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...system have been tested in an effort to prove its efficiency and applicability on a large scale in big projects,” says Nicolas Calvet, an assistant professor at the Masdar institute’s department of mechanical engineering. The next step is to test a more sophisticated model in preparation for its commercial marketing, Calvel says. These tests will involve researching...

...think of as robots: autonomous machines that can sense their surroundings, respond, move, do things and, above all, interact with us humans. We all recognise R2-D2, WALL-E and scores of their lesser-known kin. The unnerving thing is that their nonfictional counterparts are extremely close at hand. Some press stories are exotic – those about ‘sexbots’ being among the...

...systems operate to form our environment. Every planet except one in the Solar System has a gaseous atmosphere, as do some moons and even some dwarf planets. Why does the Earth’s atmosphere make it so perfect as a home for life? The Earth’s atmosphere The atmosphere is thin and light, a gas that is only bound to the solid mass of the Earth by gravity. The mass of the...