Barnacles may have a small footprint, but their effect on global shipping is large. When ships’ hulls get coated with barnacles and other creatures, they use more fuel and eventually must be hauled ...

Inch by inch, Jacky Im’s robot climbs a 32-foot (10-meter) steel wall while he watches closely. Each of the 660-pound (300-kilogram) machine’s moves is captured by sensors and compared to a ...