Automotive and Transportation News

April 19, 2026

Top Headlines

Scientists Develop Dirt-powered Fuel Cell That Could Replace Batteries

Apr. 19, 2026 Scientists have developed a fuel cell that uses microbes in soil to produce electricity. The device can power underground sensors for tasks like monitoring moisture or detecting touch, without needing batteries or solar panels. It works in both dry ...

This Superconductivity Dies Then Comes Back to Life

Apr. 10, 2026 A strange new kind of superconductivity has been uncovered in uranium ditelluride (UTe2), where electricity flows with zero resistance—but only under extremely strong magnetic fields that should normally destroy it. Even more surprising, the ...

Simple Water Trick Cuts Diesel Engine Pollution by over 60%

Mar. 13, 2026 Scientists are exploring a surprisingly simple way to clean up diesel engines: adding tiny droplets of water to the fuel. During combustion, the water rapidly vaporizes, triggering micro-explosions that improve fuel mixing and lower combustion ...

Scientists Turn Scrap Car Aluminum Into High-performance Metal for New Vehicles

Mar. 10, 2026 Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have created a new aluminum alloy called RidgeAlloy that can turn contaminated car-body scrap into strong structural vehicle parts. Normally, impurities ...

An Old Jeweler’s Trick Could Change Nuclear Timekeeping

Jan. 8, 2026 A team of physicists has discovered a surprisingly simple way to build nuclear clocks using tiny amounts of rare thorium. By electroplating thorium onto steel, they achieved the same results as years of work with delicate crystals — but far more ...

Scientists Unlocked a Superconductor Mystery Under Crushing Pressure

Dec. 21, 2025 Superconductors promise loss-free electricity, but most only work at extreme cold. Hydrogen-rich materials changed that—yet their inner workings remained hidden because they only exist under enormous pressure. Now, researchers have directly ...

Astronomers Just Captured the Sharpest View of a Distant Star Ever Seen

Oct. 25, 2025 A UCLA-led team has achieved the sharpest-ever view of a distant star’s disk using a groundbreaking photonic lantern device on a single telescope—no multi-telescope array required. This technology splits incoming starlight into multiple ...

When Sunshine Became Cheaper Than Coal

Oct. 7, 2025 Solar energy is now the cheapest source of power worldwide, driving a massive shift toward renewables. Falling battery prices and innovations in solar materials are making clean energy more reliable than ever. Yet, grid congestion and integration ...

A Tiny Chip May Have Solved One of Clean Energy’s Biggest Problems

Aug. 28, 2025 In just one afternoon, scientists used a nanoparticle “megalibrary” to find a catalyst that matches or exceeds iridium’s performance in hydrogen fuel production, at a fraction of the ...

Scientists Unlock Nature’s Secret to Superfast Mini Robots

Aug. 24, 2025 Ripple bugs’ fan-like legs inspired engineers to build the Rhagobot, a tiny robot with self-morphing fans. By mimicking these insects’ passive, ultra-fast movements, the robot gains speed, control, and endurance without extra ...

A Shocking New Way to Make Ammonia, No Fossil Fuels Needed

July 5, 2025 Australian scientists have discovered a method to produce ammonia—an essential component in fertilizers—using only air and electricity. By mimicking lightning and channeling that energy through a small device, they’ve bypassed the traditional, ...

You Hear the Beep, but Can’t Find the Car: The Hidden Flaw in Electric Vehicle Safety

June 18, 2025 As electric vehicles grow more popular, their warning sounds may not be doing enough to protect pedestrians. A Swedish study shows that these signals are hard to locate, especially when multiple ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:31am EDT

NASA’s Hubble Spots Nearly Invisible “ghost Galaxy” Made of 99% Dark Matter

Feb. 21, 2026 Astronomers have uncovered one of the most mysterious galaxies ever found — a dim, ghostly object called CDG-2 that is almost entirely made of dark ...

Dark Matter Could Be Masquerading as a Black Hole at the Milky Way’s Core

Feb. 7, 2026 Astronomers propose that an ultra-dense clump of exotic dark matter could be masquerading as the powerful object thought to anchor our galaxy, explaining both the blistering speeds of stars near the ...

Physicists Found Hidden Order in Violent Proton Collisions

Jan. 5, 2026 Inside high-energy proton collisions, quarks and gluons briefly form a dense, boiling state before cooling into ordinary particles. Researchers expected this transition to change how disordered the ...

Accidental Lab Discovery Reveals Gold’s Secret Chemistry

Aug. 11, 2025 Scientists at SLAC unexpectedly created gold hydride, a compound of gold and hydrogen, while studying diamond formation under extreme pressure and heat. This discovery challenges gold’s reputation ...

Scientists Just Recreated the Universe’s First Molecule and Solved a 13-Billion-Year-Old Puzzle

Aug. 3, 2025 Long before stars lit up the sky, the universe was a hot, dense place where simple chemistry quietly set the stage for everything to come. Scientists ...

This Triple-Layer Sunlight Catalyst Supercharges Green Hydrogen by 800%

June 23, 2025 Researchers in Sweden have developed a powerful new material that dramatically boosts the ability to create hydrogen fuel from water using sunlight, making the process eight times more effective than ...

Clean Energy, Dirty Secrets: Inside the Corruption Plaguing California’s Solar Market

June 11, 2025 California s solar energy boom is often hailed as a green success story but a new study reveals a murkier reality beneath the sunlit panels. ...

A Cheap and Easy Potential Solution for Lowering Carbon Emissions in Maritime Shipping

May 29, 2025 Reducing travel speeds and using an intelligent queuing system at busy ports can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from oceangoing container ...

Cryogenic Hydrogen Storage and Delivery System for Next-Generation Aircraft

May 28, 2025 Researchers have designed a liquid hydrogen storage and delivery system that could help make zero-emission aviation a reality. Their work outlines a scalable, integrated system that addresses several ...

Mid-Air Transformation Helps Flying, Rolling Robot to Transition Smoothly

May 28, 2025 Engineers have developed a real-life Transformer that has the 'brains' to morph in midair, allowing the drone-like robot to smoothly roll away and begin its ground operations without pause. The ...

New Fuel Cell Could Enable Electric Aviation

May 27, 2025 Engineers developed a fuel cell that offers more than three times as much energy per pound compared to lithium-ion batteries. Powered by a reaction between sodium metal and air, the device could be ...

Remotely Moving Objects Underwater Using Sound

May 20, 2025 A metamaterial is a composite material that exhibits unique properties due to its structure, and now researchers have used one featuring a small sawtooth pattern on its surface to move and position ...

Robots Learning Without Us? New Study Cuts Humans from Early Testing

May 19, 2025 Humans no longer have exclusive control over training social robots to interact effectively, thanks to a new study. The study introduces a new simulation method that lets researchers test their ...

Empowering Robots With Human-Like Perception to Navigate Unwieldy Terrain

May 19, 2025 Researchers have developed a novel framework named WildFusion that fuses vision, vibration and touch to enable robots to 'sense' and navigate complex outdoor environments much like humans ...

Nimble Dimples: Agile Underwater Vehicles Inspired by Golf Balls

May 19, 2025 Underwater or aerial vehicles with dimples like golf balls could be more efficient and maneuverable, a new prototype has ...

UCF's 'Bridge Doctor' Combines Imaging, Neural Network to Efficiently Evaluate Concrete Bridges' Safety

May 16, 2025 New research details how infrared thermography, high-definition imaging and neural network analysis can combine to make concrete bridge inspections more efficient. Researchers are hopeful that their ...

Satellite Data from Ship Captures Landslide-Generated Tsunami

May 14, 2025 New research demonstrates shipborne navigation systems have potential to improve tsunami detection and ...

Eldercare Robot Helps People Sit and Stand, and Catches Them If They Fall

May 13, 2025 Engineers built E-BAR, a mobile robot designed to physically support the elderly and prevent them from falling as they move around their homes. E-BAR acts as a set of robotic handlebars that follows ...

Scientists Define the Ingredients for Finding Natural Clean Hydrogen

May 13, 2025 Researchers have detailed the geological ingredients required to find clean sources of natural hydrogen beneath our feet. The work details the requirements for natural hydrogen, produced by the Earth ...

Submarine Robot Catches an Underwater Wave

May 12, 2025 Engineers have taught a simple submarine robot to take advantage of turbulent forces to propel itself through ...

A Small Bicycle Handlebar Sensor Can Help Map a Region's Riskiest Bike Routes

May 9, 2025 Researchers have developed a system, called ProxiCycle, that logs when a passing car comes too close to a cyclist (four feet or less). A small, inexpensive sensor plugs into bicycle handlebars and ...

Urine, Not Water for Efficient Production of Green Hydrogen

May 9, 2025 Researchers have developed two unique energy-efficient and cost-effective systems that use urea found in urine and wastewater to generate hydrogen. The unique systems reveal new pathways to ...

Ping Pong Bot Returns Shots With High-Speed Precision

May 8, 2025 Engineers developed a ping-pong-playing robot that quickly estimates the speed and trajectory of an incoming ball and precisely hits it to a desired location on the ...

Eco-Friendly Aquatic Robot Is Made from Fish Food

May 8, 2025 An edible robot leverages a combination of biodegradable fuel and surface tension to zip around the water's surface, creating a safe -- and nutritious -- alternative to environmental monitoring ...

Transforming Hospital Sanitation: Autonomous Robots for Wiping and UV-C Disinfection

May 7, 2025 A research team develops disinfection robot combining physical wiping and UV-C ...

Gender Characteristics of Service Robots Can Influence Customer Decisions

May 6, 2025 While service robots with male characteristics can be more persuasive when interacting with some women who have a low sense of decision-making power, 'cute' design features -- such as big ...

Do Manta Rays Benefit from Collective Motion?

May 6, 2025 Researchers model the motions of groups of manta rays to study how group dynamics affect their propulsion, studying different formations of three manta rays: in tandem, in a triangular setup with one ...

Stronger and Safer: New Design Strategy for Aluminium Combines Strength With Hydrogen Embrittlement Resistance

Apr. 30, 2025 International researcher team develops scalable aluminium alloys for the hydrogen ...

Nearly One-Quarter of E-Scooter Injuries Involved Substance Impaired Riders

Apr. 29, 2025 About 25% of 7350 patients hospitalized for scooter-related injuries between 2016 and 2021 were using substances such as alcohol, opioids, marijuana and cocaine when injured. The findings underscore ...

High-Wire Act: Soft Robot Can Carry Cargo Up and Down Steep Aerial Wires

Apr. 28, 2025 Researchers have created a light-powered soft robot that can carry loads through the air along established tracks, similar to cable cars or aerial trams. The soft robot operates autonomously, can ...