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Innovations

NASA just announced a partnership with Tide to figure out how to do laundry in space. Solving this problem will allow astronauts to stop throwing away their dirty clothes, which means some missions must ferry hundreds of pounds of clean clothes into space.

NASA Just Put Doing the Laundry on Astronauts’ Chore List

Dirty clothes are currently thrown away, requiring missions where weight is at a premium to bring many pounds of socks, shirts and underwear

Inventive and egalitarian, the Arts and Industries Building is due to open in November after being closed for nearly two decades.

Smithsonian 175

The Storied Past and Inspiring Future of the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building

It was once the Institution’s most forward-looking museum. Soon it will be again

Visionary executive William Barstow Strong led the second transcontinental line, the Santa Fe, in the 1880s, paving the way for thousands of miles of track.

How the Santa Fe Railroad Changed America Forever

The golden spike made the newspapers. But another railroad made an even bigger difference to the nation

When a person uses the HiccAway to drink water, they have to suck about four times harder than if they were using a regular straw.

Innovation for Good: Game Changers

This Straw Is Designed to Instantly Cure Hiccups

The ‘HiccAway’ stopped cases of hiccups 92 percent of the time during an early trial

Nyan Cat, a 2011 animated feline with a Pop Tart body, first became a popular YouTube video but was reclaimed by its creator, a young Dallas artist named Chris Torres, as an NFT that sold for $587,000 in February.

Hirshhorn Hosts Panel of Experts to Hash Out the Brave New World of Non-Fungible Tokens

The unexpected $69 million sale of a digital artwork shocked the art world and now disruption is the name of the game

President Barack Obama fist bumps a robotic arm being controlled by electrodes implanted in Nathan Copeland's brain at the University of Pittsburgh on October 13, 2016.

New Research

Researchers Create Mind-Controlled Robotic Arm With Sense of Touch

Touch feedback allowed a man with electrodes implanted into his brain to command a robotic arm and complete tasks quickly

Before donating the 45.5-carat Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution, the jeweler Harry Winston had Bradford Bachrach photograph Eleanor Kidd—the face of Lucky Strike cigarettes—wearing the gem in 1958.

The Story Behind the Photography Studio That Captured America

For generations, Bachrach Photographers made everyone, from JFK to Duke Ellington to everyday people, look great

Freshly gathered truffles at Burwell Farms are the fruit of a bold collaboration—and a proprietary cultivation technique.

Has the American-Grown Truffle Finally Broken Through?

These delicacies, harvested in an experiment in North Carolina, have food-lovers and farmers ravenous for more

The enzyme-enhanced plastic film had the same strength and flexibility as a standard plastic grocery bag.

Innovation for Good: Game Changers

This Biodegradable Plastic Will Actually Break Down in Your Compost

Water and heat activate plastic-munching enzymes that reduce the material to harmless chemical building blocks

Xiulin Ruan, a Purdue University professor of mechanical engineering, holds up his lab’s sample of the whitest paint on record.

Innovation for Good: Game Changers

This Ultra-White Paint May Someday Replace Air Conditioning

Developed by researchers at Purdue University, the paint reflects 98.1 percent of sunlight

Seventeen-year-old Dasia Taylor was named one of 40 finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the country’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors.

Innovation for Good: Game Changers

This High Schooler Invented Color-Changing Sutures to Detect Infection

After winning a state science fair and becoming a finalist in a national competition, Dasia Taylor now has her sights set on a patent

The stories of children who participated in polio vaccine tests became a constant in media coverage, appearing alongside warnings and debates.

Vintage Headlines

The Press Made the Polio Vaccine Trials Into a Public Spectacle

As a medical breakthrough unfolded in the early 1950s, newspapers filled pages with debates over vaccine science and anecdotes about kids receiving shots

In makeshift home laboratories, a team of scientists discovered that cotton flannel is the optimal fabric, and their latest study says that the moisture from our breath makes the mask more effective.

How to Build a Better Homemade Face Mask, According to Science

When Covid-19 hit, Smithsonian researchers set up makeshift home laboratories to conduct groundbreaking studies on mask fabric materials

Grooming miles of track is a job that starts long before January, when drivers start taking to the ice.

Why Automakers Flock to This Small Swedish Town Every Winter

From January to April, the population of Arjeplog more than quadruples, as almost every brand test drives its vehicles on the region’s frozen lakes

Beeple's Everydays: The First 5000 Days, a non-fungible token, or an entirely digital work, will go up for auction at Christie's later this month.

Entirely Digital Artwork Sells for Record-Breaking $69 Million

The sale marks the third-highest auction price achieved by a living artist

What if literature was an invention for making us happier and healthier?

Eight of Literature’s Most Powerful Inventions—and the Neuroscience Behind How They Work

These reoccuring story elements have proven effects on our imagination, our emotions and other parts of our psyche

Jennifer Doudna, a Nobel Prize recipient for her work on the gene-editing tool CRISPR, and the "life sciences revolution" are the dual subjects of Walter Isaacson's latest biography.

How Scientist Jennifer Doudna Is Leading the Next Technological Revolution

A new book from Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson offers an incisive portrait of the gene editing field that is changing modern medicine

Artificial Intelligence has been used to help caregivers focus on patients most at-risk, sort threats to patient recovery and foresee spikes in facility needs for things like beds and ventilators.

How Doctors Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Battle Covid-19

Software is helping to shape treatment, but experts worry that some tools are approved too soon and others are biased

Virgin's hyperloop system uses magnetic levitation technology to reduce friction and low-pressure sealed vacuums along the track that minimize air resistance.

Futures

Smithsonian’s ‘Futures’ Exhibition to Feature Virgin Hyperloop’s Record-Breaking Transportation Pod

Virgin Hyperloop’s Pegasus vehicle will be on display for viewers to take a closer look at its interior this fall

Left, a portion of the patent plan designed by Marie Van Brittan Brown and her husband Albert, right.

Women Who Shaped History

A Brief History of the Invention of the Home Security Alarm

A hardworking nurse envisioned a new way to know who was at the door

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