Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Ideas & Innovations

Francis Halzen is a Belgian American physicist who studies neutrinos, sometimes called "ghost particles," which come from space and rarely interact with ordinary matter.

Physicist Wins Nobel Prize for Developing a Massive, Ice-Embedded Observatory That Detects Ghostly Cosmic Particles

Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin-Madison led the effort to build the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. His work birthed the field of neutrino astronomy

Most previous brain-computer interfaces have focused on speech or movement, rather than both simultaneously.

This Brain Implant Allows People With Paralysis to Speak and Gesture at the Same Time Via a Mind-Controlled Virtual Avatar

The experimental technology is still in the early stage and was fully tested in just two participants. But it could one day help people with motor problems communicate with more nuance or help them control robotic prosthetic limbs

The view from low-Earth orbit

Google Wants to Send Data Centers to Space—and Just Launched an Experimental Satellite to Test Whether Its Ambitious Plan Will Work

The tech giant aims to use the near-constant sunlight available in low-Earth orbit to power data centers. The experimental satellite, launched October 1, holds four computer chips that can run Google’s Gemini A.I. for 15 minutes at a time

Researchers prompted around 950 A.I. agents to search through a massive DNA database.

Anthropic Says Its A.I. Discovered a New Enzyme System That Resembles the Revolutionary Gene-Editing Tool CRISPR

Experts at the company don’t know what the newfound system does, so its potential utility in biology—if any—remains unclear. But the work marks a major advancement because the A.I. made this discovery mostly on its own

Researchers tested the battery in an RFID tag that can be rolled up in a capsule and swallowed. It can then transmit information about the digestive tract to a reader outside the body.

Scientists Invent a Digestible, Paper-Based Battery That Can Power Swallowed or Implanted Medical Devices

So far, the technology has been tested only in pigs. If it’s successful in humans, it could one day power tools that monitor your health or deliver drugs or electrical currents inside the body

The scythe is a less invasive tool for cutting grass than a lawnmower.

A Cutting-Edge English Initiative Replaces Lawnmowers With Scythes to Restore Wildflowers and Save the Bees

English Heritage has recruited volunteers to mow meadows the old-fashioned way at some of its historic sites

The Navier-Stokes problem concerns equations of fluid motion, illustrated here as dye moving in liquid.

A.I. May Have Solved a Longstanding Math Problem With a Million-Dollar Prize. It Ignited a Controversy Over Who Gets Credit

OpenAI announced a solution to the Navier-Stokes problem. But could its A.I. models have used data from two mathematicians working on a similar breakthrough?

A µBites cookie, which is pronounced "microbites"

Would You Eat a Cookie Made From Upcycled Plastic? Scientists Propose a New Way to Deal With Waste and Provide Food in Extreme Environments

A team of researchers programmed yeast to turn broken-down plastic and agricultural waste into sweet treats called µBites. They might come in handy during deep-space missions or in disaster zones, although some critics say the food is impractical

Scientists used Evo, an AI tool that can suggest genome designs, to design new viruses. 

Scientists Used A.I. to Design New Viruses. The Technology Could Be a Boon for Medicine, but Experts Worry About Harmful Pathogens

The findings represent the first genomes, or complete genetic instruction books, designed entirely with generative A.I. The resulting viruses attack only bacteria, which could one day help overcome the problem of antibiotic-resistant microbes

The trial only included people with melanoma, but experts say the same treatment approach could potentially be applied more broadly—to other types of cancer, as well as rare conditions caused by genetic mutations.

A New Personalized Cancer Vaccine Could Keep Skin Cancer From Coming Back, Drugmakers Say

The results, announced this week by Moderna and Merck, could pave the way for a new generation of treatments tailored to individual tumors

Gunther von Hagens wearing his signature black fedora

This Man Turned Human Corpses Into Popular Museum Displays. Now, the Creator of These Controversial ‘Body Worlds’ Has Donated His Own Body to Science

Gunther von Hagens, who invented plastination, a method of preserving bodies by replacing their natural fluids with polymers, recently died at age 81

An A.I. model from Anthropic helped disprove a longstanding conjecture in mathematics.

A.I. Disproves a Decades-Old Mathematical Idea, the ‘Biggest Conjecture’ That the Tech Has Played a Role in Yet

A mathematician announced that he used one of Anthropic’s A.I. models to find a counterexample to a problem called the Jacobian conjecture. While experts consider it a milestone, the work raises questions about the future of mathematical research

Getting the device to transition between air and water seamlessly was one of the most challenging aspects of the work.

This Robot Can Flap Its Wings to Both Fly and Swim. It Might One Day Help Scientists Study Diving Birds and Survey Ocean Habitats

The bioinspired device, which weighs roughly half a pound and measures around three feet wide, was also modeled after aquatic birds like puffins, gulls and loons

Overall, the 16 participants of the study were “largely positive” about their interactions with griefbots, the scientists write in the paper.

Would You Chat With an A.I. ‘Ghost’ of a Deceased Loved One? New Research Suggests That the Tech Can Provide Comfort and Closure

Commercial “griefbots” are becoming more popular, and many experts have questions about their psychological and ethical impacts. A new study aims to ensure that the bots are designed responsibly

The Draken Harald Hårfagre is not modeled after a single historic ship, but an amalgamation of many Viking vessels described in stories.

This Viking Longship Crossed the Atlantic Before Starring in Christopher Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ as Odysseus’ Greek Galley

Hollywood stars including Matt Damon went to rowing camp to learn how to operate the vessel for the new film

Two new studies suggest that smartphones are partially to blame for declining birth rates.

Smartphones Might Be Playing a Role in the United States’ Declining Birth Rate, New Research Suggests

Some economists suspect that the technology’s widespread adoption has reduced in-person interactions and increased access to pornography and information on birth control, leading to less unprotected sex

Big Boy No. 4014 stopped in Philadelphia.

The Largest Operating Steam Locomotive in the World Weighs 1.2 Million Pounds. Now, the Historic Train May Be Coming to Your Town

Built in the 1940s, Big Boy No. 4014 retired in 1961 after traveling for more than one million miles. It’s now making its way across the country in honor of America’s 250th birthday

A cyborg cockroach wearing a diving suit, which provides oxygen.

Cyborg Cockroaches Could Help Find Survivors of Natural Disasters. New Diving Suits Allow the Insects to Expand Their Search Underwater

Previously, researchers created electrical implants to control cockroaches’ movements for search-and-rescue missions. Now, they’ve made 3D-printed suits that provide oxygen, allowing the critters to survive submerged for up to three hours

A team of researchers put out information about a fake disease, and A.I.-powered chatbots fell for it.

Scientists Invented a Disease to Test Whether A.I. Knew It Was Fake. Then, Chatbots Started Saying It Was Real

The eye condition bixonimania doesn’t exist, but neither bots nor some researchers caught that the content was fabricated—despite obvious clues

At a press conference on June 9, NASA announced the crew of its upcoming Artemis 3 mission to low-Earth orbit. Commander Randy Bresnik, pilot Luca Parmitano and mission specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas will make up the four-person crew.

NASA Announces the Crew of Artemis 3, Four Astronauts Who Will ‘Take Calculated Risks’ in Low-Earth Orbit and Pave the Way for a Future Moon Landing

The mission, expected to launch next year, will practice meeting and docking with lunar landers developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin

Page 1 of 102