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Medicine

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Nikola Tesla’s Amazing Predictions for the 21st Century

The famed inventor believed “the solution of our problems does not lie in destroying but in mastering the machine”

April 4, 2013: Taylor Swift, by Klari Reis

Every Day a Different Dish: Klari Reis’ Petri Paintings

This year, a San Francisco-based artist will unveil 365 new paintings, reminiscent of growing bacteria, on her blog, The Daily Dish

Cooked is a from-the-atom-on-up exploration of the ways in which ingredients are transformed.

Michael Pollan, World War II and More Recent Books Out This Month

Read about the transformation of food and what happens to it once its in the digestive system

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With Biodesign, Life is Not Only the Subject of Art, But the Medium Too

Artists are borrowing from biology to create dazzling “biodesigns” that challenge our aesthetics—and our place in nature

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The Unsettling Beauty of Lethal Pathogens

British artist Luke Jerram’s handblown glass sculptures show the visual complexity and delicacy of E. coli, swine flu, malaria and other killing agents

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The Year’s Most Outstanding Science Visualizations

A juried competition honors photographs, illustrations, videos, posters, games and apps that marry art and science in an evocative way

Doug E. Fresh (shown above, performing at the Legends of Hip Hop Tour in February 2011) was a beatboxing pioneer in the 1980s.

Beatboxing, as Seen Through Scientific Images

To see how certain sound effects are humanly possible, a team of University of Southern California researchers took MRI scans of a beatboxer in action

Another medicinal tattoo of the Kayan

Can Tattoos Be Medicinal?

In his travels around the world, anthropologist Lars Krutak has seen many tribal tattoos, including some applied to relieve specific ailments

Elroy and Grandpa Jetson play “spaceball” (1962)

Grandpa Jetson is Way Cooler Than Grandpa Simpson

Montague Jetson is 110 years old—and loving it

Only a sophomore in high school, Jack Andraka may have invented a new test for a deadly form of cancer.

Jack Andraka, the Teen Prodigy of Pancreatic Cancer

A high school sophomore won the youth achievement Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award for inventing a new method to detect a lethal cancer

Approaching Storm, by Ernest Lawson, 1919-20

Art as Therapy: How to Age Creatively

A new exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., showcases the work of elderly artists with memory loss and other chronic conditions

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Nikon Announces the Winners of its “Small World” Competition

See a selection of beautiful images captured by scientists gazing through light microscopes

People in a space colony of the future

A New Great Depression and Ladies on the Moon: 1970s Middle School Kids Look to the Year 2000

The ideal future according to a ten-year-old: shorter school days, lower taxes, and lots and lots of robots

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Painting Portraits With Bacteria

Microbiologist Zachary Copfer has created detailed portraits of famous artists and scientists in petri dishes

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Science Images that Border on Art

This year’s Wellcome Image Award winners pull at your “art” strings. The curious seek out the science behind them

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Synthetic Food, Smart Pills and… Kangaroo Butlers?

In the 21st century, everyone will be smarter—even animals.

The high-tech arms race between cheaters and testers has pushed both sides to the cutting edge of science.

The Future of Cheating in Sports

As technology advances, so will access to ingenious—and troubling—new techniques

Olympic organizers plan to conduct 5,000 drug tests—an unprecedented number—during the London Games.

The Top Athletes Looking for an Edge and the Scientists Trying to Stop Them

Behind the scenes there will be a high-tech, high-stakes competition between Olympic athletes who use banned substances and drug testers out to catch them

Four-person helicopter of the future (1944)

Big Things Ahead… But Keep Your Shirt On

Americans in the 1940s had wondrous expectations about the post-war world. Meet one author who advised them to curb their enthusiasm

1981 vision of future chemical warfare, causing soldiers to hallucinate

Tripping Through the Cold War: Drug Warfare in the Retrofuture

Was LSD the Soviet Union’s secret weapon?

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