Last year's success at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in achieving nuclear fusion energy in excess of the power needed to produce it is the breakthrough step that Focused Energy hopes to build on, explains Doug Hammond, the company's vice president of laser engineering. Focused Energy plans to advance on the lab's results with a system of nanosecond and picosecond lasers to superheat and ignite fuel in a way that achieves the greater efficiencies needed for commercial applications.

More than 5,600 electric or fuel cell commercial vehicles were sold in China in December, according to an analysis by BloombergNEF. China is also making progress on battery swapping for commercial electric vehicles, with approximately half of heavy-duty commercial EVs featuring the technology in 2023.

Researchers from universities in Florida and Rhode Island have been testing laser scarecrows as a less lethal option for getting rid of crop-damaging birds. Tests of the technology against starlings in sweet corn fields revealed a 20% reduction in damage to the crops.

Transmutex and Copenhagen Atomics are among companies working on a nuclear reactor that uses the thorium fuel cycle. "You get thorium from rare earth refining, but it's considered a nuisance material," says John Kutsch, executive director of the Thorium Energy Alliance, who notes that thorium is "easier to handle than uranium, we burn it in a pure cycle, we have much less waste and you can't make a bomb out of it."

Mapmaking companies are working to create self-driving maps and figure out how to update them efficiently and cost-effectively. One strategy would create complete maps for future cars to navigate by themselves, while another makes maps that would use vehicle sensors and move toward gradual automation.

Shoppers at an Aurora, Ill., ALDI store can now checkout with ALDIgo, the retailer's new cashier-free technology. ALDIgo uses computer vision to allow shoppers to pay at their cart via debit, credit card or the Grabango app without the need to scan items or wait in a checkout line.

Chemical and engineering researchers have devised a cost-efficient method to use metal waste to catalyze hydrogen from water without fossil fuels and with only one byproduct, water vapor. According to findings in the Journal of Material Chemistry A, the scientists discovered that swarf, a byproduct of machining nickel alloy, stainless steel and titanium, is covered with ridges and grooves tens of nanometers wide where platinum atoms can be deposited in amounts about one-tenth of those needed for current state-of-the-art commercial catalysts.

Use-inspired research is the focus at Arizona State University's Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, where three of the school's programs encourage independent thinking and the development of both technical and soft skills. Monique Clement interviews four students on their projects that are meant to solve real-world problems with perovskite solar cells and fungi for wildfire recovery, among others.

ASME's International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC-CIE) is now accepting presentation-only abstracts for this year’s event in Washington, D.C. This year’s event features 500+ technical presentations covering key topics such as design automation, robotics and more. Learn more.

ASME's 51st Annual Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation is now accepting presentation-only abstracts. Your expertise is valuable, and you can help advance the industry by sharing your in-progress, published or not-for-publication nondestructive evaluation engineering case studies or research. Presentation-only abstracts are due by April 3. Not planning to present at the event? Share this opportunity with your colleagues and students. Learn more.