We’ve come a long way since the days when information in the form of mail correspondence or newspapers was transported by couriers on foot or horses. And even as roads began to be paved and railroad tracks laid, the speed in which information traveled is hardly comparable to how quick it does now that we have the internet and an endless supply of connected devices. Jalopnik recently analyzed how travel evolved throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, pointing out how fast the time it took to get from one place to another decreased as a result of new transportation technology and additional travel routes.

In the article, Jalopnik compares the speed of present-day air flight to the time it took to get to Detroit from New York City in 1800. The result: flying today is 448 times faster than making the same trip 200 years ago — and thus, information moved that much quicker as well. Now, with the help of high-speed internet and advancements in telecommunication, it takes almost no time whatsoever for the same information to move from any one point in the world to another, which is much better than waiting four weeks for a message to go from the East Coast to California in 1857.

MIT engineers at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research have created a polymer film that generates energy using water vapor. The film makes use of two different polymers: a hard but flexible layer matrix and a soft gel that expands when it comes in contact with moisture. Together, the film contracts it comes in contact with water, causing the material to curl up. When the wet surface is exposed to air, the moisture is released and the cycle repeats, as shown in the video below. MIT News explains that the polymer could be used as an actuator to control robotic limbs, or act as a generator when paired with a piezoelectric material that converts mechanical stress into electricity. The energy created by the film can be used to power small sensors or nanoelectronics without the need for batteries.

The United States Department of Energy has granted $120 million toward the creation of the Critical Materials Institute (CMI), which will be responsible for developing new methods of rare earth element production and management. The CMI, led by Ames Laboratory and includes over a dozen research partners, hopes to create technology to avoid supply shortages while also reducing rare earth dependency on China. According to a report by Bloomberg, China provides about 95 percent of the world’s rare earth shipments, and recently decreased production limits to conserve the environment and keep their supply in check. The CMI will focus on diversifying the supply of rare earths, develop substitute materials, and improve methods of reusing and recycling materials.

Rare earths include a group of 17 similarly structured elements that are used in the production of phones, disk drives, televisions, and other consumer products, and can also be used to manufacture wind turbines, electric vehicles, and advanced batteries. Dependency on the import of rare earths is the result of insufficient technology and manufacturing facilities, as opposed to lack of raw material — the Mountain Pass mine in California, for example, has one of the largest deposits outside of China. The CMI will help discover new and more efficient ways to tap into the resources, while also decreasing the use of materials that can potentially have supply shortages in the future.

It’s been almost a decade since New Line Cinema announced plans to make a film adaptation of popular Vertigo comic Y: The Last Man, but now that the studio has chosen a director the movie will hopefully not be far from release. According to Vulture, Dan Trachtenberg will helm the project, which will be his first feature film. While most are likely unfamiliar with Trachtenberg, a few may have seen his fan film Portal: No Escape, a well-received live-action short about the hit Valve game (which can be seen below). At this point in production, the film will use a script penned by former Jericho writers Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia.

Written by Brian K. Vaughan with art by Pia Guerra, the Y: The Last Man comic follows Yorick Brown and his Capuchin monkey, Ampersand, after every male mammal on Earth mysteriously dies (with the exception of Brown and his pet). The series, which ran from 2002 through 2008, explores what the world would be like if all men were removed from the picture and how the event would affect everything from politics and human relationships to territorial warfare.