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New-build islands proposed to save low-lying nations from rising sea levels

A team of researchers worked with Maldivian scientists on the project, as the Maldives are particularly under threat from sea level rises – some estimates find the islands in the Indian Ocean will be completely submerged by 2100. Maldives capital Malé is currently attracting a rapidly expanding population as other islands are abandoned, as well as because of demographic changes. “Our findings indicate that in the extreme the entire population of the Maldives could live on just two islands that are built at a significantly higher elevation than natural islands to withstand sea-level rise,” said Professor Robert Nicholls, director of the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia, which focuses on climate change research. “Of course, these islands would look very different to the beautiful…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Dear Evil Engineer: Can I save on my energy bills by burning bodies?

Dear Evil Energy-Saving Expert, Like everyone else – heroes, villains, and morally grey protagonists – I have been thinking a lot these days about how to better manage my outgoings amid this cost-of-living crisis. Already, I’ve implemented plenty of measures of which Martin Lewis would be proud, such as switching to energy-efficient lightbulbs, switching off devices on standby, culling and eating the pet sharks, and sending the kids to work part-time in the local e-commerce order fulfilment centre – but all this has turned out to be trivial in comparison with my ballooning energy costs. So, I’ve been wondering about whether I could utilise existing resources as fuel to keep down the energy bills a bit. Over the last financial year, I’ve been fulfilling an average of one order per week …

E+T Magazine
Fighter pilot study may reveal how space changes brains of astronauts

The researchers recruited 10 fighter jet pilots from the Belgian Air Force, alongside a control group of 10 non-pilots, and performed MRI scans of their brains to establish the first-ever study of functional brain connectivity in fighter pilots. The scans revealed that pilots with more flight experience showed specific brain connectivity patterns in areas related to processing sensorimotor information – the brain processes that cause motor responses in the central nervous system. They also showed differences in brain connectivity compared with non-pilots. Blasting off into space places significant demands on the body including altered levels of gravity, from the G-forces present during blast-off to the low-gravity environment in space. Other issues include rapidly interpreting sensory…

E+T Magazine in Space
Hands-on review: GameSir G7 wired controller for Xbox

As any hardcore gamer knows, the finest of margins can make a world of difference. In a game where milliseconds can decide between virtual life or death, any advantage should be seized upon. GameSir's officially licensed G7 wired controller for Xbox has been designed to provide high speed and ultra-low input latency to give you that competitive edge, with extreme sensitivity, faster response, additional controls, textured grips and comprehensive software customisation. Even if you're more of a casual player, the G7 controller can still up your game. The G7 controller will work with Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One, as well as with Windows 10/11 on PCs. It's a wired controller, not wireless, so there's a detachable 3m USB-C cable in the box. This should be long enough for most gamers. …

E+T Magazine
Book interview: ‘Computing Taste’ by Nick Seaver

When it comes to the relationship between technology and culture there’s an apparent contradiction in how taste – in the sense of our subjective human preferences – is perceived. Few would challenge that when it comes to fashion, art or music, what we choose to like all comes down to a matter of taste. In other words, it’s a matter of personal preference, no wrong answers, live and let live. Move into the technology space and, as anthropologist Nick Seaver observes in his new book ‘Computing Taste’, we enter a different world. Humans rarely express taste preferences for the engineering that goes into jet engines, nuclear power stations or, for that matter, algorithms. And yet, algorithms are the cornerstone of how music recommender systems such as Spotify or Apple Music work. Back in the…

E+T Magazine in Computing
Wales scraps all major road building projects due to environmental concerns

Lee Waters, deputy minister for economy and transport, unveiled the decision as part of the country's ‘National Transport Plan’. “We will still invest in roads," Waters said during the announcement. "In fact, we are building new roads as I speak, but we are raising the bar for where new roads are the right response to transport problems. "We are also investing in real alternatives, including investment in rail, bus, walking and cycling projects.” Waters added that the department's budget is expected to be 8 per cent lower next year, "as a result of the UK government’s failure to invest in infrastructure". Last year, the Welsh government paused 55 road projects, pending a review by the Welsh Roads Review Panel led by transport expert Dr. Lynn Sloman. The panel's conclusions have…

E+T Magazine in Road transport systems
EU approves 2035 ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars

The ban on new petrol car sales will now be formally made into law at an upcoming ministerial meeting, despite opposition from conservative MEPs, the parliament's biggest group. The landmark rules require that by 2035 carmakers achieve a 100 per cent cut in CO2 emissions from new cars sold, which would make it impossible to sell new fossil fuel-powered vehicles in the 27-country bloc. The law also set a 55 per cent cut in CO2 emissions for new cars sold from 2030 compared to 2021 levels, raising the existing target of a 37.5 per cent decrease. The law passed the Strasbourg assembly by 340 votes to 279, with 21 abstentions. The legislation is a vital part of the EU's target of achieving net zero by 2050 and supporting the production of electric vehicles. Moreover, supporters of the…

E+T Magazine in Fossil Fuels
How are businesses adapting to the raw materials crunch?

“I think we’re bouncing from one disaster to another,” says Jason Webb, managing director at Sussex manufacturer Electronic Temperature Instruments (ETI), neatly summing up the state of the world today. Webb lists a series of ominous challenges his business is facing. Some of the firm’s thermometers use a particular microchip, the price of which has rocketed from around £4 per unit pre-pandemic, to £60 today. His company is also competing for components with thousands of other firms, which means the parts often end up going to the highest bidder. “Our products sell for under £100, so even an extra £10 on a chip [that might have previously cost £1] is really critical to us.” Unfortunately, car manufacturers also use the chips ETI needs – and absorbing an extra £10 into vehicle cost is much…

E+T Magazine in Business Planning
Turn the tide: is it time for tidal stream energy?

What the harbour porpoises, razorbills and recreational kayakers will make of the whirring turbines beneath the surging seas around Anglesey is largely unknown. But a patch of ocean off the coast of North Wales is now the focus of an emerging and under-exploited source of energy – tidal power. If all goes to plan, it could become one of the largest tidal energy sites on the planet. Beneath the iconic lighthouse of South Stack on Anglesey’s Holy Island – so called for its ancient standing stones and burial chambers – some of the fiercest tides in the UK funnel around the sheer Welsh cliffs at speeds of up to seven miles per hour (11km/h). These are busy waters – ferries shuttle two million passengers a year to and from Ireland, and Holyhead is the UK’s second busiest roll-on roll-off port…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
Air India places huge order of 470 jets from Airbus and Boeing

Air India, which was recently acquired by Tata Group, said it plans to acquire both widebody and single-aisle aircraft. The provisional deal, which includes 220 planes from Boeing and 250 from Airbus, comprises of 40 Airbus A350s, 20 Boeing 787s and 10 Boeing 777-9s widebody aircraft, as well as 210 Airbus A320/321 Neos and 190 Boeing 737 MAX single-aisle aircraft. The A350 aircraft will be powered by Rolls-Royce engines and the B777/787s by engines from GE Aerospace. Tata Sons and Air India Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said: “Air India is on a large transformation journey across safety, customer service, technology, engineering, network and human resources. “Modern, efficient fleet is a fundamental component of this transformation. This order is an important step in realising…

E+T Magazine in Aerospace
Broad use of Chinese-made cameras by police forces ‘presents security risk’

The Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner (OBSCC) conducted a survey last year, which targeted all 43 police force areas in England and Wales, about their use of public surveillance camera systems including on drones and helicopters, body-worn video, ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) and other systems. Of the 39 responses it received, at least 18 said their external camera systems use equipment that has been associated with security or ethical concerns, including from manufacturers Dahua, Hikvision, Honeywell and Huawei, and Nuuo. This increased to 24 when considering internal camera systems. Twenty-three of the 31 respondents who operate cameras on drones said they were aware of security or ethical concerns about the manufacturer, Chinese company, DJI. UK police data…

E+T Magazine in Security in the Modern World
UK space mission failure blamed on dislodged fuel filter

A dislodged fuel filter on the LauncherOne rocket caused an engine to overheat, leading to to the malfunction of components and the premature shutdown of the UK launch. The launch took place from Spaceport Cornwall on 9 January this year aboard a customised Boeing 747 that served as the LauncherOne system’s carrier aircraft. Hundreds of members of the public were watching the launch in person and over 75,000 were set to be viewing a live stream of the event. The rocket was successfully released from the aircraft and its engines ignited, taking it into space at a speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour (around 18,000km/h). However, at some point after stage separation and ignition of the second stage, the mission ended prematurely , with the reason remaining a mystery until today.…

E+T Magazine in Space
Breathing fresh life into museum exhibits

In the late 20 th century, museums underwent a transformation, shedding their image as places with roomfuls of static exhibits in glass cabinets featuring information-heavy labels but little context. Today most have some interactivity elements, whether it is a touchscreen display or virtual reality, as used by the Tate Modern in London to depict Modigliani’s Paris studio from 1919 in the artist’s retrospective exhibition. In June 2021, the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris went one step further and introduced Revivre, which offered visitors the chance to mingle with 3D animals that are either extinct or in danger of extinction. The museum partnered with SAOLA, an augmented creation studio, to create the augmented-reality (AR) experience. SAOLA, founded by film maker Jeremy Frey…

E+T Magazine in Vision and Imaging
Book review: ‘Invention and Innovation’ by Vaclav Smil

While general usage tends to regard the terms invention and innovation as interchangeable synonyms, the eagle-eyed engineer will already be aware of the subtle but important difference between the two. While invention is focused on coming up with the ideas and discoveries in the first place, as Vaclav Smil says in his latest in a long line of highly readable analyses of the modern world, innovation is “perhaps best understood as the process of introducing, adopting, and mastering new materials, products, processes and ideas.” As Smil remarks early in ‘Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure’ (The MIT Press, £20.58, ISBN 9780262048057), after a tortuously slow start for humankind in which it took millennia to develop even the most basic hand tools, we’ve become prolific…

E+T Magazine in History of Engineering
UK Space Agency launches £6.5m fund to boost domestic space technology

One project will explore the potential for a space observatory and planetarium to be established in Snowdonia, taking advantage of the area being part of the most extensive dark skies reserve in the UK. Another will look at how space technology could be used to tackle water leakage and monitor coastal erosion and stability in Cornwall. The projects will harness space-enabled technology to address local priorities, such as using Earth observation data to improve local public services and help engineering companies access the UK’s growing space markets. Science minister Michelle Donelan said: “This funding will help link local clusters to valuable networks of innovators and investors, showcasing the strengths of the UK space sector to international investors and levelling up the economy…

E+T Magazine in Space
Smart 3D-printed contact lens could offer AR with no headset

A team of scientists from KERI (Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute) and the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has been able to 3D-print smart contact lenses without applying voltage. "Our achievement is a development of 3D-printing technology that can print functional micro-patterns on non-planar substrate that can commercialise advanced smart contact lenses to implement AR," said Dr Seol Seung-Kwon's of KERI. "It will greatly contribute to the miniaturisation and versatility of AR devices." Smart contact lenses is a technology that could allow people to directly visualise digital environments, without the need for AR glasses, which are expensive and have been known to cause side-effects such as nausea. The main expected application area is navigation…

E+T Magazine in Vision and Imaging
Russian hackers disrupt earthquake aid missions in Syria and Turkey

Technology has been at the forefront of the response to the two earthquakes that recently hit Turkey and Syria and which have claimed an estimated 36,000 deaths. In the wake of the disaster, Russian government-linked hacking group Killnet has claimed responsibility for a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that has disrupted communications between NATO officials and military aircrafts engaged in search-and-rescue operations. A DDoS attack is a type of cyber attack that floods the target with so much data that it becomes overwhelmed and can no longer handle legitimate traffic. This often results in users being unable to access the site or service. “We are carrying out strikes on NATO. Details in a closed channel,” the hacker group said on one of its associate Telegram channels…

E+T Magazine in Space
Whales and dolphins under threat from deep-sea mining, study warns

Commercial-scale deep seabed mining in international waters could be permitted for the first time later this year. Scientists from the University of Exeter and Greenpeace Research Laboratories believe the process could be a “significant risk to ocean ecosystems” with “long-lasting and irreversible” effects. The study, which focuses on cetaceans such as whales, dolphins and porpoises, finds that urgent research is needed to assess potential impacts. “Like many animals, cetaceans are already facing multiple stressors, including climate change,” said Dr Kirsten Thompson, of the University of Exeter. “Very little research has examined the impact that deep-sea minerals extraction would have on cetaceans. Cetaceans are highly sensitive to sound, so noise from mining is a particular concern…

E+T Magazine in Sustainable Development
Delays threaten net-zero goals

Developers looking to connect renewable energy projects to the electricity grid are facing delays of more than 15 years, threatening the UK’s net-zero ambitions, E&T has heard. As the country’s target to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2035 looms ever closer, developers, engineering firms and consultancies have spoken to E&T about the connection delays that they say are putting both the climate targets and energy security at risk In the last 18 months, the time it takes for developers to connect renewable energy projects to the national grid has soared, and Peter Aston, a specialist connections engineer at the consultancy Roadnight Taylor, says the waiting times are now a major problem. “The transmission network just filled up and when you hit that limit on a network, you are suddenly…

E+T Magazine in Power Equipment
Blurring the lines between art and engineering

There are some feats of engineering that are so visually pleasing we instinctively call them works of art. And yet, when we make this statement in the 21 st century, it seems that we are crossing the frontier into a different land. There’s this idea that science is objective while art is subjective, the former a function of logical reasoning, the latter of interpretation. But there are, it seems, artist and engineers who never got the memo about these allegedly non-overlapping domains, as is proven by the existence of some breath-taking industrial aesthetics. The UK’s largest sculpture – the ArcelorMittal Orbit – is recognisably a feat of complex engineering, while some of the most stylish of our electronic gadgetry was designed by a man who went on to become chancellor of the Royal College…

E+T Magazine
Sponsored: Five ways technology is transforming the automotive industry

As the automotive sector welcomes new technologies, analysts predict soon-to-come changes “not seen since the Model T Ford rolled into the production line in the early 1900s,” according to market research firm McKinsey. Traditional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and start-ups have invested more than $280 billion in innovative software and hardware solutions since 2010, said McKinsey . In turn, OEMs and component suppliers have outperformed companies in other booming sectors, like high tech and chemicals—and as many analysts predict, the best is yet to come. That said, while today’s path toward automotive innovation is expected to lead to an awe-inspiring future, it is certainly not rid of obstacles, detours, and gaps. That’s why, at Keysight, we recently unveiled a new video series…

E+T Magazine in Automotive Engineering
Spain becomes the first country to have robotic telescopes in all five continents

The recently completed Burst Observer and Optical Transient Exploring System (BOOTES) comprises seven telescopes, located in Spain, New Zealand, China, Mexico, South Africa and Chile. It has been described as the most complex network of its kind, as well as a unique and automated resource that will combine data from instruments from all around the globe, and will help survey the night sky. “BOOTES is the result of almost 25 years of continuous effort, since we installed the first station in 1998 at INTA (Arenosillo, Huelva), the institution that initially supported the project," said Alberto J Castro-Tirado, a scientist at CSIC. "The complete deployment represents a scientific milestone since it is the first robotic network with a presence on all continents." BOOTES' main objective…

E+T Magazine in Space
Ford announces 3,800 job cuts including major UK losses

The carmaker said 2,800 engineering roles will be axed by 2025 and around 1,000 jobs in its administrative, marketing, sales and distribution teams will also be scrapped. The job losses include 1,300 that will be lost in the UK. The news comes as a blow to unions who said in late January the worst-case scenario was 2,500 job cuts in Europe in product development and a further 700 in administration. Ford the new strategy is an attempt to make the firm “leaner” as it transitions to offer an all-electric fleet in Europe by 2035. Production of Ford’s first European-built electric passenger vehicle is set to start later this year. “We are completely reinventing the Ford brand in Europe. Unapologetically American, outstanding design and connected services that will differentiate Ford and delight…

E+T Magazine in Automotive Engineering
BAE Systems partners with Home Office to help protect UK border

The three-year contract, worth £38m, will enable Border Force and related agencies to manage, in real time, the vast amounts of data relating to the 300 million passenger journeys and 385 million tonnes of freight that enter the UK every year. The amount of information held across the Home Office, wider government and industry is increasing rapidly, and understanding these large datasets quickly is critical for identifying risks to national security. Through the development of advanced risk analytics services with the Home Office, also known as ‘Cerberus’, BAE Systems Digital Intelligence is aiming to enable the Border Force and related agencies to streamline and augment the process of real-time threat detection and intervention. The capabilities should also enable the government…

E+T Magazine in Computing

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