Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Innovation / Health & Medicine

This month, several news outlets misleadingly reported that women's birth control was causing "transgender" fish.

How One Bad Science Headline Can Echo Across the Internet

Recent articles claiming birth control causes “transgender” fish show how science communication can mislead—even when it relies on facts

Otto von Bismarck addressing the Reichstag

History of Now

Bismarck Tried to End Socialism’s Grip—By Offering Government Healthcare

The 1883 law was the first of its kind to institute mandatory, government-monitored health insurance

This is an illustration, not a picture, of a virus, because viruses are super small. But a new "VirusCam" promises to be able to see and track individual viruses, potentially leading to breakthroughs for human health.

“VirusCam” Can Watch Individual Viruses to (Someday) Keep You From Getting Sick

Viruses are tiny and hard to see, but a new microscope can track them individually to try to better prevent disease

No flush

How Fake, Lab-Made Poop Can Improve Sanitation

The, er, sludge replicates the properties of human waste to better understand sanitation in Bangladesh

A cocktail of steroids and vitamin C, often found in citrus and leafy green produce, might hold the key to treating sepsis. Or, clinical trials might prove it overhyped.

New Research

Could Vitamin C Be the Cure for Deadly Infections?

A new protocol that includes this common nutrient could save millions of lives—and has already sparked a raging debate among doctors

The "abortion pill" (actually two separate medications) can be taken up to 10 weeks after pregnancy, according to the FDA.

The Science Behind the “Abortion Pill”

Legal or not, more American women are opting for abortion by medication. We asked doctors: How safe is it?

Cyanobacteria, sometimes known as blue-green algae, are single-celled organisms that use photosynthesis to produce food just like plants do.

New Research

Need to Fix a Heart Attack? Try Photosynthesis

Injecting plant-like creatures into a rat’s heart can jumpstart the recovery process, study finds

In the past half-century, this tiny object has gone from feminist icon to dangerous villain to, incredibly, feminist icon once again. And no, we're not sure why the background is pink.

From Medical Pariah to Feminist Icon: The Story of the IUD

After decades of being shunned by women and doctors alike, this T-shaped device is enjoying a new surge of popularity

A baby in the neonatal intensive care unit are often covered in patches and wires for monitoring their vital signs, but new advances mean that soon those wires could be replaced with sensors as thin as a temporary tattoo.

Will These Flexible Skin Patches Replace Wires in Hospitals?

Researchers at Northwestern University have developed “epidermal electronics,” thin flexible patches capable of monitoring vital signs and more.

Leeuwenhoek's early microscopic observations of rabbit sperm (figs. 1-4) and dog sperm (figs. 5-8).

The Long, Winding Tale of Sperm Science

…and why it’s finally headed in the right direction

Researchers found that tadpole embryos were better able to fight off infection when their cells' natural electrical charge was manipulated.

Tweaking the Tiny Electrical Charges Inside Cells Can Fight Infection

It works in tadpoles. Could it work in humans?

Mr. Darcy, the socially awkward love interest in Pride and Prejudice, has been retroactively diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, but a new wave of fiction casts people with autism in a new light.

Why Your Next Favorite Fictional Protagonist Might Be on the Autism Spectrum

Fiction can reframe misunderstood mental conditions like autism

Aubrey de Grey says, “There’s no such thing as aging gracefully.”

Can Human Mortality Really Be Hacked?

Backed by the digital fortunes of Silicon Valley, biotech companies are brazenly setting out to “cure” aging

Some studies have shown that humans can learn to track scents like canines.

New Research

In Some Ways, Your Sense of Smell Is Actually Better Than a Dog’s

Human noses are especially attuned to picking up odors in bananas, urine and human blood

Chocolate, coffee and tea all played a role in overturning a medical theory that had dominated the Western world for more than a millennium.

How Coffee, Chocolate and Tea Overturned a 1,500-Year-Old Medical Mindset

The humoral system dominated medicine since the Ancient Greeks—but it was no match for these New World beverages

Seedsheet bills itself as the best way to know where your food comes from by allowing you to grow it yourself. The container gardens come with pre-selected plants that can spice up a salad, garnish a cocktail or fill a taco.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

This Invention Makes a Gardener Out of Anyone

Seedsheets founder and CEO Cameron MacKugler designs the garden. You just have to water it.

Ultrasonic “tractor beam”

Five Ways Ultrasound Is Changing Medicine, Martian Exploration and Even Your Phone

If you thought ultrasound was only for prenatal care, think again

Bowery's indoor farm

Bespoke Produce? A New Farming Venture Tweaks Veggies To Suit Consumers’ Needs

Bowery, a new indoor farming company, offers “customized” greens and herbs

Frances Oldham Kelsey, a pharmacologist with the Food & Drug Administration, helped prevent a generation of children born with congenital deformities in the United States.

Women Who Shaped History

The Woman Who Stood Between America and a Generation of ‘Thalidomide Babies’

How the United States escaped a national tragedy in the 1960s

Premature infant in a traditional incubator

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Will This Artificial Womb One Day Improve the Care of Preemies?

A new treatment, tested on lambs, involves letting fetuses mature in fluid-filled sacs

Page 20 of 38