2014 Ingenuity Awards

Coming to Terms With One of America’s Greatest Natural Disasters

Documentary filmmaker Bill Morrison plunges us into the Great Flood of 1927

When Dazzling Art Transforms the Cityscape

Janet Echelman’s sky-high sculptures, created from miles of fiber, cast a magical spell over urban spaces

2014 Ingenuity Awards

The Amazing Results When You Give a Prison Inmate a Liberal Arts Education

Prison reform activist Max Kenner champions the transformative power of a college degree for inmates nationwide

Is This the Future of Robotic Legs?

Hugh Herr’s bionic limbs have already revolutionized life for amputees (including himself). Now he’s envisioning new capabilities for everyone else

The History of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, 50 Years After Its Construction

Built in 1964, the span still stands as Americas’ largest suspension bridge

The U.S. Navy expects to have swarm boats in operation as soon as next year.

Who Needs a Driver? These Navy Boats Are Programmed to Swarm Like Bees

Using algorithms based on the swarming behavior of ants and bees, the U.S. Navy is turning to driverless boats to protect its ships

Universal Studios in Hollywood has a stunt show and set inspired by the 1995 film Waterworld.

Anthropocene

10 Architectural Schemes That Could Help Us Adapt To Rising Seas

From a floating house to a mobile city shaped like a giant lilypad, designers offer up some wild solutions for a wetter future

A robot skims along a ship's hull, using ultrasound to identify hollow spots where goods might be smuggled.

This Stealthy Robot Could Boost Security at Our Ports

MIT researchers have developed a craft to spot pockets of contraband inside ships’ hulls

International Space Station astronauts captured this photograph of Earth's atmospheric layers. The troposphere is the orange-red layer. The gray, just above that, is the stratosphere. Then, the blue is the mesosphere.

10 Weird Things Humans Have Sent Into the Stratosphere

Tied to high-altitude balloons, bacon and LEGO figures have reached heights nearing 100,000 feet

DUBS Acoustic Filters have a fit and finish that help them resemble high-end earphones more than conventional earplugs.

Tech Watch

Building a Better Earplug

Using a series of acoustic filters, DUBS lower the intensity of sounds without muddying them

More and more people are dealing with routine health ailments through video calls.

Need a Quick Diagnosis? A Prescription for What Ails You? The Doctor Will Video Chat With You Now

One of the hottest trends in health care is telemedicine networks of doctors who diagnose ailments over the phone

There are more than 400 species of mantis shrimp, including some with claws that can strike with the speed of a bullet and crack glass. But it’s the animal's vision, sensitive to polarized light, that is helping scientists build a compact camera that can see cancer.

A Mantis Shrimp Inspires a New Camera for Detecting Cancer

The mantis shrimp’s eyes, which can see differences in polarized light, are informing researchers building a tiny, easy-to-use camera that can spot cancer

A team at the University of Arizona is developing seven state of the art mirrors for the Giant Magellan Telescope, currently under construction in Chile.

Making Super-Telescopes Requires Some Creative Engineering

The Giant Magellan Telescope, under construction in Chile, could help scientists answer big questions about the universe

"Rapid and long-lasting climate change is a topic of growing concern as the world looks to the future," says the Smithsonian Institution's official climate change statement.

Age of Humans

The Smithsonian Institution Announces an Official Climate Change Statement

The bold assessment acknowledges that the global climate is warming because of human activities

Researchers have made an important first step towards engineering direct, brain-to-brain communication between humans.

Scientists Prove That Telepathic Communication Is Within Reach

An international research team develops a way to say “hello” with your mind

"Today we can use light to create an artificial sun on Earth, if only for a split-second," writes Steven Johnson. Here, Vaughn Draggoo examines a test site for light-induced nuclear fusion at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California.

The World Is What It Is Today Because of These Six Innovations

In a new book, Steven Johnson describes the many technologies that glass, refrigeration and other fundamental inventions have made possible

The movement to dramatically reduce car traffic is picking up speed.

Anthropocene

Helsinki Has a Plan to Get People to Stop Owning Cars

A system being developed in Finland would allow people to subscribe to all kinds of mobility options and pay for everything on their phones

The transparent solar concentrator material doesn’t block visible light, but turns light in other parts of the spectrum into electricity.

Tech Watch

This Clear Plastic Material Harvests Solar Energy Without You Even Knowing It’s There

Researchers are developing transparent solar collectors that let sunlight in, while turning ultraviolet and near-infrared light into electricity

A bobtail squid hides on the ocean floor.

Research Into How Squid Camouflage Leads to An Ultra-Sharp Display for Televisions and Smartphones

Researchers at Rice University have created pixels 40 times smaller than those found in today’s LCD displays

These satellite images were captured by DigitalGlobe’s GeoEye-1 satellite on Oct. 6, 2014.

How the Artist Behind the Giant Landscape Portrait on the Mall Used a Super-Precise GPS Satellite System as a Paintbrush

To create the National Portrait Gallery’s “facescape,” artist Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada got some high-tech help

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