Author: WeWorldMedia-admin

U.S. natural gas production remained flat in 2024

Published: 17 April 2025
Categories: US Energy Information Administration

RSS feed source: US Energy Information Administration

In-brief analysis

April 17, 2025

U.S. marketed natural gas production remained relatively flat in 2024, growing by less than 0.4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) compared with 2023 to average 113 Bcf/d, according to our latest Natural Gas Monthly. Production growth in the Permian was offset by declining production in the Haynesville and relatively flat production in Appalachia.

EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook breaks out U.S. Lower 48 (L48) marketed natural gas production data for the Appalachia, Bakken, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, and Permian regions and also includes Alaska and Gulf of America production data. The Appalachia, Permian, and Haynesville regions produce the most, accounting for around two-thirds of total U.S. natural gas production combined.

Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook, April 2025
Note: GOA=Gulf of America, AK=Alaska; L48=Lower 48 U.S. states

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How a 1980s toy robot arm inspired modern robotics

Published: 17 April 2025
Categories: MIT Tech Review

RSS feed source: US Energy Information Administration

As a child of an electronic engineer, I spent a lot of time in our local Radio Shack as a kid. While my dad was locating capacitors and resistors, I was in the toy section. It was there, in 1984, that I discovered the best toy of my childhood: the Armatron robotic arm. 

A drawing from the patent application for the Armatron robotic arm.COURTESY OF TAKARA TOMY

Described as a “robot-like arm to aid young masterminds in scientific and laboratory experiments,” it was the rare toy that lived up to the hype printed on the front of the box. This was a legit robotic arm. You could rotate the arm to spin around its base, tilt it up and down, bend it at the “elbow” joint, rotate the “wrist,” and open and close the bright-­orange articulated hand in elegant chords of

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RoboBee comes in for a landing

Published: 16 April 2025
Categories: Engineering News

RSS feed source: US Energy Information Administration

A recently created RoboBee is now outfitted with its most reliable landing gear to date, inspired by one of nature’s most graceful landers: the crane fly. The team has given their flying robot a set of long, jointed legs that help ease its transition from air to ground. The robot has also received an updated controller that helps it decelerate on approach, resulting in a gentle plop-down.

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10 billion Milky Way stars might have habitable exoplanets after all

Published: 16 April 2025
Categories: National Science Foundation

RSS feed source: US Energy Information Administration

A research team led by the recipient of a U.S. National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development grant used computer simulations to determine that white dwarf stars have greater potential to host habitable planets than previously realized. The team concluded that many more stars in the Milky Way galaxy might be home to planets that could support life.

There are approximately 10 billion white dwarf stars in the Milky Way. Because such stars are colder than others, scientists have thought they likely would not support habitable exoplanets. Led by Aomawa Shields, a University of California, Irvine professor of physics and astronomy, researchers used a supercomputer provided by the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, to simulate conditions on a theoretical rocky planet orbiting a white dwarf. Using data from real exoplanets orbiting the non-white dwarf star Kepler-62, the researchers found that their simulated rocky planet could have liquid water if it closely orbited a white dwarf and had certain rotational characteristics. Their findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal.

“Not much consideration has been given to these stars’ ability to host habitable exoplanets,” says Shields. “Our computer simulations suggest that if rocky planets exist in their orbits, these planets could have more habitable real estate on their surfaces than previously thought.”

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