Darren Quick

With large cargo freighters being a major source of CO2 emissions worldwide it's been encouraging to see various efforts to make such vessels more efficient. In recent years we've seen the development of the world's biggest container ship to cut CO2 emissions per container moved, air bubbles used to cut the friction between a ship's hull and the ocean, and even plans to return to the use of sails to cut fuel use. Now Nissan has launched an energy efficient coastal car carrier called the Nichio Maru that employs solar panels, LED lighting, a low friction hull coating hull and an electronically controlled diesel engine to cut fuel consumption. Read More

The cell membrane is one of the most important characteristics of a cell because it separates the interior of all cells from the extracellular environment and controls the movement of substances in and out of the cell. In a move that brings mankind another step closer to being able to create artificial life forms from scratch, chemists from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and Harvard University have created artificial self-assembling cell membranes using a novel chemical reaction. The chemists hope their creation will help shed light on the origins of life. Read More

As numerous companies continue their push to get us to entrust our data to the cloud, there are many still justifiably concerned about the security of cloud computing-based services. Now an international team of scientists have demonstrated that perfectly secure cloud computing is possible by combining the power of quantum computing with the security of quantum cryptography. They carried out what they claim is the first demonstration of “blind quantum computing,” in which a quantum computation was carried out with the input, computation, and output all remaining unknown to the computer, and therefore, also any eavesdroppers. Read More

While it doesn't boast the same kind of square footage as the Wally Island or the WHY, Wally's new Ace displacement yacht will still provide plenty of room to stretch one's legs while cruising the ocean waves. With 1,378 square feet (128 m2) of outside deck space spread over two decks and a 441 square foot (41 m2) interior saloon area contributing to a total square footage of 3,035 (282 m2), Wally says the Ace has 30 percent more space than its nearest competitor of the same length. Read More

Ever since University of Manchester scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov first isolated flakes of graphene in 2004 using that most high-tech pieces of equipment - adhesive tape - the one-atom sheet of carbon has continued to astound researchers with its remarkable properties. Now Professor Sir Andre Geim, (he's now not only a Nobel Prize winner but also a Knight Bachelor), has led a team that has added superpermeability with respect to water to graphene's ever lengthening list of extraordinary characteristics. Read More

BMW launched its X6 in 2008 dubbing it "the world's first ever Sports Activity Coupé." The SAC moniker was adopted because the vehicle combined the high ground clearance and all-wheel drive attributes of an SUV, with the body styling of a coupé. Despite mixed reviews regarding its styling upon launch, BMW says the vehicle has since racked up sales of over 150,000. Now the German automaker has announced it is giving the X6 a facelift - although you'll have to look pretty closely to pick the changes. Read More

In the face of potentially catastrophic effects on global food production, some have proposed drastic solutions to counteract climate change such as reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. A new study from the Carnegie Institution for Science examining the effects of sunshade geoengineering has concluded that such an approach would be more likely to improve food security than threaten it. Read More

We’ve previously seen – or should that be “not seen” – invisibility cloaks in the laboratory that are able to render two-dimensional objects invisible to microwaves. Such feats relies on the use of metamaterials – man-made materials that exhibit optical properties not found in nature and have the ability to guide light around an object. Now researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) claim to have brought invisibility cloaks that operate at visible light frequencies one step closer by cloaking a three-dimensional object standing in free space with the use of plasmonic metamaterials. Read More

After months of development, privately-owned Swiss company Novatiq is set to enter the robotics market with its first offering, SCORP. Designed for scouting and surveillance applications, SCORP is a Micro Unmanned Ground Vehicle (MUGV) that joins the growing ranks of throwable robots. As such, it is small, rugged and lightweight enough to be carried in a backpack and thrown into buildings or over rough terrain. Read More