MIT engineers have reportedly discovered a new material that is ten times darker than any previously known black substance. The ultra-black substance is capable of absorbing up to 99.965% of any light that strikes, causes anything coated with the substance to take on the appear

Open any closet in the United States and you’re almost guaranteed to find a pair of jeans hanging there. But denim was not always as ubiquitous as it is today. In its early days, it was considered a working-class material fit only for miners, cowboys, and other rough professions

On Bastille Day in 2019, the crowd along the Champs-Elysees was treated to a unique spectacle as a working hoverboard soared overhead. Piloted by French inventor and former jet-skiing champion Franky Zapata, the show was a prelude to something even more ambitious: a crossing of

Flame throwing drones? The concept might sound like something out of a Terminator movie or dystopian novel, but they're real - and you can actually purchase one for yourself. Developed by flamethrower company Throwflame, the attachment for personal drones, called the Throwflame

On October 3, 1952, the world’s nuclear powers welcomed a third member into its ranks: the United Kingdom. Known as Operation Hurricane, the first test of a British atomic device was conducted in the Monte Bello Islands of Western Australia and the explosion left a saucer-shaped

Although current noise-mitigating barricades, called baffles, are capable of dulling the sound of traffic or focusing the sound of music, they often fall short when it comes to situations where airflow is also critical. Tarmac workers, for example, must wear headphones if they w

Welcome to Thomas Insights — every day, we publish the latest news and analysis to keep our readers up to date on what’s happening in industry. Sign up here to get the day’s top stories delivered straight to your inbox. Engineers at Brigham Young University have unveiled a new technology that would allow them to build complex mechanisms into the exterior of a structure without taking up space below the surface. Dubbed “developable mechanism,” these new mechanisms are made with materials that c

The world of robotics has been picking up steam lately with the announcement of new innovations in automation and artificial intelligence becoming almost a weekly occurrence. Robots, once considered to be possible only in the minds of science fiction writers, may soon be

We live in the age of smart: smartphones, smartwatches, smart-TVs, and even smartcars; but what if we could expand our intelligence? What if we could build an entire smart city? That’s the very question that New York-based Sidewalk Labs seeks to answer. Founded in 2015 as a sub