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1 week ago | 
newatlas.com | Joe Salas
Imagine a 2.4-ton robotic arm wielding a six-foot-seven (2-m) circular sawblade with a 12-foot (3.7-m) reach, slung onto a truck-mounted hooklift system for easy transport. It's as terrifying as it is awe-inspiring. That's Smart Production's latest creation, built on the back of Kuka's KR Fortec 480 Ultra and called the Catonator. It's a 6-axis, 4,850-lb (2,200-kg) fully electric, battery-powered cutting machine that can slice, dice, and julienne rock and concrete with 0.1-mm precision.
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1 week ago | 
newatlas.com | Joe Salas
The company best known for churning out affordable smartphones and other consumer electronics – that may or may not be reporting back to the CCP – just made the fastest electric sedan on the planet to lap the famed Nürburgring Nordschleife racetrack. Xiaomi pulled out all the stops with the prototype SU7 Ultra in October of 2024 and smashed out a 6-minute 46.874-second lap on the 12.944-mile (20.832-km) rollercoaster of a racetrack. That's real fast.
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2 weeks ago | 
newatlas.com | Joe Salas
Scientists at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) have developed a new class of lightweight, highly conductive carbon nanotube (CNT) wiring that does away with copper and aluminum entirely. Using a process called Lyotropic Liquid Crystal-Assisted Surface Texturing (LAST), they've created core-sheath composite electric cables (CSCEC) that don't just conduct electricity, but are flexible and, most importantly, are super lightweight.
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2 weeks ago | 
flipboard.com | Joe Salas
9 hours agoBattery Recyclers Don't Know How to Respond to Trump’s Clean Energy ReversalThe president hasn't directly targeted the nascent industry, but his clean energy rollbacks could hurt it.
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2 weeks ago | 
newatlas.com | Joe Salas
What if your drinking water didn't come from old, rusty apartment building pipes or from a plastic bottle that's going to end up in a landfill ... or in the ocean? What if your drinking water (and coffee?) literally just came out of thin air? That's what Kara Pod promises. It's a sleek little countertop device that sucks air in and spits water out.
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2 weeks ago | 
newatlas.com | Joe Salas
There are no written Soviet records, no logs, no official drilling reports, and no confirmation that they'd lit it intentionally – but there's no disputing a ~100-foot (~30-m) deep, 226-foot (69-m) wide pit of relentless fiery fury that's been burning for around 50 years in the Karakum Desert of Turkmenistan. The Darvaza gas crater was believed to have been started in 1971 when a Soviet drilling rig punched through a natural gas pocket while drilling an exploratory well.
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2 weeks ago | 
newatlas.com | Joe Salas
Jackie Chan is one of the greatest stuntmen ever, mostly for his willingness to hurl himself into extreme danger and his ability to keep delivering his lines afterward – not to mention basically inventing the Kung Fu comedy genre. The man even has the Guinness World Record for the most film credits in a single film with 12 in Chinese Zodiac (2012). He's suffered enough injuries that he's been blacklisted by insurance companies, and he and his stunt crew pay for medical expenses out of pocket.
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3 weeks ago | 
portside.org | Joe Salas
Drilling for (Renewable) Energy Reaches New Depths Published June 6, 2025 On May 21, 2025, New Atlas attended a demonstration at the Nabors facility in Houston, Texas, where Quaise Energy showcased a literal groundbreaking demo of its millimeter wave drilling technology, looking to prove its dream of revolutionizing geothermal energy extraction. Quaise was officially founded in 2018 as a spinout of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
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3 weeks ago | 
newatlas.com | Joe Salas
In a somewhat odd flex, Mercedes-Benz Trucks just backed its way into the Guinness Book of World Records, quite literally. Marco Hellgrewe, a 50-year-old seasoned reverse-driving veteran and record holder took to the Oschersleben racetrack in Germany and spent the next 6 hours and 22 minutes driving a Mercedes eActros 600 in reverse, averaging 12 mph (20 kph) for a whopping total of 77.5 miles (124.7 km) and 476 corners.
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3 weeks ago | 
newatlas.com | Joe Salas
In Japanese mythology, dragons aren't the fire-breathing, treasure-hoarding monsters you'll find in Tolkien, Martin, et al. Instead, they're wise, serpentine creatures who control rain, fly through the clouds, and protect sacred areas.
