The subconscious helps you make sense of an ever changing world. As the name says, you are often not aware of the working of the subconscious. Yet it is always at work, guiding you softly and never stopping. The same is true for what is underneath our cities. The ground under our feet sprouts so many functions that are essential for our lives, but we rarely think about them. There are cables that bring electricity, pipes that deliver fresh water or take away used ones and optical fibres that let us communicate with the world. All of this happens every day, every second, and that is what keeps us alive and functioning. ...

Hypersonic Aircraft Powered by Hydrogen Following NASA, also the European Space Agency ESA plans to develop a hypersonic aircraft. The European INVICTUS project even goes one step further and aims add an environmentally friendly propulsion system using Hydrogen. In addition, the aircraft is supposed to take off horizontally, so it can start and land at conventional airports. As hypersonic airfact travel close to space, this shall one day provide convenient access to space travel. Yet this is still science fiction - NASA estimates the development will take decades and predicts commercial travel in the 2050s. Czech Railways End Traditional Dining Car Service Some sad news from the Czech Railways CD. They plan to decomission their old-style dining cars on the trains connecting Prague with Berlin and Hamburg. They will be replaced by modern Bistro cars. Gone are the days where you would get your traditional Czech Roast with dumplings, prepared in an actual kitchen and served on a table with table linen. It was the last dining car where you could get to feel like you were in the “Old Europe”. Now also this train arrives in the present. Too bad I never had the chance to dine in one of those cars. Snake on a Globe Ever since I got my first mobile phone - a Nokia - I love playing Snake. I also love maps. This browser game is the perfect combination of both - you play Snakes on globe! You guide the snake from one city to the next. The next city is randomly chosen, and you only see the city’s name. You need a good knowledge of geography to find the shortest way and get the highest score. A perfect way to pass your time and test your geography. Also have a look at the author’s other projects, he has a knack for visualisation of information. After spending more time than intended playing snake, here is another way to spend countless hours! Title Image: ©️ESA

Car traffic increases all over the world. New streets are constructed, existing ones widened. Yet there are streets that don’t follow this trend, like the narrowest street in the world.

Autonomous Drones Perform Inventory in Warehouse A subsidiary of Hyuandai Motors now uses drones to perform inventory in their warehouses. It reduces the time for an inventory by 90% to 30 Minutes. The drones fly autonomously and orient themselves with their cameras - no GPS required. Seems like a perfect way to free humans from boring and repetitive work. Military Transport Drone Carries Freight Almost 1,000km Company MightyFly of California presents an autonomous transport drone. It can fly freight of 220kg for almost 1,000km and take off and land vertically. It is intended for military applications, but can also have civilian use, for instance in disaster relieve. Watch this video to get a first impression. Should this mode of transport prove reliable and efficient, I see the potential to profoundly change freight transport. Imagine a company urgently needs some extra parts from their supplier – they can have them within the hour if they have such a drone. Amazing! Autonomous Submarine for Drug Trafficking When I think of submarines, I think of boats full of soldiers, hunting the enemy or carrying rockets. Transport of people or goods do not come to my mind - even though hypersonic submarines might be used this way in the future. Yet it appears my imagination has not been vivid enough. Submarines, or at least “semisubmersibles”, are alreaddy in active use for freight transport. The use is neither military nor civilian. It is for drug transport. From this article I learned there are actual shipyards in the Columbian jungle. The semisubmersibles carry cocaine and other drugs from Columbia to other countries in America, and now across the globe. Nowadays, these boats can even be unmanned, using Starlink for communication and navigation. Ingenious – and worrying. How can we protect ourselves from such boats, be it for them carrying drugs or even other malign payloads such as explosives? Title Image is a screenshot from the video that MightyFly released on Youtube.

Highspeed Maglev in China Researches in China demonstrated the prototype of a new Maglev train that accelerates from 0 to 650kph in just 7 seconds. This is very impressive! Such an acceleration is of course way too fast for normal passengers, but it shows what the technology can do. It also enables the researchers to work with a much shorter track for their experiments, as the acceleration takes place along only 600m. They plan to extend the track this year, which then shall lead to speeds of more than 800kph! Fehmarnbelt Tunnel - Drone Flyover The construction of tunnel under the Fehmarnbelt, connecting Denmark and Germany, is in full swing. It is a submerged tunnel, where all the tunnel elements are prepared in a giant factory on site and then later shipped to their final destination. The Fehmarnbelt project released this video on LinkedIn. In an impressive drone flight, the video shows construction on both sides as well as the impressive factories that produce the tunnel elements. This is something you need to watch! Las Vegas Loop 3 years later: What works, what doesn’t work - from a public transport perspective During my research for my article about Cargo Sous Terrain I found this very interesting article. It analyses in detail the current state of the Las Vegas Loop, operated by The Boring Company. The author shows in first-hand experience if the Las Vegas Loop can keep its promises, what works well and what doesn’t. The article is written in German, but with the automatic translation in the browser it should also be easy to understand. The Gondola Project Gondolas and cable-cars are not only popular in ski resorts. They are increasingly used as public transportation all over the world. This excellent homepage is dedicated to the promotion of gondolas for public transport and features the latest news and developments. Definitely worth reading! Image credits: CC BY-SA 4.0, by TanyaHyde

Swiss company Cargo Sous Terrain plans to reform freight transport by going underground on a large scale. In the shadow of more flashy developments like the Teslas zipping under Las Vegas, they follow a more down-to-earth (literally) approach. Learn more about this new concept for freight transport in this article.

Electric mobility is on everyone’s lips today. Trams have been offering it for more than 100 years. But did you know that the electric motor is not the only propulsion system for trams? There are many different ways to move trams forward. Some are futuristic, some are of historical interest, and some are even outrageous in retrospect. Click here to read more.

This week’s issue of The Economist raised an interesting question in a book review: Why do we focus on technological innovation to solve problems we could already solve with technology we already have? The question raised in the Economist was: Autonomous vehicles are supposed to make roads safer. But if our goal is to make roads safer, why not focus more on public transportation instead of new technology for cars?

Want to learn how an electric motor works and what kind of motors are out there? In this article I will share with you my favorite Youtube videos that can teach you all the basics of electric motors in less than an hour.

People from Hamburg claim that it has more bridges than Venice. Is this really true? Find out how we can quickly answer this question using Open Street Map and the Overpass API.