A materials scientist has created the world’s toughest fiber using a mechanism based on a slip knot.

What gets removed from China’s social networks shows how censorship strategies are advancing, and can even hint at the government’s plans.

In February last year, political scandal rocked China when the fast-rising politician Bo Xilai suddenly demoted his top lieutenant, who then accused his boss of...

A novel chemical pathway could address the high cost of transporting cellulosic materials to make diesel fuel.

Within a year, a pilot plant in Indiana will start converting the stalks and leaves of corn plants into diesel and jet fuel. The plant will use a novel approach involving acid as well as...

Zoomboard—a miniscule keyboard that zooms when you tap it—could make it easier to type on smart watches.

It seems like everyone is building a smart watch lately. Pebble ran a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year for its e-paper watch; Samsung has confirmed it is making one; and...

A Boston-based company shows how it converts delivery trucks and other commercial fleet vehicles into hybrids.

The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv preprint server

The Potential For Photosynthesis In Hydrothermal Vents: A New Avenue For Life In The Universe?

I hate feeling tethered to the internet. So why do I love FreedomPop?

Rarely do I, even in casual conversation, refer to something as the “best thing ever.” And yet I’m fairly certain I’ve used that epithet a few dozen times in gushing to friends, acquaintances, and strangers about my latest toy: the...

A response to Jason Pontin’s essay on free speech.

Jason Pontin has written a perceptive analysis of a timeless question:  what changes in law need to be adopted in order to account for technological advances (see “Free Speech in the Era of Its Technological Amplification”)? In answering that q...

An experimental new touch screen, the Obake, has a stretchable surface that to reacts user interaction in new ways.

An inexpensive new prototype device called the Obake adds a new dimension to touch screen technology. The surface of the device, developed by Dhairya Dand and Rob Hemsley of the MIT...

It’s pretty, yes. But more importantly, it doesn’t force you to interact with it.

I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but Yahoo’s new weather app for iOS is great. Is it “innovative”? No. Well, actually it is. Its innovation is in being as non-“innovative” in its interaction design as possible. No...