Smart News Ideas & Innovations

Cool Finds

Nanocars Will Race Across (a Very, Very Tiny Bit of) France

Ladies and gentlemen, start your molecules

Was sticking an eraser on the back of a pencil common sense, or a new invention?

Happy Birthday to the Modern Pencil

The patent for this supremely convenient invention didn't last long

A vintage ad for Coca Cola from around the late 19th or early 20th century.

Coca-Cola’s Creator Said the Drink Would Make You Smarter

Like the wine and cocaine drink that preceded it, Coca-Cola was first marketed as a brain tonic

Trending Today

Norway Proposes World's First Mile-Long Tunnel for Ships

The tunnel would help ships and ferries avoid rough seas around the Stadlandet Peninsula where 33 people have died since World War II

Corbin Fleming plays with President Obama's desk phone in 2012.

Before 1929, Nobody Thought the President Needed a Telephone in his Office

Herbert Hoover got a phone in the Oval Office over fifty years after the White House first got a switchboard

A woman marks a bombardier enclosure for a B-24 Liberator bomber at the Ford Willow Run plant.

How Detroit Went from Motor City to the Arsenal of Democracy

Detroit already had car manufacturing capability: that turned into war production capability in the early 1940s

Ovarian cells did their thing in a dish for researchers who used microfluidics and chips to recreate a female menstrual cycle.

New Research

Your Monthly Menstrual Cycle, Reenacted on a Microchip

Bodies are complicated, but they’re no match for persistent bioengineers

In the eyes of Joseph Guillotin, the guillotine was an invention in the best ideals of the Revolution: humane, equalizing and scientific.

The Guillotine's Namesake Was Against Capital Punishment

And contrary to popular myth, he died of natural causes, not by beheading

Though the single-run of Full Circle beer is long gone, the message about the importance of water conservation still stands.

San Diego Breweries Experiment With Recycled Water

Stone and Ballast Point Breweries both created beers made from highly purified waste water

New Research

Researchers Turn Spinach Leaves Into Beating Heart Tissues

These living leaves could eventually become patches for the human heart

Researchers discovered the effect in hamsters while trying to find a cure for jet lag in people.

Another Use for Viagra: Curing Hamster Jet Lag

It works—but only for hamsters (and maybe people) traveling east

Put on your sunglasses—when in action, this artificial sun is 10,000 times brighter than the usual solar radiation here on Earth.

Cool Finds

This New Man-Made Sun Is 10,000 Times More Intense Than Sunlight on Earth

It’s a bright idea that just might help humans create solar fuel

Ganges River

Trending Today

India's Ganges and Yamuna Rivers Are Given the Rights of People

A few days after a New Zealand river gained the rights of personhood, an Indian court has declared that two heavily polluted rivers also have legal status

This, the first passenger elevator, was installed in a New York department store in 1857. The elevator is not round, though the first passenger elevator shaft, installed a mile north of this store, was.

This Innovator Thought Elevators Should Be Round

Peter Cooper thought that round would be the most efficient shape for elevators, and requested an elevator shaft designed accordingly

Emmy Noether, mathematical genius

Mathematician Emmy Noether Should Be Your Hero

She revolutionized mathematics, and then was forgotten because she was a woman

Adolphe Sax made this alto saxophone in 1857, long after he had switched to brass. The sax is still a woodwind instrument, though.

The First Saxophone Was Made of Wood

The instrument was invented by–you guessed it–Adolphe Sax

A new VR game puts you inside a James Joyce novel.

Cool Finds

This Game Turns James Joyce’s Most Notorious Novel Into Virtual Reality

But will it make you want to finish <i>Ulysses</i>?

You know what he looks like, but you probably don't know his actual last name.

Chef Boyardee Was A Real Person

What’s more: Hector Boiardi was a respected chef who even helped cater Woodrow Wilson’s second wedding

This grapefruit-sized object is Vanguard TV-3, an exact replica of Vanguard 1 that failed to launch into orbit. It's now on display at the National Air and Space Museum.

The World’s First Solar-Powered Satellite is Still Up There After More Than 60 Years

This tiny grapefruit-sized satellite will still be up there well into the 2100s if we don’t take it down

Joseph Lister's work was influenced by Louis Pasteur's work on fermentation.

The Idea of Surgeons Washing Their Hands is Only 154 Years Old

The world of surgery before that was much grosser and less effective

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