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Innovation

What the Heck is a Robobird?

No flock will mess with this robot – which is precisely the point

2014 Ingenuity Awards

The 2014 Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award Winners

These 10 innovators in science, history, society and the arts are a testament to the imagination and hard work that define the nation’s spirit

2014 Ingenuity Awards

How Palmer Luckey Created Oculus Rift

The young visionary dreamed up a homemade headset that may transform everything from gaming to medical treatment to engineering—and beyond

2014 Ingenuity Awards

How One Physicist’s Pursuit of the Cosmos Took Off in Antarctica

Francis Halzen’s amazing experiment heralds the beginning of a new era in astronomy

2014 Ingenuity Awards

Rosanne Cash on Discovering New Artistic Terrain

The singer-songwriter looked to her Southern ancestors to come up with a different kind of concept album

2014 Ingenuity Awards

Could This Be the Answer to the Tech World’s Diversity Problem?

Kimberly Bryant hopes to crack the code with her organization that teaches young girls of color how to program

2014 Ingenuity Awards

Meet the Two Scientists Who Implanted a False Memory Into a Mouse

In a neuroscience breakthrough, the duo pioneered a real-life version of Inception

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

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