Our longest reads: features and investigations that look hard at the claims.
9 stories
Solar-fed elevated transit corridors are moving from civic experiment to everyday service, with autonomous scheduling knitting pilot lines together across a group of large cities.
AGTECH 2.0An indoor aeroponic wheat facility says its first harvest used a fraction of the water of field farming. Energy costs are the catch.
IDEASShould access to frontier AI computing be treated like a public utility? An explainer on the idea, its supporters and its sceptics.
SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONBio-mineralised concrete that uses microbes to bind carbon and heal its own cracks is spreading through municipal building codes. Here is what the claims rest on.
FUTURE ACADEMIAPolytechnic hubs that pair paid apprenticeships with short courses are graduating their first cohorts directly into engineering studios.
PHOTONIC COMPUTEChips that move and process data with light rather than electrons are reaching pilot scale, and their developers say one prototype cut cooling and power draw sharply.
POLICY & CULTUREDelegates at a fictional international creators' summit backed a voluntary provenance registry that would let human-made works carry a verified label and premium licensing terms.
AESTHETICS & ARTIn an age of instant digital abundance, physical craft objects are gaining cultural and economic weight, especially with younger buyers.
AEROSPACE LOGISTICSHeavy-lift electric cargo drones have begun scheduled trial runs between two large European logistics hubs, flying in reserved low-altitude lanes.
