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Innovation

Fast Forward

A Mouthguard That Could Measure Concussions

Professional football, rugby, and other contact sports could benefit from it

Coming Soon: Helmets Made From Carrots

A Scottish company has created a biodegradable material from carrot pulp that could be used in protective sports gear

A mock-up of an electric road

England Is Going to Test Roads That Actually Charge Electric Cars

Highways of the future may have special lanes that recharge the batteries of electric cars as they go

Innovative Spirit Health Care

The Future of 3D-Printed Pills

Now that the FDA has approved Spritam, an anti-seizure drug and the first 3D-printed pill, what’s next?

This layered metal sphere is a wormhole for magnets.

Innovative Spirit Health Care

Physicists Built a Wormhole for Magnets

The metal sphere lets one magnetic field pass through another undetected, which could lead to improvements in medical imaging

Law and Order: Social Media Unit

The San Francisco Police Department may have an “Instagram officer,” but other forces are trolling social media for criminal activity too

Looking at tree density on a city scale.

Innovative Spirit Health Care

This New Mapping Tool Shows City Planners Where to Plant Trees

Researchers at Portland State University have created an app that looks at tree density in respect to neighborhood, population and pollution

Visitors apply aerodynamic principles to design their own virtual fighter jets and then race against other in a high-speed flying competition.

A Next Gen Museum Show Takes Aim at Inspiring Next Gen Ingenuity

Curators are betting high-tech playtime will turn today’s kids into tomorrow’s engineering visionaries

A paralyzed subject moves his legs with the help of transcutaneous stimulation.

Five Paralyzed Men Move Their Legs Again in a UCLA Study

As electrodes on the skin stimulated their spines, the study participants made “step-like” motions

Could This ‘Drinkable Book’ Provide Clean Water to the Developing World?

Pour untreated water over a page from the book and silver nanoparticles embedded in it will kill nearly 100 percent of disease-causing bacteria

Eric Byrnes acts as the voice of the digital umpire as the San Rafael Pacifics play the Vallejo Admirals.

Are Robot Umpires Coming to Baseball?

Now that a computer has covered home plate at a minor league game, what’s next?

A map of nitric oxide pollution in Denver's Highlands neighborhood

Google Street View Cars Are Mapping City Air Pollution

Google, Aclima and the EPA team up to add sensors to cars, first in Denver and then in the Bay Area, that monitor air quality throughout the day

Yeast, a multipurpose microbe.

Innovative Spirit Health Care

A Genetically Modified Yeast Turns Sugar Into Painkillers

Stanford scientists have engineered a strain of yeast that can produce opiates on its own

Wasting Food? It’ll Cost You

In a neighborhood in Seoul, the Korea Environment Corp. is doling out fines to people dumping more than their allotted food scraps

Many foodies and soda lovers swear there’s a discernible difference between Coke made with sugar and Coke made with high-fructose corn syrup—a truer, less “chemical-y” taste; a realer real thing.

The Innovative Spirit

The Story of Mexican Coke Is a Lot More Complex Than Hipsters Would Like to Admit

A nasty trade war and questionable scientific assumptions make it difficult to discern what is, and what isn’t, the real thing

A researcher tests the sensor's stretchability.

Thin Sensors on Our Skin or in Our Clothes May Warn Us of Environmental Hazards

Australian researchers are developing flexible sensors that track dangers that humans cannot detect with their own senses

You Might Actually Want a Layover at These Seven Airports

From nap pods to real-time flight tracking, these airports have features that will surely please passengers

The Innovative Spirit

When a Trip to the Zoo Resulted in an Engineering Breakthrough

Megan Leftwich, an engineering professor at George Washington University, is building a robotic flipper based on her observations of sea lions

The Cape Hatteras Light of North Carolina, on the Atlantic Ocean.

The Lonely, Lifesaving Job of Lighthouse Keepers, Revealed at the National Lighthouse Museum

A new museum in Staten Island tells the stories of men and women who ran lighthouses throughout America’s history and shows off some unique antiques

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