Brilliant white roofs have been used to reflect sunlight and cool homes since ancient times in Greece. Now, researchers in California have added a modern spin to the strategy. They’ve created a new multilayer coating that cools using a one-two punch. First, it reflects nearly all the incoming

It's a robot unlike any other: inspired by the world's fastest land animal, controlled by video game technology and packing nifty sensors — including one used to maneuver drones, satellites and ballistic missiles. The robot, called the cheetah, can run on batteries at speeds of more than 10 mph,

The largest solar power plant of its type in the world — once promoted as a turning point in green energy — isn't producing as much energy as planned. One of the reasons is as basic as it gets: The sun isn't shining as much as expected. Sprawling across roughly 5 square miles of federal desert near

Unmanned drones aren’t just for warfare. In recent years, they’ve been used to map wildlife and monitor crop growth. But current software can’t always handle the vast volume of images they gather. Now, researchers have developed an algorithm that will allow drones to 3D-map scores of hectares of

Scanning the skies for near-earth asteroids might be the best first step for getting humans to Mars. In a comment article in the Oct. 30 Nature, MIT planetary scientist Richard Binzel argues that NASA should abandon the Asteroid Redirect Mission, the space agency’s plan to snag a space rock and