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Wearable health technology is becoming smarter and more powerful. Smartwatches, fitness bands and medical patches can already track important health signals such as heart rate, muscle activity and blood flow. However, there is still a major problem: different body signals usually require different sensors. This means that a device designed to monitor several health signals may need multiple sensors, separate electronic circuits and more space on the skin. The result can be a larger, less comfortable device that consumes more power. Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a new technology that could change this approach. Led by Assistant Professor Liu Yuxin from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the NUS College of Design and Engineering, the research team has created a cross-modal skin sensor called X-Sig . The device can combine electrical and mechanical signals from the body into a single signal, allowing different types of health informatio...

Wireless charging has already become part of everyday life. Smartphones, smartwatches, earbuds and other devices can now receive power without being physically connected to a cable. But researchers are taking the idea much further: wirelessly powering drones while they are still in the air. A research team has developed a lightweight device that can capture energy from a laser beam and convert it into electricity. The receiver is designed using ideas from solar-cell technology and can be mounted beneath a drone's wing. If the technology can eventually be made practical for real-world flight, drones could potentially remain airborne for much longer without landing to recharge or replace their batteries. The findings were published on July 29 in the journal Matter & Light . A New Way to Power Drones Drones are increasingly being used for forest inspections, disaster monitoring, surveillance, deliveries and other tasks that require them to stay in the air for long periods. However...

As technology continues to advance, the demand for efficient, compact, and sustainable energy solutions is increasing rapidly. From smart watches and fitness trackers to electric vehicles and wearable electronics, modern devices require reliable sources of power. However, current energy systems often depend on separate components for energy generation and storage, creating challenges in terms of size, weight, and flexibility. A new generation of energy technology is emerging with the development of energy harvesting and storing ribbons —innovative devices capable of collecting solar energy and storing it within the same structure. These flexible ribbons could transform the way we power portable electronics, wearable devices, vehicles, and even future smart textiles. The Challenge of Traditional Solar Energy Systems Today, most portable electronic devices rely on rechargeable batteries for energy storage, even when they are used in environments with abundant sunlight. In conventional so...

For decades, scientists searching for intelligent alien civilizations have focused on one big idea—the Dyson Sphere , a gigantic megastructure built around a star to capture its energy. If such structures existed, they would produce a huge amount of waste heat that telescopes could detect in infrared light. But despite years of searching, no confirmed Dyson Sphere has ever been found. Now, a fascinating new scientific proposal suggests that we may have been looking for the wrong kind of technology all along. Instead of capturing a star's light, an advanced civilization might be harvesting something far more subtle— the spin of the star itself . The idea comes from a new research paper written by Turkish high school student Sahin Torlakcik , who proposes an entirely new type of technosignature—evidence of alien technology—that could be much harder to detect than a Dyson Sphere. A Different Way to Power an Advanced Civilization Stars are not only giant balls of hot gas producing enor...

For more than 100 years, astronomers have searched for a hidden partner orbiting one of the most famous stars in the night sky. Now, that long journey has finally reached a historic milestone. Scientists have found strong evidence that Betelgeuse, the giant red star in the constellation Orion, is not alone . It has a faint companion star, likely named Betelgeuse B , orbiting around it. The discovery was made using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile. A team led by French astronomer Miguel Montargès captured the clearest image yet of the suspected companion star. The findings, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics , mark a major achievement in the study of one of the most closely watched stars in the universe. “This is the conclusion of a century-long quest,” said Montargès, an astronomer at the Observatoire de Paris-PSL, France , and lead author of the study. “We have shown that Betelgeuse is not single; it is accompanied by a...

The fashion industry is one of the world's biggest contributors to waste, with millions of tons of clothing ending up in landfills every year. While plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and paper can be recycled through established systems, old clothes rarely get a second life. Most garments are either donated, thrown away, or burned because they are made from a mix of materials that are difficult to separate and recycle. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed an innovative recyclable yarn that could help solve this growing environmental challenge. The newly designed yarn can be melted down and remade into fresh yarn multiple times without losing its strength or flexibility, paving the way for a more sustainable and circular fashion industry. The breakthrough addresses one of the biggest problems in textile recycling—the widespread use of spandex . Around 80 percent of textiles sold in the United States contain some amount of spandex, making ...

For years, physicists have dreamed of controlling the properties of materials with nothing more than light. Imagine a material that behaves one way in darkness but instantly transforms into something completely different when illuminated—without changing its chemical composition or atomic structure. What once sounded like science fiction has now taken a major step toward reality. In a groundbreaking study published in Nature Physics , researchers have reported the first direct experimental evidence of a Floquet topological state , a rare and short-lived phase of matter created entirely by the interaction of light with a material. The discovery confirms a theory that scientists proposed more than a decade ago and opens exciting possibilities for future technologies such as quantum computing, ultrafast electronics, and spintronics. The research was led by Professor Claude Monney and his team at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. By using extremely short laser pulses and advanced ...