By Mark Jones “Save water. Shower tomorrow” is the message on a billboard I just passed. It stood out from the others along I-75 near Flint, Mich., a mix of personal injury lawyers, fast food, and cannabis shops. As it happened, I was listening to a podcast on water. Seemed fitting. Flint is synonymous with…

Before each dinner, I ask my son to consider everything that went into preparing his meal. We start with Mom or Dad cooking, which leads to working hard to provide healthy food, and so we give thanks for everyone and everything that makes working and living well possible. Then we acknowledge the grocery stores, farmers,…

By Mark Jones The cause of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse seems clear. The Dali, the cause of the bridge’s demise, sits grounded with parts of the bridge strewn across its bow. Drifting after losing power, the ship hit one of the bridge’s supports, bringing it down in an instant. Removal of the support…

By now, Boeing’s recent engineering issues are familiar to most people. There were the two deadly crashes of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019 that killed more than 350 people. Plus, we’ve seen the recent incident of an aircraft door plug falling off in midair and allegations of structural defects in the 787…

By Mark Jones I was relieved at Acadia National Park when I didn’t see the plastic trash I was expecting. It was the same in Anguilla. I expected fouled beaches I never found. It was the same in Florida. Sadly, I found the plastic trash where I wasn’t expecting it: Kentucky. Cave Run Lake, in…

By Mike Santora Back in March, I had the opportunity to attend ABB’s 2024 Robotics & Automation Summit at its newly expanded U.S. Robotics headquarters just outside of Detroit. To help kick off the event, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer took the stage to congratulate the company but also to speak about what the expansion means…

By Mark Jones “Scientists find about a quarter million invisible nanoplastic particles in a liter of bottled water” was a recent AP headline. It was one of hundreds of stories prompted by a recent scientific publication. In a first in this column, I’ll give you some fun experiments you can do with the water. You’ll…

By Mark Jones My initials were visible on the structure protruding from the roof of the white Jaguar as it approached. The car pulled up and the app signaled I could unlock the door. With a tap, the door handles extended. I entered for my first ride in a fully autonomous vehicle. I found myself…

I’m going to veer off the normal engineering focus of this column for a month to dabble in a scientific field that’s close to my heart: astronomy. We’re a month out from this year’s big heavenly spectacle in the U.S., the total solar eclipse on April 8th. This eclipse will sweep across the country from…

DigiKey, a leading global commerce distributor offering the largest selection of technical components and automation products in stock for immediate shipment, has launched season 3 of its “Farm Different” video series, sponsored by Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) and Amphenol Industrial. Season 3 features three episodes that provide a look into the future of farming to…

At the official Press Preview for the 2024 Hannover Messe tradeshow this week, Dr. Fabian Bause, Product Manager, Beckhoff Automation GmbH & Co. KG was the keynote speaker, discussing how AI in automation is something that will affect the entire manufacturing process. Bause noted that AI is simply a tool that can be used to…

I recently saw my first icicle of the year. It was a small, wiggly thing. I know why thanks to some of the ice-related discoveries of the past year. Written by Mark Jones In an example of curiosity driven research, the observation that icicles aren’t perfect cones led researchers to ask why. No one had…

When the first deliveries of Tesla’s long-awaited Cybertruck began last November (and frankly even well before that point), it was widely panned across social media. People called it ugly, expensive or overpriced, even useless. Some of the funniest observations were that it looked like something a grade schooler would draw when assigned to design a…

By Mark Jones ChatGPT can write code. All who have written code likely thought it required human creativity. It can now be done by a computer. I’ve played with ChatGPT. I’m growing less impressed. ChatGPT is not creating code; it is copying code. It simply regurgitates what it finds on the internet. It turns out,…

Synopsys with Ansys may be too big to be acquired by a design software company. By Roopinder Tara | Director of content at engineering.com Synopsys’ acquisition of Ansys for $35B, expected to close the first half of 2025, will be the biggest deal ever in the design and engineering software industry, dwarfing the $4.5B acquisition…

As a technical writer in engineering and IT, I have spent countless hours documenting procedures, equations, laboratory instructions, manuals, specifications, and the like. As critical and satisfying as that work is (to me and my kin), something was always missing. And it took more than 15 years and many professional iterations to figure out what.…

By Shawn Wasserman The first, of likely many, AI-powered simulation tools to come in 2024! Disclaimer: Shawn Wasserman is a former employee of Ansys and holds minor stocks in the organization. Engineering.com predicted that 2024 will bring an AI revolution within the engineering simulation software space. Though announced in early 2023, Ansys SimAI is the…

I love learning about engineering colleagues who are innovating in new ways — people who are rethinking problems that seem to be up against the proverbial brick wall. Take the current issues with renewable energy. While strides have been made in many areas of solar and wind, the daily (or hourly) variability of these technologies…

By Mark Jones Many readers of Design World will likely recall gifts of Lego, and maybe some of them will be giving Lego (curiously, a word that is both singular and plural) this season. Lego bricks, as we know them today, came on the market in 1958. Other shapes have been added. Electronic controls have…

JCB recently announced that it will build a new factory in North America, creating 1,500 new jobs over the next five years. The British company is a global manufacturer of construction equipment and also builds machinery for the agricultural and waste-handling industries. JCB said this new facility will manufacture machines mostly for North American customers.…

By Mark Jones The Science Desk at The Atlantic pulled together its 74 mind-blowing science stories of 2022. I finished the list with my mind unblown, but one observation did linger. Number 9, “beyond a certain temperature — as low as 95°, by some estimates — fans do more harm than good,” stuck in my…

Is it just me, or do the things you buy today break down sooner than they did in the past? In other words, do things just not last very long anymore? The “things” I’m talking about are the products that we use in our homes — washing machines and dryers, refrigerators and TVs, even our…

By Mark Jones Norfolk Southern train 32N derailed in February in East Palestine, Ohio, while carrying chemicals and other freight. The presence of vinyl chloride and the actions taken to manage it made the derailment big news. Vinyl chloride is correctly described as flammable, toxic, and carcinogenic. It doesn’t sound like something that belongs in…

By Mark Jones Detroit, or at least the Detroit Airport, has one clear advantage over other airports. This is thanks, I believe, to Ferruccio Ratti. Research was required to identify Ratti. All I had to go on was my observations of an innovation in action. Let me begin by saying I don’t like most of…

By Mark Jones I wasn’t expecting “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” to be particularly relatable to my life, but I found some surprising resonance with my experiences as an industrial chemist. The documentary tells the story of the 737 Max defects that led to two tragic crashes. The filmmakers detail the technical issues but spend…