Nanotechnology Explained: How Engineering the Invisible Is Changing Our World A quantum-dot television looks like an ordinary television. An mRNA vaccine arrives in an ordinary syringe. A water-purification membrane may resemble a thin sheet of plastic. Yet each can rely on structures engineered at a scale where a human hair would look enormous. That scale is the nanoworld: the realm of billionths of a meter. It is not a separate branch of science so much as a meeting place for physics, chemistry, biology and engineering. And unlike the tiny mechanical robots of science fiction, many of its most consequential inventions already exist. Nanotechnology's real trick is not shrinking an object and keeping everything else the same. Small structures can behave differently. Gold nanoparticles interact with light in ways a gold ring does not. The color emitted by a semiconductor nanocrystal can depend on its diameter. A carefully formulated droplet of fat-like molecules can protect RN...

Can We Predict the Next Disaster? The Science of Wildfires, Droughts, Tornadoes and Tsunamis From the fire-risk maps of Los Angeles to experimental tornado forecasts: what science can predict today, what AI is improving, and where nature still leaves us guessing. Can science predict disasters before they strike? From wildfires and droughts to tornadoes and tsunamis, new technologies are changing how we anticipate natural hazards. In January 2025, destructive fires swept through neighborhoods of Los Angeles. The winds were fierce, the landscape dangerously dry, and thousands of people had to flee. In a study published that April, researchers showed that a machine-learning system designed to forecast fire activity—not just dangerous fire weather—had identified elevated risk in the region five days ahead. It did not predict the first spark or the house that would burn. But it had seen the conditions for trouble coming. That distinction matters. A forecast can tell firefighters w...

How to Become an Astronaut: The Real Road from Earth to Space An evidence-based guide to the qualifications, medical tests, psychological selection, training, and career decisions that could put you on a spacecraft. Imagine the moment you finally climb into a spacecraft. The cabin is smaller than it looked in the photographs. You can hear pumps, fans and the voices of the crew. Years of work have brought you here. But the most surprising part of becoming an astronaut is what happened long before this moment: you became very good at doing difficult, useful work on Earth. The popular picture involves fighter jets, perfect vision and an appetite for danger. The actual career is more interesting. Space agencies need people who can solve technical problems, conduct experiments, respond to emergencies, cooperate with strangers and accept that the mission matters more than their personal adventure. That might describe a pilot. It might also describe an engineer, doctor, geologist or res...

MINDS THAT CHANGED THE FUTURE  /  NIKOLA TESLA Nikola Tesla and the Future He Could Not Finish A century after his experiments with rotating magnetic fields and wireless power, engineers are still working on the same stubborn question: how do we move energy — and make it useful — with less waste? Nikola Tesla helped shape the modern electrical age through his work on alternating-current motors and power systems. More than a century later, his inventions remain essential to modern technology, while some of his most ambitious visions are still unrealized. In June 2024, engineers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory transferred 270 kilowatts of power to a Porsche Taycan without plugging a cable into it. Electricity crossed a gap of about 12 centimeters between coils. The laboratory reported efficiency above 95 percent for the demonstration, while emphasizing that the system remained a research prototype. More surprising than the absence of a cable was the design: the team used po...