Engineering (Page 4)

A guide to the structures, machines, and systems that power and connect our world.

Latest in Engineering

a woman and a patent

The forgotten story of the woman who invented the dishwasher

This artist concept depicts NASA Voyager 1 spacecraft entering interstellar space. Interstellar space is dominated by the plasma, or ionized gas, that was ejected by the death of nearby giant stars millions of years ago.

NASA squeezes more life from 47-year-old Voyager probes

a colorful illustration of an open mouth

New device lets you taste food in virtual reality

By Mack DeGeurin

CR450AF high speed train on track in China with two people looking at it

At 281 mph, China tests its fastest high-speed train

Philippines ocean coast with mountains

Southeast Asian sailors possibly mastered seafaring before Polynesians

Microscopic Lego bricks on pinhead next to human hair

The world’s smallest handmade sculpture is a blood cell-sized Lego brick

Aerial view of Great Wall of China surrounded by forests

The Great Wall of China is 300 years older than we thought

Majorana 1 quantum computing chip

New state of matter powers Microsoft quantum computing chip

View of fog at the Atacama desert in Iquique, some 2000 km north of Santiago, on April 19, 2016. Catholic University of Chile researchers' challenge is to implement a fog collection system -which uses large pieces of vertical canvas to make the fog condense into droplets- in small communities which don't have drinkable water in Atacama desert. / AFP / MARTIN BERNETTI (Photo credit should read MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Images)

In the driest place on Earth, water hides in plain sight

By Lauren Leffer

a map of the world with a line representing where the cable would connect

Meta spending billions on world’s longest subsea internet cable

By Mack DeGeurin

Model Muriel Maxwell in white sunglasses putting on lipstick, wearing red-white-and-blue turban, andv holding a red-and-white striped bag *** Local Caption ***

The evolution of sunglasses from science to style (and back again)

Inventor demonstrating modified trumpet invention

The 10 coolest musical instruments you’ll see in 2025

Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Captain America in Marvel Studios’ CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD.

Could we really make Captain America’s shield? A materials scientist weighs in.

By Laura Baisas

a seal with grey coloring wearing an orange heart rate monitor around its abdomen

Baby seals are wearing heart monitors–for science

By Laura Baisas

XB-1 plane taking off in desert

Experimental jet achieves supersonic flight, minus the boom

a car with "NASCAR" on hood parked inside a facility with man standing outside of car

How 3D-printed parts changed the NASCAR Cup Series

By Kristin Shaw

Experimental results of the miniaturized DN2s integrated at the distal facet of a MMF using the 3D GS-TPN fabrication method, showing SEM and white-light microscopy images.

This AI chip is the size of a grain of salt

Crane installing wind turbine wings

New wind turbines will test out the world’s longest wooden blades

Sierra Space Dream Chaser spaceplane landing on runway

Curvy spaceplane is one step closer to its ISS rendezvous

Thermogalvanic fridge prototype device held in blue gloved hand

The electrochemical cells that could power fridges of the future

XB-1 during test flight

Boom Supersonic breaks sound barrier for the first time

Bee with QR sticker held in researcher's hand

Researchers glued teeny-tiny QR codes to 30,000 bees

3D printed gun parts seized by law enforcement

New York considers background check for 3D printers

a beefed-up truck drives across desert dunes

How Ford crafted a Raptor T1+ to race across 5,000 miles of desert

By Kristin Shaw

Mars rover prototype in simulated Martian environment with alloy wheels

NASA teases bendable titanium wheels on future Mars rovers

Woman using old cell phone in Nokia ad

12 Nokia Design Archive photos celebrating peak Y2K tech

By Popular Science Staff

Interior of plane cabin with sunlight coming in from window

The FAA is finally looking into sweltering airplane cabins

Toyota's Woven City at dusk with Mount Fuji in background

Welcome to Woven City: Toyota offers first glimpse at futuristic town

Roboticists at the Tallinn University of Technology have developed a new class of bio-inspired feet that significantly enhance robot mobility on challenging terrains like mud and wet snow.

Dog robots can trek through mud using moose-inspired hooves

five different engineering products

5 coolest engineering innovations of 2024

By Andrew Rosenblum

Martian landscape photo taken by Mars rover

Researchers propose building homes on Mars with human blood

a turtle swims in a tank wearing a black weighted harness on its side

Sea turtle with ‘bubble butt syndrome’ gets a 3D-printed custom harness

By Laura Baisas

This image of NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument of the Perseverance rover on June 15, 2021, the 114th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The location, "Airfield D" (the fourth airfield), is just east of the "Séítah" geologic unit.

NASA is finishing its first off-world accident report

A close-up view of a green traffic light with an image of two walking lesbian girls at the center of Vienna, Austria.

Some of the world’s smartest traffic lights are getting smarter

NASA needs your help designing a gurney for the moon

Close up of tweezers holding small diamond

Diamond optical discs could store data for millions of years

Image of aircraft wing over Greenland ice sheet with radar image of Camp Century underneath it

NASA radar picks up frozen, buried Cold War base Camp Century

Notre Dame de Paris cathedral on November 2, 2016 in Paris, France. It's the finest example of French Gothic architecture and the largest and most well-known church buildings in the world.

Notre Dame rises from the ashes in behind-the-scenes photos

By Laura Baisas

Each individual strand is too narrow to be clearly captured by any form of visible light camera or microscope.

Behold the world’s thinnest spaghetti

By Laura Baisas

Aurora MK-II rocket plane above Earth

Watch the first commercial supersonic test flight in over 20 years

a large lump of fat, oil, grease, and other refuse dug up from a sewer on display in a musuem

The battle against fatbergs has a new weapon

By Laura Baisas

Gloved hand pointing to LignoSat wooden satellite prototype

World’s first wooden satellite shares material with samurai sword sheaths

Close up of C-17 cargo plane

Boeing allegedly overcharged the military 8,000% for airplane soap dispensers

Male Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) in flight

Feather-inspired wing flaps may prevent planes from stalling

A tiny home made using the nacelle casing from a wind turbine

Recycled wind turbines may one day become tiny homes and floating playgrounds

FastRig wing-sail deployed on cargo ship at dock

A nuclear waste tanker ship is testing a 65-foot-tall wing-sail

A technician inspects a prototype LISA telescope.

NASA unveils model of LISA, a satellite array for studying ripples in space-time

three photos: a rat holding orange string, a woman with a robot rat on her head and a robot rat with wires coming out of it

Meet the engineer who crafted a genius animatronic ‘Ratatouille’ Halloween costume

This photo taken during a media tour on October 11, 2024 shows the neutrino detector, a stainless steel and acrylic sphere around 35 meters in diameter, at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (Juno) in Kaiping, in southern China's Guangdong province.

China races to unlock one of the biggest mysteries in particle physics

Dragonfly wing on black background in neon light. Close-up.

To build a better dome, look to dragonfly wings

Concept art depicting the X-37B space plane aerobraking above Earth

Space Force’s mysterious X-37B is testing its ‘aerobraking’

Close up of smallest Rubik's Cube being solved with tweezers

The world’s tiniest Rubik’s cube is as wide as 3 grains of rice

tropicana sign outside hotel

Watch 2,200 pounds of explosives implode the Tropicana Las Vegas

By Popular Science Team

Cybertruck in showroom

Recalled Cybertruck rearview camera was so slow it was illegal

Voyager 2 diagram with equipment labeled

NASA shut off a Voyager 2 tool to save power

Chinese lunar spacesuit

China debuts its moon mission spacesuits

Concept art of USPS Next Generation Delivery Vehicle on neighborhood street

USPS explains chunky bumpers on new duck-shaped trucks

Man riding on 3D printed Lego minibike

Engineer builds rideable LEGO motorbike using oversized 3D-printed bricks

Video screenshot of piece of OceanGate Titan wreckage

The OceanGate Titan implosion left a 30,000-square-meter debris field

Close up of memory crystal disc encoded with human genome

In case of extinction, scientists store human genome on a ‘memory crystal’ that lasts billions of years

Concrete material with hollow tube design

Bone-like, hollow concrete design makes it 5.6 times stronger

Crystal Palace in 1851 Britain.

How standard screws cracked a 173-year-old architectural mystery

Lego Full Scale McLaren P1 driving

LEGO built a full-scale, drivable McLaren P1 model

A black and white image shows a silvery sheet of material toward the bottom

NASA releases first photo of 860-square-foot solar sail in orbit