Efforts to control the river’s flow with levees and other structures have increased the risk of dangerous floods. By Emma Marris.

A 200-year-old dream might finally become a reality under China’s Belt and Road. Thailand’s Kra Canal: China’s Way Around the Malacca Strait. By Rhea Menon.

Materials inspired by disappearing Hollywood dinosaurs and real-life shy squid have been invented by University of California, Irvine engineers, according to new findings in Science this Friday. (March 29, 2018)

A startup claims it will be able to place a single-module commercial space station into orbit by 2022, although the company faces multiple and significant technical and financial hurdles. Orion Span announced April 5 plans to develop what it calls the Aurora Station, a space station it says will be the “first luxury space hotel” in orbit. The company unveiled its plans at the Space 2.0 conference in San Jose, California.

These 7 bridges show how far we've come in the past few thousand years.

Vast system of chambers on Tibetan plateau could send enough particles into the atmosphere to allow extensive clouds to form. By Stephen Chen.

Operation Popeye was a secret Vietnam War-era effort to conduct covert cloud seeding over Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, extend the monsoon season, and give the United States an advantage in the war. By Eleanor Cummins.

Space meteorologists warn automated vehicle engineers against relying on GPS. By Kyle Stock and Brian K. Sullivan.

The engineer of the bridge presented the crack to the construction manager and the State Department of Transportation but said there were no safety concerns.

California's next governor will likely decide the fate of the state's high-speed rail project, and several GOP candidates oppose it.

Sending a spacecraft to the far reaches of our solar system to mine asteroids might seem like an improbable ambition best left to science fiction. But it’s inching closer to reality. By Susanne Barton, Hannah Recht.

It was the 1970s, the Cold War was in full swing, and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s Office of Research and Development had developed a miniaturized listening device. Engineers were wise to choose the dragonfly. Dragonflies are nimble aerialists, able to hover, glide, and even fly backward. They can turn 180 degrees in three wingbeats. The Insectothopter’s 6-⁠centimeter-long body and 9-cm wingspan were well within the range of an actual dragonfly’s dimensions. Plus, dragonflies are native to every continent except Antarctica, so their presence would be unremarkable, at least in the appropriate season.

Despite in many cases possessing design advantages, very few profoundly asymmetric aircraft have been constructed. There is no obvious reason for this but it may just be that they are not trusted. By Joe Coles.

Millions of years of evolution have allowed animals to develop some elegant and highly efficient solutions to problems like locomotion, flight, and dexterity. Here’s a rundown of nine recent robots that borrow from nature and why.

NO ONE likes to be told what to do, especially if that means moving from your beloved home. But these brave homeowners have proved that the “little man” can have extraordinary power.

With their blades reaching 800 feet into the sky, these German windmills will help provide energy even when the wind doesn’t blow. Wind and pumped hydro storage are by no means new technologies, but their combination in this way is impressive. It’s thought that the system, which can switch from production to storage or vice versa within 30 seconds, will be able to store 70 megawatt-hours when it’s up and running.

Amazon supremo Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin has successfully tested its main engine for the first time. The BE-4 engine is, as the name suggests, Blue Origin's fourth generation rocket. B-1 was a wee thing that boasted 2,200 pounds of thrust. B-2 hit 31,000 pounds and B-3 reached 110,000. The BE-4 cranks things up to 550,000 pounds from a single engine. By way of comparison, the Merlin engine used in SpaceX's rockets emit 190,000 pounds of thrust. Which is why SpaceX packs nine of them into a single Falcon 9 rocket.

Your morning commute doesn't have to look dreary.

Order a coffee, type an email or learn a new instrument faster. Mind-reading tech is now so advanced that all this and more is within reach with thought alone. By Julia Brown.