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Innovation / Technology

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The Skyscraper of the Future May Be Built Like Legos

The world’s cities are in the midst of a skyscraper boom. And one growing trend is to connect pre-fab floors like Lego pieces

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Welcome to a Future When We Work Out on Walls

Is a club where you train on walls while sensors track your body’s performance just another fitness trend? Or is it real innovation?

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Powering the 21st Century

To Develop Tomorrow’s Engineers, Start Before They Can Tie Their Shoes

The Ramps and Pathways program encourages students to think like engineers before they’ve reached double digits

Kalelicious Smoothie Pops: A big hit at the Fancy Food Show

Food Science Brings Us Kale on a Stick and Twinkies That Last Longer

With so much interest in what’s in our meals, food innovators are focusing on making the healthy palatable.

Traveling in pods through tubes. Is this what Elon Musk has in mind?

L.A. to San Fran in 30 Minutes? Can You Say Hyperloop?

Entrepreneur Elon Musk thinks bullet trains are too slow and expensive. He says he has a better idea: high-speed travel in tubes

ARBIMON—a system of distributed recording stations and centralized analysis software—was used to track populations of the endangered plains coqui frog, in Puerto Rico.

A New Technology Can Remotely Analyze an Ecosystem’s Species By its Sound

By distributing networks of microphones to wetlands and forests around the world, biologists could track biodiversity in a whole new way

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Some Day Your Passwords Could Be Replaced by a Pill

Now that passwords are neither secure nor easy, what will replace them? Fingerprint scans? Electronic tattoos? A pill?

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Powering the 21st Century

Tour the Country’s Energy Infrastructure Through A New Interactive Map

Examining the network of power plants, transmission wires, and pipelines gives new insights into the inner workings of the electrical grid

Harnessing the swift tides of the Pentland Firth, a waterway along Scotland’s Northern coast, could generate enough electricity to meet half of the country’s needs.

Energy Innovation

Is Scotland the “Saudi Arabia” of Tidal Power?

The Pentland Firth, a seaway along Scotland’s Northern coast, could generate enough electricity to meet half of the country’s needs, new research finds

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This New Device Can Sterilize Medical Tools Using Solar Power Alone

An invention called the solarclave could help prevent millions of annual infections that result from improperly cleaned medical equipment

How do we resist when burgers and bacon beckon?

Can We Be Tricked into Not Eating So Much?

Just posting calorie counts isn’t very effective. What may work, though, is framing overeating in terms everyone understands

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These Bright Webs Depict Flight Patterns Around Major Airports

Software engineer Alexey Papulovskiy has built Contrailz, a site that generates visuals of flight data over cities around the world

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Coming Soon: The Dream Chaser, a Nimbler Space Shuttle

This NASA-funded project could head into orbit within just a few years

Jeannette Paillan, a Mapuche documentary filmmaker, was the inspiration for this 2012 textile, titled Lukutuwe (Fertility). Scanning the QR code embedded in the tapestry reveals a quotation from Paillan, in Spanish, about the importance of sustaining the Mapuche language.

What’s a QR Code Doing on That Blanket?

Artist Guillermo Bert is weaving together technology and Native American tradition

New digital identification technology is able to identify a person based on his or her typing patterns.

How You Type Could Become Your New Password

New technology can identify an individual just from keystrokes

Fueling the trip to the exoplanet Gliese 667Cd, discovered earlier this week, would be one of humankind’s greatest challenges to date. Above is an artist’s rendering of a view from the planet.

Powering the 21st Century

Can We Power a Space Mission To An Exoplanet?

Ion engines, solar sails, antimatter rockets, nuclear fusion—several current and future technologies could someday help us fuel an interstellar journey

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Why Living in a City Makes You More Innovative

Research suggests that the more opportunities you have to connect with different people—and fresh ideas—the more creative and productive you tend to be

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How Solar Can Save India’s Farmers

Water pumps powered by the sun could solve a host of problems for rural farmers and the nation’s power grid

Research says dogs have learned to behave like children.

Are Dogs Now Just Furry Kids?

Research is showing how much the bonds between dogs and their owners have become like a parent-child relationship

Points interactive directional signpost

A Sign For the Times: Digital Wayfinding Adapts to Your Needs

Design agency BREAKFAST is creating the street sign of the future

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