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Innovation

Army ants really know how to take the road less travelled.

New Research

Army Ants Act Like Algorithms to Make Deliveries More Efficient

The marauding ants know just where to place living bridges to create shortcuts without sacrificing their food-gathering prowess

Med School Students Can Play “Operation” With These Synthetic Cadavers

Florida company SynDaver is making life-like organs and bodies. But, as teaching models, are they as helpful as the real thing?

This Pump Could Make Blood Transfusions Safer and Cheaper in the Developing World

The Hemafuse gives doctors a sterile way to suction, filter and retransfuse patients’ blood in places without electricity

The latest Li-Fi prototype

What Is Li-Fi, and Will It Replace Wi-Fi?

Mobile communications professor Harald Haas has theorized about using LED bulbs to transmit data for years. Now, the technology is a reality.

An 1877 mousetrap called “The Delusion.” Directions read “Put as large a piece of cheese you can crowd into the box…”

The Unceasing American Quest to Build a Better Mousetrap

There has always been some truth to the apocryphal Emerson quote

Scientists reconfigured a magnetic resonance scanner to capture a woman and her baby.

Why I Captured This MRI of a Mother and Child

A venerable symbol of human love, as you’ve never seen it before

RoboBees Can Fly and Swim. What’s Next? Laser Vision

Swarms of robotic bees, capable of seeing, may soon be able to monitor pollution and traffic, or scan the struts of bridges

Cataract of the human eye

This Chemical Compound Could Melt Away Cataracts

Eye drops made from “compound 29” have been shown to reduce cataracts in mice. Researchers hope the same will hold true for humans.

Round Table

Why Does America Prize Creativity and Invention?

Our politics encourage it, there’s a high tolerance of failure, and we idealize the lone inventor

American Ingenuity Awards

This Wildly Creative Art Project Transformed an Ugly Interstate Into a 2,400-Mile-Long Visual Masterpiece

Zoe Crosher and Shamim Momin are behind the effort to turn the classic American eyesore into true art

Left: Alan Stern holds a 2005 Hubble image of the Pluto system on January 19, 2006, two hours after the successful launch of the New Horizons probe. Right: A triumphant Stern holds a full-frame image of Pluto, taken just hours before the New Horizons probe reached its closest point to Pluto.

American Ingenuity Awards

How Alan Stern Brought Pluto to Earth

The scientist behind NASA’s New Horizons mission gave cheering earthlings their first close-up view of the dwarf planet

Bill Hader and Fred Armisen share a laugh at the Broadway Video offices in Beverly Hills, CA, surrounded by the tools of their trade for their new series, Documentary Now.

American Ingenuity Awards

Why Bill Hader and Fred Armisen Are Parodying Documentaries in Their Latest, Ingenious Project

The “SNL” veterans behind the sly new series “Documentary Now” add a layer of authenticity to the art of sending up nonfiction films

American Ingenuity Awards

Meet Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Genius Behind “Hamilton,” Broadway’s Newest Hit

Composer, lyricist and performer, Miranda wows audiences and upends U.S. history with his dazzlingly fresh hip-hop musical

American Ingenuity Awards

The New Yorker Editor Who Became a Comic Book Hero

The amazing tale of a determined art director who harnessed the powers of the greatest illustrators around the world to blow kids’ minds

American Ingenuity Awards

The Young Inventor Who Is a “Minder” of a Business of Her Own

At age 11, Lilianna Zyszkowski designed a new life-saving device to help people track their medication. That was just the beginning

American Ingenuity Awards

Smile, Frown, Grimace and Grin — Your Facial Expression Is the Next Frontier in Big Data

Engineer Rana el Kaliouby is set to change the way we interact with our devices—and each other

Theaster Gates' Chicago studio includes a formal gallery and a wood shop.

American Ingenuity Awards

How Theaster Gates Is Revitalizing Chicago’s South Side, One Vacant Building at a Time

The artist’s creative approach to bringing new life to a crumbling neighborhood offers hope for America’s beleaguered cities

Doo Yeon Kim, left, and Rudolph Tanzi

American Ingenuity Awards

The Two Brains at the Forefront of the Fight Against Alzheimer’s

Rudolph Tanzi and Doo Yeon Kim have invented a revolutionary new tool to study the mysteries of the disease and counter the coming epidemic of dementia

Stockholm-Arlanda Airport

Appreciating the Art and Architecture of the World’s Airport Towers

Smithsonian photographer Carolyn Russo traveled the world to capturing these surprisingly elegant structures

Inspired by the ancient art of paper folding researchers hoped to make a device that could both fold itself and move on its own.

Watch This Piece of Paper Fold Itself Up and Walk Away

Scientists created a piece of graphene-based paper that can fold itself into a box, pick up objects and even inch around corners

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