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Innovation / Technology

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

Australia Wants to Streamline Its Border Control Using Biometrics

The country envisions a system that would eliminate the need for paper passports or identity cards for a number of the 35 million who visit each year

Chinese researchers have harnessed the power of deep learning to help doctors identify this rare disease.

New Research

Can Eagle-Eyed Artificial Intelligence Help Prevent Children From Going Blind?

Deep learning pinpoints cataracts more accurately than humans, and could help prevent this form of vision loss in children

The structure of the battery is formed from a sheet of chromatography paper, divided into a grid of creases.

This Spit-Powered Biobattery Is Made From a Single Sheet of Paper

Researchers at Binghamton University are developing inexpensive paper biobatteries to power simple sensors that monitor things like blood sugar

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