A new technology has been developed that can rapidly predict city-scale structural damage even when portions of satellite imagery are obscured by clouds or smoke immediately after a disaster.

When cold water hits a scorching frying pan, it beads into trembling spheres that skate effortlessly on a pocket of their own steam, a phenomenon that normally chokes cooling systems in high-power microchips and nuclear reactors because trapped steam blocks heat escape. Yet moving liquids through these extreme-heat environments without mechanical pumps has long eluded engineers. Now in the International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, researchers have flipped a notorious manufacturing flaw on its head: by intentionally misaligning ultrafast laser beams, they have carved microscopic ramps onto metal surfaces that harness that very steam cushion, turning chaotic boiling into a directional engine that propels droplets uphill and around curves without a single moving part.

A compact, centimeter-scale microfluidic chip uses 444 interconnected hexagonal microchambers to model population density, spatial contact, and social distancing.