Nine Innovators to Watch in 2019

These big thinkers are set to make news this year with exciting developments in transportation, energy, health, food science and more

Cormac Hondros-McCarthy, Lauren Shum, Parth Sagdeo and Ted Zhu celebrate their successful top prize spot at the Make for the Planet Borneo hackathon in Kuching, Malaysia in June 2018.

This Lobster Trap Aims to Protect Endangered Whales — and Fishers’ Livelihoods

A team of engineers is designing a low-cost, lineless, self-surfacing lobster trap that would prevent right whale entanglement

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates in its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card that 240,000 water main breaks occur yearly in the U.S., with 2 trillion gallons of treated drinking water escaping.

These Technologies Could Put an End to Leaky Water Mains

Two inventors have come up with radically different approaches to try to solve the widespread problem of aging water infrastructure

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Ingenious Minds

How Jean Bennett Found a Way to Treat Hereditary Blindness in Children

In conversation with chef Spike Gjerde, the molecular geneticist explains how she is paving the way for the future of gene therapy

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Ingenious Minds

How Drag Helped Sasha Velour Cope With the Loss of Her Mother

The drag queen talks with breast cancer specialist Laura Esserman about gender identity, expression and celebration

By providing disincentives for discarding trash—and adding musical motivation for doing things right—Taiwan has achieved a recycling rate many envy.

How Taiwan Has Achieved One of the Highest Recycling Rates in the World

Once nicknamed “Garbage Island,” the region now has a success story to share

The ‘Pole of Inaccessibility’ Has Eluded Adventurers for More Than a Century

This winter, explorers will once again set out for the most remote part of the Arctic Ocean

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Ingenious Minds

March for Our Lives Activist Naomi Wadler Isn’t Like Most 12-Year-Olds

Disney Imagineer Bei Yang interviews the young activist about social media, gun violence, hope and her future

This graspable haptic device, called Foldaway, is the size of a drink coaster when flat, making it conveniently portable. The user places a joystick where the three hinged arms meet, and the arms offer resistance, to give a sense of the objects being manipulated.

Here’s What the Future of Haptic Technology Looks (Or Rather, Feels) Like

Bringing the sense of touch to virtual reality experiences could impact everything from physical rehabilitation to online shopping

From 3-D Printed Gills to AI Dolphin Dictionaries, These Innovations Could Make Us More Like Aquaman

If you look beyond the movie, you can see how the underwater superhero’s signature powers translate in real tech

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Ingenious Minds

Farmworkers Rights Activist Mily Treviño-Sauceda Empowers Women to Create Change

The founder of the Alianza Nacional de Campesinas joined poet Jacqueline Suskin in a conversation about family, women, strength and unity

The plate’s display resembles a Kindle, except that letters and numbers are made up of monochromatic “e-ink.”

Will Digital License Plates Drive Us Forward or Leave Us Fuming?

California-based Reviver Auto has rolled out an electronic license plate that could benefit drivers, as well as cities and states

The Patents Behind Christmas Lights

This Christmas, take a moment to appreciate the many innovations that make holiday light displays and the strand of bulbs on your tree possible

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Ingenious Minds

Studying Political Pessimism in the Past Actually Makes Historian Jon Grinspan Optimistic About the Future

Columnist David Brooks interviews the political historian about what we can learn from negative political engagement in our country’s history

"Let’s Get Lost" by linn meyers at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Museum Visitors Can Play This Wall Art Like an Instrument

An artist, musician, experience designer and app developer meet for coffee. This multi-sensory installation is the result

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Ingenious Minds

Cheech Marin Uses Humor to Find Common Ground

With the 14th Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, the actor and comedian talks about how his life has been filled with music, art and laughter

Record companies released stereo demonstration albums that showcased how sound could move from left to right, creating a sense of movement.

How Savvy Advertising Helped Make Stereo Technology Mainstream

Stereo demonstrations and colorful ads sold customers on the two-channel sound technology when it was introduced 60 years ago

In June of 1878, just a few years after he was acquitted for murder, Eadweard Muybridge made history at a racetrack in Palo Alto, California.

How a 19th-Century Photographer Made the First ‘GIF’ of a Galloping Horse

Eadweard Muybridge photographed a horse in different stages of its gallop, a new Smithsonian podcast documents the groundbreaking feat

Clean and compelling, Spacewar! pitted two player-controlled ships against one another and rewarded superior strategists. The PDP-1 lacked the memory to accommodate AI opponents.

How the First Popular Video Game Kicked Off Generations of Virtual Adventure

A simple contest of sci-fi strategy, ‘Spacewar!’ ushered in what is now a 140 billion dollar industry

The card game Spot It! has become one of the most popular family games in the country, but the secret to how the game works has its roots in the logic puzzles of 19th century mathematicians.

Education During Coronavirus

The Mind-Bending Math Behind Spot It!, the Beloved Family Card Game

The simple matching game has some deceptively complex mathematics behind the scenes

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