joe's big idea

Lung surfactant coats tiny air sacs in the lung. Without it, every breath is a struggle, like blowing up millions of little balloons. With surfactant, breathing is as easy as blowing soap bubbles.

Scientists will search the sky Thursday for an undiscovered planet in the outer solar system — they're pretty sure it's out there, and computer models tell them where to look.

Overheated lithium-ion batteries have been a problem for airplanes, cars and even "hoverboards." A chemical engineer at Stanford University thinks she has a solution to the problem.

Named Sustainability Base, a NASA facility in California is a model for energy-efficient federal buildings. It's powered by a fuel cell like those used on spacecraft and recycles water for flushing.

Even the smartest robot does a miserable job picking up objects it hasn't been programmed to recognize. One way robots may get better at it is to learn by experience, a researcher says.

It was 15 feet long, with a snout shaped like a dolphin's. This newly identified meat-eater swam the seas near the Isle of Skye in the time of dinosaurs.

Removing bacteria and other impurities from water could be done more cheaply thanks to researchers at MIT. They're taking advantage of the way trees move water to filter it.