Fertilizer is made of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. Chemical fertilizers require huge amounts of energy to produce. But there are other, natural and more readily available sources.  The University of Michigan, with support from the National Science Foundation, is working at making our water cleaner, and our agriculture more sustainable, by capturing one of …

Fertilizer is made of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. Chemical fertilizers require huge amounts of energy to produce. But there are other, natural and more readily available sources. A project at the University of Michigan is aimed at making our water cleaner and our agriculture more sustainable by capturing one of those sources … rather …

Facebook says a software flaw may have exposed private photos of nearly 7 million users, the latest in a series of privacy issues facing the social media company. Facebook said Friday that the photo glitch gave about 1,500 software apps unauthorized access to private photos for 12 days in September.  “We’re sorry this happened,” Facebook …

Virgin Galactic is preparing for a new flight test Thursday that aims to fly higher and faster than before toward the edge of space. The U.S. company run by British tycoon Richard Branson is aiming to be the first to take tourists on brief trips into microgravity. Virgin Galactic’s fourth flight test on the VSS …

California regulators are considering a plan to charge a fee for text messaging on mobile phones to help support programs that make phone service accessible to the poor. The Mercury News reports Wednesday that the proposal is scheduled for a vote next month by the state Public Utilities Commission. The wireless industry and business groups …

Sports, disaster and death were among the top searches on Google last year. Each December, the technology company releases it’s top trending searches of the year. Topics that drew the interest of Americans included the World Cup, Hurricane Florence and three people who died in 2018 — rapper Mac Miller, designer Kate Spade and TV …

A senior U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday that Chinese cyber activity in the United States had risen in recent months, targeting critical infrastructure in what may be attempts to lay the groundwork for future disruptive attacks. “You worry they are prepositioning against critical infrastructure and trying to be able to do the types of …

Protesters disturbed a U.S.-sponsored event promoting fossil fuels on the sidelines of U.N. climate change talks on Monday. The event called “U.S. innovative technologies spur economic dynamism,” touting the benefits of burning fossil fuels more efficiently, infuriated campaigners and many government delegations who want the talks to focus on moving away from coal, oil and …

Google CEO Sundar Pichai insisted Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee that he runs the U.S. technology giant without political preference. “We find that we have a wide variety of sources, including sources from the left and sources from the right. And we are committed to making sure there are diverse perspectives,” Pichai told the …

A Chinese court has ordered a ban in the country on most iPhone sales  because of a patent dispute between iPhone maker Apple and U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm. The Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court granted Qualcomm’s request for preliminary injunctions against four subsidiaries of Apple, ordering them to immediately stop selling the iPhone 6S through the iPhone …

Tesla CEO Elon Musk dismissed the idea that the company’s new chairwoman can exert control over his behavior. Robyn Denholm, an Australian telecommunications executive, was appointed chairwoman of Tesla’s board last month, replacing Musk as part of a securities fraud settlement with U.S. government regulators. But Musk said “it’s not realistic” to expect Denholm to …

NASA’s Voyager 2 has become only the second human-made object to reach the space between stars. NASA said Monday that Voyager 2 exited the region of the sun’s influence last month. The spacecraft is now beyond the outer boundary of the heliosphere, some 11 billion miles from Earth. It’s trailing Voyager 1, which reached interstellar …

The International Telecommunication Union reports that for the first time in history, half of the global population is using the internet. A new report finds by the end of the year, 3.9 billion people worldwide will be online. The report finds access to and use of information and communication technologies around the world is trending …

The role drones play in our lives today is becoming greater and greater, as are the capabilities of these autonomous flying robots. Genia Dulot visited CalTech, the California Institute of Technology, where the potential for drones is being explored for surprising new uses. …

Security agencies will gain greater access to encrypted messages under new laws in Australia. The legislation will force technology companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google to disable encryption protections to allow investigators to track the communications of terrorists and other criminals. It is, however, a controversial measure. Australian law enforcement officials say the growth …

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee warns the United States is being outgunned in cyberspace, already having lost its competitive advantage to Russia while China is rapidly closing in. “When it comes to cyber, misinformation and disinformation, Russia is already our peer and in the areas of misinformation or disinformation, I believe is …

A newly enacted law rushed through Australia’s parliament will compel technology companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google to disable encryption protections so police can better pursue terrorists and other criminals.      Cybersecurity experts say the law, the first of its kind globally, will instead be a boon to the criminal underworld by undermining the …

Joseph Wheeler and his team of students and faculty from Virginia Tech University are convinced they are building the house of the future. Judges at the recent Solar Decathlon Middle East agreed, awarding their future house first place in the December competition held in Dubai. “We set it up in two days,” Wheeler told VOA. …

Many experts predict that the emerging 5G wireless technology will revolutionize the world’s economy. They say it holds the key to a smarter, more efficient, more connected and much wealthier world. But a recent congressional report outlines how China plans to use the transition to 5G and its access to billions of networked electronic devices …

It’s official: A team of faculty and students from Virginia Tech University has built what’s being billed as the world’s best solar home. The decision was made last weekend in Dubai when officials announced the winner of the Solar Decathlon Middle East competition. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

For experts in the field of ocean mapping, it is no small irony that we know more about the surfaces of the moon and Mars than we do about our planet’s sea floor. “Can you imagine operating on the land without a map, or doing anything without a map?” asked Larry Mayer, director of the …

The Australian parliament’s lower house Thursday passed a bill to force tech firms such as Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook and Apple to give police access to encrypted data, pushing it closer to becoming a precedent-setting law. However, the proposal, staunchly opposed by the tech giants because Australia is seen as a test case as other …

Facebook Inc let some companies, including Netflix and Airbnb, access users’ lists of friends after it cut off that data for most other apps around 2015, according to documents released on Wednesday by a British lawmaker investigating fake news and social media. The 223 pages of internal communication from 2012 to 2015 between high-level employees, …

Jeff Bezos boldly predicted five years ago that drones would be carrying Amazon packages to people’s doorsteps by now. Amazon customers are still waiting. And it’s unclear when, if ever, this particular order by the company’s founder and CEO will arrive. Bezos made billions of dollars by transforming the retail sector. But overcoming the regulatory …

Teacher Rishi Rawat has one student who is not human, but a machine. Lessons take place at a lab inside the University of Southern California’s (USC) Clinical Science Center in Los Angeles, where Rawat teaches artificial intelligence, or AI. To help the machine learn, Rawat feeds the computer samples of cancer cells. “They’re like a …

With the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning, doctors may soon have new ways of diagnosing and treating patients in ways that were never humanly possible. Scientists at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles are developing a way of using machine learning to identify specific types of breast cancer tumors, and they …