The Harmony is an all-electric vehicle designed by Texas A&M engineers.

Personal Flying Machines of the Future Won’t Look Much Like Jet Packs

Judging from the GoFly competition, they’re much more likely to resemble flying motorbikes

What Will It Take to Make Vegan Wool?

A team of Colombian students has created a wool-like material from coconut fibers, hemp and mushroom enzymes

So gooey, so good.

Let Us Tell You S’more About America’s Favorite Campfire Treat

The gooey snack became popular thanks to technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, which brought cheap sweets to the masses

The Intricate Skill That Goes Into Landing a Fighter Jet

Landing on an aircraft carrier’s 300-feet runway seems like an impossible task

Anemonefish, also known as clownfish, are born androgynous and can shift from male to female in one lifetime.

Alternatives to Heterosexual Pairings, Brought to You By Non-Human Animals

No one quite has this sex thing figured out, but these non-binary animals have some good ideas

The spectacular 13th-century Noravank monastery is situated among mountain cliffs in southern Armenia.

Armenia

This Free Virtual Reality App Drops Users in the Heart of Historic Armenia

Painstaking imaging of cultural heritage sites worldwide has the potential to usher in a new era of participatory preservation efforts

This Aircraft Carrier Cannon Fires 4,500 Rounds a Minute

The Sea Wiz is the affectionate nickname given to a 20mm Vulcan Cannon on board the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier. It fires 4,500 rounds a minute

At Surf Ranch in May (where Kelly Slater leaned into a cutback), 5,000 spectators gathered to watch 25 world-class surfers compete for prize money.

Engineering the Perfect Wave

A technology breakthrough allows surf legend Kelly Slater to manufacture the same wave over and over again

The charred papyrus scroll recovered from Herculaneum is preserved in 12 trays mounted under glass. Here is PHerc.118 in tray 8. The scroll was physically unrolled in 1883-84, causing irreparable damage.

Buried by the Ash of Vesuvius, These Scrolls Are Being Read for the First Time in Millennia

A revolutionary American scientist is using subatomic physics to decipher 2,000-year-old texts from the early days of Western civilization

“Time Banking” Is Catching On In the Digital World

Apps that allow users to pay for services in redeemable credits instead of cash are helping to build communities

People attend a vigil for the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Pine Trails Park in Parkland, Florida on February 15, 2018.

Can Artificial Intelligence Help Stop School Shootings?

Some researchers believe it could help predict student violence. Others worry about unintended consequences

Installing the water harvester

This Device Pulls Water Out of Desert Air

A new water harvester can extract water from extremely dry air, using only solar energy

Defense is the only option against a never-ending onslaught.

The Original ‘Space Invaders’ Is a Meditation on 1970s America’s Deepest Fears

One of the first digital shooting games reflected a fear of, well, invaders—a fear that still resonates today

Dr. Tedi Asher

Future of Art

The Neuroscientist in the Art Museum

At Massachusetts’s Peabody Essex Museum, Tedi Asher is using neuroscience research to create impactful art experiences

Among the colorful characters immortalized in the colorless daguerreotype medium are (clockwise from upper left): writer Henry Thoreau, Seneca leader Blacksnake, Navy Commodore Matthew Perry, mental health crusader Dorothea Dix, showmen P.T. Barnum and Tom Thumb, and actress Charlotte Cushman.

How Daguerreotype Photography Reflected a Changing America

The National Portrait Gallery brings the eerie power of a historic medium into focus

A wildlife biologist checks a big brown bat for signs of white nose syndrome, which can cause tears or even dime-sized holes in their delicate wings.

Three Ways Bats Could Bounce Back From Devastating White Nose Syndrome

Scientists are testing light therapy, a fungus-killing fungus—and maybe, doing nothing

The first insect found trapped in ancient amber wasn’t a mosquito, but an overstuffed weevil.

Jurassic Park’s Unlikely Symbiosis With Real-World Science

The 1993 film showed both the promise and misconceptions that surround ancient DNA

Say hello to SMAP

This NASA Satellite Can Map the Planet’s Soil Moisture Content In Just Three Days

The speedy collection of this data will help with crop management and flood prediction

Fully 73 percent of the patents studied in the paper pertained to microbial species, which account for about 20 percent of marine life.

New Research

Nearly Half the Patents on Marine Genes Belong to Just One Company

Who owns biodiversity? No one and everyone—or maybe, a German chemical company

Aerial view of Guadalajara

How Guadalajara Reinvented Itself as a Technology Hub

Mexico’s second largest city has nimbly transformed into a R&D hotpsot, offering a model for the country’s future

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