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Inventions

This portrait by an anonymous photographer shows the face of the man who popularized the flush toilet: Thomas Crapper.

Three True Things About Sanitary Engineer Thomas Crapper

Thomas Crapper’s actual innovation was entirely tangential to the flush toilet

The inspiration for the bendy straw came while Joseph Friedman was watching his young daughter try to drink from a tall glass.

Why You Should Appreciate the Invention of the Bendy Straw

It’s the straw that bends, not the person

The better we can track hydration in plants, the more we can avoid both over- and under-watering our crops.

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This Snap-On Sensor Could Tell Farmers Exactly How Much To Water Their Crops

A team at Penn State University is developing a clip-on leaf sensor that measures water stress on individual plants

Petit Pli

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These Origami Clothes Grow With Your Child

Designer Ryan Yasin is creating pleated garments that could save on money and waste

The stretchable keyboard cover is designed to make typing truly tactile.

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This Keyboard Cover Lets Users Actually Feel the Letters They Type

Two college students found a way have a keyboard tap into our muscle memory of the alphabet

Don’t overlook immediate safety in a search for something better.

Some of the Best Parts of Autonomous Vehicles Are Already Here

Consumers with high hopes of driverless cars improving safety might be looking past the boring near-term advances that could make a real difference

The device is a pen-sized mass spectrometry device its developers are calling MasSpec Pen.

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Scientists Invent a Pen That Can Detect Cancer in Seconds

This handheld mass spectrometer could make surgeries to remove cancerous tissue quicker and more accurate

Researchers have devised a new way to monitor sleep stages without sensors attached to the body.

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This Device Uses Radio Waves To Track How You’re Sleeping

Scientists think it could help them better understand progression of chronic diseases like Parkinson’s

The smart bin prototype

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A Smart Recycling Bin Could Sort Your Waste for You

It’s sometimes difficult to know where to put different types of plastic, but computer vision could remove any confusion

Unlike Samuel Morse's one-key telegraph, Baudot's used five keys.

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The Roots of Computer Code Lie in Telegraph Code

Émile Baudot, born a year after the first long-distance telegraph message was sent, helped advance the technology

Rebecca Richards-Kortum was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow of 2016.

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The Professor With a Genius For Global Health

Rebecca Richards-Kortum and her students at Rice University are designing low-cost devices that can help mothers and babies in a big way

And you thought your alarm clock was rough.

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11 Cool, Funny or Just Plain Strange Patents for Back to School

From alarm clocks that pummel you in the head to ingenious devices to save your crayon nubs, a peek into the patent archives for back to school season

Philo T. Farnsworth got his big idea while plowing a field. He was 14, by the way.

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The Farmboy Who Invented Television

The inventor of television’s career presages many of the good and bad things about Silicon Valley

The first can opener was a blade that sawed around the can's edge, leaving a jagged rim.

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Why the Can Opener Wasn’t Invented Until Almost 50 Years After the Can

The first ‘can opener’ was a hammer and chisel

An early adding machine, c. 1890, invented by William Seward Burroughs, grandfather of the beat writer.

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How America’s First Adding Machine is Connected to ‘Naked Lunch’

William Seward Burroughs (no, not that one) was the first man to invent a commercially practical calculator

Bishop's long-lasting lipstick was advertised as "kissable."

Chemist Hazel Bishop’s Lipstick Wars

Bishop said her advantage in coming up with cosmetics was that, unlike male chemists, she actually used them

As author Tim Harford writes in his new book, sometimes the most important inventions are not the flashy ones.

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From Lightbulbs to Mutual Funds: Tim Harford on Inventions That Changed the Modern Economy

Paper, the gramophone, double-entry bookkeeping, and barbed wire all make the list

A TEMS device mounted on eyeglasses, with the electrical signal recorded.

Blink Once For Yes: You Can ‘Talk’ to This New Computer Interface With Your Eyes

A tiny sensor mounted to eyeglasses can track eye blinks, allowing communication from locked-in patients

The Sabino sailing into port in 2005. The steamboat still carries museum-goers on tours of the Mystic River.

America’s Oldest Coal-Powered Steamboat Chugs Along

After a two-year restoration, the 109-year-old Sabino is ready to sail for many years to come

Alexander Graham Bell used the money from his telephone patent to fund Volta Laboratories, which later became Bell Laboratories.

Telephones Were Silenced for One Minute After Alexander Graham Bell Died

By the time Bell died, he had moved on to other inventions. But the telephone made a huge mark on American society

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