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The Innovative Spirit

This Bionic Suit May Be the Future of Prosthetics

Inventor Scott Summit is personalizing medical devices through 3D printing

At Indiana University, a team of scientists used this Roche 454 to sequence the 350 million base pairs of Theobroma cacao, the plant that gives us chocolate.

The World of Chocolate

The Big, Refrigerator-Sized Machine That Saved Chocolate

When cacao production was threatened by disease, the Mars candy company launched a global initiative to sequence the plant’s genome

Take a Historic Ride Along California’s Famous Route 1

Here are seven of the most interesting historic stops along California’s scenic highway

Waves kicked up by Hurricane Dora pound a beachfront hotel in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964.

Age of Humans

Tampa and Dubai May Be Due for Extreme “Grey Swan” Hurricanes

A new model combines historical data and physical modeling to find the risks of catastrophic storms in unexpected places

Ten years on, some of the scars that Katrina tore into coastal ecosystems persist, while others have healed. NASA's Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of the swamps and marshes that buffer New Orleans in August 2015.

Age of Humans

How Hurricane Katrina Redrew the Gulf Coast

While storms here are nothing new, human influence helped Katrina make Louisiana’s ecological problems worse

Laser Technology is Making Tattoo Removal Easier Than Ever

Thanks to recent advances, the tattoo removal business has quadrupled in the last decade

Early marine arthropods called trilobites disappeared—along with 90 percent of species in the ocean and 75 percent of those on land—at the end of the Permian period.

New Research

Massive Volcanic Eruptions Triggered Earth’s “Great Dying”

Geologists nailed down the timing of the ancient event and confirmed that it is a likely suspect in the Permian extinction

Ancient mummified bodies stand guard over windswept deserts near the Nazca and Ica mountain summits.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Inca Road

The Fascinating Afterlife of Peru’s Mummies

From inside stone palaces and atop sacred mountaintops, the Inca dead continued to wield incredible power over the living

Could a New Nanomaterial Reduce Greenhouse Gases?

Berkeley researchers have developed a way to split carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon monoxide using a nano-mesh

Look out from Balestrand's Kviknes Hotel over Sognefjord and feel like you are in Arendelle Castle.

A “Frozen” Summer Adventure Awaits You in Norway

If the cold really does bother you, anyway, then visit the fjords in warmer months

The male panda cub (upper right) is now 4.9 ounces, having gained almost a full ounce in the last 72 hours. The cub was sired by Tian Tian by artificial insemination.

It’s a Boy! The Panda Cub Was Fathered by the National Zoo’s Tian Tian (Video)

Zoo scientists say that their newly developed genetic test determined the sex of the panda

How hard is it to replicate results in psychology studies?

New Research

Scientists Replicated 100 Psychology Studies, and Fewer Than Half Got the Same Results

The massive project shows that reproducibility problems plague even top scientific journals

"Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter." A soldier finds his final resting place, July 1863.

Why Can’t We Turn Our Eyes Away From the Grotesque and Macabre?

Alexander Gardner’s photographs of Civil War corpses were among the first to play to the uncomfortable attraction humans have for shocking images

Does this look infected?

Life May Have Spread Through the Galaxy Like a Plague

If alien life is distributed in a pattern that mirrors epidemics, it could be strong support for the theory of panspermia

Knut, the star of the Berlin Zoo, died due to swelling in his brain.

New Research

Knut the Polar Bear’s Mysterious Death Finally Solved

The famed Berlin Zoo bear suffered from an autoimmune disease that until now has only been known to occur in humans

The Rama travel their coastal homeland with wooden dories and small motorboats, which would be eclipsed by megaships traversing the Nicaragua Canal.

Age of Humans

How an Indigenous Group Is Battling Construction of the Nicaragua Canal

The Rama community’s efforts offer a glimmer of hope for opponents of the canal project planned by a Chinese billionaire

The first edition of The Guinness Book of Records had a waterproof cover to protect it from pub spills.

The Guinness Book of World Records: A Promotional Stunt That Became an International Phenomenon

The book that makes us ooh and ahh, and squirm in our seats is more than 65 years old

The smaller of the two twin panda cubs has died.

Updated: One of the National Zoo’s Panda Cubs Has Died

The Zoo announced on August 26 that the smaller of its newborn twin panda cubs has died

Doomsday mushrooms?

Anthropocene

Death By Fungus, and Other Fun Facts About Fungal Friends and Foes

This Generation Anthropocene episode highlights oft overlooked organisms that may help us better understand human impacts

Alexander Niculescu and his colleagues at Indiana University have found a way to identify, with more than 90 percent accuracy, patients who will have suicidal thoughts in the next year.

Innovative Spirit Health Care

A Blood Test and App May Help Identify Patients at Risk of Suicide

With blood biomarkers and a questionnaire, researchers at Indiana University claim they can pinpoint patients who will have suicidal thoughts within a year

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