Smart News Ideas & Innovations

Don't count on Google Maps to get you to this iconic cliff.

Trending Today

Google Maps Glitch Sends Tourists to the Wrong Norwegian Town

Preikestolen is not in Fossmork

Trending Today

Pricey Graphing Calculators Could Be Headed for Extinction

Major testing companies are adopting embedded web calculators instead of freestanding devices

Photograph of YInMn Blue as synthesized in the laboratory.

Crayola to Debut Crayon Inspired by New Shade of Blue

The YInMn pigment was accidentally discovered by a chemist in 2009

Many women who choose midwife-assisted birth do so because it's associated with fewer medical interventions like caesarean sections.

U.S. Home Births Aren't As Safe As Many Abroad

Home birth doesn't have to be a dangerous and deadly proposition–but in the United States, it often is

Idaho Gem, the first cloned mule, only two days old in this photo but already aww-inducing.

How Mule Racing Led to Mule Cloning

It was a huge advance in cloning in the early 2000s

John Scott Haldane at his laboratory in Oxford.

To Protect Allied WWI Soldiers, This Researcher Tested an Early Gas Mask on Himself

John Haldane developed a rudimentary respirator that protected wearers against chlorine gas—at least for a few minutes

Innovation for Good

Insect-Based Munchies Coming to Grocery Stores Across Switzerland

The country recently lifted restrictions on selling mealworms, locusts and crickets for consumption

Elijah McCoy.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

This Prolific Inventor Helped Give Us The Phrase “The Real McCoy”

There are many stories about how we got this phrase. But there was only one Elijah McCoy

This copy of the first chart of the Gulf Stream was printed in 1786, ten years after Benjamin Franklin first drew it up.

Benjamin Franklin Was the First to Chart the Gulf Stream

Franklin's cousin, Timothy Folger, knew how the then-unnamed current worked from his days as a whaler

As many as 4,000 snow machines could soon preserve the ice on this Swiss glacier.

Trending Today

Can Snow Machines Save Swiss Glaciers?

As many as 4,000 could be deployed to insulate ice on Morteratsch

New Research

Scientists Make Sturdy Bricks From Mars-Like Soils

Their findings may be a step forward in the mission to build structures on the Red Planet

Field. Oil on panel by PIX18 / Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University

Cool Finds

Check Out This Year's Entries to the RobotArt Competition

Thirty-eight teams have submitted almost 200 artworks painted by robots, many guided by artsy artificial intelligence

By 1948, when this photo montage was made, Times Square was a riot of lights and special effects. Many of these lighted signs were the work of Douglas Leigh.

Times Square's Glitzy Look was One Man's Bright Idea

Douglas Leigh's ability to imagine new kinds of advertising shaped the signs of the city

A piece of plastic after 10 worms nibbled it for 30 minutes

New Research

This Caterpillar Can Eat Plastic

The find could lead to new techniques for breaking down our ever-growing plastic waste

Treepedia's map of Toronto

Future of Conservation

MIT’s ‘Treepedia’ Shows How Green Your City Grows

Using data from Google Street View, researchers created an interactive map that measures tree density on city streets

An early oil well.

A Civil War Colonel Invented Fracking in the 1860s

His first invention was an 'oil well torpedo,' but it was followed by others

This map of London shows it around the time of John Gaunt's work.

People Have Been Using Big Data Since the 1600s

A humble hatmaker was among the first to compile data on how Londoners lived—and died

Watch the Causes of Death Change Across America

The patterns highlight key social and economic issues in the country

The bustle replaced the crinoline as women's underpinnings of choice in the 19th century.

Although Less Deadly Than Crinolines, Bustles Were Still a Pain in the Behind

“The woman with a bustle can never sit down in a natural position,” one 1880s doctor wrote

A TeleGuide terminal developed in the early 1990s by Swedish phone company Televerket, with IBM and Esselte.

A New Museum in Sweden Is All About Failure

Visit the many examples of products that were short-sighted, short-lived or just silly

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