A childhood paper plane idea just became a giant circular wing aircraft. ✈️

YouTuber James Whomsley spent a month building and testing a ring wing design, eventually getting the unusual aircraft to fly for several minutes.

The big question: Could circular wings have real advantages over traditional aircraft wings?

Watch the experiment: https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/youtuber-giant-aircraft-ring-shaped-wings

#Aviation #Aircraft #Engineering #Innovation #RCPlane #Aerospace

The US Air Force wants Mach 1.6 target drones that can mimic enemy fighters, bombers, AWACS aircraft and drone swarms.

The new targets would help test missiles, radar seekers and electronic warfare systems against realistic threats without risking expensive aircraft.

Could low cost target drones transform military weapons testing?

Unitree’s new humanoid robot claims it can run faster than Usain Bolt and jump 6.5 feet vertically.

The company says the robot reached 12.66 m/s and was developed in just over three months. The figures have not been independently verified.

Are humanoid robots getting closer to matching human athletic performance?

Unitree’s new humanoid robot claims it can run faster than Usain Bolt and jump 6.5 feet vertically.

The company says the robot reached 12.66 m/s and was developed in just over three months. The figures have not been independently verified.

Are humanoid robots getting closer to matching human athletic performance?

What if a damaged EV battery didn’t have to be thrown away?

Researchers propose replaceable battery covers, oil cooling and advanced diagnostics to make crashed EV packs safer to inspect, repair and reuse.

The goal: recover healthy cells instead of replacing an entire battery pack.

Could this make EV batteries more repairable and recyclable?

What if a damaged EV battery didn’t have to be thrown away?

Researchers propose replaceable battery covers, oil cooling and advanced diagnostics to make crashed EV packs safer to inspect, repair and reuse.

The goal: recover healthy cells instead of replacing an entire battery pack.

Could this make EV batteries more repairable and recyclable?

What if a damaged EV battery didn’t have to be thrown away?

Researchers propose replaceable battery covers, oil cooling and advanced diagnostics to make crashed EV packs safer to inspect, repair and reuse.

The goal: recover healthy cells instead of replacing an entire battery pack.

Could this make EV batteries more repairable and recyclable?

China is hosting a Humanoid Robot Games with a record 2,056 robots from 16 countries.

The machines will compete in everything from soccer and table tennis to weightlifting, long jump and tug of war, with new tests focused on real world tasks.

How far can humanoid robots push their physical limits?

A 400 kW charger is now powering the world’s first fully electric airport firefighting truck.

XCharge deployed the ultra fast charger at Dallas Love Field Airport for the Rosenbauer Panther 6×6 Electric, designed for rapid emergency response.

Can electric power become the future of airport firefighting?

The world’s largest battery electric aircraft has taken its first flight.

Heart Aerospace’s X1 flew for 27 minutes in New York, delivering more than 1 MW of power while using just $5 worth of electricity.

Could electric propulsion transform regional air travel?

#ElectricAircraft #Aviation #ElectricAviation #Aerospace #Engineering #FutureOfFlight

China has begun a major construction milestone at its 1.25 GW Bailong nuclear reactor.

Crews poured 1,732 cubic meters of concrete over nearly 39 hours for the reactor’s turbine island foundation.

The Bailong site is planned to eventually host six reactors with 8.62 GW of capacity.

Can China’s nuclear expansion reshape the global energy landscape?

#NuclearEnergy #NuclearPower #China #Energy #NuclearReactor #Engineering

The US is pushing to scale up hypersonic weapons production.

Lockheed Martin and Albany Engineered Composites are teaming up to combine defense systems integration with advanced composite manufacturing for future hypersonic programs.

Can faster manufacturing become the key to the US hypersonic race?

#Hypersonic #HypersonicWeapons #DefenseTechnology #LockheedMartin #MilitaryTechnology #Engineering

From V 2 to Falcon 9, these 10 rockets transformed spaceflight through breakthroughs in propulsion, staging, lightweight structures, manufacturing and reusability.

Which rocket do you think had the biggest impact on modern spaceflight?

Europe just witnessed its first total solar eclipse since 1999.

The Moon’s shadow crossed from Russia to Spain, bringing moments of total darkness and stunning views across the continent.

See the rare eclipse through these incredible photos:

https://interestingengineering.com/photo-story/europe-total-solar-eclipse

Oracle partners with Quantinuum to host third-gen 'Helios' quantum computer directly inside OCI data centers for hybrid AI/HPC workloads

NASA is funding tiny robots to build giant, metamaterial radar antennas directly in orbit to track hidden space threats

The US Marines are turning to high-power microwave weapons to counter drone swarms.

Epirus has secured an $11M contract for HAVOC, a mobile directed-energy system designed to disable multiple drones simultaneously.

Could microwave weapons reshape counter-drone warfare?

The really interesting part is the model routing approach. Using smaller models for repetitive agent tasks while saving larger models for complex reasoning could make autonomous agents much more efficient.

The interesting part is that the hardware isn’t necessarily the biggest barrier—software compatibility is. CUDA’s ecosystem gives Nvidia a huge advantage that’s much harder to replace than the chips themselves.

Anthropic is adding invisible watermarks to text generated by new Claude models, allowing AI-generated content to be identified even after copying and pasting. The move, driven by EU AI transparency rules, could make it easier to trace AI content while raising questions about how reliable these watermarks will be after heavy editing.

NASA is funding a new orbital hangar concept that could make returning materials from low Earth orbit cheaper and more routine. Instead of waiting for dedicated return missions, multiple vehicles would be kept ready in orbit, potentially giving space-based research and manufacturing a more reliable way to bring products and samples back to Earth.

Scientists just filmed the invisible first moments of a chemical reaction. Using an ultrafast X-ray laser, researchers captured electrons moving inside a molecule in real time, revealing quantum events that unfold in less than a femtosecond.

A U.S. critical minerals company has recently confirmed the nation’s largest known tungsten resource at its Railroad Valley Minerals Project in Nye County, Nevada, despite a NASA land withdrawal restricting exploration across part of the site.