognit ..read more

Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), is a NASA space mission designed to test the planetary defense against near-Earth objects (NEOs). Last week, it crashed into Dimorphos, a small asteroid over 11 million km (7 million miles) away from Earth. This mission was designed to see if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid is an effective way to alter the asteroid’s course. Dimorphos was nowhere near Earth and posed no threat. In fact, there are no known Earth-threatening NEOs, but this technology could be deployed if one was discovered in the future.   This illustration is o ..read more

What is tiny, bright orange, and really bad at jumping? The answer is a small amphibian found in the mountainous forests of Brazil, aptly called pumpkin toadlets. These tiny frogs are barely a centimeter long at maturity and are (in)famous for their jumping skills. Image credit: Luiz F. Ribeiro   While frogs are typically known for their ability to clear large distances in a single jump, mainly as a means to escape predators, these tiny amphibians seem to lack the aerial skills needed to be a frog. Each jump results in an uncontrolled crash landing, as seen in the video below.   G ..read more

The Milky Way is a hazy, dare I say milky, band of light seen in the night sky. In 1610, Galileo Galilei used his telescope to show the light emanated from individual stars. In 1920, scientists first argued that the Milky Way does not contain all the stars in the Universe but is instead just one of many galaxies. Fast forward to last week, and humans saw the black hole at the center of our galaxy for the first time, thanks to advancements in science and technology and the global collaboration of researchers that support the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). According to Phys.org, “On Thursday, a ..read more

A decades-old nuclear research project uncovers proof that the Greenland ice sheet has melted before. During the 1960s, a US Army project called “Project Iceworm” set out to determine if a nuclear weapon facility could be built under the one-mile-thick ice of Greenland. They drilled into the ice sheet at Camp Century, through the entire depth, to determine if this was feasible.   Workers building the snow tunnels at the Camp Century research base in 1960. Image Credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers   Spoiler alert: It wasn’t The tunnels collapsed. But that does not mean the ...read ..read more

The airlines made their case to the FAA earlier this week, warning that the rollout of 5G service near airports could cause catastrophic disruption to both passenger flights and cargo shipments. “Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the traveling and the shipping public will essentially be grounded,” wrote the chief executives of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines among others in a letter first reported by Reuters. ...read more >> ..read more

Lightyear has had a great month. First, they announced that their prototype car drives over 440 miles (770 km) on a single charge.  And that’s on a battery charge of just 60 kWh. The Lightyear One prototype zipped around the test track with a little help from the big charging station in the sky. This power source is, on average, 93 million miles ( 149.6 million km) from Earth. Lightyear One Prototype on the test track. (Image credit: ...read more >> ..read more

What do you get when a psychology researcher and a visual artist collaborate? You get a visual illusion that boggles the brain, literally. When you look at the “scintillating starburst” below, do you see it? Do you see shimmering rays emanating from the center? Well, your brain is tricking you. They aren’t there! The “Scintillating Starburst.” (Image credit: Michael Karlovich/Recursia LLC) According to CNET, “The “Scintillating Starburst” is a cleverly arranged collection of star polygons created by ...read more >> ..read more

“I’m headed off to college to study raw sewage,” said no one, ever. At least, I doubt that’s what any science-savvy college freshman would plan as a major. But it turns out that sewage may be a key to tracking and stopping outbreaks of COVID-19 and other epidemics, and scientists are turning into “poop-sleuths.” That’s because people infected with COVID-19 shed traces of COVID in their waste. And, as The New York Times reported, “The coronavirus could turn sewage surveillance into a mainstream public health practice.” Image credit: Durham Radio News. Wastewater epidemiology According to the ..read more