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Innovation / Technology

It will be quick and it will be hot.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Hot Food, Fast: The Home Microwave Oven

A serendipitous discovery helped engineers harness radar to create the now ubiquitous timesaving appliance

Planet launched 88 more satellites in February.

How Daily Images of the Entire Earth Will Change the Way We Look At It

With more satellites than any other company, Planet Labs gives environmental researchers daily data

Could This Chatbot Prevent Some Deportations?

Visabot helps immigrants and visitors to the United States obtain and keep visas

Surfers take to the water in Montauk, where a shark nursery was discovered offshore last summer.

Future of Conservation

Can Social Media Give Sharks a Better Reputation?

A nonprofit called Ocearch is naming tagged sharks and giving them Twitter and Instagram accounts to ease fears and aid in conservation

Engineers tested the new technology with this poster at a Seattle bus stop.

In Smart Cities of the Future, Posters and Street Signs Can Talk

University of Washington engineers show how “smart” posters can send a message via FM radio waves to smartphone or car radio

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Charging Ahead: The Future of Batteries

Battery research is at a tipping point, and it’s never been more important

The Kirtland’s warbler is one of North America’s most endangered bird species.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Scientists Track, For the First Time, One of the Rarest Songbirds on Its Yearlong Migration

The journey of the Kirtland’s warbler is discovered thanks to a combination of the latest tiny technology and centuries-old solar location methods

Achievement unlocked: Rewritable paper.

Reprintable Paper Becomes a Reality

Coating paper with an inexpensive thin film can allow users to print and erase a physical page as many as 80 times

Two vessels rendezvous off the coast of Argentina in a likely transshipment.

Fighting Illegal Fishing With Big Data

Global Fishing Watch is using satellite data to monitor suspicious ship activity on the high seas

Check out those chompers.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

If We Can Get Past the Ickiness, Hagfish Slime May Actually Be Useful to Us

The gelatinous glop could be the key to everything from bio-inspired kevlar to shark defense for divers

Children have been crippled by land mines in Cambodia.

The Historic Innovation of Land Mines—And Why We’ve Struggled to Get Rid of Them

A number of researchers are developing tools to defuse or detonate land mines without harming civilians

Dream Big: Engineering Our World began playing nationally on February 17th, and it will be shown internationally starting March 25th.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

The New IMAX Film “Dream Big” Roots for the Underdogs in the Engineering World

Director Greg MacGillivray’s latest documentary premieres at the National Air and Space Museum

A Rolls Royce concept for an autonomous ship

What Will the Autonomous Ship of the Future Look Like?

Shipbuilding companies are experimenting with self-driving, remotely-operated and crewless vessels

The back of an ancient sundial reveals a cheat sheet of locations and latitude coordinates.

Early Tech Adopters in Ancient Rome Had Portable Sundials

A little gadget could make you look smart, rich, and tech-savvy—all without necessarily fulfilling its real function

A solid state radio frequency oven would allow you to cook a whole meal at once.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

This Oven Could Change How We Cook

By using radio frequency technology, it can prepare all the components of a dinner, at the same time, just right

Too sick to attend school in person, but perfectly able to participate with a robot’s help.

How Robots Could Help Chronically Ill Kids Attend School

Students with chronic illness often get only a few hours of education a week. Telepresence robots could let them participate fully

Smart Startup

Will This App Turn More Readers On to Serialized Fiction?

Releasing a chapter at a time, Radish could have us binge reading romance and mystery novels

Could This Tiny Drone Covered in Sticky Goop Do the Work of Bees?

Well, it may not replace bees. But it’s a fun project nonetheless

DragonflEye

Turning Dragonflies Into Drones

The DragonflEye project equips the insects with solar-powered backpacks that control their flight

As 19th century urban living became more cramped, some women began to reinvent the domestic sphere with technology.

Women Who Shaped History

These Four Black Women Inventors Reimagined the Technology of the Home

By designating the realm of technology as ‘male,’ we overlook key inventions that took place in the domestic sphere

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