- Researchers at Princeton engineering developed a math framework for construction of adjustable shells that snap into different configurations. Each configuration is stable — it can maintain its position and resist outside force without additional locking mechanisms. The method has applications in robotics, space exploration and construction.

- Shells, thin structures with a curved surface, are a highly efficient method for supporting loads over wide areas, like airplane wings. Shells exist in nature, as eggshells or skulls, in the built environment as bridges and machine parts, and in ancient buildings like the Roman Pantheon and the Hagia Sophia.

- Taking inspiration from curved-crease origami and concepts from differential geometry, the team developed guidelines for curved, multi-stable structures. Based on geometry, the work does not require specific shapes or exotic construction materials. The team built robots to explore the concept of snapping curved folds which can be controlled with magnetic fields, without needing any onboard motors or electronics.

This study clarifies that the North American bison's 20th-century population collapse caused significant herd fragmentation rather than a total loss of genetic diversity. The study's findings offer conservationists a new tool to reconnect isolated herds into a functioning metapopulation through more precise, genome-matched breeding strategies—effectively reversing the disruptive genetic impacts of past management practices.

A new study led by a Duke University scientist overturns a long-held idea about how primates, including humans, came to have such large and sophisticated brains. The research finds that the dramatic expansion of the primate neocortex was driven largely by vision, not by the disproportionate growth of the frontal lobe often associated with higher reasoning.

A research team led by the University of California, Santa Cruz, set out to determine the best timing for retiring a gas-powered car and replacing it with an electric vehicle in order to maximize climate benefits. As it turns out, from a carbon emissions standpoint, you’d be better off sending a brand new internal combustion engine car directly to the scrap heap in order to replace it with a battery electric car. It typically takes about three years for the lower emissions of driving a battery electric vehicle to offset the emissions required to produce it. And the benefits add up quickly from there—resulting in up to a 58% reduction in carbon emissions over a 16-year period, if gas cars are retired at year-one.