The Innovation Report
SpaceX Rocket Launches Private Moon Lander And NASA ‘Trailblazer’ To Hunt For Lunar Water
The private Athena lunar lander is on its way to the moon. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off shortly after sunset this evening (Feb. 26), carrying Athena and NASA's ride-along Lunar Trailblazer orbiter aloft against a darkening sky here at...
Trump Administration Reportedly Shutting Down Federal EV Chargers Nationwide
The General Services Administration (GSA), which manages buildings owned by the federal government, is planning to shut down all of its electric vehicle chargers nationwide, describing them as “not mission critical.” The agency, which manages contracts for the...
Competing With $1/Gallon Gas—The Strange Non-Economics Of EV Charging
How do you make a gas station business selling gas for $4/gallon when almost everybody gets it at home for $1.20? The planned EV transition needs charging, but a great deal of planning and spending is being done by people who don’t understand how different their...
Racing Yacht Will Make Hydrogen As It Sails
Wind power has been rising significantly in recent years, and now accounts for about 8% of the world’s energy production. By the end of the decade, it will be the second-largest renewable source after solar, having surpassed hydropower, according to...
Scientists Build Robot To Track Plant-Fungal Trade Networks, Revealing Nature’s Underground Supply Chains
New research published in the journal Nature on February 26, 2025, uses advanced robotics to track the hyper-efficient supply chains formed between plants and mycorrhizal fungi as they trade carbon and nutrients across the complex, living networks...
Houston: Regional Mobility Plan Focused On Safety, Reliability
Officials from the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County unveiled a new regional mobility plan on Feb. 24 that focuses on improving customer-centric services, increasing transit ridership and addressing issues such as safety, cleanliness, accessibility and...
Top US Cities Embracing Smart Infrastructure
Cities on the West Coast and in the Northeast lead the United States in adopting cutting-edge technology for urban sustainability. This is according to a ranking developed by CoworkingCafe, which evaluated cities across the nation in terms of their smart...
Smart Mobility Today: 24 February 2025
When thinking about which piece in the Smart Mobility podcast struck me this week, I found once again it was two unrelated but with a similar message. Tying together old and new technology in both autonomous rail cars and in phytoplankton research in the Arctic has...
New EV Batteries Are Making EVs Cheaper & Safer
A new kind of battery could make American EVs cheaper and safer, experts say. But first, it will have to overcome trade barriers between the United States and China. If you bought an EV with a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery, you could expect lower car payments,...
This Week in Space
For those worried about reports of a possible asteroid impact in 2032, there is good news: NASA has dropped the probability of an impact from asteroid 2024 YR4 to 1 in 67. The updated assessment was based on new orbital data for the asteroid, which is estimated...
