Economic Scene: Disability Insurance Causes Pain

Carbon fiber, aluminum, maybe the odd bit of titanium here or there: These are the materials we usually expect race cars to be made of. Now you can start adding thermoplastics like Ultem to the list. Additive manufacturing has become a real asset in the racer’s toolbox, although the technology has actually been used at the track longer than you might think. "Some people think that 3D printing was invented last year," said Fadi Abro, senior global director of automotive and mobility at Stratasys.

If you've been too busy reading about giant old TVs to take part in this year's Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes, don't worry. You still have a little bit of time to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of over $4,000 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win). In the first weeks of the drive, hundreds of readers contributed tens of thousands of dollars to either the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Child's Play as part of the charity drive.

It's getting harder to access popular adult sites in the US South. On Wednesday, Pornhub's owner, Aylo, kicked off the new year by blocking two more states that implemented age verification laws requiring ID to access porn, Florida and South Carolina. According to 404 Media, these states are now among 16 states where Aylo sites, including Pornhub, RedTube, and YouPorn, cannot be accessed.

Silicon chip manufacturers like Intel and TSMC are constantly outdoing themselves to make ever smaller features, but they are getting closer to the physical limits of silicon. “We already have very, very high density in silicon-based architectures where silicon performance degrades sharply,” said Ki Seok Kim, a scientist working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Research Laboratory of Electronics. One way around this problem is to replace silicon with graphene-like 2D materials that maintain their semiconducting properties even at a single-atom scale.

Tesla sold almost 1.8 million cars in 2024, according to data released by the company this morning. Unfortunately for the electric automaker, it sold more than 1.8 million cars in 2023, beating this year's effort by 19,355 vehicles. But unlike last year, it sold more cars than it built, with production falling by 4 percent in 2024. In the final quarter of 2024, Tesla built 436,718 Models 3 and Y and delivered 471,930, clearing out a stash of inventory in the process.

The Russian space program reached a significant milestone over the holidays with the 2,000th launch of a rocket from the "R-7" family of boosters. The launch took place on Christmas Day when an R-7 rocket lifted off, carrying a remote-sensing satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. This family of rockets has an incredible heritage dating back nearly six decades.