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Smart News / Smart News Ideas & Innovations

These two diagrams appear in Chester Greenwood's patent for hinged earmuffs.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

The Teenager Who Patented Earmuffs Kept His Town Employed for 60 Years

Chester Greenwood became an earmuff tycoon whose factory kept his hometown in business

Take in the spectacular view with a new VR simulation of the International Space Station.

Virtual Travel

Take a Virtual Trip to the International Space Station

New VR simulation turns you into an orbiting astronaut

Sylvia Townsend Warner, the author whose first book was chosen as the first Book of the Month selection in 1926, was openly involved in relationships with both men and women, a fact that scandalized readers.

Don’t Judge the Book-of-the-Month Club By Its Cover

Although today you might associate its name with staid offerings, the club’s first book was by an openly queer author

Daylight saving time, which has a history dating back to Benjamin Franklin, starts this Sunday.

During (and After) WWII, Some States Had Year-Round Daylight Saving Time

A 1963 ‘Time Magazine’ article called it “a chaos of time”

This Berlin man will soon have access to 13 bike superhighways.

Cool Finds

Germans Invented the Autobahn. Now They’re Building a Superhighway for Bikes

A cyclist’s dream will soon be reality in Berlin

The story of how DNA's structure was discovered is a typical scientific story of generations of research building on one another.

Here Are All The Discoveries That Had To Happen Before Two Scientists Could Find DNA’s Structure

Watson and Crick weren’t the only ones working on the problems of humanity’s genes, by a long shot

Long before sugary breakfast cereals were a normal morning fare, there was Granula.

The First Breakfast Cereal, Granula, Had to Be Soaked Before Being Eaten

Invented by a doctor and health reformer, the brittle cakes were not an instant success

Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space. This photo was taken in 1969.

Happy Birthday to the First Woman in Space

She spent almost three days in space on her first flight

Pound cake is generally made in a loaf pan (as above) or a Bundt pan (that's the one with the hole in the middle.)

A Pound Cake Was Originally Made With Four Pounds of Ingredients

Most Americans today don’t bake using pounds and ounces, but cups and teaspoons

Saint Louis was one of just 11 post offices across the country issuing provisional stamps in the two years between the Postal Act and the introduction of federal stamps.

Why Stamps Cost the Same Anywhere in the Country

The Postal Act of 1845 was just the beginning of a process of postal standarization that took many years

You won't find "dord" in the dictionary these days, but back in the 1930s, Webster's had a definition for this non-word.

As “Dord” Shows, Being in the Dictionary Doesn’t Always Mean Something’s a Word

Even dictionaries can make mistakes, although Merriam-Webster maintains this is their only one

Playing the flute isn't easy even for some humans, but in the 18th century, inventor Jacques de Vaucanson figured out how to make a machine play it.

This Eighteenth-Century Robot Actually Used Breathing to Play the Flute

It was one of a trio of automata that had functions like living creatures

This animal hair toothbrush (horse hair, to be exact) is said to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte.

You Can Still Buy Pig-Hair Toothbrushes

There’s an argument for it, given all the environmental destruction causes by plastic ones

Tootsie Rolls contain small amounts of cocoa and also an ingredient you might not expect—orange extract.

Tootsie Rolls Were WWII Energy Bars

The candies were included in rations because they stayed fresh for a long time

Tracking individual lemurs—such as the endangered red-bellied lemur pictured here—is no easy task. But researchers hope that facial recognition software can help in the fight for the survival of the bushy-tailed primates.

New Research

How Do You Pick a Lemur Out of a Lineup? This Software Makes the Leap

Facial recognition software can identify individuals, helping researchers conserve the endangered primate

A still from El Primo Amanecer, a short film narrated in Huichol, an indigenous language of Mexico that UNESCO classifies as "vulnerable." The film will be shown as part of a Smithsonian festival about endangered languages this week.

Four Things That Happen When a Language Dies

This World Mother Language Day, read about why many say we should be fighting to preserve linguistic diversity

Cradle to Cradle laid out a strategy for reducing waste through smarter product design. Case in point: the book itself is plastic and waterproof; the pages can be recycled and the ink can be washed off for reuse.

The Inventors of Upcycling Published Their Manifesto In a Plastic Book. Why?

You might have heard the term in relation to crafting, but it means a lot more

The first "phone book" (really a one-page sheet) came long before phones like this, but it was an important step towards the printed directories that were ubiquitous in the twentieth century and are now often considered outdated.

The First Telephone Book Had Fifty Listings and No Numbers

It came out less than two years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the device

This photo shows the Berkeley 60-inch cyclotron, build in 1939. The year before, technetium-99 was discovered by Emilio Segrè and Glenn Seaborg using the facility's 37-inch cyclotron. Ernest Lawrence, the cyclotron's inventor, is standing, third from left.

Old Particle Accelerator Tech Might Be Just What the Doctor Ordered

Shortages of important supplies for nuclear medicine has researchers looking for answers on how to produce technetium-99

An 1817 illustration of a draisine.

This Wooden Running Machine Was Your Fixie’s Great-Great Grandpa

The draisine was invented as a potential replacement for the horse during a shortage

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