The Netherlands is betting on lasers, not missiles, to take down drone swarms.

Nucleus says its humanoid now works 4-6 hour shifts but 40% is teleoperated. bit.ly/4zdjh4T

Hinkley Point C’s new tunnel and acoustic deterrents work together to protect fish. bit.ly/4ATKifF

The regulatory framework takes shape for twin power-generating units. bit.ly/4zbIaOs

The Viceroy prototype has already completed a flight in Narragansett Bay. bit.ly/4zaaNeO

Researchers at Aarhus University have developed a soft, lentil-sized sensor that mimics the mechanism human sensory cells use to convert touch into nerve signals. Inside the sensor, tiny chambers connected by a microscopic channel are filled with saltwater. When pressure is applied, charged particles move through the channel, shifting the electrical balance and generating a weak signal in the same way skin sensory cells do. Existing touch sensors in prosthetics generate signals through fundamentally different mechanisms, which is believed to be why wearers cannot feel what their prosthetic hands touch. By mimicking the body's own signal-generation process, this sensor could eventually be connected directly to the nervous system. The prototype can already detect a light touch and a pulse from a blood vessel. The signal currently needs to exceed 20 millivolts to trigger a nerve cell response, requiring further development before human trials. The research is published in Advanced Functional Materials.

Adaptable drone defenses bring threat classification to the US Task Force 401 program bit.ly/4hnwtyg

Stringman, from engineer Nathaniel Nifong's Neufangled Robotics, hangs a two-fingered gripper from four lines strung to the corners of a room's ceiling. Two motorised anchors reel those lines to steer it, while cameras and AI models find clutter and carry it to tagged bins.

Taiwan’s first two new F-16Vs finally arrive, leaving 64 fighters still outstanding from a $7.76B US order. bit.ly/4rNgxsG

Reusable orbital factories aim to bring drug research home. bit.ly/3Vn50UU

MIT engineers have developed a swimming robot thinner than a stick of gum, powered by a single layer of living muscle cells grown on a flexible gel film. The cells are genetically engineered to contract in response to light, causing the robot's fins to flap and propel it through water. By flashing light on one fin or the other, researchers can steer the robot and control its speed. In tests, the robot successfully navigated a watery maze, swimming at roughly four body lengths per minute — comparable to a cow shark. The design is the first two-dimensional, muscle-powered robot capable of locomotion. Unlike previous biohybrid robots built from bulky 3D muscle chunks requiring millions of cells, this approach uses far fewer cells and could be cheaper to build. Potential applications include environmental monitoring in fragile aquatic environments where conventional hardware would cause damage.

China Zorrilla, Incat's Hull 096, has reached Uruguay on the back of a heavy-lift ship, because the world's largest battery-electric ferry is built to run for only about 90 minutes on a charge. We break down how a 130-metre, 2,100-passenger catamaran ordered to burn LNG ended up running on more than 40 MWh of batteries, from its four battery rooms to its eight waterjets and the chargers waiting at both ends of the Río de la Plata.

The building offers smart climate controls and app-based entry. bit.ly/3VloIjT

China’s PLA launches new institutions to build a modernized, disciplined fighting force. bit.ly/3VqSP9A

Researchers created 3D light fields to film electron motion. bit.ly/4rQTAFa

Toyota's new US battery hub will take research from raw materials and vehicle testing through recycling. bit.ly/4rHZeci

A small team at the National University of Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies has built the world's most accurate atomic clock using a single ion of lutetium, a rare earth metal. The clock is so precise it would lose one second every 260 billion years, nearly 20 times the age of the universe, and is approximately four times more accurate than the previous record holder, a calcium-ion clock developed by China's Academy of Sciences. It also surpasses a US NIST aluminium-ion clock unveiled last year. Lutetium's unusual properties give it key advantages: it is highly resistant to temperature and magnetic field changes, remaining stable across the full range of temperatures found on Earth, and can remain in an excited state for about a week compared to just minutes for strontium, giving researchers more time to measure its frequency. To verify accuracy, the team built two independent lutetium clocks and compared them over 200 hours, achieving agreement to within 5.7 parts in 10¹⁹, the most precise comparison between two atomic clocks ever reported. The research is published in Nature.

Tiny 33-pound satellites use precise attitude control to keep sensors trained on emission sources during orbital passes. bit.ly/4AGxYPz

The F/A-XX program aims to extend the operational range of U.S. carrier air wings and support coordinated missions between crewed fighters and unmanned aircraft.

A rare-earth compound is showing an unusual magnetic state that could explain its large anomalous Hall effect. bit.ly/4rMzI5S