20+ min ago (570+ words) Get 50% Off Annual Get Exclusive Tech content, Expert Engineering Insights, No Ads! The ash plume has crossed the Red Sea before advancing toward the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent. The Hayli Gubbi volcano in Ethiopia erupted explosively on Sunday, November 23, 2025, for the first time in approximately 12,000 years." Thick smoke surged 9 miles into the atmosphere, eventually spreading eastward over the Red Sea. The eruption has stopped, but its highly elevated ash cloud is still traveling." Swift high-altitude winds carried the toxic mixture of fine particles, rock, and glass across the Red Sea." Recent reports suggest that the ash cloud travelled across Yemen and Oman, reaching parts of Northern Pakistan and India." The latest analysis added that the plume is now dispersing into the upper atmosphere, moving from Northern India toward China and the Pacific Ocean along the Subtropical Jetstream. Ash…...

1+ hour, 21+ min ago (603+ words) The project uses the stable temperatures in old coal tunnels to create a ground-source heat system. A former coal-mining hub in Canada has been exploring an unexpected pathway to clean energy by using the labyrinth of abandoned mine shafts beneath the village to deliver low-carbon geothermal heating and cooling. Vancouver Island's village of Cumberland once anchored the region's economy, as workers extracted more than 16 million tonnes of bituminous coal from 1888 until the late 1960s. The coal once fueled ships, heated homes, and even supplied smelters in Japan. When the mines closed, they left deep shafts, sprawling tunnels and long-term risks, including methane pockets and unstable voids. Now, an initiative developed through the University of Victoria's Accelerating Community Energy Transformation (ACET) program aims to turn the abandoned shafts and tunnels into a community-scale energy system. The ACET team is studying how groundwater…...

1+ hour, 34+ min ago (514+ words) SkillMimic-V2 uses advanced AI tools to help robots learn smooth, flexible skills from sparse, noisy, or imperfect data. A Unitree G1, nicknamed "Little Potato, has landed a clean three-step layup, a notable leap in humanoid robot athleticism. In a recent lab demonstration done by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), the compact humanoid moved with surprising fluidity'dribbling, passing, and sinking shots after practising thousands of simulated drills. The robot's abilities come from SkillMimic, an AI framework that studies human demonstrations captured through video and motion-tracking suits, then refines those movements in virtual training until they're stable enough for the real world. This approach allows training a single policy to learn multiple skills, enabling smooth skill switching even if these switches are not present in the reference dataset. A high-level controller can easily reuse the skills acquired by SkillMimic…...

2+ hour, 48+ min ago (508+ words) Get 50% Off Annual Get Exclusive Tech content, Expert Engineering Insights, No Ads! The material allows electrical charge to move through it with unprecedented ease. Scientists at the University of Warwick and the National Research Council of Canada say they have achieved the highest electrical conductivity ever recorded in a silicon-compatible material, marking what they describe as a major step toward faster, more efficient electronic and quantum devices. The breakthrough, published this week in Materials Today, centers on a nanometer-thin, compressively strained germanium layer grown on a silicon wafer." The material allows electrical charge to move through it with unprecedented ease, potentially extending the life of silicon-based chip manufacturing as the semiconductor industry confronts the physical limits of modern processors. Most chips today still rely on silicon, but as components shrink and transistor densities rise, modern devices generate more heat and…...

2+ hour, 59+ min ago (513+ words) Get 50% Off Annual Get Exclusive Tech content, Expert Engineering Insights, No Ads! Robot dog tries real-time tactile feedback which makes us human highly responsive. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new tactile sensing system that allows quadrupedal robots to carry loose, unsecured cylindrical objects on their backs without the cargo rolling off, even while walking, changing direction, or navigating obstacles. The technology, called LocoTouch, marks a shift in how robot dogs maintain balance and interact with irregular loads, potentially enabling a new class of robotic assistants capable of handling everyday tasks in real-world environments. According to the University, LocoTouch replaces these physical constraints with a high-density tactile sensor array mounted flat across the robot's back. There are no borders, grooves, or mechanical aids to prevent an object from sliding off. Instead, the robot learns to adapt its body…...

4+ hour, 22+ min ago (489+ words) Get 50% Off Annual Get Exclusive Tech content, Expert Engineering Insights, No Ads! Chinese robotics company MagicLab has released a new YouTube video showcasing the latest development of its humanoid, MagicBot Z1. The humanoid can be seen performing a backflip comfortably in the 45-second video that was released last week. The Z1 further performed martial arts kicks with a spin and dodged an arrow with a side flip. In another video that was released a day earlier, the Z1 showed off its dancing skills. In all activities, the humanoid robot demonstrated agility and balance recovery. The MagicBot Z1 stands 1.4 meters tall and weighs around 40 kgs(88 lbs). Designed for industrial, commercial, and companion applications, the robot boasts up to 50 degrees of freedom with high-torque smart joints. It is equipped with a comprehensive sensor array, including 3D LiDAR, depth cameras, and binocular fisheye vision. The MagicBot Z1 can walk…...

10+ hour, 35+ min ago (496+ words) Get 50% Off Annual Get Exclusive Tech content, Expert Engineering Insights, No Ads! NATO partners with Google Cloud to deploy air-gapped sovereign AI infrastructure for sensitive defense and training missions. NATO has taken a major step toward modernizing its digital backbone, signing a multi-million-dollar contract with Google Cloud to bring advanced, sovereign cloud and AI capabilities into its most sensitive operational environments. The deal, announced Monday, gives the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA) access to Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) " including its air-gapped, fully isolated cloud platform designed for classified workloads. The system will support NATO's Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre (JATEC), enabling it to process critical data, run modern AI models, and strengthen digital readiness across the alliance. For NATO, the upgrade marks a decisive shift toward secure, next-generation infrastructure engineered for autonomy and strict data-residency control. Google Cloud…...

10+ hour, 43+ min ago (581+ words) Get 50% Off Annual Get Exclusive Tech content, Expert Engineering Insights, No Ads! The company is shipping early units to aviation, logistics, and energy partners as part of a new enterprise preview. Amazon has taken a major step toward launching its satellite internet business next year. The company revealed Leo Ultra, its most advanced antenna yet, and opened an enterprise preview program for select customers. The move signals that Amazon Leo, formerly Project Kuiper, is shifting from deployment to commercial readiness as it builds out a network that already includes more than 150 satellites. Leo Ultra sits at the top of Amazon's three-antenna lineup and targets business and government users. The 20-by-30-inch terminal delivers up to 1Gbps download speeds and 400Mbps uploads. Amazon calls it the fastest commercial phased-array antenna now in production. The design removes moving parts, supports rapid installation, and withstands…...

11+ hour, 44+ min ago (566+ words) Get 50% Off Annual Get Exclusive Tech content, Expert Engineering Insights, No Ads! Disney's new Olaf robot uses AI and reinforcement learning to turn animated motion into a lifelike character debuting at global parks. Olaf just stepped out of the screen and into real life. Disneyland Paris unveiled a next-generation robotic Olaf this week, marking one of Disney Imagineering's most ambitious technological leaps as the animated snowman takes form as a fully expressive, physical character. The debut was led by Bruce Vaughn, President and Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI), and Natacha Rafalski, Pr'sidente of Disneyland Paris. The moment signals a new chapter where advances in robotics, AI, and simulation fuse with Disney's storytelling tradition to bring iconic characters into the real world. Olaf's appearance builds on the newest episode of WDI's R&D showcase series, We Call It…...

14+ hour, 50+ min ago (499+ words) Get 50% Off Annual Get Exclusive Tech content, Expert Engineering Insights, No Ads! A new nanowire platform finally lets astrocytes grow in their true form, offering a clearer look at how the brain maintains itself. Scientists finally have a way to watch the brain's most elusive support cells behave exactly as they do inside our heads. A team from Johns Hopkins University and the National Research Council of Italy has engineered a new nanowire platform that allows astrocytes, the brain's most abundant and understudied cells, to grow in their natural star-like form for the first time outside the body. Astrocytes quietly power some of the brain's most essential functions. They regulate communication between neurons, help maintain the blood-brain barrier, and serve as structural scaffolding for neural circuits. Yet their true behavior has remained obscured because the cells instantly collapse into unnatural…...