Engineering

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

These rocks don’t lose their shape: thanks to recent advances, scientists can grow gems (from Apollo) and industrial diamonds in a matter of days.

Diamonds on Demand

Lab-grown gemstones are now practically indistinguishable from mined diamonds. Scientists and engineers see a world of possibilities

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Life Unplugged

Bundle up your power cords—wireless energy transfer is here

Though sundials have been around 3,000 years, William Andrewes (indicating the lateness of the hour in his garden in Concord, Massachusetts) is perhaps the first to build one showing the time in multiple places simultaneously.

The Shadow Knows

Why a leading expert on the history of timekeeping set out to create a sundial unlike anything the world has ever seen

The first step in making charcoal from sugar cane bagasse is setting it on fire in a used oil drum.

Interview: Amy Smith, Inventor

Amy Smith, a practitioner of humanitarian engineering, wants to solve everyday problems for rural families in the developing world

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Peewee Power

The invention of a gas-fueled generator the size of a quarter heralds a future of ever-smaller machines

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Reaching Toward Space

His 1935 rocket was a technological tour de force, but Robert H. Goddard hid it from history

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