The Pistol Evolves into a Squirt Gun — 13 years of emoji history
Most phones draw the pistol emoji as a water gun now. The Unicode character name is still PISTOL. The short
The Thin Shield That Stops Space Rocks Going Faster Than Bullets
A spacecraft does not need thick armor to survive a hit from a fleck of rock or scrap metal. The
A Night at Sphere Las Vegas: Timing, Bags, and What Surprises People
Sphere Las Vegas is not a normal concert hall. On show night the building tries to surround you — with
The Boat Lift That Spins
Boats do not climb hills. On land, a road can zigzag up a slope. On water, the surface has to
They Taught the Old Robots to Jump Into Molten Steel
When a robotics company outgrows a whole generation of machines, the usual story is scrap yards and screwdrivers. Figure chose
How to Get Around Las Vegas Without a Car
You do not need a rental car for a Las Vegas Strip trip. Buses, a monorail, free resort trams, walking
How GPS Finds You: Atomic Clocks That Fly
Your phone’s blue dot looks like a map trick. Underneath it is a timing machine: a swarm of satellites carrying
A Shot Twice a Year Can Prevent HIV. Getting One Is the Hard Part.
For years, the usual way to lower the chance of getting HIV before a possible exposure was a pill you
Iceland’s Giant Air Filter Finally Hits Its Design Pace
A plant in Iceland pulls carbon dioxide out of ordinary outdoor air, then locks it underground as stone. That idea
These Tiny Fat Bubbles Flip Their Charge to Deliver mRNA With Less Inflammation
The tiny fat bubbles that carry mRNA vaccines into our cells work remarkably well — and they also tend to
AI Steers Fusion Plasma in 20 Milliseconds: Princeton’s PACMAN Framework
Fusion machines need split-second course corrections that no human can make in time. Inside a doughnut-shaped magnetic bottle called a
Coding Agents Left Autocomplete Behind
Coding helpers used to finish the line you were typing. Now many of them open your project, edit several files,
A Tiny Eye Chip Helped People With Macular Degeneration Read Again
A tiny wireless chip under the retina, paired with special glasses, helped most people in a major trial read again
Quantum Error Correction Gets More Flexible: Three New Surface-Code Tricks
Quantum computers make a lot of tiny mistakes. Error correction is how you still get a reliable answer — by
First Power From Hot Dry Rock: Fervo’s Cape Station Is Online
A power plant in rural Utah has started selling electricity made from heat locked in deep, dry rock — not
AI Can Sketch What You Saw From a Brain Scan — With One Hour of Calibration
Researchers can now rebuild a rough picture of what you were looking at from a brain scan. Not your private
The Last Blackbird Went Missing
For most of the last twenty-seven years, the fastest jet the United States ever put into service sat outdoors in
How the One-Mile Run Got Faster
Photo: Josh Kerr winning the men’s 5,000 meters at the 2025 UK Athletics Championships. Andrewnward, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia
When AI Thinks Longer: Test-Time Compute and the Reasoning Bet
Some new AI models spend extra time on a hard question before they answer. One long ramble often gets worse,
Permitted Isn’t Built: TVA’s First U.S. SMR Construction Permit
On September 29, 2026, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission handed the Tennessee Valley Authority something American nuclear developers have wanted