Link About It: This Week’s Picks

Reimagined classic paintings, a cure for the common cold, portraits of Jamaica's Gully Queens and more

1. Japanese Robots Capable of Building a Moon Colony Japanese start-up ispace has a lunar rover in flight-ready form. It’s an 8.3-pound machine composed of a durable carbon-fiber body, dynamic wheels and multiple cameras. The machine has been designed to stow equipment, with the end game being development of civilization on the moon. ispace believes they can populate the planet, and build a parallel society …

A Cheaper, Faster and More Effective Solar Water Purifier

Researchers at the University of Buffalo have created what they believe could be a faster, cheaper and more efficient solar-powered water purifier. With some 850 million people without access to clean water, a product like this is a necessity. A reinvention, or modernization of ancient technology, the product “involves draping a sheet of carbon-dipped paper in an upside-down V. The paper’s bottom edges soak up …

A Real Common Cold Cure, Perhaps

Hundreds of different viruses can trigger a cold. This has meant, for as long as we can remember, there’s been nothing truly effective at reducing its duration. Now, however, researchers at Imperial College London have developed a new chemical compound that approaches cold viruses differently. Their molecule makes the human cells inhospitable for viruses, by targeting them rather than the virus. There’s no timeline for …