The cost of solar panels has fallen from $5–6 per watt 26 years ago to 12 cents per watt today, reports the Financial Times. The cause is cited as growth in Chinese manufacturing, which led to solar generation surpassing coal in the US for the first time in June.
Using the LRO probe, scientists discovered the largest known new crater in the Solar System. The McGetchin crater, 222 m wide and 43 m deep, formed on the Moon's eastern edge between April 11 and May 22, 2024, and the surrounding 6.5 km area is 16 °F colder at night.
SpaceX and xAI are designing the AI1 satellite with a 110 m² radiator to dissipate 150 kW of heat at 1400 W/m² and chip temperature around 95 °C. The spacecraft mass is about 2.1 tonnes, of which 532 kg is the thermal system.
Researchers from INRAE and Clermont-Auvergne University showed that young poplars sense stem bending and straighten it by changing the growth location of tension wood. In an experiment without light and gravity, stems straightened within weeks.
Astronomers combined Hubble and Webb observations for the first time to study trans-Neptunian objects. Webb found 27 faint bodies, including the smallest observed at about 5 km, fewer than models predicted, with colors indicating preserved formation traces.
China's low-noise supersonic demonstrator TMS-10 from the Tianmushan lab has entered final assembly, with supersonic flight planned before the end of 2026. The aircraft targets a cruise speed of up to Mach 2 and could cut Beijing-Shanghai travel to 30 minutes.
Elon Musk said his company Boring Co. is working on a tunnel project in Texas that would connect Austin and San Antonio. Route details, timelines and cost were not disclosed.
At IAA Transportation 2026 in Hanover, BYD showed its flagship electric tractor ETT 44: a 651 kWh battery, 600 km range and 1.5 MW charging from 20% to 80% in 20 minutes. It costs about €250,000, with production in China starting this year and a European plant also planned.
By early 2026 China had about 309,000 agricultural drones, which performed roughly 203 million hectare-treatments in 2025. US Part 137 operators treated about 16.4 million acres — roughly 6.64 million hectare-treatments, about 30 times less on comparable farmland.
Northrop Grumman is developing the three-stage solid-fuel LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM for the US Air Force to replace the Minuteman III. Plans call for 400 missiles on alert, 450 silos and over 600 infrastructure facilities; range exceeds 6,000 miles at about Mach 23. First flight test is set for 2027, with readiness in the early 2030s and a program cost of at least $141 billion.
Lockheed Martin unveiled a full-scale mockup of its Vectis stealth drone (CCA) and increased the number of prototypes from one to five. The vehicle is 10 m long, has a 12 m wingspan, one turbojet engine, and subsonic speed; first flight is planned for late 2027.
Stanford Medicine research shows the brain consists of two ancient nervous systems: a primitive one controlling breathing and heartbeat, and a 'human' one responsible for thinking. The finding explains why hindbrain neurons could not be grown in the lab for decades and allowed their first derivation from pluripotent stem cells.
Scientists propose building 'virtual cells' and 'digital twins' based on 4D AI models to accelerate drug discovery. The approach accounts for organelle dynamics, such as constant fusion and division of mitochondria, rather than static schemes.
Researchers from the University of East Anglia and Oxford BioDynamics used the EpiSwitch Orion platform to find shared regulatory networks in ME/CFS, long COVID, PTSD, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. The work, published in the Journal of Translational Medicine, used no new patient samples.
Researchers at Xiamen University developed an acoustic lens of concentric silicone rings with tungsten that corrects sound-wave distortion from an underwater drone's dome. In the lab the sonar beam narrowed from over 65° to 16–30°, and in the Jiulong River the lens cut reverberation by 11.98 dB and detected a sphere at about two meters.
A UC Berkeley study in Nature Neuroscience found that tau buildup in the frontal cortex disrupts slow waves during deep sleep, impairing new memory formation in older adults. In participants aged 60–70, waves traveled shorter distances and were more often isolated.
The US Air Force is developing the HACM hypersonic cruise missile with a scramjet engine that uses atmospheric oxygen. The contract with Raytheon for prototype development is worth up to $985 million, with initial readiness targeted for fiscal year 2027.
UC Berkeley researchers studied compound TOFA, which increases cellular energy expenditure without affecting food intake. In mice, it improved insulin sensitivity, lowered triglycerides, and reduced fat without muscle loss; energy expenditure rose up to 18%.
Cadillac confirmed the electric Lyriq-V crossover will be delivered to Australia and New Zealand in the 2027 model year. It produces 459 kW (615 hp), accelerates 0-100 km/h in 3.6 seconds, has a 92 kWh battery and about 471 km WLTP range, starting at NZ$109,000 (~$62,500).
Satellite data shows glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica lost about 12.5 trillion tons of ice since 1979. The melted water would be enough to cover the entire United States with a 1.5-meter layer of ice.
Southwest Research Institute developed the Electrical Interchangeability Index (EII), a numerical method showing when sodium-ion cells can replace lithium-ion in the same device. Tests on the 18650 format identified zones of high and low interchangeability by temperature, capacity and power.
Norway's Yara opened Europe's largest industrial carbon capture facility at its ammonia and fertilizer plant in Sluiskil, Netherlands. It will capture 800,000 tons of CO2 per year, liquefy it and ship it to Norway, where Northern Lights injects it into a reservoir 2,600 m deep. About 12 million tons are planned for storage over 15 years.
Astrophysicists at the Max Planck Institute modeled the early Universe and suggested that mysterious "little red dots" in JWST observations are rapidly growing "supermassive" black holes emitting light as they accrete matter. The authors estimate that within a million years the surrounding gas is consumed and the object becomes a bright quasar.
China's Sunwoda introduced a 15C EV battery that charges from 10% to 70% in 5 minutes and 10% to 97% in 9 minutes at room temperature, adding about 100 km of range per minute. At -20 °C, 10-97% takes 15 minutes, giving about 700 km of range.
University of Toronto engineers developed dye-sensitized nanoparticles that detect trace concentrations of chemicals and distinguish nearly identical molecules. The particles absorb near-infrared light and emit a green signal about 150 times brighter than conventional upconversion nanoparticles.
Stanford scientists used genetic engineering to remove mice cortex and implant human neurons, which multiplied from a few hundred to millions and connected to the rodents' brains. The mice showed human traits: brain damage under oxygen shortage and von Economo neurons that die in frontotemporal dementia.
Scientists recreated charred scrolls from Herculaneum and showed that lead in ancient ink allows distinguishing text from papyrus using X-ray scanning. The method is proposed for originals too fragile to unroll.
NIST physicists spent ten years measuring the gravitational constant G in a blind experiment, repeating the 2007 BIPM experiment. The obtained value 6.67387×10⁻¹¹ m³/(kg·s²) is 0.0235% lower than the French result, a significant discrepancy for fundamental physics.
NASA activated the 300-megapixel Wide Field Instrument on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launched August 30. The camera is not yet focused, so stars appear as green rings in the first test image. Full science images are expected in early 2027, and the mission could last 22 years instead of 10.
UCLA geochemists measured the body temperature of T. rex using clumped isotope thermometry on enamel from three teeth from the Hell Creek Formation. The average result was 36.3 ± 2.5 °C, close to modern elephants and higher than coexisting crocodiles (30.9 °C).
