The relationship between generations often shapes the trajectory of careers, with parents serving as role models, mentors, and sources of inspiration for their sons and daughters. Whether through direct guidance, inherited talent, or the values instilled during upbringing, the influence of one generation on the next can lead to extraordinary achiev…

You’ve probably seen the photo. "Earthrise" is one of the most significant photographs in the history of human civilization, and certainly the most iconic in space exploration. Taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission, the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon, on December 24, 1968, this photograph captured the imagination of …

The term "greenwashing" was coined back in 1983 by environmentalist Jay Westerfeld while surfing in Fiji. He later published an essay in 1986 titled "It All Comes Out in the Greenwash," highlighting how companies were making misleading claims about their environmental practices. Fast forward to today, greenwashing has become a sophisticated art for…

Imagine living in complete comfort - a home that's perfectly warm in winter and delightfully cool in summer, all while your energy bills shrink and your carbon footprint fades. This isn't just a dream; it's what every homeowner and business owner wants: A solution that aligns personal comfort with planetary wellbeing, while keeping more money in th…

“We hold patents on a few gadgets we confiscated from visitors. Velcro, microwave ovens, liposuction.” - Tommy Lee Jones as "K", describing how the Men in Black fund their exploits Very amusing concept for science fiction, but the boundary between space exploration and everyday life blurs in reality, where innovations born in the cold vacuum of spa…

“We hold patents on a few gadgets we confiscated from visitors. Velcro, microwave ovens, liposuction.” - Tommy Lee Jones as "K", describing how the Men in Black fund their exploits Very amusing concept for science fiction, but the boundary between space exploration and everyday life blurs in reality, where innovations born in the cold vacuum of spa…

Our insatiable appetite for information has gone digital. Once upon a time, knowledge seekers ventured into libraries, thumbing through card catalogs and dusty volumes. Today, we simply speak our questions in the form of a prompt, and artificial minds spring to life with answers. But this convenience comes with a hidden cost - one measured in teraw…

On the banks of the Susquehanna River in Columbia County, in the northeast corner of the state of Pennsylvania, just outside the town of Berwick; population 10,355; lies a nuclear power plant. As you drive down route 11, you can see the steam pouring out of its mammoth towers over the tops of the trees. This is the single source of power in the are…

The service station is a staple of America’s love affair with the automobile. Now it’s going away as the rise of electric vehicles and e-mobility takes over for internal combustion engines. How will this transition affect car culture and what’s involved with onboard charging? How can we invert a process that’s over 100 years old? One little linchpi…

The Internet of Things is nothing short of a modern miracle. The ability to connect devices across a network and control them remotely, gathering data, performing routine maintenance, and saving countless hours of preparation time and direct human interaction. It gave rise to the need for Smart, Connected, and Secure technology solutions. That’s gr…

Picture if you will, a source of energy, so radiant, that it holds the key to our energy future. The sun, a source of limitless potential, emits almost 4 octillion watts of energy every second. That’s a 10 with 26 zeros behind it. If we could harness just a fraction of this power, it would be enough to meet the world's energy needs many times over.…

Machines that build machines. It’s a curious paradox. Whenever you consider something that builds itself, physically, it could conjure thoughts of an infinity loop or an M.C. Escher painting. The never-ending loop of technology. The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine, a marvel of modern engineering, etches patterns onto silicon wafers wi…

“Words are the new weapons, satellites the new artillery.” Jonathan Pryce’s villain Elliot Carver says to James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies right before he manipulates a GPS signal to make a British destroyer begin a confrontation with the Chinese military, may seem like the realm of pop culture; the idea of manipulating GPS signals and disrupting …

“Words are the new weapons, satellites the new artillery.” Jonathan Pryce’s villain Elliot Carver says to James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies right before he manipulates a GPS signal to make a British destroyer begin a confrontation with the Chinese military, may seem like the realm of pop culture; the idea of manipulating GPS signals and disrupting …

It’s no secret the world turns. Its 24-hour rotation on its axis gives us the definition of a day. Our moon, recently eclipsed in North America, orbits around us. We, in turn, orbit around our sun along with the other planets, and our entire solar system orbits around the Milky Way galaxy. These cosmic revolutions make up the foundation of our exis…

Picture a world where the hum of electricity permeates every aspect of our lives, from the devices we hold in our hands to the vehicles that transport us across vast distances. This is the world of the electrification of everything, a paradigm shift that promises to reshape our relationship with energy and power. As once analog and unpowered items …

“Third place”. The term originated in a 1989 book written by sociologist Ray Oldenberg. It refers to a place separate from Work or Home where humans can facilitate social interaction. The need for Third Places has grown and was extremely exacerbated by the COVID-19 global pandemic. Like many other things, the pandemic accelerated increasing trends:…

COVID-19 impacted the world. In December of 2019 news reports out of Wuhan, the capital of Central China's Hubei province, detailed the emergence of an atypical pneumonia-like illness that did not respond well to standard treatments. By January 2020 world health officials had identified the 2019 Novel Coronavirus. By February 2020 the World Health …

Water is the most precious substance on earth and a primary building block of life. Humans can’t live more than a few days without it. Yet in order to grow, cultivate, process, and transport our food, we waste a tremendous amount of it. So much so that we need to pull more of it out of the ground just to satisfy our agricultural needs, making matte…

Asthma is a global phenomenon. According to the World Health Organization, Asthma affected an estimated 262 million people in 2019. In the United States alone, the Centers for Disease Control estimates there are over 4.6 million children under the age of 18 with Asthma. According to the Global Asthma Report in 2022, Asthma is ""well controlled"" in…

The old parable of the country kid moving to the big city and leaving the farm behind is a timeless yarn of youth, ambition, and Hope. In recent years, that trope has become a reality. The number of farmers in the United States alone has been steadily dropping. The percentage of first-generation farmers is close to 78%. It can be a tough business. …

Severe Storms. Wildfires. Floods. According to Statista, there were 421 natural disaster events recorded worldwide in 2022. Among the most damaging are tropical cyclones, what the World Health Organization would refer to as typhoons or hurricanes. As damaging as the wind can be, the greatest damage to life and property is not from the wind, but fro…

When you sit down to eat your next meal, think about how your food got in front of you. Did you grow it yourself or did you buy it from someone? If the latter, was it from a restaurant or a store? Do you ever wonder how it gets from the farm to your plate? Whether you are a vegan or a die-hard carnivore, your food comes from a farm somewhere. It ne…

One of the few things every human on this planet, and every other living thing for that matter, shares is the fact that everything gets 1,440 minutes per day. Our planet makes one rotation on its axis, the sun comes up, the sun goes down and we start the dance all over again. Part of the human experience is how we spend that time. Multiple sources,…

Picture an average night at home. You’re sitting on the couch, remote in hand, maybe with a beverage by your side. You use your remote to navigate through the menu of your favorite streaming platform to select an episode of your favorite TV show. You pause to give a command to your smart speaker to shut off the music you were playing before sitting…

Welcome to Beyond the Microchip So much of our daily lives are controlled or influenced by electronics. We rely on GPS to direct us, we hit "brew" on our coffee machines for our mornin' cup of Joe, we wave our hands over a sensor to get running water from a faucet and press a button to open our garage doors. But do we really know what's going on in…