Engineering

Spiders Get Information From the Vibrations of Their Webs

Depending on the frequency, a vibrating thread of silk can tell a spider if it needs to repair its home or go collect a snared snack

Engineers Are Constructing a Giant Steel Lid to Contain Chernobyl’s Radioactive Core

The arch-shaped lid will protect against radioactive dust should Chernobyl's decaying facilities collapse

The projected tsunami propagation for last night's Chile earthquake.

It Is Now Technically Possible to Stop an Earthquake

Scientists have devised a way to reflect seismic waves

Scientists made synthetic version of a chromosome found in brewer's yeast, pictured above, a fungus commonly used to make beer.

Scientists Build a Yeast Chromosome From Scratch. Next Up? Designer Genomes

Creating synthetic organisms with specially-tailored genomes is a long way off, but the first synthetic eukaryotic chromosome is a big step forward

Iraq’s Impressive New Trains Can Zip Passengers Across the Country at 100 Miles Per Hour

The new trains will connect Baghdad with another major city

Villagers construct a new bridge over the Apurimac River, in Huinchiri, Peru, in 2012.

The Earliest and Greatest Engineers Were the Incas

Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough treks to Peru to see how Machu Picchu was built

Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space, and Yuri Gagarin

Soviet Russia Had a Better Record of Training Women in STEM Than America Does Today

Perhaps it's time for the United States to take a page from the Soviet book just this one time

What is the Trick to Making the Most Waterproof Stuff on Earth?

It's all in the texture. An MIT-led team of mechanical engineers is creating a super water-resistant material inspired by the wings of butterflies

Rethinking the battery may hold the key to how we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels

Want to Revolutionize Energy? Improve the Battery

Better energy storage could transform electric vehicles and the power grid, and help the climate

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Life in the City Is Essentially One Giant Math Problem

Experts in the emerging field of quantitative urbanism believe that many aspects of modern cities can be reduced to mathematical formulas

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How to Count to 100,000 STEM Teachers in 10 Years

Talia Milgrom-Elcott is building a coalition of the willing, an army devoted to bringing thousands of educators to the classroom

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Could Solar Panels on Your Roof Power Your Home?

Researchers at MIT are investigating how to turn houses in Cambridge, Massachusetts, into mini-power plants

Elon Musk is a man of all trades when it comes to technology.

Elon Musk, the Rocket Man With a Sweet Ride

The winner of the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award for technology hopes to launch a revolution with his spaceship and electric car

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How Biomimicry is Inspiring Human Innovation

Creative minds are increasingly turning to nature—banyan tree leaves, butterfly wings, a bird's beak— for fresh design solutions

The pogo stick remained essentially unchanged for 80 years. Recently, three inventors have created powerful new gravity-defying machines that can leap over (small) buildings in a single bound.

How the Pogo Stick Leapt From Classic Toy to Extreme Sport

Three lone inventors took the gadget that had changed little since it was invented more than 80 years ago and transformed it into a gnarly, big air machine

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How to Become the Engineers of Our Own Evolution

The "transhumanist" movement says better technology will enable you to replace more and more body parts—even your brain

The 5.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Washington, D.C. on August 23 caused damage to the Washington Monument.

Scaling the Washington Monument

Mountaineering park ranger Brandon Latham talks about how engineers investigated the monument from hundreds of feet above the ground

Shai Agassi, at a corporate facility outside Tel Aviv, founded a company whose name reflects his determination to improve the world.

Charging Ahead With a New Electric Car

An entrepreneur hits the road with a new approach for an all-electric car that overcomes its biggest shortcoming

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Budding Aerospace Engineer Wins Intel Science Competition

The ocean's boundless energy (von Jouanne near Oregon's Otter Rock Beach) could furnish up to 6.5 percent of U.S. electricity.

Catching a Wave, Powering an Electrical Grid?

Electrical engineer Annette von Jouanne is pioneering an ingenious way to generate clean, renewable electricity from the sea

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