If it is possible, in this fascinating age, to be a celebrity fruit, the Sumo Citrus is definitely a celebrity fruit. The mandarin-satsuma-orange hybrid, originally developed in Japan and brought to American grocery stores in 2011, is by far the most popular new member of the citrus family, accounting for almost a third of the entire sector's recent growth. This winter, like the winter before, my local Trader Joe's displayed piles of them in prime position, and many times the store would be half sold-out before sunset. Sumos are discovered anew every season on social media, where people talk about their adorable bumpy heads, their generous size, and'oh!'their sweetness. Of course. As soon as you taste one, you understand. The eye-widening, tongue-coating syrupyness; the sticky dribble down your chin; the sensation of eating candy that is, somehow, also fruit, a feeling that is a teeny tiny bit like you are robbing a bank at breakfast. Food scientists measure sweetness using the Brix scale, which indicates the percentage of a given dissolved solid (sugar, basically) in a fruit's juice. The average grocery-store mandarin orange'the kind that lived, oblivious and happy, in fruit bowls across the United States until relatively recently; the kind that doesn't have a robust online fandom'falls somewhere from 8 to 11 degrees Brix. Sumos have been known to reach up to 18....

Ever since renowned biologist Charles Darwin proclaimed in 1875 that the carnivorous Venus flytrap was one of the 'most wonderful' plants in the world, scientists have been trying to work out how it snaps shut so quickly on its prey. Plants are not known for their speed, but the flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) closes in less than a second. A research team has now snapped a key piece of the puzzle in place. Experiments showed that, after an insect crawls into the flytrap's maw, cells on the outer surface of the hinged leaf that forms the plant's 'mouth' soften. This allows the leaf to change shape and hinge shut, the researchers report today in Science1. 'This is a breathtaking, very elegant paper,' says biomechanics researcher Simon Poppinga, director of the botanical garden at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany. Plants can relax the rigid outer walls of their cells to enable growth, but that process happens over a much slower timescale than the flytrap's snap, says Poppinga, who was not involved in the study. Cell softening at the pace seen in the flytrap is a phenomenon scientists haven't seen before, he says....

Despite incentives being gutted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Solar Energy Industries Association expects annual installations to exceed 110 GWh per year by 2030, about double what they are today. The skyrocketing energy storage market is being driven higher by the convergence of three trends. The most obvious is the expansion of data centers being built to serve AI. Data center energy demand is expected to nearly triple by the end of the decade. But alongside that growth, entire swathes of the economy, including transportation, manufacturing, and HVAC, are being electrified. It's not just automakers that are diving into energy storage. Startups have been raising large rounds to capture a chunk of the market. Base Power raised a $1 billion Series C in October to expand beyond Texas, while Lunar Energy raised $232 million to sell batteries to homeowners. Others, like Lightship, are pivoting somewhat. The electric RV manufacturer is now selling a mobile battery for job sites and other locations that need temporary power....

The MIT SPURS/Humphrey Program ' a small gem nestled in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) with scores of former fellows in leadership positions in countries around the world ' will quietly turn 60 next year. And like most 59-year-olds, the program, or its directors, have stepped back to take a long look at past accomplishments and make some focal adjustments for the future. The Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) will retain its commitment to bringing fellows to the U.S. for study, cultural exchange, and professional growth. But it will now lean more into MIT's core strength ' technology ' and how technology policy can revolutionize urban planning and development throughout the world, including through the adoption of devices and methodologies designed specifically for use in emerging nations. 'The transition to technology policy echoes an emphasis that has long defined MIT's approach to teaching and problem-solving, where the governance, financing, and management of technologies are central concerns,' says Duane S. Boning, MIT vice provost for International Activities and the Clarence J. LeBel Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). 'Under this revised focus, MIT is exceptionally well-positioned to provide SPURS Fellows with access to world-class faculty, interdisciplinary coursework, and research initiatives addressing some of the defining issues of our time, many of which require collaboration and problem-solving across countries.'...