In desert regions and sandy coastal areas, windblown sand can bury infrastructure such as railways, and cause problems such as train derailment, grinding down rails or wheels and wearing down coatings on the nose of high-speed locomotives. But knowing how best to protect tracks and trains from sand is tricky because there has been no reliable way of predicting how sand will behave – until now.

Flying car, which completes its first intercity flight, nears production.

Four huge robot arms surround the gleaming metal shell of what will soon be a top-of-the-range automobile. They jerk into life, attaching the bonnet, the wing mirrors, and other panels. It’s the kind of precision operation you can find at car factories around the world these days. But here’s a question worth considering: could we pull off a feat like this only about a billion times smaller?

Monitoring techniques and methods need to align with the demand for safe and efficient infrastructure in the railway network, write E Alexandra Micu, Eugene O'Brien, Cathal Bowe and Vikram Pakrashi.

The hyperloop is what you get when you take a magnetic levitation train and put it into an airless tube. The lack of resistance allows the train, in theory, to achieve unseen speeds, a concept that is edging closer and closer to reality – and could provide a greener alternative to short-haul air travel.

The ground opening up and engulfing whatever lies in its path is a pretty common occurrence. Globally, for every 0.1℃ rise in temperature, the number of sinkholes increases by 1%-3%.