Science

Credit: Julia M Cameron via pexels Fashion has a waste problem, with ever-increasing volumes of used textiles clogging up landfills and thrift stores around the globe. Donating clothing might seem like a perfect solution—clothes stay out of the landfill and can be used by those who need them—but this rarely plays out in the real world, as there is simply too much used clothing in circulation. Most used clothing ends up as waste or is exported to counties in the Global South, where it’s resold or eventually ends up at a landfill anyway. And the waste piles up: The average American consumer discards an estimated 81 pounds of clothing and shoes every year, creating a total of almost 13 million tons of textile waste nationwide, according to the most recent available data (from 2018). Of ...

A battery pouch with rectangular holesLiangbing Hu/Teng Li A stretchy and flexible battery pouch filled with strategically placed holes is more breathable than cotton. That could make it an ideal power source for wearable sports or fitness devices built directly into clothing. “This is especially useful for athletes or individuals who wear electronics for extended periods – smart clothing for fitness tracking, medical monitoring devices and similar applications that demand both comfort and reliable performance,” says Lin Xu at Yale University. To design the new battery, Xu and his colleagues created a pattern of long, rectangular holes in a pouch cell battery – a type of lithium battery that resembles a flat bundle with a limited degree of bendability. Simulations...

Since 2017, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law has tracked government attempts to restrict or expand initiatives in science and climate. The first was the Climate Deregulation Tracker, which tracked climate-related regulatory actions under the first Trump administration, followed by the Climate Reregulation Tracker, which tracked actions under the Biden administration. Three publicly accessible online tracking tools will track the new administration’s actions on climate change. The Climate Backtracker, which is the third iteration of Sabin Center climate regulation trackers, will record Trump administration actions to impact federal climate protections; the Inflation Reduction Act Tracker (co-maintained with the Environmental Defense Fund) will track changes in the status of cl...

A tiny drone powered by soft muscle-like actuatorsKevin Chen An insect-inspired robot that only weighs as much as a raisin can perform acrobatics and fly for much longer than any previous insect-sized drone without falling apart. For tiny flying robots to make nimble manoeuvres, they need to be lightweight and agile but also capable of withstanding large forces. Such forces mean that most tiny robots can only fly for around 20 seconds before breaking, which makes it difficult to collect enough data to properly calibrate and test the robots’ flying abilities. Now, Suhan Kim at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues have developed an insect-like flying robot about the size of a postage stamp that can execute acrobatic manoeuvres, such as double...

An ion trap can control atoms for quantum experimentsY. Colombe/NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY After decades of looking, researchers have seen a string of atoms go through a 1D phase change so elusive that it could only happen inside a quantum simulator. “One motivation [for our experiment] is really trying to understand fundamental physics. We’re trying to understand just the basic states that matter can be in,” says Alexander Schuckert at the University of Maryland. He and his colleagues used electromagnetic fields to arrange 23 ions of the element ytterbium into a line, forming a nearly one-dimensional chain. This device can be used for quantum computing, but in this case, the researchers used the chain as a simulator inste...