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Innovation

The Innovative Spirit fy17

This App Uses Facial Recognition Software to Help Identify Genetic Conditions

A geneticist uploads a photo of a patient’s face, and Face2Gene gathers data and generates a list of possible syndromes

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the company’s system, which includes a grasper device and detachable tip, in 2016.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

A California Startup Wants To Revolutionize Surgery, With Magnets

A new magnetic surgical system allows surgeons to make fewer incisions and have better views during gallbladder removals

Stanford researcher Michael Snyder led a study on how wearable sensors could help predict illnesses.

What If an App Could Tell You When You’re Getting Sick?

A Stanford geneticist may be onto something. Body data collected by smartwatches and other sensors can tip us off to brewing colds or infections

North Sense, about a square inch in size and enclosed in body-compatible silicone, can be anchored to the chest via titanium piercings.

This Artificial Sixth Sense Helps Humans Orient Themselves in the World

A London-based company is selling North Sense, a body-anchored device that vibrates when it faces magnetic north

Have Scientists Found a Way to Actually Reduce the Effects of Aging?

Researchers at the Salk Institute in California have successfully induced cells to behave like younger cells

Morphine is extracted from opium, a compound found in the seeds of the opium poppy.

America’s Long-Overdue Opioid Revolution Is Finally Here

Thanks to advances in neuroscience, researchers are beginning to disentangle powerful pain relief from addiction, overdose and death

A smartphone could help people fight depression.

How Mobile Technology Can Help Universities Combat Depression

Using sensors on smartphones and smartwatches can shed light on patients’ symptoms, even identifying ones they didn’t notice or share with counselors

Standing water in urban areas is ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes that can spread dengue and other tropical diseases.

The Next Pandemic

To Fight Deadly Dengue Fever in Humans, Create Dengue-Resistant Mosquitoes

How manipulating the immune systems of mosquitoes can halt the spread of dengue virus

MIT professor Li-Huei Tsai may have a new treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

Could Flickering Lights Help Treat Alzheimer’s?

A flashy MIT study changes perspective on the disease

Are stem cells the solution?

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Tear Your Meniscus? This “Living Bandage” May Help

British researchers are using a newly patented technique involving stem cells to repair the common knee injury

LG exhibited a new levitating speaker.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Seven Wild Gadgets Unveiled at CES 2017

From a levitating speaker to vibrating jeans that help you navigate city streets, these innovations offer an interesting glimpse of the future

The device that reinvented the phone

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Happy 10th Birthday, iPhone! So What’s Next?

Based on patent documents, here are eight innovations that could become part of the iPhone of the future

Harry Houdini by unknown artist, 1920

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Escape Artist Harry Houdini Was an Ingenious Inventor, He Just Didn’t Want Anybody to Know

More than just a magician, Houdini was also an actor, aviator, amateur historian and businessman

Abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky, who may have been a synesthete, once said: "Color is the key. The eye is the hammer. The soul is the piano with its many chords. The artist is the hand that, by touching this or that key, sets the soul vibrating automatically."

Art Meets Science

Feel the Music—Literally—With Some Help From New Synesthesia Research

How one artist created a show inspired by the neurological experience of synesthesia

Ride-hailing services aren't just for millennials anymore.

Lyft and Uber Want To Give Old Folks a Ride

Older adults miss doctor’s appointments and risk social isolation because they lack transportation. Ride-hailing services are taking notice.

When Robots Take All of Our Jobs, Remember the Luddites

What a 19th-century rebellion against automation can teach us about the coming war in the job market

A technique for implanting a 3D-printed "ear" with stem cells could revolutionize treatment for microtia patients.

New Research

Hear This, 2017: Scientists Are Creating New Ears With 3D-Printing and Human Stem Cells

Two decades after the “earmouse,” researchers have mastered a powerful technique for growing ears from fat-derived stem cells

Holograms, even those not carrying secret messages, need to be preserved.

Why Holograms Will Probably Never Be as Cool as They Were in “Star Wars”

But those that do exist must be preserved and archived

Dried cohineal insects from the author's study

The Bug That Had the World Seeing Red

How a Mesoamerican insect once created the globe’s most coveted color

Cars are a liability and expensive to maintain for most Americans. The Future Cycles team builds human-powered vehicles that combine the efficiency of a bicycle or moped with the weather protection and carrying capacity of a car.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

These Locally Grown Design Ideas Were Created by the People for the People

A Cooper Hewitt exhibition spotlights the innovative and sustainable designs generated by those in search of solutions

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