In a world of plastic water filter pitchers, I tested two of the new generation of stainless-steel filter systems. I will admit that the popularity of those giant, stainless steel, gravity-fed water filters remained a mystery to me for some years--even as multi-gallon water filter systems from brands like British Berkefeld and Berkey seemed to proliferate equally among lovers of doomsday prepping and holistic wellness retreats. I have been testing much different breeds of water filters for more than a year now, including reverse osmosis filters and water pitchers. But often, the big water filter tanks have seemed as much like status symbols as functional items. If you see a big gravity-fed filter, you know the person in question is serious about wellness, survival, or both. What changed my mind about these big stainless steel filters was microplastics . Most water filter pitchers are made of BPA-free plastic. But as new research shows that bottled-water drinkers ingest tens of thousands of excess microplastic particles, wellness lovers have begun to look askance at water filters that are themselves made of plastic.

Your monitor needs a monitor arm, and I've been testing every single one I can get my hands on to see which is best. A monitor arm should be one of those simple products you buy once and never think about again. But I've seen horror stories of cheap, knock-off models that collapse, damaging both the desk and the monitor. Anything that mounts a very heavy piece of expensive tech like a high-end monitor should be high-quality, which is true of all the options below. Each of the monitor arms on our list have been hand-tested by us. Most are currently clamped down to a desk of one of our product reviewers.

Joe Hogan, Align Technology's plastics-nerd CEO, says you shouldn't eat with your aligners and that you don't need to wear your retainers every night. Joe Hogan sees a lot of smiles. When people ask him where he works, he responds with "Align Technology," which inevitably prompts the follow up, "What's that?" After months, sometimes years, the discrete rival to braces promises to give people smiles they will want to show off. Hogan gets a look at them all. And he's eager to see more. Align is embarking on its biggest manufacturing overhaul since it was founded by two Stanford Graduate School of Business classmates 29 years ago. The company is preparing to begin directly 3D printing the aligners at the core of its business, ditching what Hogan describes as a longer, more wasteful process that involves making molds. A successful transition could lower costs and make treatment more affordable in the long run, bringing Invisalign to more customers and boosting Align's profits. It also, according to Hogan, would entrench Align as the world's biggest user of 3D printers .

Plastic pollution is one of those problems everyone can see, yet few know how to tackle it effectively. I grew up walking the beaches around Tramore in County Waterford, Ireland, where plastic debris has always been part of the coastline, including bottles, fragments of fishing gear and food packaging. According to the UN, every year 19-23 million tonnes of plastic lands up in lakes, rivers and seas, and it has a huge impact on ecosystems, creating pollution and damaging animal habitats. Community groups do tremendous work cleaning these beaches, but they're essentially walking blind, guessing where plastic accumulates, missing hot spots, repeating the same stretches while problem areas may go untouched. Years later, working in marine robotics at the University of Limerick, I began developing tools to support marine clean-up and help communities find plastic pollution along our coastline.

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.