This Week’s NOVA Next Feature
Electric motors promise to revolutionize aviation, slashing carbon emissions while improving safety and maneuverability. NOVA Next contributor Steven Ashley reports the story.
In other news:
- U.K. scientists are given the go-ahead to edit the genomes of human embryos .
- Wearing deodorant fundamentally alters the bacteria on your body.
- On what day of the week were you born? This “mathemagician” has a trick to help you find out .
- Could we rid the world of mosquitoes ?
- The newest fusion reactor is a relic of a Cold War tech rivalry.
- Is this the beginning of the end for fossil fuels ?
What We’re Reading
- Some people don’t like making eye contact for longer than 3.2 seconds . But why? [Scientific American]
- This is the story of the neurologist who hacked his brain and almost lost his mind. [WIRED]
- Scientists are staring down dramatic swirls of plasma in order to better understand the Sun’s magnetic field. [Gizmodo]
- “Trees operate less like individuals and more as communal beings.” [The New York Times]
- Morocco has officially turned on a massive solar power plant in the Sahara Desert. [NPR]
- Petra Wadström doesn’t have an engineering degree… and yet she invented a solar-powered water purifier now in use throughout Africa. [Quartz]
Did you miss "Creatures of Light" this week? Watch it streaming online.