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Letters from our readers

This winter jacket is light, thin and made of the same special ingredient that insulates astronaut spacesuits.

A Winter Jacket Made From the Same Material as NASA Spacesuits and Other Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded

Plus, a high-tech update to the tried-and-true jump rope

Before it departed from Abu Dhabi, the plane carried out an inaugural flight, taking off from the Payerne airport in Switzerland.

This Solar-Powered Plane is Currently Circumnavigating the World

With 17,000 solar cells in its wing and tail, the aircraft relies solely on sunshine to keep its motors running

A Norwegian Company is Transforming Deserts Into Farmland

Solar power plants in Qatar and Jordan, not far from the sea, are powering desalination systems that irrigate plants in and around greenhouses

Solar Panels in the Screens of Smartphones Could Power the Devices

Kyocera unveils a prototype for a phone with a layer of transparent crystals in its screen that helps to charge it both indoors and outside

The Hemingwrite is a newfangled take on the old school typewriter, featuring cloud back-up.

Five Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded: From a Digital Typewriter to Treadmill-Powered Gaming

A Los Angeles group is also creating greeting cards with personalized audio messages from top celebrities

Solar Power Provides About As Many Jobs As the Coal Industry in the U.S.

Estimates might even give solar and edge in the jobs department, but is that a good thing?

(Clockwise from top left) Katrin Macmillan, Ashutosh Saxena, Richard Lunt and Horace Luke are hard at work on exciting new projects.

Eight Innovators to Watch in 2015

From food science and robotics to solar tech and sustainable architecture, these folks are poised to do big things

Just add water. The Zephyr has an electrolyzer on board that uses nine liters of water to produce hydrogen to inflate.

A Photovoltaic Balloon Could Bring Electricity to Disaster Zones

Moored to a base with batteries, the Zephyr collects enough solar energy to power 15 relief tents and a telecommunications network

Kids in a small Nigerian village line up to learn at the Hello Hub.

How Do Kids Learn Where There Are No Teachers? It May Take a Village...Computer

A non-profit called Projects for All has a plan for educating children without schools: Turn them loose on outdoor computer kiosks in their community

This year, the Solar Cloth Company unveiled the world's first solar fabric tensile structure parking lot in Cambridge, UK.

A Football Stadium Covered in This Solar Cloth Could Power a Small Town

Perry Carroll, founder of the Solar Cloth Company, has integrated super-thin photovoltaics into flexible fabric

This is how you build the world's first solar bike path.

A Bike Path Near Amsterdam Is Now Generating Solar Power

As cyclists ride above, solar panels embedded in the pathway pump energy into the power grid

The transparent solar concentrator material doesn’t block visible light, but turns light in other parts of the spectrum into electricity.

This Clear Plastic Material Harvests Solar Energy Without You Even Knowing It's There

Researchers are developing transparent solar collectors that let sunlight in, while turning ultraviolet and near-infrared light into electricity

An artist renders the proposed master plan of Masdar City.

Building the World's First Carbon-Neutral City

Masdar City, near Abu Dhabi, boasts green buildings, a fleet of electric cars and massive solar arrays. But will the experiment work?

Photovoltaic solar panels and wind turbines, San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, Palm Springs, California, USA.

In the U.S., Solar Energy Has More Than Doubled Since Last Year

Solar voltaic energy is a small, but growing, piece of the American energy pie

An artistic depiction of the duck.

Copenhagen Might Install a Giant, Energy-Gathering Duck in Its Harbor

The duck would be both a tourist attraction and a means of helping the city become carbon-neutral by 2025

This Bench in Boston Will Charge Your Phone While It Collects Environmental Data

These solar-powered benches aren't just made for sitting

The Solar Impulse 2 in flight

Can a Plane Fly Around the World on Solar Power Alone?

With a wingspan greater than a 747, but weighing less than most cars, the Solar Impulse 2 will attempt to circumnavigate the planet.

A wind farm in Amarillo, Texas.

See All These New Energy Projects? Most of Them Are Renewables

In the next four years, U.S. renewable energy development will outpace conventional fuel plants

Zebrafish embryo

A Scan of a Mechanical Heart Pump Fitted in a Live Human and Other Eerily Beautiful Scientific Images

From a photo of a tick biting flesh to a closeup of a kidney stone, the 18 winners of the 2014 Wellcome Image Awards highlight objects we don't usually see

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