As 3-D printing has become a mainstream technology, industry and academic researchers have been investigating printable structures that will fold themselves into useful three-dimensional shapes when heated or immersed in water.

In a paper appearing in the American Chemical Society’s journal Applied Materials and Interfaces, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and colleagues report something new: a printable structure that begins to fold itself up as soon as it’s peeled off the printing platform.

Former Hurricane Otis was not showing any thunderstorm development or precipitation on satellite imagery on Sept. 19. As a result, the National Hurricane Center declared Otis a remnant low pressure area.

Teenagers who try e-cigarettes double their risk for smoking tobacco cigarettes, according to a new study.

The study — from the University of Waterloo and the Wake Forest School of Medicine — found that students in grades seven to 12 who had tried an e-cigarette are 2.16 times more likely to be susceptible to cigarette smoking.

Technologies that allow the preservation of scarce fossil resources will pave the way towards resource security. The two main factors that contribute to a sustainable future industry are the source of electric energy and the carbon feedstock. First, the electrical power production based on renewable resources, such as wind and solar energy, is promoted. Second, renewable feedstocks and waste streams are considered as valuable precursors for the production of commodities and fuels. Building a bridge between both factors means linking the conversion of electric energy - especially from local peak productions - to chemical energy carriers and commodities. Researchers in a consortium led by Dr. Falk Harnisch from the UFZ show that this bridge can be build.

Arctic sea ice appeared to have reached its yearly lowest extent on Sept. 13, NASA and the NASA-supported National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder have reported. Analysis of satellite data by NSIDC and NASA showed that at 1.79 million square miles (4.64 million square kilometers), this year’s Arctic sea ice minimum extent is the eighth lowest in the consistent long-term satellite record, which began in 1978.

The Scottish and UK oil industries are entering their final decade of production, research suggests.

A study of output from offshore fields estimates that close to 10 per cent of the UK’s original recoverable oil and gas remains – about 11 per cent of oil and nine per cent of gas resources.

The analysis also finds that fracking will be barely economically feasible in the UK, especially in Scotland, because of a lack of sites with suitable geology.

Infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite has revealed that the area of strongest storms within now Tropical Depression Norma has diminished. 

Satellite data is enabling forecasters to look inside and outside of powerful Hurricane Maria. A NASA animation of satellite imagery shows Hurricane Maria's first landfall on the island of Dominica. NASA's GPM satellite provided a 3-D look at the storms within that gave forecasters a clue to Maria strengthening into a Category 5 storm, and NASA's Aqua satellite gathered temperature data on the frigid cloud tops of the storm.

The twin satellites that have been critical in measuring the world’s melting ice sheets for 15 years will soon shut down — months before their replacement is launched into orbit, NASA announced, creating a gap in the ice data record that has been instrumental in studying the impacts of global warming.

Average surface temperatures of the Black Sea may not have risen, according to the surprising results of a new study from the JRC.