Long-shot money is flowing into start-ups that seek the energy of the stars. Driving the investments is a rising alarm about global warming.

Atlanta-based startup Hermeus hopes to develop a passenger airplane capable of reaching Mach 5, or 3,000 miles per hour, but is the prospect of building a hypersonic successor to Concorde merely a flight of fancy?

It's been nearly a decade since Boyan Slat announced at age 18 that he had a plan to rid the world's oceans of plastic. Slat, now 27, is a Dutch inventor and the founder of the Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit that aims to remove 90% of floating ocean plastic by 2040.

The 21st century has no shortage of companies claiming “world’s first” status for their products. Few stand up to sustained scrutiny. So when Volvo today unveiled an autonomous vehicle produced using fossil-free steel, how big a deal was it? Short answer: pretty big. Though the devil is in the detail.

In an Icelandic greenhouse barley is being grown which could help produce meat without animals.

Ignition is a key process that amplifies the energy output from nuclear fusion and could provide clean energy and answer some huge physics questions. A new experiment appears to have triggered ignition for the first time, at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US, recreating the extreme temperatures and pressures found at the heart of the Sun.

In the middle of the French lockdown in October 2020, a new restaurant launched on Deliveroo and UberEats in Paris: Cala. Its pasta dishes started at €8 each, causing some customers to wonder about the high quality to price ratio — particularly compared to some other Parisian outlets.

Tesla delivered 241,300 vehicles in the third quarter of 2021. That surprised many, beat Wall Street's expectations, and sent the company's stock price up 5 percent. Tesla managed this at a time when most car company sales have dropped sharply due to supply chain issues. The mindset Elon Musk and Tesla employees used to overcome these issues is something every business leader and especially every entrepreneur can learn from.

We urgently need to scale sustainable 'bioeconomy' models that preserve and restore the Amazon and provide livelihoods for the people living in the region.

Engineers have created a brand new type of battery that could revolutionise the charging time and range of electric cars and other technologies reliant on lithium-ion batteries. Nanoengineers from the University of California San Diego made the breakthrough by replacing the anodes on lithium ion batteries, which are used in everything from smartphones to space shuttles.

The TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced millions of people to the idea of a holodeck: an immersive, realistic 3D holographic projection of a complete environment that you could interact with and even touch.

The whitest paint in the world has been created in a lab at Purdue University, a paint so white that it could eventually reduce or even eliminate the need for air conditioning, scientists say. The paint has now made it into the Guinness World Records book as the whitest ever made.

As global carbon emissions that stem from fossil fuels keep adding to our ever-growing climate change issue, energy companies have turned their focus on renewables to generate fuel. One of those companies is Synhelion from Switzerland. The company harnesses the energy of the heat of the sun and converts the collected carbon dioxide into synthetic fuels, in turn offering a green and sustainable solution.

The Kidney Project’s implantable bioartificial kidney, one that promises to free kidney disease patients from dialysis machines and transplant waiting lists, took another big step toward becoming reality, earning a $650,000 prize from KidneyX for its first-ever demonstration of a functional prototype of its implantable artificial kidney.

Try as we might, the most advanced synthetic materials pale in comparison to super-strong biological compounds like spider silk and muscle fibers. On that second count, researchers may be closer to growing usable amounts of muscle fiber that can be used in place of fabrics like cotton, silk, and even Kevlar. This could lead to clothing made from real muscle. That might sound like an unsettling option, but the fibers aren’t what you’re imagining.

Imagine a tether made out of super-tensile material that reaches from the surface of Earth to a station in geostationary orbit — aka. geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO). Transportation to and from orbit would be provided by high-speed vehicles instead of rockets, ensuring regular access to space for pennies on the dollar!

Transhumanism is a philosophy that covers a wide range of different philosophical areas. In short, transhumanism engages with the necessity of overcoming humanity’s limitations and/or enhancing its abilities.

Virtual reality has come on leaps and bounds over the past few years. Whether we’re talking about the capabilities of the VR tech itself, its price, or the VR games now available to us, there’s no question that virtual reality has improved. While the Valve Index is still pricey, there are plenty of great budget options now available. The Oculus Quest 2 can be bought for a humble $300, and it’s a damn good headset by all technical standards.

Using a robot vacuum has always been a bit hazardous for pet owners. Leaving a robovac to do its thing in your absence can be a problem if your less-than-perfectly-trained dog or cat also does its thing while you’re out. A quick Google of “Roomba dog poop” gives you some idea of what the outcome can be, as unheeding robots with spinning brushes barrel into the mess and proceed to spread it liberally around the house.

With over 40 million people worldwide suffering the effects of type 1 diabetes, new efficient treatments are constantly in high demand. One technology that has great potential is the microencapsulation device (MED), which houses insulin-secreting cells in a protective compartment protecting them from the body's autoimmune response.