Discovery & Inventions

Thu, 04 Nov 2021
Winged microchip is smallest-ever human-made flying structure

‘Microfliers’ could monitor air pollution, airborne disease and environmental contamination

Engineers have added a new capability to electronic microchips: flight.

About the size of a grain of sand, the new flying microchip, or “microflier,” does not have a motor or engine. Instead, it catches flight on the wind — much like a maple tree’s …

Thu, 04 Nov 2021
Whales are more important ecosystem engineers than previously thought

Research on whale feeding illustrates how the precipitous decline of large marine mammals damaged ocean ecosystems

An estimated 1.5 million baleen whales that lived in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean were killed between 1910 and 1970 disrupting ocean ecosystems. The whales were hunted for their blubber, meat and baleen — the plates of fringe they use to filter prey from water they …