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Innovation / Technology

The systems have been especially successful in Latin America, where massive cities and dramatic landscapes make building roads, rail lines and subway tunnels difficult. Mi Teléferico, shown here, connects more than two million people across the La Paz metro in Bolivia.

Seven Cities in the World Where You Can Ride an Aerial Cable Car

Urban planners from Mexico City to Toulouse are adopting the high-flying mode of transit. Will it catch on elsewhere?

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2025 took place in Las Vegas, Nevada, this week.

The Eight Coolest Inventions From the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show

A needle-free injection system, a bug-watching garden camera, a wearable that helps with memory lapses and more were unveiled at the annual Las Vegas trade show

In 2024, engineers used a fluorescent protein found in some jellyfish to create a non-toxic spray that highlights fingerprints at a crime scene.

Seven Scientific Discoveries From 2024 That Could Lead to New Inventions

From indestructible tardigrades to body-merging comb jellies, animals can teach humans so much about medicine, robotics, aging and survival

Air Ring 48 attaches to the base of a construction helmet, providing crucial airflow to the sweatiest areas of the head and neck.

Could This New Wearable Device Reduce Heat Stress in Construction Workers?

Architecture students at the University of Hong Kong invented a cooling apparatus that attaches to a construction helmet

The products range from programmable rovers to books that introduce the terminology of robotics and circuitry to childen.

Engineers Choose the Ten Best STEM Toys to Gift in 2024

Creative circuitry and rolling robots make up this year’s top toys for teaching kids to love science, technology, engineering and math

An example of the American Pedometer with the decimal face and original packaging

From Jealous Spouses to Paranoid Bosses, Pedometers Quantified Suspicion in the 19th Century

The devices were used to track movement and measure productivity—an insightful foreshadowing of our current preoccupation with personal data

Mark Muhn of Team Cleveland on his way to winning the Functional Electrical Stimulation bike race in the inaugural Cybathlon in 2016. Muhn’s legs are paralyzed; the muscles in them are activated by electric signals from a controller outside of his body.

Bionic ‘Pilots’ Compete for the Gold at the Cybathlon

In the international competition, people with physical disabilities put state-of-the-art devices to the test as they race to complete the tasks of everyday life

John Larson's original polygraph, a gift to the Smithsonian from the Berkeley Police Department, where Larson was the first rookie cop with a PhD.

Why the Creator of One of the First ‘Lie Detectors’ Lived to Regret His Invention

The early polygraph machine was considered the most scientific way to detect deception—but that was a myth

Some artificial intelligence models have predicted where hurricanes would make landfall earlier than numerical weather models.

Just How Much Can We Trust A.I. to Predict Extreme Weather?

Computer scientist and meteorologist Amy McGovern has studied the technology for two decades, and she weighs in with some answers

Germany’s North and Baltic Seas are littered with munitions from the First and Second World Wars, such as shells—as shown here—once fired from German battleships.

A Massive Effort Is Underway to Rid the Baltic Sea of Sunken Bombs

The ocean became a dumping ground for weapons after Allied forces defeated the Nazis. Now a team of robots and divers is making the waters safer

Robotic kitchens aren’t on homemakers’ must-have lists yet, but they are starting to gain traction in restaurants.

Robots Are Coming to the Kitchen. What Does This Mean for Everyday Life?

Can automated restaurants still be community and cultural spaces, or will they become feeding stations for humans? These and other questions loom as new food tech reaches the market

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass waves an Olympic flag on her return from the closing ceremony of the Paris games on August 12, 2024.

Can a City Known for Its Freeways and Gridlock Deliver a Car-Free Olympics? Los Angeles Thinks So

To make good on its promise, the 2028 host city is in a four-year sprint to ready its public transportation for the onslaught of athletes, coaches and spectators

Namibia's brown hyenas live in small clans but often travel and hunt alone.

Artificial Intelligence Could Soon Match Footprints to the Animals That Made Them

Scientists are working on a machine learning tool that could turn anyone with a camera into an expert tracker

Every pound saved in a car’s weight matters, reducing fuel consumption in gas-powered cars or extending the range of electric vehicles.

Automakers Are Making New Steels for Stronger and Lighter Cars

Novel materials are hitting assembly lines with just the right properties to build cars that are both safer and more fuel-efficient

Technological advances have changed Olympic sports—including fencing, sprinting, distance running and pole vaulting.

From Sleek Swimsuits to Specialized Running Shoes, These Five Innovations Transformed the Olympics

Technology has advanced sports including fencing and pole vaulting

Women archers compete at the 1908 London Olympics.

The Paris Olympics

From Corsets to Singlets, the Olympics Have Driven the Evolution of Women’s Sportswear

The bold choices of female athletes like Serena Williams have pushed brands, including Nike and Speedo, to produce better gear

In order to build ships strong and technically savvy enough to traverse through some of the most remote and challenging landscapes on Earth, several cruise companies borrowed designs from other parts of the shipping industry.

How a New Line of Expedition Ships Is Turning the Tides on Polar Seas

High-tech features are making treacherous ocean passages feel tame

Flow Club is a membership service that hosts dozens of online coworking sessions a day.

The Future of Mental Health

Can Virtual Coworking Platforms Make Us More Productive?

Membership services like Flow Club, Flown and Caveday offer online study halls complete with proctors and goal setting

A Spectra Physics Model A supermarket scanner—one of the first ten ever produced. A laser within the unit projects a beam onto a mirror that redirects it through the glass plate on the top.

The Supermarket Scanner Changed the Way We Buy Groceries Forever

Invented 50 years ago, the curious box deciphered an arcane kind of code to offer shoppers a trip into the future

This 2014 acrylic painting by Taralee Guild captures the glistening promise of a 1960s Airstream at Pismo Beach, California.

How the Airstream Hit the Open Road

This space-age sensation kicked the American road trip into high gear

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