<h2>Solar Surge</h2>
Clean energy sources such as wind and solar power are being used more and more frequently over traditional options like coal. Since 2008, the energy generated via solar power in the United States has grown more than seventeen-fold, enough to power the equivalent of 5.7 million average American homes, according to the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/eere/solarpoweringamerica/solar-energy-united-states">Office of Energy Efficiency &amp; Renewable Energy</a>.
Trouble is, these existing solar arrays are still pretty inefficient at collecting solar energy, with a theoretical efficiency limit of about 33 percent. This inefficiency could soon be improved thanks to new <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/asrc-sno012419.php">self-assembling nanomaterials</a> developed by researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY).
<h2>Picking Up The Nano Pieces</h2>
In a paper published earlier this month in the journal <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b09593">Physical Chemistry</a> researchers from ASRC at CUNY describe newly developed nanomaterials which use a process called singlet fission to extend the life of harvestable light-generated electrons. Although it was first observed in <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cr1002613">1965</a>, the exact process of singlet fission is still a debated topic unique to molecular physics.
Essentially, the process allows for more time to the excited electrons created by light absorption. The team&#8217;s research suggests these materials could create more usable charges and increase the theoretical efficiency of solar cells up to 44 percent. By combining different versions of the commonly used industrial dyes diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) and rylene the team created materials with self-assembling properties. Each combination had slightly different factors that determined how well the combination was able to harvest energy.
<h2>Like a Spark</h2>
Now that they&#8217;ve developed a way to increase the energy produced from harvested solar light, the next step is in figuring out how to capture all of the energy generated in the process. Even though such a process may take time, the initial results open a variety of new avenues for experimentation.
&#8220;This work provides us with a library of nanomaterials that we can study for harvesting solar energy,&#8221; said Professor Adam Braunschweig, lead researcher on the study, &#8220;Our method for combining the dyes into functional materials using self-assembly means we can carefully tune their properties and increase the efficiency of the critical light-harvesting process.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/asrc-sno012419.php">Self-assembling nanomaterial offers pathway to more efficient, affordable harnessing of solar power</a> [EurekAlert] 
More on Energy: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/methylene-blue-battery-storage">This Industrial Blue Dye Could Help Us Build Better Batteries</a>

Making solar panels more efficient would make more energy available.

Self-assembling nanomaterials could improve solar panels

Mighty Nano

New self-assembling nanomaterials use singlet fission to increase the amount of energy generated from sunlight harvested by solar panels.

Self-Assembling Nanomaterials Could Improve Solar Panels

New nanomaterials are cranking things up to eleven.

Scientists are perfecting a near indestructible gel made of mostly air with applications in everything from fashion to the far reaches of space.

Hard Science

A Graphene Aerogel Is 99.8% Air and as Strong as Steel

Readers of Futurism: Hi! If you&#8217;re here, that means you either swiped on our clever-ass push alert (HA! GOTCHA!) or you&#8217;re really, really interested in a media company&#8217;s inner-workings.
Either way, thank you, and congrats – because you got to this very special webpage, where we&#8217;re going to go over three important things with you, our dear, beloved readers:
1. Our new app is here. Download it, or update it. Because&#8230;
2. It&#8217;s great. It&#8217;s got some wonderful new features (including an offline mode), and contains a peek into what&#8217;s to come from us. Oh, and also&#8230;
3. There&#8217;s some good thought behind it. Rather than roll out another new app design (which, no matter how great, can be disruptive to readers&#8217; familiarity with a publication and user experience, generally), and do so absent context, we wanted to let you in, under the hood, to let you know why we did what we did, and what&#8217;s on the horizon for us.
We think it&#8217;s pretty decent. You might, too.
So, without further ado, we present the two stallions who made this thing happen:
<img class="wp-image-128964 alignright" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-09-at-5.14.00-PM-234x300.png" alt="" width="100" height="128" />Tag Hartman-Simkins, The Artsy One (&#8220;Director of Design&#8221;)
The app redesign is part of a much larger planned redesign for Futurism, and it&#8217;s mostly dialed in on the ways we&#8217;ll be punching up on the aesthetics of the site, to go with it&#8217;s new editorial tone [Ed. You&#8217;re welcome!] and changing aesthetics: color, space, and cleanliness. 
We made some fun changes. We introduced a new color palette for each of our &#8220;themes,&#8221; and they now have a fresher, brighter aesthetic. Colors! They&#8217;re colorful! We&#8217;re getting away from grayscale. No, but really: Futurism generally covers a pretty complex array of topics, even for people who consider themselves well-versed in tech publications and writing. We&#8217;re gonna be delving even further into these more obscure, complicated areas in the future, while also trying to give these stories appeal to a wider audience. It&#8217;s why I needed those concepts, visually, to code as attractively accessible to the curious, and the first step in doing that — in inviting more people to understand these topics — is by presenting them in a comfortable, visually-appealing space, as opposed to one that&#8217;s stuffy, tight, and compressed.
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-128992" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-10-at-10.20.01-AM.png" alt="" width="999" height="600" />
Even more: Our headers are bolder. And our articles are set in Palatino — a typeface based on humanist typefaces from the Italian renaissance – but way more legible, and set with a taller line height to make the text feel considered and valuable, rather than rushed and cheap. Instead of a drawer that pulls down from the top of the app, we drew up a left-rail drawer that can be pulled out by tapping that tab in the upper left hand corner of the screen, where users can navigate through different themes, videos and the latest news. And: Readers can now tag stories for later. In many ways, it&#8217;s just a fresh coat of paint. We&#8217;ve got plenty in mind for future iterations of the app, including further polishing and new features that enrich the user&#8217;s experience of reading and exploring Futurism, and understanding it all, too. It&#8217;s the first step, but it was still a fun step to take. We think you&#8217;ll agree.
<img class="wp-image-128965 alignright" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-09-at-5.14.43-PM-231x300.png" alt="" width="100" height="130" />Dan Scanlon, Lead Nerd (&#8220;Head of Engineering&#8221;)
Under the hood, Futurism&#8217;s first app was generated using a service called <a href="https://appful.io/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Appful</a>, which integrated with our WordPress back-end, and basically loaded our content into a theme we customized with our colors. It worked as a temporary solve, but now, it&#8217;s been replaced with a new app I built from the ground up – one that suits our needs better than a plug-and-play solution.
The app was written using React Native (a cross-platform framework for writing mobile apps) and Expo (a React Native SDK that helps distribute our app, and use common platform features, like instruments and analytics).
The codebase for our new app actually builds four different apps: the iOS and Android apps for Futurism and Mostaqbal (our Arabic partner site), and the two variants share the same code. There&#8217;s no copy-pasted source code, so we don&#8217;t need to worry about keeping the variants in sync. This kind of thing&#8217;s not supported out of the box or documented anywhere on the web, so I wrote some custom tooling so we can make changes to the source, and run a single command to select the app variant we want to run to test it.
As far as user experience improvements go, again, we&#8217;re not at the mercy of Appful to change the appearance or features of the app, anymore. That means we can push important updates to the apps immediately, without submitting updates via the App Store. The &#8220;Read Later&#8221; feature has offline support, which is pretty fun, too.
And as for what&#8217;s coming down the pipeline? Like everyone else, we&#8217;re after a richer, more-polished UX — always. The challenge isn&#8217;t on the mobile end, though. It&#8217;s not that hard to build a tasty app. WordPress, really, (or an over-reliance on it) is the big dream-crusher we&#8217;d love to get out from under.
In other words: A new CMS supporting structured content. All of the things that don&#8217;t make for a perfect transfer to the app (i.e. post content rendering, video playback, infographics) are due to how the underlying information gets encoded. And: We can&#8217;t neatly lay out site posts on mobile, because it&#8217;s basically represented as HTML intended to be spit into a cup, at least as far as our WordPress theme is concerned. So instead of using native typography, image views, and so on, we have to load the HTML into a web view, and inject a bunch of CSS to make it readable on mobile. It blocks us from supporting basic features like image light-boxes (allowing users to zoom into images) and nice video playback (for videos in posts). And of course, there&#8217;s self-hosted video: If we want to have a video-heavy app, we should be serving that content ourselves, so that we can control the UX. Currently the best we can do is embed YouTube players inside of web views, which: &#8220;puke emoji.&#8221;
So, yeah, we&#8217;ve got some work ahead of us. That said, as perfectionists, we occasionally need to be reminded (and remind ourselves) that we do halfway decent work. So, fine: The new app is pretty swell. It&#8217;s, in all honesty, a huge jump over the last one. And you&#8217;re gonna love the way we look in it. I guarantee it.

Yes! Futurism's new app is here. Meet the geniuses behind It.

Sci-Fi Visions

Our design guru and code warrior just revamped the Futurism app. Hear from the horse's mouth what went into creating and executing on the new version.

Yes! Futurism’s New App Is Here. Meet the Geniuses Behind It.

Call me, app push me, if you want to reach me. 

If you&#8217;re one who thinks the ability to dance is severely missing from modern robotics, the fine folks over at <a href="http://www.rsl.ethz.ch/robots-media/anymal.html">ETH Zurich&#8217;s Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering</a> have a treat for you. The team has developed a robot – a quadrupedal bot called the ANYmal – with the ability to analyze music and create its own choreography.
Other robots have shown the ability to cut a rug to varying degrees, like the <a href="https://futurism.com/ces-2018-most-absurd-technologies-to-come/">stripper robots</a> on display during the most recent Consumer Electronics Show. Even NAO robots <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t1NWH6G1f0">have synchronized skills</a>. However, what makes the ANYmal special is its ability to react to music in real time and not rely on a programmed set of moves.
The accompanying software allows the robot to analyze the beats per minute (BPM) of music, create movement to match those speeds, and then check to ensure the devised movement speed matches the speed of the music. The robot even has the ability to change up its moves when different songs are played back to back (although, to be clear, most of those &#8220;moves&#8221; involve shaking a robo-behind back and forth).
“We wanted to have it so if you bring the robot to a disco, it can figure out the music, create a choreography, and sync up its motion,” Péter Fankhauser, a doctoral student working on the team, tells <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/12/17108824/robot-dance-anymal-eth-zurich">The Verge</a>. “We’re also interested in creating lifelike movements. Dancing is a very human and motion-intensive action, so it’s challenging to mimic.”
Evidence presented below:
<iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kHBLaw5nfzk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This may seem like a lot of novelty without much significance to robotics as a whole, but looks can be misleading. The bot&#8217;s ability to provide itself with a feedback loop could have real applications in fields such as surveying, and search and rescue. Fankhauser compares this with a human&#8217;s ability to imagine how they will complete a task. In theory, this type of technology could someday save lives.
For now though, the motivation is a little different. “We do a lot of serious things with the robot, but this is the fun side,” says Fankhauser. “For us, for students, for everybody involved, it’s enjoyable to do these things, and really explore the capabilities of the hardware.”

Watch it shake its butt to some cello music.

Bring this robot to a disco, and it'll dance with you

Artificial Intelligence

A four-legged robot that can dance has been developed by a team at ETH Zurich. The robot can analyze music in real time and develop movement to match its speed.

Bring This Robot to a Disco, and It'll Dance With You

Drop dance gorgeous.

Bring This Robot to a Disco, and It’ll Dance With You

<h2>Flying With the Times</h2>
While some university degrees are relatively timeless, the typical four-year college curriculum can&#8217;t always keep up with the <a href="https://futurism.com/2-by-the-time-you-are-a-junior-in-college-what-you-learned-as-a-freshman-is-already-obsolete-nasa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pace of technology</a>. By the time a student graduates, the information they learned early on in their education could already be obsolete. Enter <a href="https://www.udacity.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Udacity</a>, a Silicon Valley-based online school offering specialized &#8220;nanodegree&#8221; programs.
<figure style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/flying-cars-of-tomorrow-infographic/"><img src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2016/06/Homepage-Thumbnail-7-900x600.jpg" alt="Flying Cars: A Future Buyer&#8217;s Guide [Infographic]" ></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text center"><a href="https://futurism.com/images/flying-cars-of-tomorrow-infographic/" target="_blank">Click to View Full Infographic</a></figcaption></figure>
Udacity&#8217;s co-founder Sebastian Thrun is considered an expert in two of today&#8217;s hottest emerging technology fields: self-driving vehicles and flying cars. He previously worked on <a href="https://futurism.com/waymo-chrysler-pacifica-san-francisco/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google&#8217;s self-driving car project</a> and is currently the CEO of <a href="https://kittyhawk.aero/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">flying car startup Kitty Hawk</a>, which is funded by <a href="https://futurism.com/4-your-first-look-at-larry-pages-flying-car/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alphabet CEO Larry Page</a>.
Udacity already offers a nanodegree in self-driving vehicles, and now, Thrun is launching a flying car degree program. It will run for two 12-week terms, the first focused on aerial robotics and the second on intelligent air systems. Each term costs $1,200, but students who apply before February 7 can take the first for $899.
<h2>Today&#8217;s Degrees for Tomorrow&#8217;s World</h2>
According to Thurn, finding people qualified to engineer the vehicles of tomorrow is almost impossible. “There is a huge shortage of engineers. There are plenty of smart people &#8211; the missing link is education,” <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-auto-flyingcars-degree/self-driving-car-experts-offer-online-degree-in-flying-cars-idUSKBN1FC2KE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">he told </a><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-auto-flyingcars-degree/self-driving-car-experts-offer-online-degree-in-flying-cars-idUSKBN1FC2KE" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reuters</a>.
To design self-driving or flying vehicles, engineers must have a solid grasp of advanced technology, such as robotics and artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning. A flying car degree program like Udacity&#8217;s could fill this gap in knowledge.
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/252444680" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" title="Build the Future of Flight with Udacity!" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
Right now, the potential for intelligent machines to render much of the human workforce obsolete is a major concern. Some experts, <a href="https://futurism.com/world-bank-chief-robots-have-put-us-on-a-dangerous-crash-course/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">including World Bank president Jim Yong Kim</a>, suggest the need to develop human capital to keep the workers of the future relevant.
Investing in education is one such solution, and Udacity seems to be at the forefront of this initiative, as is Google, which is <a href="https://futurism.com/google-spending-1-billion-prepare-workers-jobs-tomorrow/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investing $1 billion to train U.S. residents</a> for these so-called jobs of the future.
As Thrun told Reuters, flying cars may seem like science fiction right now, but the involvement of companies like Google and Amazon will likely lead to &#8220;enormous activity&#8221; in the field within the next couple of years.
With the proper education and preparation, human workers could carve out a space for themselves in the growing field.

This program is preparing workers for the jobs of tomorrow.

It's now possible to earn a degree in "flying cars"

Advanced Transport

Udacity is offering a flying car degree in the hopes of addressing the shortage of engineers qualified to design the vehicles of tomorrow.

It's Now Possible to Earn a Degree in "Flying Cars"

The six-month program is now accepting applications.

It’s Now Possible to Earn a Degree in “Flying Cars”

Cities don’t just get filthy in the visual sense — urban spaces can often be a raging mess of sound. The blaring car horns, the police sirens screaming through the usual waves of traffic, the clatter of passing trains, the constant cacophony of voices rising and falling as a strange melody — this deluge of noise can be devastating to the human psyche.
“I think, as a society, we are becoming much more aware of the noise around us,” <a href="https://www.physics.byu.edu/faculty/sommerfeldt/default.aspx">Scott Sommerfeldt</a>, an engineer at Brigham Young University who specializes in acoustic noise mitigation, tells Futurism. “Excessive noise has detrimental health effects on us, and we’re finally realizing how those effects add up.”
By 2100, 84 percent of the world’s estimated 10.8 billion people <a href="https://ensia.com/infographics/the-global-population-in-2100/">will likely live in cities</a>. That means noise pollution will bloom in those areas and beyond, in surrounding suburbs and rural spaces that were typically safe havens from the clamor of the city. Urban sprawl will get worse, encompassing quieter areas into the thick sounds of city life.
It’s impossible to overstate <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2FS0140-6736(13)61613-X">how much noise pollution can wreak havoc on human health and safety</a>. High noise levels can exacerbate hypertension, cause insomnia or sleep disturbances, result in hearing loss, and worsen a plethora of other medical conditions. All of these problems can aggravate other health issues by inducing higher levels of stress, which can cascade into worsened immune systems, heart problems, increased anxiety and depression — the list just goes on and on.
Humans have been suffering because of excess noise for a long time, and scientists have known about it at least for several decades. The government first acknowledged that noise was a problem when it passed the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-noise-control-act">Noise Pollution and Abatement Act of 1972</a>. “There was already a real awareness that noise was harmful to health, and the Act was a formal acknowledgment by the government,” says <a href="https://www.grownyc.org/about/board-of-directors">Arline Bronzaft</a>, a psychologist and authority on noise pollution who currently serves as chairman of the noise committee of GrowNYC. “Although there wasn’t enough information to point to how noise affects us in every which way, there was enough for us to move forward with back in 1972. And today, there’s enough literature for everyone to agree noise pollution is a public health hazard.”
Humans aren’t the only species suffering from the racket. Urban and suburban noise can easily escape from peopled areas into nature, causing problems for animal populations, especially those that live close to highways or busy harbors. Noise pollution can make it harder for animals to avoid predators (or for predators to find and catch prey), reproduce, and live healthy lives.
Birds and marine mammals, for instance, rely on specific vocalizations to attract potential mates. Noise pollution can disrupt those behaviors. Bats rely on echolocation to move around and find food but <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12997/full">have an impaired ability to forage</a> when ambient noise levels are high. Oysters clam up during stress; exposure to loud noises along the coast has caused them to <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185353">close their shells more frequently and for longer periods</a>, preventing them from ingesting enough food. As filter feeders, oysters play a critical role in keeping the ocean’s water quality at a healthy, sustainable level for all marine life. They can’t do that if they’re all clammed up, which could cause the entire habitat to deteriorate.
Where is most of this noise coming from? <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4334595/">Traffic is the biggest contributor to noise pollution</a>. A diesel truck at 50 feet away, for instance, generates up to 90 decibels of noise. Generally speaking, <a href="https://www.noisyplanet.nidcd.nih.gov/parents/too-loud-too-long">prolonged exposure to anything over 85 decibels</a> puts someone at risk for temporary or permanent hearing loss.
But noise pollution is more than just automobiles. Increased development — in the big city or in a quaint suburb — means construction sites, where heavy machinery creates a fitful, ugly noise that can echo into the placid surrounding areas. People living close to train tracks or airports are bludgeoned with noise (and usually accompanying vibrations and shakes) at all hours. Air traffic can be a major headache. All these factors are exacerbated by city planning and community zoning, which fail to mitigate noise for residents.
So all things considered, what can be done to keep future society from turning into a deaf, noise-addled dystopia? Bronzaft says there’s more awareness about noise pollution these days among the general public than there was in 1972, but we need more than just awareness. As cities swell up to more extreme sizes, without a responsible combination of technological innovations and more radical policy measures, the problem is bound to get worse.
One approach is to think big. Roadway or railway barriers can buffer communities from the noise of passing cars and trains. European engineers, in particular, have developed novel building materials and barrier designs (such as curved structures, and steel or plexiglass) to envelop highway noise, leaving the outside with little more than a quiet hum.
<figure id="attachment_114863" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-114863 size-large" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/12/infrastruktur_grosserbogen_keyvisual-1200x600.jpg" alt="" width="1200" height="600" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Barriers to highway noise. <a href="https://www.rieder.cc/en/infrastructure/noise-control/large-arc/">Image credit: Reider Group</a></figcaption></figure>
Hybrids and electric cars generate quieter noise levels than engines that guzzle gasoline and diesel. In mass numbers, even these greener vehicles cause a lot of noise, <a href="https://cleantechnica.com/2016/06/05/will-electric-cars-make-traffic-quieter-yes-no/">mostly from tire and road friction and wind passage</a>. But they do mean individual cars can sidle through quiet streets without causing much of ruckus (in fact, electric vehicles are sometimes too quiet for comfort — the government requires <a href="https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/quietcar_finalrule_11142016.pdf">that these cars make at least some minimal threshold of noise at low speeds</a> in order to give other drivers and bystanders a heads up).
Within cities themselves, developers who are keen to rent quieter office and residential space for a premium are more inclined now to fit new buildings with thicker glass facades or insulation materials that limit noise. Interior designers are outfitting buildings with soundproofing materials, such as acoustic ceiling tiles. Boilers and generators are typically secluded into basement rooms that will not disturb individuals on other floors.
Policy initiatives have also made changes for the better in the past. Bronzaft coauthored a <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ134981">landmark 1975 study</a> that demonstrated the negative impact of noise on student performance in schools. “Here, I do one study on the effects of noise in schools, and the [New York City] Transit Authority quiets the track adjacent to the school, and the Board of Education puts acoustic ceilings in the classrooms,” Bronzaft says. After those changes were made, researchers <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494481800400">conducted a follow-up study</a> and found a significant improvement in student reading comprehension. More recently, in 2007, Bronzaft was a major force in helping revise <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11654636">New York City’s noise code</a>, which focused largely on limiting construction site noise and even recommended what types of machinery and tools site workers ought to be using to protect the neighbors.
Bronzaft also points out that community groups such as <a href="http://www.nonoise.org">Noise Pollution Clearinghouse</a>, <a href="http://www.us-caw.org">US-Citizens Aviation Watch</a>, and <a href="https://www.noisefree.org">Noise Free America</a> have had huge success in mandating changes in aircraft routes to protect people on the ground from jet engine roars, loud traffic, and construction. Bronzaft has been involved in efforts in places like New Orleans, which is renowned for its live music, to draft new noise ordinance revisions. She also helped stop a noisy motocross racetrack from being built in Cheyenne, Wyoming. In her view, these instances are evidence that “people can do something. An ordinary citizen can initiate a positive change.”
Bronzaft is especially bullish on educating children and young adults into taking local action, especially since noise control has been effectively ceded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to state and local governments. She lauds the NYC Department of Environmental Protection’s <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/environmental_education/sound_noise.shtml">online curriculum on sound and noise</a>, “to teach children about the beauty of sound and the dangers of noise,” as a great example of how to embed noise pollution awareness early. “You should always start with children,” she says.
Given how ineffable noise can be, many people can’t afford to wait for policy changes or large infrastructure projects to help them find some quiet. Luckily, personal technology solutions are becoming more popular. Sommerfeldt is an expert in a field called Active Noise Control (ANC) — the method of using noise to cancel out noise. “This is generally a low-frequency solution,” he says. A popular example is noise-canceling headphones, which protect the user’s ears from outside sound by generating their own white noise. Some cars are also beginning to use ANC solutions to block out external noise (especially from the engine) for passengers inside a vehicle. “It’s relatively easy to implement for cars — up to a certain point,” says Sommerfeldt. “It’s more challenging to make it quiet over a large region or the region completely inside an automobile or plane.”
Critics might decry all of this spending on <a href="http://www.westportnow.com/index.php?/v2_5/comments/talking_transportation_sound_barriers_a_waste_of_money/">an issue that doesn’t seem to be immediately hazardous</a>, but Bronzaft emphasizes that the problems caused by noise compound over time if not addressed. Solving noise pollution is a preemptive measure that can forestall bigger physiological and learning issues people may later develop. “Health and student education cost a lot of money in this country,” says Bronzaft. “It’s cheaper in the long term to quiet things down.”
Ultimately, a game-changing factor might simply be accruing more data on the subject so that policy-makers and engineers can put it to use. Some researchers are trying to leverage new technologies to solve that obstacle. A team of scientists at New York University’s Music and Audio Research Lab (MARL) recently launched the <a href="https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2016/november/SONYC_Launch.html">Sounds of New York City (SONYC)</a> initiative, which seeks to distribute compact sensors throughout NYC to generate an acoustic “map” of the city to better understand how sounds get dispersed in the city, and what areas are louder than others. As the city that never sleeps with a din to fit, NYC is a pretty obvious testbed for such a project. If SONYC is successful, its data could be combined to health and safety studies to demonstrate more about how debilitating noise pollution is to our lives, and to wildlife populations in nearby regions.
It’s impossible to conceive of a quiet future for the planet — surely, things will only get noisier. True quiet will be increasingly hard to find. But new innovations could go a long way in helping the average person better navigate through the hullabaloo of a clamorous world. There’s little reason to believe it’s inevitable we’ll all go deaf by 55.

Noise pollution makes oysters clam up and befuddles bats. It's harmful to humans, too.

Noise is the next great public health crisis

Future Society

Noise pollution is a growing problem, sickening humans and interrupting animals' wellbeing. Here's how engineers are going to dampen its effect.

Noise Is The Next Great Public Heatlh Crisis. Here's How It Will Affect Your Health.

“Excessive noise has detrimental health effects on us, and we’re finally realizing how those effects add up.”

Noise Is The Next Great Public Health Crisis

Imagine all we can accomplish with more efficient transportation.

Watch: This is what our driverless world will look like

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<h2>Built-In Damage Prevention</h2>
On September 20, a massive 7.1 magnitude earthquake shook Mexico&#8217;s capital city. Most of the approximately <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mexico-city-residents-search-through-the-night-for-survivors-of-quake-that-killed-more-than-200/2017/09/20/4ef19d8e-9d8a-11e7-b2a7-bc70b6f98089_story.html?utm_term=.2599ef94323f">230 deaths</a> weren&#8217;t from the original movement of the ground, however—in this quake, as in many others, collapsing buildings were the primary killer.
During an earthquake, the energy released by the movement of huge segments of the Earth&#8217;s crust generate powerful forces that spread across hundreds of kilometers. When the base of a building shakes or lurches from the force of an earthquake, the difference between the top and bottom of the building can introduce new stress and strain onto the materials that support the structure, causing them to rupture.
Over the past few decades, new designs and materials have meant that buildings in Mexico City and elsewhere have become better engineered to withstand the forces involved during a quake, but they are far from infallible. Researchers are developing novel techniques to ensure that future structures are even better equipped to avoid collapse. In fact, they may be able to predict or even prevent earthquakes before they happen. But before we get there, we need to understand how our current structures work (and don&#8217;t work).
<a href="http://engineering.buffalo.edu/civil-structural-environmental/people/faculty_directory/andrew-whittaker.html">Andrew Whittaker,</a> a professor of civil engineering at the University of Buffalo, notes that a building during an earthquake is like a person standing on a plank supported on a roller. If someone moves the roller, the base can no longer support the upper weight, which could cause the person to fall. In general, the taller the building, the stronger the difference in forces between the bottom and the top, increasing the likelihood that the material could break.
That&#8217;s why many cities in earthquake zones had restrictions on how many stories a building could have, according to <a href="http://heaton.caltech.edu/">Thomas Heaton</a>, a professor of geophysics and civil engineering at the California Institute of Technology.
Of course, some materials are better at handling this changing energy than others. Wood works surprisingly well— &#8220;Wood is, in a sense, ideal in that it&#8217;s extremely lightweight compared to its structural stiffness and strength,&#8221; Heaton tells Futurism. Concrete is typically a brittle material, but when it&#8217;s reinforced with steel rebar, it becomes much more elastic when shaken side to side. Others fare far worse: adobe clay buildings (millions of which were <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41062-016-0001-3">destroyed during the 2015 Nepal</a> quake) and masonry (those made of brick or stone and held together by mortar).
The design of the structure, too, can concentrate or dissipate energy from an earthquake. Engineered wood, such as laminated wood, makes up the frame of the house. The beams are supported with sheer walls, which are designed to collapse under pressure from an earthquake, and are connected with metal bracings that loosen during shaking. The whole house is securely fastened to the foundation to prevent it from slipping off during a quake. Many modern skyscrapers do surprisingly well in earthquakes because the force exerted by strong winds demand that they are built to be flexible. Older structures can be retrofitted to be equipped with today&#8217;s safer techniques, but that&#8217;s sometimes more expensive than simply building something new.
<q class="pullquote">&#8220;When I look at [structures] that people think are beautiful, open airy things full of windows, I just see crushed human bodies waiting to happen.&#8221;</q>
The structures that would do best in an earthquake would be windowless, concrete entities, the kind of thing that most architects would deem hideous. &#8220;When I look at [structures] that people think are beautiful, open airy things full of windows, I just see crushed human bodies waiting to happen,&#8221; Heaton says.
Some newer, more sophisticated structures are built with a technique called <a href="http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/teaching/civil/structuralconcepts/StudentCoursework/contents/30.pdf">base isolation</a>. Rubbery devices are installed near the foundation of the building to absorb the energy from an earthquake, preventing it from dissipating throughout the frame. &#8220;You can think about it as something like a shock absorber in a motor vehicle scaled up to a building level,&#8221; Whittaker says. Base isolation is still expensive, so it&#8217;s primarily employed in buildings that are used by large numbers of people or those that would be important in an emergency, such as <a href="https://csengineermag.com/article/debunking-the-myth-about-base-isolation/">hospitals</a> and <a href="http://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/14_05-01-0558.PDF">airports</a>.
<a href="http://www.iclarified.com/44545/apple-campus-2-will-be-the-largest-baseisolated-building-in-the-world">Apple Park</a> 2, the tech company&#8217;s new campus, recently became the largest base-isolated structure in the world.
<figure style="width: 820px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-103540 size-large aligncenter" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/09/Base_isolators_under_the_Utah_State_Capitol-1200x803.jpg" alt="Base isolators under the Utah state capitol. Image credit: Mike Renlund via Wikimedia Commons" width="820" height="548" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Base isolators under the Utah state capitol. Image credit: Mike Renlund via Wikimedia Commons</figcaption></figure>
<h2>A Shaken City</h2>
Over the past century, engineers and architects have learned a lot about how to make structures more impervious to earthquakes.
But more knowledge is not a foolproof way to prevent damage. The most recent quake in Mexico City was an unfortunate reminder.
It&#8217;s far from the first time that a quake in Mexico City has become a cautionary tale — the infamous 1985 earthquake left <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/earthquake-shakes-mexico-city">10,000 people dead</a> and 30,000 injured. Mexico is wedged between two tectonic plates, making it one of the most <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/269648/number-of-earthquakes-by-country/">seismically active countries</a> in the world. The city itself is built on an ancient lakebed and is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/17/world/americas/mexico-city-sinking.html?mcubz=3&amp;_r=0">actively sinking</a>. Its soft soil is reminiscent of pudding, as one geologist recently <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/mexico-city-seismology?utm_term=.lxQjM8k4&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=News%20-%200921%20Thursday&amp;utm_content=News%20-%200921%20Thursday%2BCID_416deb1a38331d6203caec1b3f966285&amp;utm_source=BuzzFeed%20Newsletters#.qrYln7pq">told Buzzfeed</a>, so during an earthquake it bounces more than hard rock, which has the potential to cause more buildings to collapse.
Part of the danger comes from the types of buildings that are most common there. &#8220;A lot of the buildings in Mexico City are non-ductile structures. In photos [of the destruction] you see beams, columns, and connections—they’ve come apart,&#8221; <a href="http://asimaki.caltech.edu/">Domniki Asimaki</a>, professor of mechanical and civil engineering at the California Institute of Technology, tells Futurism.
Mexico has excellent engineers and fitting building codes, Whittaker notes. But most buildings in Mexico City are older, built to different specifications that may make them a hazard today. &#8220;Most modern constructions and modern codes can sustain earthquake loads pretty well. It’s the older buildings, constructed under older codes or assumptions, that&#8230;were not necessarily designed for the same forces,&#8221; <a href="http://cee.umich.edu/Jason_McCormick">Jason McCormick</a>, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Michigan, tells Futurism.
In this most recent seismic event, too many buildings still weren&#8217;t ready. Mexico City simply got lucky that the quake wasn&#8217;t stronger, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/23/world/americas/mexico-city-earthquake-buildings.html?mcubz=3">the New York Times</a>.
<figure style="width: 820px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-103539 size-large aligncenter" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2017/09/1985_Mexico_Earthquake_-_Pina_Suarez_Apartment_Complex-1-1200x797.jpg" alt="The Pino Suarez apartment complex in Mexico City was completely flattened by an earthquake in 1985. Image credit: United States Geological Survey via Wikimedia Commons" width="820" height="544" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">The Pino Suarez apartment complex in Mexico City was completely flattened by an earthquake in 1985. Image credit: United States Geological Survey via Wikimedia Commons</figcaption></figure>
<h2>A Better Prepared Future</h2>
Anyone building a structure today has available the most sophisticated earthquake technology that has ever existed. But engineers are determined to make the future even better.
New materials might help buildings be better equipped for earthquakes to come. McCormick is developing polymer or metal foams, which are currently used in the aerospace industry, that could be scaled up to fit into joints between structural elements to absorb energy and prevent substantial damage. He&#8217;s also working on shape memory alloys that would not only absorb energy, but also re-center a building pushed off-kilter during a quake, reducing the need for repairs. Others are working on self-healing materials — capsules in concrete that would repair a crack in a building frame or foundation that resulted during an earthquake.
Still others are developing materials that could change stiffness depending on the forces being exerted on them. Controlled by an electrical circuit and used at the joints between framing materials, these materials could soften during an earthquake so that they absorb the energy flowing into the building and prevent damage to its structure, Asimaki says. A building equipped with sensors over its base and height could function similarly to dissipate energy from an earthquake.
But there&#8217;s a catch. The building industry is notoriously slow to change, Whittaker points out. Any materials created today have to be vetted by the building authorities, then worked into building codes. That means that it might take decades to see these new materials in use. That lethargy is compounded by some complacency in some of the most earthquake-prone regions. In California, for example, a strong quake hasn&#8217;t happened since <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/01/the-northridge-earthquake-20-years-ago-today/100664/">1994&#8217;s Northridge quake</a> in Los Angeles or, you could even argue, since 1906, when a <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/events/1906calif/18april/">powerful temblor</a> nearly decimated San Francisco. &#8220;Even in California, my generation hasn’t seen a big one. My parents haven’t,&#8221; Asimaki says. &#8220;We don’t have a memory of these things.&#8221;
So instead of clamoring for better technology or insisting their residences are better engineered for impending threats, residents in these areas might be satisfied with the bare minimum of earthquake preparedness. That&#8217;s especially true for stronger quakes. &#8220;I’m confident that we do know how to build structures that can go through the most severe earthquake shaking, but we’re not currently doing that,&#8221; Heaton says. &#8220;Things have been too quiet. People are too busy making money to really invest in what’s necessary based on things that we’ve learned in last 20 to 30 years.&#8221;
In the next few decades, researchers may be able to achieve an engineering feat they&#8217;ve worked towards for years: predicting earthquakes. Though we already have <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/earlywarning/">early warning systems</a> in places like California and Japan, these give people at most a minute to find a safe place. Future systems could work better, giving people even more time. To truly understand the nature of earthquakes and the chaotic forces involved in them, seismologists need even more data, from satellite data of incremental ground movements to information gathered from sensors deep in the earth—expensive experiments that are too resource-intensive for any single research team, Asimaki notes.
In the next century, cities will be designed to take the dangers of earthquakes into account, Asimaki suspects. Electricity, phone lines, traffic lights, and transportation will automatically shut off before an earthquake hits. That could prevent them from causing further damage, as ruptured electrical and gas lines are some of the biggest reasons that <a href="http://www.sms-tsunami-warning.com/pages/earthquake-effects#.WcuWktOGPoA">fires plague cities</a> after earthquakes.
Even further into the future, it&#8217;s possible that we could diffuse an earthquake&#8217;s energy before it ruptures destructively. We could cause a smaller, controlled quake using liquid pressure, the way we are already <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/induced/myths.php">doing by accident</a> during the fracking process and which <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-has-a-3-46-billion-plan-to-ensure-the-yellowstone-supervolcano-doesnt-erupt/">NASA has proposed doing</a> to neutralize the enormous volcano under Yellowstone. &#8220;That’s definitely far away. But that’s something that’s not impossible,&#8221; Asimaki says.
As for the most recent quake in Mexico, engineers and seismologists will learn from it. Figuring out just what those lessons are will take time. And yet it&#8217;s surprising that earthquakes are still so mysterious to us. &#8220;One of the world’s greatest unsolved physics problems is how earthquakes work in the first place,&#8221; Heaton says. With every new quake, even the destructive ones, humans inch closer to understanding them.

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<h2>Alive and Breathing</h2>
If it was up to a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the next trend in sportswear would be clothes made out of living cells. You got that right, living microbial cells. With a design that looks like it came straight out of science fiction, the self-ventilating workout suit developed by the MIT researchers gives a new meaning to breathable and no-sweat clothing — plus, it comes with a pair of running shoes lined with the same living cells on the inside.
&#8220;[W]e propose to use genetically tractable microbial cells to create multifunctional, moisture-responsive interfaces,&#8221; <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/3/5/e1601984.full.pdf" target="_blank">the researchers wrote</a> in a study published in <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/5/e1601984" target="_blank">Science Advances</a>. &#8220;We hypothesized that microbial cells can be used as functional building blocks for constructing moisture-responsive materials.&#8221;
The cells that researchers used are the most common nonpathogenic strain of E. coli, printed onto latex sheets. The cells were then designed into ventilating flaps in the workout suit. These tiny thumbnail- and finger-sized flaps open and close in reaction to the heat and sweat generated by an athlete&#8217;s body. The microbial cells respond to changes in humidity, expanding when the body begins to sweat and shrinking when it cools down. Furthermore, the microbial cells used are durable and also safe to touch or even consume (but please, don&#8217;t).
<iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/142208383?portrait=0" width="640"></iframe>
<a href="https://vimeo.com/142208383">Biologic</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/tangiblemedia">Tangible Media Group</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.
<h2>Cooler Stuff</h2>
&#8220;We can combine our cells with genetic tools to introduce other functionalities into these living cells,&#8221; <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2017/moisture-responsive-workout-suit-0519" target="_blank">explained MIT&#8217;s Wen Wang</a>, lead author of the study. &#8220;We use fluorescence as an example, and this can let people know you are running in the dark. In the future we can combine odor-releasing functionalities through genetic engineering. So maybe after going to the gym, the shirt can release a nice-smelling odor.&#8221;
While this biofabric is pretty cool, both literally and figuratively, we can expect even more cool stuff as researchers gain access to new and innovative materials. For example, biofabrication has already opened up doors into <a href="https://futurism.com/meet-the-revolutionary-apple-that-grows-human-skin/" target="_blank">3D-printing human organs</a>, and the development of <a href="https://futurism.com/adidas-unveils-a-shoe-that-can-be-dissolved-in-your-sink/" target="_blank">biodegradable shoes</a>. Outside the realm of biomaterials, there are what are considered to be <a href="https://futurism.com/images/super-materials-of-tomorrow-infographic/" target="_blank">the future&#8217;s super materials</a> — most notably, <a href="https://futurism.com/super-materials-are-leading-us-to-a-new-age-in-science/" target="_blank">graphene and its other iterations</a>.
As for the self-ventilating workout suit, it&#8217;s definitely at the forefront of biofabrication and the use of biomaterials. &#8220;This work is an example of harnessing the power of biology to design new materials and devices and achieve new functions,&#8221; <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2017/moisture-responsive-workout-suit-0519" target="_blank">said Xuanhe Zhao</a>, a co-author of the study. &#8220;We believe this new field of &#8216;living&#8217; materials and devices will find important applications at the interface between engineering and biological systems.&#8221;

A team of researchers from MIT has developed a workout suit which incorporates microbial cells into flaps that allow it to self-ventilate.

/Engineering

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