A person soldering components onto a blue circuit board under a focused light.

The Material World

Though we live in a digital age, material science has shaped history—and it’s far from over. From quantum computers to fusion reactors, breakthroughs in materials will drive the next technological frontier.

A gloved hand holds a pair of tweezers gripping a small black square object against a background with concentric circles.

Batteries

Solid-state batteries are finally making their way out of the lab

Solid-state batteries could soon challenge lithium-ion as the dominant tech for powering smartphones, EVs, and more.

A person holds a tin can with a red string connected to it up to their ear.

Engineering

9 dumbphones to help curb your screen addiction

While smartphones keep getting more powerful, the growing dumbphone phenomenon is subverting expectations.

A collage of agricultural elements including a satellite, crop fields, tomatoes, and growth charts illustrating data, boosted breeding techniques, chemical formulas, and a seedling highlights efforts to combat hunger.

Agriculture

Boosted Breeding and beyond: 3 tech trends that could end world hunger

A world without hunger is possible, and the development and deployment of new farming technologies could be one key to manifesting it.

Prosthetics

Advanced prosthetics are not only powerful, they’re beautiful

“There’s a deep, deep relationship between the functionality of the device and a person’s identity of what their body is.”

Disaster Response

Could we end earthquake deaths?

4:56

Thousands die in earthquakes every year – even though we know how to build safely. This engineer is working with people in the most vulnerable places to figure out why.

Bionics

Wearable robotic suits could be coming to a store near you

What can lift 500 pounds in each hand, walk for miles and miles with a heavy load, or leap over obstacles in a single bound? Humans – with the help of wearable robotics.

Series| Superhuman

The exoskeleton marathon racer

6:50

How do you bounce back from a life-changing car accident? Adam Gorlitsky decided he would break a world record.

Hacking surfboard fins to fight climate change

4:22

How can a surfboard modification help save the oceans?

Drones

In the US, rural hospitals are closing. Can medical drones fill this healthcare gap?

“Whether you live in the developed world or the developing world, the further you travel outside of a major city,…

Drone racers are a thing and they’re amazing

5:29

Blistering speed. Big money. 11-year-old world champions. Is drone racing the next big sport?

Transportation

A quiet revolution in trucking

3:05

She’s a veteran, a single mom, and a trucker, who used to have to wait around for hours for her cargo. Now, a revolutionary solution from SAP and Uber Freight is getting her back on the road and home to her son sooner.

Bionics

The paralyzed racer going faster than ever

5:17

This daredevil wouldn’t let anything slow him down—not even a devastating bike accident.

Transportation

Driverless cars go off-roading

Computer-game simulations can train self-driving cars to navigate in the real world.

Transportation

Quieter, faster, stronger: The next jet age is coming

Air travel takes longer today than it did 40 years ago. That’s about to change.

Transportation

Tesla fixed its Model 3 brakes with software – and showed us the future of cars

Consumer Reports failed the Model 3’s braking system. A week later, Tesla beamed a fix to the entire fleet.

Transportation

Emergency braking was disabled during self-driving Uber fatality: Feds

Uber turned off the emergency braking function in its self-driving cars because of “erratic vehicle behavior.”

Series| Superhuman

These gloves can teach you to play the piano. And maybe heal your brain.

7:03

Through “passive haptic learning”, these gloves can teach you how to play the piano in an hour. Braille in four hours. Now researchers want to see if victims of traumatic brain injuries can use these gloves to re-learn critical skills.