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Smart News / Smart News Ideas & Innovations

Animals Use Medicine, Too

From chimps to caterpillars to birds and flies, all sorts of animals use medicine

Can Architects Prevent Gun Deaths?

Architects wonder if they can design gunman-proof buildings

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Hyperlapse Is the Coolest Thing to Happen to Google Maps Since Street View

Hyperlapse photography is super hard to do, but the results are just incredible

It is I, Scangrade the Magnificent, here to grade your essay.

Can a Computer Really Grade an Essay?

One company is developing an essay grading computer program that can take the load off professors and standardized test graders

I see your log bungalow and raise you a fully-functioning ion channel.

Need to Build a Functioning Neuron?

In Minecraft, a player creates a functional neuron

iPods and sperm, America’s favorite exports.

America May Be the World’s Top Exporter of Sperm

The United States may be the world’s largest exporter of sperm

Close up of a processor for a D-Wave quantum computer.

Lockheed Martin Has Crazy-Fast Quantum Computers And Plans on Actually Using Them

The defense contractor will be the first company to use quantum computers on a commercial scale

How to Make a Sandwich in Space

Astronaut Hadfield is described as “the International Space Station’s ambassador to the internet.” Now, he’s showing you how to make a sandwich, in space

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Neuroscientists Wire Two Rats’ Brains Together And Watch Them Trade Thoughts

One rat, presented with a task, completes it using only the thoughts transmitted from another rat’s brain

In China, most electricity comes from coal power plants. A turn to natural gas could help limit carbon dioxide emissions.

Natural Gas Fracking May Be the Only Industry in China That’s Developing Slowly

It has the largest shale gas reserves in the world, but China is slow to push for fracking

Google Glasses Might Go Hipster With Warby Parker

What if the nerdy Google Glasses were put into an acceptably nerdy frame? Like, say, a pair of Warby Parkers?

Neuroscientists Have Created Mice That Can’t Sense Cold

The end goal is to help develop drugs that more thoroughly knock out the feeling of pain

Landsat 8 sits in a United Launch Alliance Atlas-V rocket last night, ready for its 1:00 pm EST launch.

NASA Has Been Recording Earth’s Surface for 40 Years, and Today Is Its Last Chance to Keep That Going

The beginning of the largest prime number ever discovered.

How Do You Discover a 17 Million Digit Prime Number?

The 48th Mersenne prime was recently discovered on the computer of a man named Dr. Curtis Cooper, and it’s 17 million digits long

An illustration of the potential new treatment.

Medics May Be Able to Save Soldiers by Injecting Foam Into Gut Wounds

Internal bleeding on the battlefield proves deadly for soldiers hit by bullets or shrapnel, but a foam injected into soldiers’ abdomens could save lives

A camera passes down through the borehole.

First Signs of Life Found in Antarctica’s Subglacial Lakes

Preliminary tests from subglacial Lake Willard have shown signs of life

After Eleven Years, the DSM-5 Is Finally Finished

After eleven years, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has updated the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)

Digital Mannequins Are Replacing Human Models in Clothing Catalogs

Now, fashion retailers are skipping the flesh and bones, and putting their clothes on digitally rendered mannequins

Experimental ‘Alcoholism Vaccine’ Gives Drinkers an Instant Hangover

Mercury is a liquid in its pure form.

After Millennia of Heavy Use, Mercury Gets the Boot

From an Elixir of Life to the Philosopher’s Stone, mercury’s long legacy is coming close to an end

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