🌎 New Atlas stories of the week

by Omar Kardoudi

A crewed aircraft named the Helios Horizon has flown on solid-state batteries for the first time, logging a 60% energy density leap over lithium-ion that could finally make commercial electric aviation a reality.

by Howard Armitage

From AI-generated garden makeovers to a voice assistant that actually remembers context, take a look at how local AI is transforming home automation. Privacy-first, open-source, and edging closer to Tony Stark territory.

by Adam Williams

This newly completed tiny house pushes the limits of tiny living with its substantial size and apartment-like interior. Measuring 399 sq ft, it offers enough space for full-time small living, even for a family.

by Utkarsh Sood

Just when most of us thought the era of two strokes was over, Japanese bikemaker Kawasaki has released its first big two-strokers in more than two decades – the KX327 motocrosser and the cross-country-focused KX327X.

by Bronwyn Thompson

In a breakthrough study, researchers have found that the world's most common type of arthritis – osteoarthritis (OA) – actually has a single core driver with clean-cut molecular pathways. It paves the way for much better treatment.

by Mike McRae

For the first time, researchers have linked a gene thought to be responsible for ulcerative colitis with a mechanism of attack, opening the way to new diagnostic tools and opportunities for more targeted treatment.

by Bronwyn Thompson

Anti-aging peptides have become one of the most talked-about experimental treatments in this emerging area of science – and one in particular, GHK-Cu, has shot to fame this year. So, what is it exactly? We separate the reality from the hype.

by The Conversation

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed what they describe as a fundamentally new type of vaccine. The vaccine’s key component was designed entirely by AI and has now been tested in people for the first time.

by Chris Young

Three years ago, a single “ghost particle” soared into the Mediterranean with more energy than any ever observed before. Now, a team of researchers in Italy claims the particle may have originated in a specific class of blazars.

by Dr. Jaroslav Boublik

New research is offering a dramatic new way to read Dante Alighieri’s Inferno: not simply as a religious vision of Hell, but as an early attempt to imagine the effects of a catastrophic planetary impact.

by Bronwyn Thompson

One of the world's oldest turds has been given the royal science treatment, with ancient Arctic ground squirrel droppings offering a smorgasbord of DNA from other animals and plants dating back up to 700,000 years.

by Jay Kakade

The Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) is known for its bone-crushing bite, gigantic size, and famously small forelimbs. But why these large, carnivorous theropod dinosaurs evolved tiny arms has long been debated.