Innovation

Smart Glasses

The Innovative Spirit fy17

These "Smart Glasses" Adjust To Your Vision Automatically

The glasses' liquid lenses change shape according to the distance of objects, making reading glasses and bifocals unnecessary

The 20-megawatt power facility is located east of Los Angeles in Ontario, California.

Five Questions You Should Have About California’s New Tesla-Powered Battery Bank

The storage facility will collect energy when it’s readily available, and release it when demand is high. What does this mean for the future of energy?

As 19th century urban living became more cramped, some women began to reinvent the domestic sphere with technology.

Women Who Shaped History

These Four Black Women Inventors Reimagined the Technology of the Home

By designating the realm of technology as 'male,' we overlook key inventions that took place in the domestic sphere

Australia Wants to Streamline Its Border Control Using Biometrics

The country envisions a system that would eliminate the need for paper passports or identity cards for a number of the 35 million who visit each year

Patients wear a NIRS apparatus—typically a neoprene helmet with dozens of optical sensors sticking out of it.

Patients With Locked-in Syndrome May Be Able to Communicate After All

A new use for brain-computer interfaces gives insight to life with ALS

How the Crash of Flight 4590 Destroyed Concorde's Mystique

The Concorde was once the peak of cutting-edge aircraft design and a status symbol for the world's elite travelers

Researchers are gathering data on when head impacts happen most often.

How Much Should Youth Football Change to Reduce Concussions?

Drop kickoff returns? Cut the number of players? Shrink the field?

A post office converted into a food share station

How the U.S. Postal Service Could Tackle Food Insecurity

A team of Washington University students has a plan: use postal workers to pick up food, deliver it to food banks and even store it in post offices

A new study on grey reef sharks turned up a few surprises.

New Research

Ocean Preserves Keep Fishing Boats Away from Grey Reef Sharks

Scientists tracked hundreds of reef sharks to find that massive marine refuges can work—with one caveat

A FVRx participant picks out produce at LA's Central Avenue Farmer's Market.

Take Three Zucchinis and Call Me in the Morning: The Power of Produce Prescriptions

Wholesome Wave's fruit and vegetable prescription program meets mega-retail, as Target joins the cause

One of 50 rooms in the Colonial Revival mansion in Rochester, New York, where George Eastman lived for 27 years.

Visit the Homes of America's Greatest Inventors

Within these walls, our nation's most brilliant tinkerers once ate, slept and imagined

Smart Startup

Forget Substitute Teachers. "Parachute Teachers" May Be the Future.

When the teacher is out, why not have a local chef or engineer lead a lesson?

Astrolabes were astronomical calculating devices that did everything from tell the time to map the stars. This 16th century planispherical astrolabe stems from Morocco.

Think Big

The Story of the Astrolabe, the Original Smartphone

Prosperous times likely paved the way for this multifunctional device, conceptual ancestor to the iPhone 7

The structure of the battery is formed from a sheet of chromatography paper, divided into a grid of creases.

This Spit-Powered Biobattery Is Made From a Single Sheet of Paper

Researchers at Binghamton University are developing inexpensive paper biobatteries to power simple sensors that monitor things like blood sugar

While the peaks and valleys on people's ECGs may look identical to the untrained eye, they’re actually anything but.

Using Your Heartbeat as a Password

Researchers have developed a way of turning the unique rhythms of your heart into a form of identification

While it has some kinks to work out, this sleek new device could help in the bid to limit landfill-bound waste.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Can This Trash Can Turn Food Waste Into Garden Treasure?

The Zera Food Recycler may not transform scraps into ready-to-use soil, but it could still help take a bite out of landfill-bound waste

Clarius is the first ultrasound developer to go wireless, pairing its handheld device with a smartphone.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

This Handheld Ultrasound Scanner Could Be the Next Stethoscope

Clarius co-founder and CEO Laurent Pelissier believes the affordable, wireless device could revolutionize health care

The bigger the tomato, the blander the taste.

New Research

The Quest to Return Tomatoes to Their Full-Flavored Glory

We’ve bred the original tomato taste out of existence. Now geneticists are asking: Can we put it back?

The suit Alan Eustace wore during his record-breaking freefall jump in October 2014 is on view at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

This Souped-Up Scuba Suit Made a Stratospheric Leap

The record-breaking Alan Eustace found just the right fit for his 25-mile free fall by marrying scuba technology with a space suit

Earwax: Coming To a Home Air Filtration System Near You?

A clogged ear on a scuba trip led a Georgia Institute of Technology engineer to study the dust-filtering properties of the waxy substance

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