The polymer-muscles generate about 3 horsepower per lb., or the equivalent of a jet engine.

Strange but true: Materials Scientists have found a way to turn fishing line and everyday thread into really impressive artificial muscles 100x stronger than a humans.

A massive machine — longer than a football field — is munching away beneath Washington like a giant earthworm. Before it’s done, it will devour about 2 million cubic yards of soil that has been sitting under the city since the days of the dinosaurs.

Self-organising robots that mimic insect colonies have been shown off by computer scientists at Harvard University. The robot construction crews could in future be used to help alleviate flooding, building up walls of sandbags or as the construction crew of choice for future building on Mars.

Chinese science is on the rise: the country is now the third-largest producer of research articles, behind only the European Union (EU) bloc and the United States. China's output has surged during the past decade, according to a report released today by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The number of papers authored by Chinese scientists grew an average of more than 15% annually between 2001 and 2011, rising from 3% of global research article output to 11% over the decade

The Olympics has a doping problem, and it has nothing to do with getting hopped up on steroids or tinkering with genetics. “Technology doping” is a growing issue in competitive sports as every year breakthroughs in engineering and science lead to high-tech equipment and materials that can blur the line between enhancing athletic performance and straight up cheating.

The next breakthrough smartphone, or maybe the one after that, might not have a traditional battery as its sole source of power. Instead, it could pull energy from the air or power itself through television, cellular or Wi-Fi signals.

Dyson recently released the DC59 Digital Slim, a gadget that the company is touting as its most powerful cordless vacuum to date—so powerful that it can match a stand-up model. Aside from a few minor changes, this current generation of the Digital Slim looks very similar to the DC 44, released in 2012 and the DC 35, Dyson’s first cordless vacuum from 2011.

Nature spent millions of years perfecting flapping-wing flight. Now engineers can reproduce it with machines.

Nissan has revealed the engine that will power its ZEOD RC Le Mans Prototype. The car which is built along similar lines to the Deltawing concept will be powered by a bespoke 1.5 litre three-cylinder engine.

Engineers at Raytheon-Sarcos in Salt Lake City demonstrated a unique set of tele-operated robotic arms attached to a modified Ditch Witch. With no training at all, one immediately meshes with the feelings and actions of the machine. It mirrored everything one does with their arms, wrists and shoulders.

Lontra's Blade Compressor replaces traditional piston parts and makes engines up to 20% more efficient.

Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have perfected 3D technology using two-photon lithography that can print orders of magnitude faster and smaller than similar devices. The 3D printing process uses a liquid resin, which is hardened at precisely the correct spots by a focused laser beam. The focal point of the laser beam is guided through the resin by movable mirrors and leaves behind a hardened line of solid polymer a few hundred nanometers wide.

Scientists have built what they say is the first flying machine that hovers in a stable manner by flapping its wings.

Electronic cigarette companies have a new swagger thanks to booming sales and better products than ever.

Automation runs amok with people's lives again. Hello Detroit?

The gun is nothing special. Its controls are unsophisticated; it is not even particularly accurate. But this simplicity is a reason for its success.

A buried steel pipe is mostly to blame for stopping the giant tunnel-boring machine Bertha, which has been stuck since Dec. 6 along the Seattle waterfront near South Main Street. The long pipe was an 8-inch diameter, 115-foot-long “well casing,” used to measure groundwater during studies in 2002 on the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project, project officials said. Matt Preedy, […]

A new study by researchers in Australia explores the energy absorption capacity of a single-walled carbon nanotube under a ballistic impact. The result offers a useful guideline for using carbon nanotubes as a reinforcing phase of materials to make devices to prevent from ballistic penetration or high speed impact.

From a glass globe that harvests energy from the sun and the moon to a car built of Lego blocks, here are our favorite tech pieces from the week.