Could This Chatbot Prevent Some Deportations?

Visabot helps immigrants and visitors to the United States obtain and keep visas

Coralline algae of the genus Clathromorphum are specific to the Arctic and Subarctic, and they have critically important stories to tell about their ocean and how it has changed over the centuries.

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In Its Layers, This Stunning Pink Coralline Algae Holds Secrets of Climates Past

Unseen and unsung for centuries, these underwater species of coralline algae are providing scientists with an unparalleled new archive of information

Surfers take to the water in Montauk, where a shark nursery was discovered offshore last summer.

Future of Conservation

Can Social Media Give Sharks a Better Reputation?

A nonprofit called Ocearch is naming tagged sharks and giving them Twitter and Instagram accounts to ease fears and aid in conservation

Engineers tested the new technology with this poster at a Seattle bus stop.

In Smart Cities of the Future, Posters and Street Signs Can Talk

University of Washington engineers show how “smart” posters can send a message via FM radio waves to smartphone or car radio

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Charging Ahead: The Future of Batteries

Battery research is at a tipping point, and it’s never been more important

The Kirtland’s warbler is one of North America’s most endangered bird species.

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Scientists Track, For the First Time, One of the Rarest Songbirds on Its Yearlong Migration

The journey of the Kirtland’s warbler is discovered thanks to a combination of the latest tiny technology and centuries-old solar location methods

Achievement unlocked: Rewritable paper.

Reprintable Paper Becomes a Reality

Coating paper with an inexpensive thin film can allow users to print and erase a physical page as many as 80 times

Two vessels rendezvous off the coast of Argentina in a likely transshipment.

Fighting Illegal Fishing With Big Data

Global Fishing Watch is using satellite data to monitor suspicious ship activity on the high seas

Check out those chompers.

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If We Can Get Past the Ickiness, Hagfish Slime May Actually Be Useful to Us

The gelatinous glop could be the key to everything from bio-inspired kevlar to shark defense for divers

Children have been crippled by land mines in Cambodia.

The Historic Innovation of Land Mines—And Why We’ve Struggled to Get Rid of Them

A number of researchers are developing tools to defuse or detonate land mines without harming civilians

Dream Big: Engineering Our World began playing nationally on February 17th, and it will be shown internationally starting March 25th.

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The New IMAX Film “Dream Big” Roots for the Underdogs in the Engineering World

Director Greg MacGillivray’s latest documentary premieres at the National Air and Space Museum

Fulcrum BioEnergy converts household trash into biofuel for airplanes.

Future of Energy

Could Garbage Fuel Airplanes?

Fulcrum BioEnergy wants to divert trash from landfills and create cheap green energy

Most players of “Walden” go straight to survival tasks, admits Fullerton.

Can a Video Game Capture the Magic of Walden?

Henry David Thoreau’s famed retreat gets pixelated

Lithodomos VR creates immersive virtual recreations of iconic ruins.

Virtual Travel

See the Ancient World Through Virtual Reality

An archaeological VR company wants to show you what ruins looked like before they were, well, ruins

A Rolls Royce concept for an autonomous ship

What Will the Autonomous Ship of the Future Look Like?

Shipbuilding companies are experimenting with self-driving, remotely-operated and crewless vessels

Iowa State University scientists modeled their artificial leaves after cottonwood leaves.

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Are Artificial Trees the Future of Renewable Energy?

While a new device’s flapping leaves can generate a lot of energy, extracting it is far from a breeze

The back of an ancient sundial reveals a cheat sheet of locations and latitude coordinates.

Early Tech Adopters in Ancient Rome Had Portable Sundials

A little gadget could make you look smart, rich, and tech-savvy—all without necessarily fulfilling its real function

A solid state radio frequency oven would allow you to cook a whole meal at once.

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This Oven Could Change How We Cook

By using radio frequency technology, it can prepare all the components of a dinner, at the same time, just right

Too sick to attend school in person, but perfectly able to participate with a robot’s help.

How Robots Could Help Chronically Ill Kids Attend School

Students with chronic illness often get only a few hours of education a week. Telepresence robots could let them participate fully

Benjamin Montgomery succeeded despite being refused a patent.

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With Patents or Without, Black Inventors Reshaped American Industry

American slaves couldn’t hold property, including patents on their own inventions. But that didn’t stop black Americans from innovating in our country

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