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Innovation

Not pretty, but still edible.

Smart Startup

To Cut Down on Food Waste, a San Francisco Startup Is Selling Ugly Fruits and Vegetables

Looks aren’t everything, say the founders of Imperfect, a CSA-type service that delivers odd-shaped produce to customers’ doors

All Is Not Lost

At the Intersection of Dance and Portraiture, Vulnerability and Intimacy Prevail

Dance troupe Pilobolus and video portrait artist Bo Gehring teamed up to defy boundaries

IBM Watson Makes Things Elementary, Indeed

The cognitive computing system makes for an ideal sidekick—in museums, kitchens, hospitals and classrooms

If a lobster’s home territory is written into its genetic code, it just may be possible to distinguish a legally captured lobster from one with a shady background—maybe even after it’s made it to the dinner plate.

To Make Lobster Fisheries More Sustainable, Scientists Attempt to Decode Crustacean DNA

As the battle escalates to combat illegal fishing, Smithsonian scientists offer up a possible genetic tool

The SE200 kit, which includes the chlorinator, salt and measuring tools.

The Developing World Could Be One Step Closer to Quick, Easy Water Treatment With This New Device

Outdoor retailer MSR and global health non-profit PATH have teamed up to create on-demand chlorine to fight waterborne illness in Africa

Maze-like landscaping has cut the decibel level of the ambient noise at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport in half.

This Crazy Land Art Deflects Noise From Amsterdam’s Airport

To drown out flight noise, the Amsterdam Airport turned to large-scale landscaping

Industrial designer Shin Kuo thinks everyone in a building should be able to live in the penthouse for a time.

Six Architectural Ideas That Could Change the Way We Live in Cities

Whether in response to polluted air or shrinking space, architects keep coming up with novel approaches to reshaping urban life

EcoLogicStudio's 430-square-foot gazebo, called the Urban Algae Folly, is on display at the Expo 2015 world's fair in Milan.

Will Buildings of the Future Be Cloaked In Algae?

Built by a London architecture firm, a new gazebo has a living “skin” that produces oxygen and absorbs considerable amounts of carbon dioxide

Make New Memories But Keep the Old, With a Little Help From Electrodes

Matthew Walker thinks there may be a way to simulate deep sleep—vital for memory—by sending a low current to a person’s brain

Did This Map Guide Columbus?

Researchers decipher a mystifying 15th-century document

Nude dancer Micheline Bernardini models the first bikini in Paris, France.

How the Summer of Atomic Bomb Testing Turned the Bikini Into a Phenomenon

The scanty suit’s explosive start is intimately tied to the Cold War and the nuclear arms race

The World’s Largest Picture Frame?

The government of Dubai is taking this abstract structure to the next level

From the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center

The Ill-Fated History of the Jet Pack

The space-age invention still takes our imaginations on our wild ride

Tech Watch

Has a Finnish Company Found a Cure for Jet Lag?

Valkee is releasing the Human Charger, a new gadget that beams light through a user’s ears

A Harvard Student’s App Could Bring 911 Into the Future

With just one click, RapidSOS sends GPS and medical information to emergency dispatchers

CellScope automatically detects and quantifies infection by parasitic worms in a drop of blood.

This Smartphone Microscope Uses Video to Spot Moving Parasites

A team of Berkeley bioengineers has created CellScope, a mobile phone attachment that can quickly test blood for tropical diseases

Watch As a Real-Life Hoverboard Whirs to Life

At Smithsonian magazine’s Future is Here festival, a few lucky attendees got to take a ride

University of Vermont engineering student Joseph Maser gazes down at the prototype of the inflatable airlock for space stations and vehicles that he and three other students built.

Made by College Seniors, These Seven Products Give Us a Glimpse Into the Future

Engineering students at universities across the country took these projects from sketch to reality in one year

How Food Truck Parks Are Making America More Like Southeast Asia

Pushing for nutritious options, as public officials in Singapore are doing, could boost the health of cities and their residents

Anthropocene

Is This Plan to Combat Climate Change Insane or Insanely Genius?

Harvard physicist David Keith wants to use two jets and one million tons of sulfur dioxide a year to halt global warming

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