The Best of Freethink

Shift Robotics is taking pre-orders on Moonwalkers — $1,400 “shoes” that let you walk 2.5x faster without expending any extra energy.

Former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold custom built a camera system to take the world’s highest-resolution pictures of snowflakes.

Researchers have found that an old anti-psychotic drug may have implications for chronic pain and cancer.

If the world's first floating city is a success, other coastal metropolises could use it as a blueprint for adapting to rising sea levels.

«The world’s first floating city is being built in South Korea.»

The first global assessment of land reclamation found that people have added 900 square miles of land to Earth’s coasts this century.

A new, thinner version of the world’s whitest paint could slash the need for climate-harming air conditioning in cars, airplanes, and more.

Jetoptera is designing quieter, safer vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles with bladeless propulsion systems.

Minecrafts’s Uncensored Library is exploiting a loophole in surveillance technology to sneak the news past government censorship.

Brewing the magic in Psilocybe cubensis is difficult at scale. One Danish company thinks beer yeast may be the answer.

A surprise discovery by Drexel University scientists could unlock an elusive technology: lithium-sulfur batteries.

«these batteries will weigh a third of the equivalent lithium-ion batteries and have twice their lifespan!»

Carbon Robotics’ Autonomous Weeder is a smart farming robot that identifies weeds and then kills them using high-power lasers.

«Weeds compete with plants for space, sunlight, and soil nutrients. They can also make it easier for insect pests to harm crops, so weed control is a top concern for farmers.»

Researchers have created microscopic robots capable of clearing pneumonia from the lungs of mice.

A new solar panel design can efficiently convert light into electricity, while still allowing almost 80% of incoming light to pass through.

Ensuring food security over the coming century will be a major challenge. A new study suggests that breadfruit may be the answer.

A raft of “space bubbles” could be used to reverse global warming, according to an MIT group's solar geoengineering proposal.

UC Irvine researchers have used deep learning AI to accurately create full-color images from night vision images.

American towns and cities are no longer able to adapt to new residents. Is building new cities the solution to this problem?

«? A city which has nobody, even if it has roads and schools, is very unattractive. If you are a teacher and say ‘there will be a new school there, I want to move there’, but when you move there is nobody there, so nobody will pay your salary, how would you buy housing? And if there are no schools running, families will not move»

A solar-powered drone being tested by the US Army has set a record for long-endurance flight, remaining aloft for more than 40 days straight.