The biodegradable design could help keep plastic from becoming fish food. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Chances are sushi aficionados have left a restaurant take-out in tow and with a handful of adorable, but environmentally problematic, fish-shaped soy sauce packets. These single-use plastic " shoyu-tai " drip bottles are as iconic as they are convenient, but their small size and disposability mean they often end up sliding down sinks and into drains. Once in the big blue, they slowly break down into microplastics that are then eaten by fish .

Scientists develop method to convert discarded plastic water bottles into high-performance supercapacitors, potentially reducing pollution while advancing clean energy.

Can AI really help us discover new materials? Judging from headlines and social media posts in recent years, one might reasonably assume that AI is going to fix the power grid, cure the world's diseases, and finish my holiday shopping for me. This week, we published a new package called Hype Correction . The collection of stories takes a look at how the world is starting to reckon with the reality of what AI can do, and what's just fluff. One of my favorite stories in that package comes from my colleague David Rotman, who took a hard look at AI for materials research . AI could transform the process of discovering new materials--innovation that could be especially useful in the world of climate tech, which needs new batteries, semiconductors, magnets, and more.

We propose an interpretable machine learning framework to help identify trade data discrepancies that are challenging to detect with traditional methods. Our system analyzes trade data to find a novel inverse price-volume signature, a pattern where reported volumes increase as average unit prices decrease. The model achieves 0.9375 accuracy and was validated by comparing large-scale UN data with detailed firm-level data, confirming that the risk signatures are consistent. This scalable tool provides customs authorities with a transparent, data-driven method to shift from conventional to priority-based inspection protocols, translating complex data into actionable intelligence to support international environmental policies.

-- This paper presents a novel methodology that integrates trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) with an energy - efficient robotic arm for intelligent waste classification and sorting. By utilizing a convolutional neural network (CNN) enhanced through trans fer learning with MobileNetV2, the system accurately classifies waste into six categories: plastic, glass, metal, paper, cardboard, and trash. The model achieved a high training accuracy of 99.8% and a validation accuracy of 80.5%, demonstrating strong lea rning and generalization. A robotic arm simulator is implemented to perform virtual sorting, calculating the energy cost for each action using Euclidean distance to ensure optimal and efficient movement. The framework incorporates key elements of trustwort hy AI, such as transparency, robustness, fairness, and safety, making it a reliable and scalable solution for smart waste management systems in urban settings. I. INTRODUCTION As cities grow and industries expand, managing waste effectively has become a major global issue.

Amazon Prime Day is live. See the best deals HERE. The drive to save elephants had some unforeseen conservation consequences. Billiard balls were once made of ivory. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday.

The 20th century was a famously fertile time for visions of the future, but the 21st century has failed to inspire them in the same way. Science fiction writer William Gibson, author of the prescient cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, has called this "future fatigue", pointing out that we barely ever make reference to the 22nd century. One reason for this apparent stasis is that most of the ideas of the future that captured people's imaginations in the 20th century have mutated since then. For example, plastic was billed as the material of the future. It has become an abundant material resource that is durable and versatile, just as its manufacturers promised.

--The high cost of robotic platforms limits students' ability to gain practical skills directly applicable in real-world scenarios. T o address this challenge, this paper presents T ARA, a low-cost, 3D-printed robotic arm designed for accessible robotics education. T ARA includes an open-source repository with design files, assembly instructions, and baseline code, enabling users to build and customize the platform. Experimental validation confirmed accurate performance in basic manipulation tasks. Rather than focusing on performance benchmarking, this work prioritizes educational reproducibility, providing a platform that students and educators can reliably replicate and extend. Robotics is playing an increasingly vital role in both industry and education.

Researchers are working on manipulating the digestive systems of wax worms to create a scalable way of disposing of plastic. Plastics that support modern life are inexpensive, strong, and versatile, but are difficult to dispose of and have a serious impact when released into the environment. Polyethylene, in particular, is the most widely produced plastic in the world, with more than 100 million tons distributed annually. Since it can take decades to decompose--and along the way can harm wildlife and degrade into harmful microplastics --its disposal is an urgent issue for mankind. In 2017, European researchers discovered a potential solution.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Chemical pollution is "a threat to the thriving of humans and nature of a similar order as climate change" but decades behind global heating in terms of public awareness and action, a report has warned. The industrial economy has created more than 100 million "novel entities," or chemicals not found in nature, with somewhere between 40,000 and 350,000 in commercial use and production, the report says. But the environmental and human health effects of this widespread contamination of the biosphere are not widely appreciated, in spite of a growing body of evidence linking chemical toxicity with effects ranging from ADHD to infertility to cancer. "I suppose that's the biggest surprise for some people," Harry Macpherson, senior climate associate at Deep Science Ventures (DSV), which carried out the research, told the Guardian.