Flying cars, photonic computers, 3-D-printed bones, and salt-water electricity
Long limited to science fiction, flying cars could soon take to the skies.
Illustration by Kathleen Fu
By Susanna Camp and Elana Spivack
🚁 Flying cars are landing
Futuristic fantasy no more, the flying car is rapidly becoming a reality. The technology for these vehicles, known as electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, has been steadily advancing in recent years, with at least one model already available for pre-order. For Science News, Helen Bradshaw zooms in on the tech specs and market conditions.
🤖 Beyond the Jetsons: How they actually fly
Unlike the jet-propelled contraptions of 1960s cartoons, today’s flying cars operate more like giant drones. They are electric, using multiple propellers to lift off and land vertically, eliminating the need for a runway. The key innovation is a shift from complex, combustion-engine designs to simpler, electric systems. This approach not only makes them quieter but also more environmentally friendly, tapping into the same battery and motor technology that’s been perfected for drones and electric vehicles.
🚦Solving the commuter’s headache, and more
The potential for aerial aircraft goes far beyond simply beating earth-bound freeway gridlock. These vehicles could serve as air taxis for short-hop travel, revolutionize logistics with rapid package delivery, or provide a faster way to transport emergency medical supplies to remote or inaccessible locations. The real value is in efficiency: saving time, reducing emissions, and creating new pathways for goods and services.
Barriers to roll-out include expense (one car maker’s product is expected to enter the market at $300K), engineering, and of course the technical skill required for safe operation and licensing. Rechargeable batteries are heavy, and a vessel with an uncharged battery could, well, fall out of the sky. In other words, we’re not ready to hop aboard just yet, but we’ll be first in line once the specs are validated.
💸 Where smart money is taking off
The investment landscape for vertical vessels and related technology is already buzzing with activity. Here are a few of the frontrunners:
- Alef Aeronautics is taking pre-orders for its flying car designed to drive on the street, take off vertically when needed and fly overhead above traffic. Financial data is undisclosed, but they have high-profile investors including Draper Associates and Impact VC.
- Joby Aviation is developing electric air taxis for up to five people including the pilot, with a reported range of 150 miles and top speeds of up to 200 mph. They’ve raised $1.7 billion in total funding since going public in 2020. The company’s latest post-IPO round of $250 million closed in May 2025 with investors including Toyota and Uber.
- Archer Aviation is also developing its own five-seater for urban air mobility. The company went public in 2021 and closed an $850 million post-IPO round in June 2025 with investors including Blackrock and Vanguard.
For this emerging market, it’s onward and upward or bust!
⚡ A photonic future: Light-based computer processors
Posited in 1965, Moore’s Law states that the number of transistors on microchips doubles every two years. But as this law plateaus, the future of computer processors could rely more on less typical models. For SN, Kathryn Hulick reports on photonic components that use light to perform computing processes, serving as alternative options to electronic chips.
💻 A bright day for computing
In conventional electronic computer chips, electrical signals course through miniscule transistors, which can combine into circuits that help us solve math problems or process 3-D graphics. The more transistors on a chip, the more processing power it has. While engineers have been able to shrink transistors for years to maximize computing capacity, transistor size appears to have reached its smallest.
But companies are developing technology that carry out computations through light rather than electricity. In these photonic devices, light performs matrix multiplication, which is fundamental in AI processing as well as other areas of computing. Light “is actually doing math,” says Anthony Rizzo, a photonics engineer at Dartmouth College who is not connected to the companies.
One device from the company Lightelligence combines a photonic and electronic chip to speed up optimization computations—finding the best possible solution among a range of options. Another device from the company Lightmatter integrates four light-based and two electronic chips into a more general-purpose processor. Using this system, they ran mainstream AI technology like large language models, as well as a deep learning algorithm that played Pac-Man.
🌞 Some light investing
So far in both devices, all the calculations other than matrix multiplication were performed on traditional electronic components. But as AI models continue to grow larger and more sophisticated, they can’t progress at scale using traditional chips whose size and transistor capacity may have hit the wall.. Alternative chips like photonic devices, then, could usher in the future of artificial intelligence computing. Industries like finance, manufacturing, and shipping all rely on computation for optimization problems, which the Lightelligence device specializes in. And as more software integrates AI and large language models, combination processors like that of Lightmatter’s could allow for faster computing.
💡 Enlightened processes
A suite of companies already see photonics in our future of computing. Here are just a few:
- Lightelligence: Founded in 2017, this Boston-based Series C startup combines a photonic and electronic chip to speed up computation for optimization problems. They’ve raised a total of $246.4 million over 4 funding rounds, including their most recent one this past September.
- Lightmatter: This California-based Series D company produces a processor with both photonic and electronic chips that enable data processing and communication. Founded in 2017, they’ve raised $822 million over 6 funding rounds, accruing $400 million in October 2024.
- Photon Bridge: Known as Photon IP until this past September, this Dutch company aims to scale photonic chip production by addressing a bottleneck: integrating specialized semiconductors that are essential for photonic chips with silicon. Based in the Netherlands and founded in 2020, Photon Bridge has raised over $7.9 million over 3 funding rounds.
- Ephos: Founded in 2022 and based in Milan, Italy, Ephos produces glass-based photonic chips rather than silicon-based electronic ones. In 2024 they raised over $9.4 million.
The future of photonics is looking bright!
💀 No bones about it: A handheld bone printer holds potential
For anyone who has a knack for crafting but also a desire to heal people, a novel piece of technology can satisfy both those urges. Payal Dhar reports for SN on a handheld bone printer that combines a modified hot glue gun, 3-D printing, and bone grafting bioink.
🐇 3-D printer meets bone grafts
A team of researchers in South Korea developed a handheld device that can apply synthetic bone grafts directly to injuries without need for prior imaging or fabrication. They wrote and published a paper in the journal Device about their successful application of this method to thigh bone fractures in live rabbits.
Compared to a control group that received regular bone cement, the experimental group healed better and regenerated better bone tissue. The bioink the team used in this combination hot glue gun/3-D printer comprises two compounds commonly used for 3-D printing implants. One is the mineral hydroxyapatite, which supports bone formation pathways as well as tissue regeneration. The other is a biocompatible plastic called polycaprolactone (PCL), which serves as the scaffold on which bone grows.
As for the adapted glue gun, the team restricted heat in their prototype since conventional hot glue guns operate at above 100 degrees Celsius, too high for living tissues. Because of PCL’s low melting point, this bioink can be applied at about 60 degrees Celsius and cools to body temperature in about 40 seconds.
🏥 An easier path to bone regeneration
Bone regeneration treatments like grafts and implants have limitations in orthopedic surgery. While traditional 3-D printing technology can offer personalized therapeutics for bone regeneration, cost and complexity limit its clinical application. Cheaper, quicker, more precise and easier applications can make a world of difference, and open up a world of investment opportunities.
🖨 3-D printing bone
While the exact technology described in the new paper is a long way from scaling up and is in need of long-term safety studies, other biomedical companies are developing technology that combines 3-D printing and bone regeneration for more accessible options:
- Ossiform: Founded in 2017, this Danish company is developing bioactive bone substitutes for people living with bone defects. These substitutes are 3-D printed with β-tricalcium phosphate, a common synthetic bone graft substitute, and are still in preclinical studies. Since founding, it’s raised over $15.5 million, most recently making a deal for $6.7 million in 2024.
- OSSTEC: This London-based seed-stage startup focuses on partial knee implants made from 3-D printed articulating surfaces. Made without bone cement, their technology is based on porous lattice structures that mimic tissue from the ends of long bones like the thigh bone. Since its founding in 2021, OSSTEC has raised over $4.97 million.
- Osteopore: Based in Singapore, this company specializes in 3-D printed, biodegradable bone implants that break down as a patient’s own tissue and bone regenerate. Acting as a scaffold for regrowing tissue, these implants encourage healing and limit treatment time. Osteopore went public on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2019 with an initial market capitalization of $13 million and earlier this year raised an additional $13 million in a convertible note.
If you have a bone to pick with this technology, just wait a few years for it to bloom.
🧊 Turning ice and salt into profit
What if the secret to a new, low-cost power source was as simple as salt and frozen water? Researchers have found that straining frozen saltwater can generate a small electrical current. While it’s not going to power your home just yet, the innovation points to a new frontier in energy generation. SN’s Nikk Ogasa reports on how salt can turn frozen water into a power source.
🔬 A cold, hard look at the science
The process, which the researchers have dubbed “flexoelectricity”, is surprisingly basic. As saltwater freezes, the ice crystals push the salt ions into a concentrated solution. These tiny amounts of briny liquid within the ice can flow the way electrical charges do in a battery. By using a machine to stress or bend the ice, which triggers brine to flow, the researchers were able to generate a small, continuous electrical current. This novel form of blue energy, renewable energy generated from salty water power, harnesses the natural thermodynamic process of freezing.
🔋 Frozen juice
Potential use cases include powering small, off-grid devices like environmental sensors in the Arctic, or monitoring equipment in hard-to-reach oceanic locations. Instead of relying on traditional batteries that fail in extreme cold, or solar panels challenged by long, dark winters, these devices could be self-sufficient, continuously generating power from the surrounding environment.
❄️ Where capital is crystallizing
While flexoelectricity is still in its infancy, the broader field of harnessing environmental energy is a hotbed of investment, especially outside of the U.S. Here are some startups focused on renewable energy for remote climates.
- Arctic Green Energy, based in Iceland, is focused on converting geothermal resources for heating in urban environments or cold climates. They’ve received $390 million in funding to date, including $240 million from Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC.
- Real Ice is a Wales-based greentech company that aims to increase levels of sea ice while providing sustainable and renewable energy sources to prevent and restore climate change. Funding sources have not been publicly disclosed, but the company appears to be supported by a mix of grants and local partnerships with Arctic communities.
- NoviOcean, based in Sweden, makes renewable energy converters for ports and harbors, offshore oil rigs, wind farms, and desalination plants. The company has raised $10.8 million in total funding, including grants from the EU and Sweden.
In the new energy market, the coldest resources may someday become the hottest capital.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Society for Science and Science News Media Group assumes no liability for any financial decisions or losses resulting from the use of the content in this newsletter. Society for Science and Science News Media Group do not receive payments from, and do not have any ownership or investment interest in, the companies mentioned in this newsletter. Please consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.