• Dear Evil Engineer: How many leopards do I need to heat my home?

    Dear Evil Engineer, I am frustrated by the lack of leadership on climate action, particularly regarding low-hanging fruit such as boosting the energy efficiency of housing stock. I ask myself: what can I do to prevent the Earth becoming uninhabitable through climate change? Before anyone makes any snide comments; it goes without saying that I want the Earth to become a hostile wasteland scattered with the remnants of the humanity. But I want to do it myself and not let the fossil fuel industry claim the greatest honour in villainy since someone threw a meteorite at Mexico 66 million years ago. I want to be evil and green, like the Grinch before his heart grew three sizes. This leads me to my query: I have two fearsome pet leopards and I was already considering buying more. How many would…

  • US seeks to close loophole allowing SMIC access to American chipmaking tech

    The report, which cited people familiar with the matter, said the proposal is being opposed by officials from the Commerce Department. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) is a Shanghai-based, partly state-owned contract chipmaker, and China’s largest. It was added to the US 'Entity List' blacklist in December 2020 , restricting its access to manufacturing equipment from US suppliers due to alleged ties to China’s military. It rejects these claims. According to people familiar with the matter, its addition to the Entity List has proven ineffective at preventing it accessing important US technology. Under the current designation, SMIC is restricted from buying US technology “uniquely required” to build chips with 10nm circuits and smaller, which is near the leading edge…

  • Vacuum sleeping bag prevents eyeball damage in zero gravity

    This little-known phenomenon has vexed scientists for more than a decade, and it remains a key health dilemma of human space exploration, particularly as Nasa looks towards longer voyages to Mars. “We don’t know how bad the effects might be on a longer flight, like a two-year Mars operation,” said Dr Benjamin Levine, a cardiologist at UT Southwestern who is working with Nasa to address risks associated with abnormal blood flow in space. “It would be a disaster if astronauts had such severe impairments that they couldn’t see what they’re doing and it compromised the mission.” The condition, spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS), is characterised by the progressive flattening of the eyeball, swelling of the optic nerve, and vision impairment. Studies have shown it is likely…

  • Christmas STEM Challenge: Stepper Dice and Wheel-of-Fortune

    Stepper motors are those neat little motors that don’t just go round and round when you connect them, but go round in jerks, 7.5°, 10° or 15° at a time. This is technically called ‘cogging’. Inside, they have two sets of electromagnet coils that pull the magnetic rotor around by a small angle each time they are pulsed. You can buy a stepper motor for less than $10 (£8), but don’t buy one straight away. You may find you can use one from an unused or broken printer or scanner. The printer in the picture below has three stepper motors. If you have a choice, choose the stepper motor that feels the most ‘notchy’, the one that clicks most positively into place as you rotate the shaft. (Cleaning and light oil may be needed for a stepper that has paper dust and ink toner on its bearings.) …

  • The measure of: Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen

    Glass display cases filled with artworks take centre stage in the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, an art storage building designed by local architectural firm MVRDV, which is now open to the public in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The purpose-built depot, which has a new, permanent artwork by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist projected onto its side, is the first of its kind, and art lovers will have access to the museum’s full 151,000-piece collection – including works by the likes of Leonora Carrington and Salvador Dalì that usually remain off view. The works are hung in pull-out storage shelves, which visitors can use to view the works at close quarters. There are also screening booths to view the digitised film library, and space which can be rented by private collections. The building has…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Startups key to digital transformation for existing manufacturers

    In the Digital Catapult survey of 100 UK manufacturing leaders at director level and above, 82 per cent said that working with startups will help them accelerate digital transformation objectives, admitting that startups can give them access to creativity and skills they do not currently possess in-house. Manufacturers are also increasingly looking to partner with startups to stimulate innovation, with nearly three-quarters of manufacturing leaders (73 per cent) saying that collaborating with startups is part of their long-term business strategy. Fifty per cent of manufacturers said they have already worked with startups. However, only a quarter of those polled said that collaborating with startup businesses to experiment with technologies is a priority in the next 12 months, despite 92…

  • How smart factories are making sense of the edge

    According to Google Trends data, worldwide searches for ‘edge computing’ have increased tenfold in the last five years. Google alone boasts 340 million search results for the phrase – hardly simple revision for those curious about the technology. Among the noise, and the varying definitions of what edge computing actually is, the technology has become somewhat misunderstood. Edge computing describes a distributed version of computation that brings data analysis closer to the data source. In a factory setting, this could see data processing take place at the machine level. Unlike centralised models, where information would be sent to a data centre or the cloud, edge computing allows data capture, analysis and action to be performed on the edge of a process, hence the name. Despite its capabilities…

  • Engineers teach seaborne robots to navigate ocean currents

    “When we want robots to explore the deep ocean, especially in swarms, it’s almost impossible to control them with a joystick from 20,000 feet away at the surface,” said Professor John Dabiri, an expert in aeronautics and mechanical engineering at CalTech. “We also can’t feed them data about the local ocean currents they need to navigate because we can’t detect them from the surface. “Instead, at a certain point we need ocean-borne drones to be able to make decisions about how to move for themselves.” These drones would need to be able to make decisions on their own about where to go, but also the most efficient way to get there. To do so, they will likely only have data that they can gather themselves: information about the water currents they are currently experiencing.  The engineers…

  • Book review: ‘Atlas of Dark Destinations’ by Peter Hohenhaus

    Peter Hohenhaus’s ‘Atlas of Dark Destinations’  (Laurence King Publishing, £25, ISBN 98719194719 4) would make a good Christmas present for a serious person with an interest in history, including the history of technology. It was probably a mistake, however, to release it at the tail-end of October, in time for Halloween, and to make it look like a collection of horror stories. A funereal front cover, with the title in bright Gothic red against the pitch-black background; a subtitle mentioning ‘dark tourism’ - what is this? Tourism after dark, like looking for the Aurora Borealis in Iceland? Contrary to the impression created by the cover design, this is much more than just a spooky Halloween read. It does not so much scare you as make you think. In my case, it made me commiserate again at…

  • Hands-on review: Paperlike iPad screen protector

    If you have an iPad and you use an Apple Pencil, you probably need Paperlike. It's as simple as that. End of review! The USP of Paperlike is that it has been expressly designed for drawing on the iPad, using an Apple Pencil or other stylus device. Jan Sapper, the affable creator of Paperlike - who also appears in the amusing instructional video for affixing Paperlike to your iPad - came up with the idea in the absence of finding anything better on the market. After months of experimenting, Sapper launched his Paperlike idea in 2017 with a Kickstarter campaign. In 2019, a second iteration was developed (called, wait for it, Paperlike 2). Now, the company continues to issue new versions for new machines. We tested the latest release of its product, now cut to fit Apple's new iPad Pro models…

  • Alstom and Hitachi Rail to design and build HS2 trains

    The contract, which is worth £1.97bn, involves the design, building and maintenance of the rolling stock over a 12-year period. The trains will be the fastest in Europe, capable of operating at speeds up to 360km/h and reducing journey times between London and the Midlands. The 200m-long, eight-carriage trains will run on the new HS2 track and on the existing rail network. The fleet will be all-electric and, according to a statement from the manufacturers, one of the world’s most energy efficient very high-speed trains on account of low train mass per passenger, aerodynamic design, regenerative power and the latest energy efficient traction technology. The joint venture will manufacture 54 trains at updated facilities in County Durham (welding), Derby (production line), and Crewe (new…

  • Ostrich enthusiasts make masks glow in presence of coronavirus

    The team hope that the masks could be rolled out for public use, allowing a quick and easy way to test when the wearer has been exposed to the virus or is carrying the virus. The project was led by Yasuhiro Tsukamoto, who told media that he had always wanted to carry out research on dinosaurs and modern birds, determining that ostriches were the best middle ground, having fingers and nails on the inside of their feathers, making them “very primitive and near dinosaurs”. He keeps a flock of around 500 captive ostriches roaming in the mountain valleys; each female produces 50 to 100 eggs per year. Tsukamoto noticed in the early 1990s that his captive ostriches were oddly disease-free compared with other captive birds. He and other scientists identified this as being due to their eggs. In…

  • Digitising entire Natural History Museum collection could add £2bn to economy

    The Natural History Museum, London has increasingly been creating digital data about its collections in recent years, with a formal Digital Collections Programme established since 2014. Efforts to monitor the outcomes and impact of this work to date have focused on metrics of digital access, such as download events, and on citations of digital specimens as a measure of use. Digitisation projects and resulting research have also been used as impact case studies, highlighting areas such as human health and conservation. The new economic study - carried out by Frontier Economics Ltd for the Natural History Museum, London - predicts that investing in digitising natural history museum collections could result in a tenfold return. The Natural History Museum, London, has so far made over 4.9 million…

  • The eccentric engineer: the Spirit of Ecstasy and a Christmas tragedy

    When Charles Rolls and Henry Royce first went into business, there was no standard mascot on the bonnets of their vehicles. However, as the craze for cars exploded amongst the wealthy, a fashion for putting small statuettes on radiator caps took off. This bothered the company somewhat (not to put too fine a point on it), with some radiator statuettes that owners chose being less than ‘appropriate’. It was a friend of the company, managing director Claude Johnson, who first suggested that the answer might be to pre-empt the owners and sell their cars with a mascot already installed. This friend was none other than motoring pioneer John, 2nd Lord Montagu of Beaulieu – a founder member of the RAC and owner of Car Illustrated magazine. However, what to put on the bonnet? And who to design it…

  • Teardown: Framework laptop

    At £999, Framework founder Nirav Patel wants to place his company at the forefront of a gathering – and overdue – trend. As he noted when the company went public with its first product in February 2021, “It’s time for long-lasting products that respect your right to repair and upgrade. We’re bringing this philosophy to notebooks this year and to additional categories as we go... we can’t wait to build a better consumer electronics industry together.” That first laptop is an aluminium-clad 13.5-inch ultrabook, weighing just 1.3kg at a thickness of 15.85mm, with a 2256x1504 display and a 1080p webcam. The company has shipped its first five batches of North American orders, with a UK launch date to follow. Owners can switch in new memory, replace the mainboard and draw from a range of modules…

  • View from India: Data annotation gains traction

    Dial D for Digital Health India is gearing up to occupy a prominent place as a digital health leader in the global scenario. The stage has already been set with national public health initiatives such as Ayushman Bharat, a Government of India flagship scheme that aims to achieve the vision of Universal Health Coverage. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, which aims to bring the healthcare records of citizens on to a national digital platform where every citizen will be issued with a unique 14-digit health identification number, which will also double up as their health account and contain details of every test, every disease, doctors visited, the medicines taken and the diagnosis. It will be portable, enabling patients to access it even if they shift…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • ‘Electric Forecourts’ and Hubs bringing ultra high-power charging to UK EV drivers

    Claimed to be the biggest upgrade of motorway electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in UK history, Gridserve has announced that more than 20 ‘Electric Hubs’ – each featuring 6-12 x 350kW ultra high-power chargers with contactless payment, capable of adding up to 100 miles of range in less than 10 minutes – will open at motorway service stations across the UK by Q2 2022, with the majority planned to be installed by the end of March. In the following phase, a further 50 additional Electric Hub sites will follow. Two 'Electric Forecourts' situated adjacent to major transport routes and motorways, including a flagship site at Gatwick Airport – the first in the world to be hosted at an international airport – and another in Norwich, are also under construction and due to open in 2022.…

  • Snap AR filter shows effects of extreme climate change on Design Museum

    Visitors to The Design Museum in London will be able to experience a new exhibit with the exterior of the building transformed in AR, bringing to life the realities of extreme weather due to climate change. In turn, the building materials themselves transform, to highlight ways in which we can adapt to combat these challenges. This inaugural Landmarker project, in partnership with social media app Snap, sees architect Mariam Issoufou Kamara reimagine the Design Museum building to mark its fifth birthday in its current home. The project ties into the Design Museum’s mission to make the impact of design visible and demonstrate its role in addressing contemporary issues. Visitors to the museum will be prompted to ‘Open their Snapchat’, at which point Snap’s AR technology will transform the…

  • UK to ditch 2G and 3G networks by 2033

    According to Dorries, the UK would, in agreement with the country’s major networks, switch off all public 2G and 3G networks to free up spectrum for 5G and other future network technology. She said the move would support a smoother transition to faster mobile networks and would make it easier for new suppliers to enter the market, supporting government plans to diversify its suppliers in the wake of its banning of Chinese firm Huawei. The government said there were wider benefits to the move, including making it simpler to run networks as operators do not have to deal with the challenges which can arise from running up to four networks. “5G technology is already revolutionising people’s lives and businesses – connecting people across the UK with faster mobile data and making businesses…

  • Back story: Jennifer Olsen, ‘These days I feel I should speak out’

    Shini Somara: How did your career evolve? Jennifer Olsen: I had wanted to do biomedical engineering from around the age of 16. Before then, I had no idea what an engineer was. I assumed they just fixed trains and cars, and doing that didn’t really interest me. I was interested in medicine and helping people, but I didn’t want to be a doctor. I believe that many women, myself included, choose engineering later on, because they have many misconceptions about the profession. I only learned about what engineering is through the National Engineering Competition for girls in 2016, which I eventually won. This led me into prosthetic research via a university degree in mechanical engineering. As a healthcare profession, biomedical engineering tends to attract a higher number of women, but it…

  • Patients ‘more likely’ to discuss some health conditions with AI than a GP

    The study by the University of Westminster and University College London (UCL) found that people preferred to speak to a healthcare professional about severe conditions such as cancer, but were less inclined to do so with less severe conditions and those with a perceived stigma. The researchers said the study shows there is a place for artificial-intelligence-powered chatbots, particularly when the health issue involves the disclosure of personal information that is challenging. But the research team warned that the healthcare sector also needs to recognise the limitations of such technology and only use it in certain scenarios. According to the research team, chatbots had become increasingly common in recent years within primary care, as AI technology had improved. But they argued this…

  • Social and technical change: a revolutionary partnership

    To claim an important part in human history for technology is not controversial. My contention is more radical however – that technology steers the pace and direction of all cultural evolution, guiding the way to the appearance of the modern world. It has done it in dialogue with social forces, through deep movements in opinion and values, through politics and even new faiths. From the start, along with language, technology began patterning the human world. An evolving culture started that we have lived with ever since. On my desk lies a small stone axe, a hundred thousand years old. Once it had a sharp cutting edge at one end, while the other gave a good hand grip. It cannot be used by left-handers – the finger indentations fit only the right. That was a design decision by its maker. Technology…

  • ‘Progress is happening, and the future looks bright’: Luke O’Neill

    It used to be said that you should never judge a book by its cover. And yet, one look at the unmistakable dayglo colour references to Jamie Reid’s infamous album sleeve of 1977 relieves you of that responsibility. And just as Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten explained the title of the band’s album - which famously survived an obscenity court case – as being an imprecation to strip away the nonsense and get to the objective root of the matter, so here does Luke O’Neill. Don’t be fooled by the guitar-playing immunologist’s eyeball-friendly rock’n’roll cultural magpie stance. There’s a lot of deadly serious stuff going on in ‘Never Mind the B*ll#cks, Here’s the Science’. It’s a book about nothing less than why the public is reluctant to think scientifically, or trust engineers for that matter…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • UK universities could reduce carbon emissions with shorter winter terms, study finds

    While strategies to reduce carbon emissions normally require significant time and financial investment, the research suggests that this kind of schedule change could offer a simple and low-cost way to reduce carbon emissions. “This approach does not really require any significant investment,” said Wei Sun, an energy system researcher and author on the paper. “We just need willingness from staff and students to be open to the changes in semester dates.” The team monitored how more than 20 universities are currently managing their energy consumptions on campus, including their semester schedules. They then looked at heat and energy usage for the University of Edinburgh (where some of the researchers work) over the course of the year. This helped them propose the most environmentally friendly…

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