A study out recently has prompted much media attention about the role of plastics in developing autism.

In particular, the study focused on exposure to a component of hard plastics—bisphenol A, or BPA—in the womb and the risk of boys developing this neurodevelopmental disorder.

Importantly, the study doesn’t show plastics containing BPA cause autism.

But it suggests BPA might play a role in estrogen levels in infant and school-aged boys, which can then affect their chance of being diagnosed with autism.

Let’s tease out the details.

Remind me, what is BPA?
BPA is a component of hard plastics that has been used for a few decades. Because BPA is found in plastics used for food and some drink containers, many people are exposed to low levels of BPA every day.

But conc...

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, are now used to capture images and carry out a wide range of missions in outdoor environments. While there are now several UAV designs with different advantages and characteristics, most conventional aerial robots are underactuated, meaning that they have fewer independent actuators than their degrees of freedom (DoF).

Underactuated systems are often more cost-effective and can be controlled using simpler control strategies than overactuated systems (i.e., robots that have more independent actuators than their DoF). Nonetheless, they are often less reliable and not as capable of precisely controlling their position and orientation.

Researchers at Tec...

A small team of engineers and geophysicists from Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Central Florida has found, via modeling, that creating millions of metal nanorods from material on the Martian surface and then blasting them into the atmosphere would be a more efficient way to heat the planet than generating greenhouse gases. Their paper is published in the journal Science Advances.

Science fiction writers have for many years envisioned a future when Mars is made habitable through terraforming techniques, allowing humans to survive without the need for special buildings and spacesuits...