Swiss EMPA researchers have developed the FireDrone, an extreme-heat-resistant UAV that withstands 392 °F temperatures using aerogel insulation and active cooling. It relays real-time thermal imagery to firefighters, revolutionizing safety and situational awareness in structural and industrial blazes.
MIT physicists at CERN have found the first direct proof that the early universe’s quark-gluon plasma flows like a liquid. By detecting wakes left by speeding quarks, Professor Yen-Jie Lee’s team confirms the trillion-degree “primordial soup” behaved as a near-perfect fluid in its first microseconds.
Aboard the International Space Station, NASA’s Chris Williams set the stage for a student robotics challenge using Astrobee helpers, while Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev conducted virtual reality balance research. The work advances orbital technology and studies human adaptation for future deep-space missions.
Chinese aerospace firm Adaspace Technology has deployed Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen-3 AI model in orbit, completing a full inference cycle from Earth and back in less than two minutes. This milestone in the U.S.-China space race demonstrates the practical potential of orbital data centers powered by solar energy and marks a major leap for the planned 2,800-satellite “Star-Compute Project.”
The Broads Authority is successfully trialing a submarine drone to survey its 125-mile waterway network. The £10,881 device can inspect underwater infrastructure and wrecks at depths of 200m, saving money and improving safety over traditional diver surveys.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have successfully performed China’s first metal 3D printing experiment in space aboard the Lihong-1 Y1 vehicle. The breakthrough at 120 km altitude overcomes microgravity challenges, moving in-orbit manufacturing from theory to reality for future space stations and lunar bases.
Autonomous delivery leader Zipline International Inc. has raised over $600M, reached a $7.6B valuation, and surpassed 2 million deliveries. The company will launch 10-minute drone delivery in Houston and Phoenix in early 2026 as part of a major national expansion.
Scientists at Fudan University, led by Professor Peng Huisheng, have developed a flexible computer chip woven into a fibre as thin as hair. With 100,000 transistors per cm, published in Nature, it enables machine-washable smart textiles that compute and display information.
Scientists from Stanford University discovered magnitude 5+ earthquakes on the Southern Ocean floor trigger massive Antarctic phytoplankton blooms, sometimes California-sized, by releasing trapped iron from hydrothermal vents—rewriting our understanding of what feeds life at the pole.
University of Cambridge astronomers led by Dr. Quentin Kral have detected a wobble in exoplanet HD 206893 B, hinting at an exomoon with 9 times Neptune’s mass. This “moon” is thousands of times larger than any in our solar system and could be the first of its kind confirmed, challenging fundamental definitions in astronomy.
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