We all love a little Consumer Reports scoop, don’t we? Last year, Subaru surpassed Toyota and Lexus to become the most reliable carmaker. This year, Toyota reclaims its crown. And there’s one damning stat: Four out of the top five most reliable car brands this year are Japanese.
Category: Automotive, Transport
A drug once designed for dengue virus, then quietly abandoned by industry, is suddenly back in the spotlight, and it may be exactly what the global health community has been waiting for. A new study suggests that this antiviral didn’t just slow the dengue virus, it blocked viral replication and significantly reduced infection rates at high doses. Now, scientists are racing to map its path toward clinical trials. If it holds up, this once-side-lined molecule could become the first targeted therapy for a disease that has affected hundreds of millions.
Category: Infectious Diseases, Illnesses and conditions, Body and Mind
Tags: Antiviral, Dengue, Mosquito, Pharmaceuticals, Big pharma
I've always loved the idea of phone accessories that make your device feel more like a camera in your hand, so you can access physical controls easily and shoot more naturally. Xiaomi's taken that concept and run with it on its latest model, whose camera bump doubles as a ring you can twist to adjust the optical zoom.
Category: Photography, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: Smartphones, Xiaomi, Camera Phone, Camera
For most people, the loss of a sense such as sight is devastating, not only for intensifying vulnerability, but for undermining quality of life. While prostheses can be functionally useful, they can’t replace the sensory information such as texture, moisture, and density that our skin so easily conveys to our brains.
Category: Medical Devices, Medical Innovations, Body and Mind
Tags: Optogenetics, Northwestern University, Brain-computer interface, Stroke
We humans are a delicate bunch. We don’t have bark, boney exo-plates, or lush fur to protect us from hostile environments, so we have to steal what other creatures produce just to survive in regions around the only planet that supports us. A few naked days in Earth’s hottest deserts would be more than enough to kill nearly all of us.
Category: Environment, Science
Tags: Climate Crisis, Michigan State University, Plants, Agriculture, Crops
This year has produced more than its fair share of fantastic buildings, and we've decided to take a look back at the best. From a house that was 3D printed using soil, to an upcoming megatall skyscraper, here's our selection of the top 10 architecture projects from the past 12 months.
Category: Architecture, Technology
Tags: Best of 2025, Building and Construction, Skyscrapers, 3D Printing, House, sustainable design
So, imagine you’re Tony Stark, operating your armored, high-tech exoskeleton to fly through the skies by using your helmet’s eye-tracking sensors to control your suit. And then, out of nowhere, the Mandarin blasts you with a force beam just before Fing Fang Foom tries punching your iron head through your iron rectum. And now with your eyes rolling inside your head like destabilized gyroscopes, do you keep flying straight, or do you shoot into the concrete like an unguided missile?
Category: Wearables, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: UC San Diego, Remote Control, DARPA
We’ve talked about Benda a few times before, and it seems every time there’s a new motorcycle from the Chinese brand, there’s some radical approach behind it. Whether it be a Transformers-inspired naked moto, a mean-looking 250cc bobber, or an inline-four cruiser with the widest rear tire on a production bike. This time, it’s the engine that seeks all the attention.
Category: Motorcycles, Transport
Tags: Benda, Hybrid, Electric Motorcycles, China, Retro, Engine Technologies
Tea and coffee are two of the most popular drinks in the world – daily rituals linked to culture, comfort, and productivity. Now scientists have new insights into how each affects bone health, especially the risk of osteoporosis.
Category: Diet & Nutrition, Wellness and Healthy Living, Body and Mind
Tags: Coffee, Tea, Bones, Osteoporosis, Flinders University, Age-Related, Flavonoids
The rhythmic action of blinking helps keep our vision sharp. Initially studied only in vision science, blinking is now also recognized as a subtle cue showing how the brain handles attention and resources, even when we are listening. It's thought that as listening becomes more difficult, we blink less, with each pause indicating sharper focus and alertness.
Category: Body and Mind
Tags: Eye-tracking, Brain, Perception, Behavior, Concordia University, Thinking
The past 12 months have produced a remarkable number of buildings that push architecture to new heights. From a megatall skyscraper to the world's longest suspension bridge, here's our pick of the 10 most ambitious projects this year.
Category: Architecture, Technology
Tags: Best of 2025, Building and Construction, Skyscrapers, World's Largest, Saudi Arabia
The time is finally here. Nearly 3 years after Buell’s most ambitious motorcycle was first revealed, deliveries for the Super Cruiser have begun in America. You know what they say: better late than never. Right?
Category: Motorcycles, Transport
Tags: Buell, EBR (Erik Buell Racing), Superbike, Cruisers, Retro
The Christmas photos of the Chinese civilian-looking cargo ship that appears to be weaponized are real. It's sitting exactly where analysts say it is – the Hudong–Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai. And yes, it absolutely looks like it's been fitted with containerized missile launchers, sensors, and point-defense hardware.
Category: Military, Technology
Tags: Ships, shipping containers, China, Naval Warfare
The descendants of black-bear-sized giants who could haul massive rocks with their mouths, modern Castor canadensis once numbered as many as 400 million in North America. Felling mighty trees with their orange, iron-infused, nearly invincible incisors, they created their terraforming, hydro-engineering, half-submerged eco-homes based on blueprints stored in their DNA. Now, thanks to merciless fur-hunting by humans, their population has plummeted by 97.5%.
Category: Environment, Science
Tags: Washington State University, Ecology, Environment, Water Conservation, Biomimicry
In the South China Sea, near the Paracel Islands, the aqua-colored waters of an expansive shallow reef platform suddenly gives way to a near vertical shaft of vast darkness – an ocean sinkhole almost entirely devoid of oxygen and, in turn, marine life as we know it.
Tags: Ocean, Microbes, Marine Biology, Geology, Oxygen, Energy
As the year nears its end, it's high time to take a look back at the best tiny houses of 2025. From high-end spacious models suitable for a family, to those that are modest in both size and cost, here's a look at the most interesting examples of small living we've seen over the last 12 months.
Category: Tiny Houses, Outdoors
Tags: Building and Construction, Tiny Footprint, Micro-House, House, Home, Best of 2025
High on the sheer limestone cliffs in southwest China, ancient wooden coffins remain wedged into rock faces hundreds of feet above the ground. Long treated as archaeological curiosities, these dramatic burials are now being re-examined using ancient DNA, and they point to a broader practice where separate cultures across Asia all paid their respects to the dead at similar "sky graveyards."
Category: Environment, Science
Tags: Chinese Academy of Sciences, Max Planck Institute, China, History, Deaths, Genetics
Four years ago, when the RA9 concept was first introduced by the Chinese-origin Cyclone, a part of the bigger Zongshen group, it became one of the most advanced bikes to come out of China. That’s because in 2021, the idea of a liter-class Chinese bike was still fairly unexplored.
Category: Motorcycles, Transport
Tags: Superbike, Ducati, China, CFMoto, qjmotor, Aprilia, Piaggio
Researchers at China's National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) have accelerated a one-ton vehicle from a dead stop to 435 mph (700 km/h) in under two seconds – then back to zero mph on about a 1/4 mile (1,312 ft / 400 meter) magnetic levitation test track. It's not just fast – it's absurd. That makes it the quickest superconducting maglev acceleration ever demonstrated.
Category: Transport
Tags: Trains, Maglev, Bullet+Train, China
In order to 3D-print really intricate items, you need a really fine print nozzle. Scientists have discovered that instead of going to the time and trouble of building one, you can simply repurpose a mosquito's existing blood-sucking proboscis.
Category: 3D Printing, Manufacturing, Technology
