Technology Innovation
The Next Generation of Vending Machines
Is this the next logical step in our ongoing quest for convenience or does it make accessing foodstuffs more complicated than it should be?
May 10, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
Help the New York Public Library Digitize Its Menus
Some readers out there may wonder how libraries kept track of all their goodies before the advent of computerized catalogs. You had one of two options: You could either consult a giant wood cabinet with drawers jam-packed with little 3 x 5 cards or, better yet, you could consult a reference librari...
April 26, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
Why Scientific Ignorance Can Kill You
While working on this story from Smithsonian's May issue about oncologist Brian Druker and his discovery 10 years ago of a breakthrough drug for chronic myeloid leukemia, I was struck by the following passage:Over the pub’s blaring music Mayfield said of his BCR-ABL gene, “I had the G250E mutation—...
April 21, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Traditional Cookbooks vs. E-Readers, Searches and Apps
Whenever a new cookbook comes into my possession, the first thing I do is sit down, scan through the recipes and use Post-Its to flag the things I might actually take the time to make, paying attention to ingredients and the time required to pull a dish together. It makes for easy referencing, espe...
March 31, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
Help Scientists Track Light Pollution By Looking At the Stars
In my neighborhood, some of the street lamps aim their light directly down on the sidewalk and road. Others spew their illumination in a sphere of light, wasting it as it streams into the sky. All those poorly aimed lights add up to 17 billion kilowatt-hours of lost energy each year, costing us aro...
March 21, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Cities as Seen by Locals or Tourists
If you live in a tourist destination town, you see people snapping the same pictures all the time. Here in Washington, D.C., scads of visitors record the same views of the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial and the front yard of the White House. But what are they missing? And when you vacation in other ...
March 09, 2011 |
By Laura Helmuth
Lightbulb Ban Means Reinventing the Easy-Bake Oven
The common incandescent light bulb will soon become a lot less common. In an effort to reduce energy waste and greenhouse gas emissions, the provisions laid out in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (pdf) stipulate that manufacture of the classic 100 watt bulb will cease in 2012, with...
March 03, 2011 |
By Jesse Rhodes
How Your Brain Is Better Than A Supercomputer
Did you watch IBM's Watson supercomputer trounce two humans playing Jeopardy last week and do you now fear a future controlled by these jumbles of wires and circuitry with really boring voices? No? Me neither. And not just because I refuse to be intimidated by an invention that contains more inform...
February 24, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Win A Million Dollars With Science
Last week, a neurologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston won $1 million from Prize4Life for his discovery of a reliable way to monitor progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Prize4Life, which also has an ongoing competition for deve...
February 07, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Jane McGonigal on How Computer Games Make You Smarter
The "alternate reality game" designer looks to develop ways in which people can combine play with problem-solving
February 2011 |
By Amanda Bensen
The Year in Science: A List of Lists
It's the end of the year, so you know what that means—it's time for the parade of "year in review" articles. Start with Smithsonian.com's Top 10 Stories of 2010, which features lots of science, and then move on to these others:* Discover magazine picked the top 100 stories of 2010 (and my brother w...
December 29, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Rare Earth Elements Not Rare, Just Playing Hard to Get
Given their name, rare earth elements, and the fact that China controls 96 percent of REE production, you might think the Chinese had won some geologic lottery. But these metallic substances—elements 57 to 71 on the periodic table, plus scandium and yttrium—are not all that rare. It's been economic...
November 18, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Robot Swan Dances Swan Lake
A Swedish research team recently unveiled “The Dying Swan,” a robotic waterfowl that flaps and writhes to the melodramatic strains of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” I’ll say this—the designers did a good job conveying the special misery of a sick bird. Its tattered black plumage would be sad on its own...
October 19, 2010 |
By Abigail Tucker
Food and Beverage Packaging: The Good, the Bad and the Weird
Once upon a time, groceries made the journey between stores and consumers' cupboards wearing little more than a paper bag. But as packaging technology has taken off in the past 50 years, our food and beverage products have gained an extensive wardrobe—so extensive, it can get a little crazy.Accordi...
October 07, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
The Problem with Space Junk
There's a lot of space junk—or, as NASA calls it, "orbital debris"—circling high above our heads: around 19,000 objects larger than 10 centimeters, 500,000 between 1 and 10 cm in size, and tens of millions of pieces smaller than 1 cm. Generally, all that junk isn't much of a problem. If it falls to...
August 05, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Charging Ahead With a New Electric Car
An entrepreneur hits the road with a new approach for an all-electric car that overcomes its biggest shortcoming
August 2010 |
By Joshua Hammer
James Cameron on the Future of Cinema
The director of Avatar and Terminator talks about future sequels, 3-D television and Hollywood in 2050
August 2010 |
By Lorenza Muñoz
New Technology Could Let Disabled Communicate by Sniffing
If you're paying attention, there can be an awful lot of information encoded in a series of nose sniffs. In and out, long and short, strong and shallow. One sniff, two sniffs, three sniffs. Now engineers at the Weizmann Institute in Israel have capitalized on that variety of sniffs and created a de...
July 27, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Eight Appetizing Apps
I just read an interesting article in the Washington Post's travel section about traveling with no guidebooks, advance planning or reservations---just a wallet and an iPhone. The author used applications, or apps, to find everything from a parking spot to a hotel room, with only a few minor glitche...
May 20, 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Robots Inspired by Biology
Last year, the magazine's Abigail Tucker wrote about the fascinating—and sometimes creepy—world of robot babies. But that was only one tiny part of the robot universe. In the video above, Dennis Hong, director of the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) at Virginia Tech, discusses his lab'...
May 03, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
