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Smart News / Smart News Ideas & Innovations

NASA engineers react to the first-ever high-definition video sent by laser from deep space, which feaures an orange tabby cat named Taters.

NASA Streams Video of a Cat Chasing a Laser From Deep Space

In a first, the agency beamed the playful clip to Earth from a distance 80 times farther than the moon

A colored image of an anthrobot. Hairlike structures called cilia enable the bots to move.

Tiny ‘Robots’ Made From Human Cells Show Wound-Healing Potential

The so-called “anthrobots” can self-assemble and move on their own, and they prompted damaged neurons to regenerate in a recent study

Boat docks sit on dry, cracked earth at the Great Salt Lake's Antelope Island Marina on August 1, 2021.

Could a 550-Mile Pipeline From the Ocean Save the Great Salt Lake? Scientists Say Probably Not

New research suggests the electricity costs would exceed $300 million per year and carbon dioxide emissions could approach one million metric tons annually

Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer and Paul Stanley of Kiss perform at Madison Square Garden in New York City on December 2, 2023.

Art Meets Science

Kiss Debuts Digital Avatars That Will Keep the Band ‘Forever Young and Forever Iconic’

The rock band is the first in the U.S. to immortalize its performances with a digital recreation

Polar bears live in rugged, hard-to-reach places in the Arctic.

DNA Pulled From Paw Prints May Help Researchers Study Elusive Polar Bears

As rising temperatures threaten the Arctic mammals, scientists are turning to new, non-invasive methods to study them

Illustration of the thalamus, a region of the brain linked to learning and memory.

Brain Implants Show Promise for People With Traumatic Brain Injuries in Small Study

Electrodes placed in the brains of five patients led to “profound” improvements in cognitive function, even years after their injuries

Advances in technology are making altering or faking content increasingly easier.

Merriam-Webster’s 2023 Word of the Year Is ‘Authentic’

As technology’s ability to manipulate reality improves, we’re all searching for the truth

San Francisco-based startup Loyal is developing drugs that aim to extend dogs' lifespans—and it could form a basis for longevity research in humans.

A New Drug That Could Extend Dogs’ Lives Inches Closer to Approval

For the first time, the FDA has indicated a willingness to endorse a longevity drug

The Lyric’s senior director of digital initiatives, Brad Dunn, meets with SoundShirt designers at CuteCircuit in London.

Art Meets Science

This High-Tech Shirt Helps Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Patrons Feel Music

Guests at Chicago’s Lyric Opera can now immerse themselves in performances through the SoundShirt’s vibrations

The monkey "chimera" with two sets of DNA at three days old. Some body parts appear tinted green, because the researchers marked the transplanted cells with fluorescent dye to trace what parts they developed into.

Scientists Created a Monkey With Two Different Sets of DNA

So-called “chimeric” monkeys could help scientists understand human diseases and aid in conservation efforts, but the research raises ethical questions

Researchers plan to launch the wooden artifical satellite in summer 2024. 

Could Wooden Satellites Reduce Space Junk? The First Is Set to Launch Next Year

NASA and Japan plan to test a biodegradable satellite made of wood, which burns up more easily than metal on reentry

John Legend is one of nine musicians who agreed to participate in YouTube's new Dream Tracks experiment.

Art Meets Science

YouTube’s New A.I. Music Generation Tool Mimics the Voices of Popular Singers

So far, nine artists—including John Legend, T-Pain, Demi Lovato and Charli XCX—have volunteered their voices

The Starship rocket on April 17, 2023, ahead of its first test flight. During the uncrewed flight, the booster failed to detach from the spaceraft and the rocket was intentionally exploded.

What to Know Ahead of SpaceX’s Second Starship Test Flight on Saturday

Atop the most powerful rocket ever built, the spacecraft is intended to carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the moon’s surface and Mars in the future

The first color photo of the Martian surface, taken in 1976 by the Viking 1 probe. To survive on Mars' surface, astronauts will need oxygen, which only exists in trace amounts in the Martian atmosphere.

A Robotic ‘A.I. Chemist’ Could Make Oxygen on Mars

In a lab on Earth, the machine created a catalyst from Martian materials that can extract oxygen from water, for astronauts to breathe or use as fuel

Hummingbirds' unusual flying abilities have long fascinated scientists.

Watch How Hummingbirds Fly Through Narrow Spaces

Slow-motion video revealed the birds take two different approaches: flying sideways or pinning their wings back and darting like a bullet

Tamarix aphylla can survive in salty environments by excreting saline water from its leaves.

This Desert Plant’s Salty ‘Sweat’ Can Collect Water From the Air

The athel tamarisk’s hydration trick could improve on human techniques to harvest water in dry environments, researchers say

Aaron James is now five months out from his whole-eye and partial-face transplant.

Surgeons Perform World’s First Whole Eyeball Transplant on Arkansas Veteran

The patient, who suffered a severe electrical accident in 2021, currently has no vision in the transplanted eye, but doctors say he’s recovering well

Magnets can levitate over superconductors, which expel a magnetic field.

Paper That Claimed a Room-Temperature Superconductor Breakthrough Is Retracted by the Journal ‘Nature’

The discovery, which would have revolutionized energy, was surrounded in controversy from the start

An early Minitel terminal made in France and introduced in the early 1980s

The History of the Internet, From MP3s to MySpace Tom

A new online museum explores the digital artifacts that defined the internet’s early days

New research suggests rats can mentally navigate to locations they've visited before.

Rats Can Use Imagination to Navigate in Virtual Reality, Study Finds

Like humans, the rodents appear to be able to visualize walking through locations they’ve previously visited

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