Wow. A LOT of replies.
Thank you to those who attempted the game.

To continue the trend, we will have another mystery gift this week (this one’s different)!

Want to get featured in the next edition and get the mystery gift?

Let’s get into this week’s game!

Engineering Match-Up Challenge:

Know the matches?

Drop your answers below (like A-1, B-2, etc.) and you might just win that mystery prize we've been teasing.

What Happened This Week?

1. IS THIS REAL??

Turns out there are folks trying to make it real.

Dubai engineers just created Project REBIRTH, an AI system that wraps crashing planes in external airbags.

The system monitors engine status, speed, and altitude using sensor fusion. When AI detects imminent impact below 3,000 feet, airbags deploy from nose, belly, and tail in under two seconds using Kevlar, TPU, and non-Newtonian smart fluids.

If engines work, reverse thrust kicks in. If they fail, gas thrusters activate for speed reduction. After landing, bright orange paint and GPS beacons help rescuers find the wreckage fast.

Computer simulations show over 60% crash impact reduction.

The catch?

Added weight and complexity (a lot more fuel burnt) for something that might happen once every 20 years.

But honestly, if it saves lives during those rare disasters, seems worth carrying the extra baggage 😔

Read more here

2. Japan's Plasma Engine Cleans Space Junk Without Touching It

Yup, not windows, glass, or the floor you spilled coffee on. SPACE

Turns out space is getting absolutely cluttered with 14,000 pieces of junk moving faster than bullets and Japan just figured out how to clean it up without actually touching anything.

Previous attempts used robotic arms and nets, which is like trying to catch a spinning chainsaw.

Other people tried plasma thrusters, but here's the problem: when you shoot plasma at debris to slow it down, the kickback pushes your cleanup satellite away.

It's like trying to spray a garden hose while standing on ice.

Japan's solution is genius: shoot TWO plasma streams simultaneously. One hits the space junk to decelerate it, another fires in the exact opposite direction to cancel out kickback.

They added a magnetic field to focus the plasma better, which tripled the slowing force.

The goal is avoiding Kessler syndrome, where one collision triggers a chain reaction that turns orbit into a cosmic demolition derby.

We're basically trying to prevent space from becoming unusable forever. Just wow

Read more here

3. Sodium Batteries Finally Work in Freezing Cold (Lithium Who?)

Don’t be salty now 😂

But seriously, lithium batteries are expensive, rare, and environmentally terrible to mine.

But sodium batteries have been terrible at cold temperatures, making them useless for real applications. Until now.

University of Chicago researchers seem to have pulled it off: they heat sodium hydridoborate until it starts crystallizing, then rapidly cool it to lock in a "metastable" crystal structure. It's like freezing water mid-transformation into something else.

This creates ionic conductivity at least 10x higher than anyone achieved before.

They paired it with thick cathodes that pack more energy-storing material and less dead weight.

Here's why this matters: sodium is literally everywhere (hello, ocean water), unlike lithium which comes from specific mines that destroy ecosystems. If sodium batteries can finally match lithium performance while being dirt cheap and environmentally friendly, we might stop strip-mining the planet for phone batteries.

The manufacturing uses familiar techniques, so the industry won't freak out about adopting it either 👀

Read more here

A very interesting webinar happening on October 2nd - "From Data to Asset Delivery: A Reimagined Approach" hosted by ENR and Transcend.

October 2nd, 2:00 PM EDT, free registration. Worth checking out if you want to streamline your design workflow and actually reuse the work you've already done.

Your Building Just Became a Battery (And It's Actually Alive)

To be honest, I’ve always thought cement is the most boring material that exists.

It’s just gray paste that hardens into walls and sidewalks…

BUT

Danish researchers just turned it into something that would make Tesla jealous (not exaggerating).

They figured out how to make concrete that stores electricity. Not regular concrete with batteries stuck inside but this time the concrete itself becomes the battery.

And the weirdest part?
It's literally alive.

The problem everyone's been ignoring

We're putting solar panels on every rooftop and wind turbines in every field, but where do we store all that energy when the sun sets and the wind stops?

Lithium batteries cost a fortune, need rare materials that come from sketchy mining operations, and die after a few years.

Plus, where exactly do you put enough batteries to power entire cities?

Aarhus University scientists basically thought of making buildings that became the batteries 😦

They made cement alive (seriously)

The team took regular cement and added living bacteria called Shewanella oneidensis.

These little microbes have a superpower that sounds made up: they can push electrons outside their cells, turning themselves into biological wires.

When you mix them into cement, the bacteria create a network of charge carriers that store and release electricity like a supercapacitor.

The cement literally becomes alive and starts generating power.

Early tests show it already works better than traditional cement-based storage devices (obviously).

The resurrection trick

Here's where it gets completely insane.

Even after the bacteria die, the cement keeps working.

And the researchers can bring it back to full power by feeding it nutrients through tiny channels built into the material.

They recover up to 80% of original capacity just by giving the dead bacteria some proteins, vitamins, and salts.

THAT’S WHAT I MEANT BY IT’S ALIVE

The team tested cement blocks under brutal conditions: freezing cold and blazing heat.

Six blocks wired together produced enough electricity to light an LED bulb.

Buildings that power themselves

Lead researcher Qi Luo says a single room made of this material could store around 10 kWh: enough to power a standard server for a day.

Imagine bridges that power their own sensors, or homes that store solar energy in their walls during the day and release it at night.

Instead of installing expensive battery systems, future builders might just pour them into the foundation.

This uses abundant, cheap materials and naturally occurring bacteria.

We might be looking at the first construction material that doubles as a power plant.

Now I want sodium batteries in my car and phone, and this cement in my house 👀

Your next adventure?

⦁ Unified Communications Engineer (Unify): MCS of Tampa
Making military radios and VoIP systems play nice together across the globe.

⦁ Mechanical Engineer: Terrestrial Energy
Molten salt nuclear chef cooking up Generation-IV reactors that make atoms dance cleanly.

⦁ Propulsion Engineer: IERUS Technologies
Teaching engines to swivel so astronauts don't accidentally visit Venus instead of Mars.