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Innovation

Teen Inventors Create Live Closed-Captioning Glasses for the Deaf

Seventeen-year-old Daniil Frants and his buddies hope to help the hard-of-hearing engage in naturally flowing conversations

Researchers are developing voice-training apps specifically for the transgender population.

How Transgender Women Are Training Their Voices to Sound More Feminine

Does striving for some ideal female voice just reinforce stereotypes?

Stanford Scientists Create an Algorithm That Is the “Shazam” For Earthquakes

The popular song-identifying app has inspired a technique for identifying microquakes in the hopes of predicting major ones

The Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia undergoes a scanning process for the creation of a 3-D model.

In Another Giant Leap, Apollo 11 Command Module Is 3-D Digitized for Humankind

Five decades after Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins journeyed to the moon, their spaceship finds a new digital life

In transcranial magnetic stimulation, a magnetic device placed near the skull delivers painless pulses to the brain.

Could Magnets Help Treat Drug Addiction?

A new study suggests transcranial magnetic simulation could reduce cravings in cocaine addicts

The IVF pups were more than 30 years in the making.

New Research

These Baby Beagles Are the First Dogs Born by In Vitro Fertilization

After more than 30 years, scientists have figured out how to create healthy puppies in the lab

In this artistic reconstruction, a pod of Albicetus travel together through the Miocene Pacific Ocean, surfacing occasionally to breathe.

A Moby-Dick Emerges from the Smithsonian Collections

The rediscovery of a fossil whale, previously believed to be an extinct walrus, is reexamined and digitized

Smart Startup

College Football Fans, Here Is a Vacation Rental Site for You

Looking for lodging near Penn State? How about Ole Miss? Notre Dame alum Mike Doyle wants you to “Rent Like a Champion”

The mockup of a Heat Harvest-enabled table

One Day, Your Cup of Coffee Could Charge Your Phone

A pair of students has proposed the idea of embedding furniture with pads to absorb latent heat and convert it into electricity

Installing the RFID tags

This Danish City is Giving Bikers the Green Light

In a pilot program underway in Aarhus, Denmark, cyclists are given RFID tags that trigger traffic lights in their favor

Though the new method can't produce these large sparklers yet, it may be an important part of future diamond production.

New Research

Weird New Type of Carbon Is Harder (and Brighter) Than Diamond

Dubbed Q-carbon, the material is magnetic, emits a soft glow and can be used to grow diamonds faster and cheaper than ever before

Programming organisms in the Ginkgo Bioworks Foundry

A Boston Biotech Company Is Engineering New Smells

A team at Ginkgo Bioworks is designing organisms that emit specific scents and flavors

New Mapping Technology Helps Arctic Communities “Keep on Top” of Sea Ice Changes

Buoys are being deployed in the bays of Labrador, Canada, with sensors that track ice thickness, to stop Inuit from breaking through

A dry boat dock sits in Huntington Lake after the water receded, in the High Sierra, California. The state is in its fifth year of drought, and more and more, California is turning to Australia—which endured a ten-year drought earlier this century—for solutions.

Age of Humans

What Can Australia Teach California About Drought?

With the Golden State entering its fifth year of drought, people are looking Down Under for solutions

A woman uses the Qylatron at Levi's Stadium.

Is This Machine the Future of Airport Security?

The Qylatron, used daily at San Francisco’s Levi’s Stadium, promises better, faster security screening

What do you think this thingamabobber does?

Holiday Gift Guide

Nine Gifts for Gadget Lovers

From a connected kitchen scale to a “Coolbox,” these products make perfect presents for the technophiles in your life

Fried insects, anyone?

Five Ways to Start Eating Insects

The idea may be hard to swallow, but crickets and mealworms will likely be part of our sustainable food future

Five Ways to Reinvent Traditional Thanksgiving Dishes

Why have plain old pumpkin pie when you could be eating a pumpkin-filled chocolate balloon?

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