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Transportation

New Research

Pompeii Fixed Potholes With Molten Iron

A new study suggests the Romans knew how to melt iron and used it to fill in wheel ruts and cavities on their stone streets

Trending Today

One of the Biggest Locomotives of All Time Rides Again

After five years of restoration, 1.2 million pound Big Boy 4014 is visiting Utah to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike

Haze at Joshua Tree National Park.

New Research

Signficant Air Pollution Plagues Almost All U.S. National Parks

Ozone and other pollutants are obscuring views, hurting plants and causing health concerns for visitors at 96 percent of parks

The Red Caboose Motel.

Celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad by Sleeping in a Train Car

These authentic cabooses, mail cars and train cars from U.S. railways have been converted to sleeping quarters for train fanatics

Chinese laborers at work with pick and shovel wheelbarrows and one horse dump carts filling in under the long secret town trestle which was originally built in 1865 on the Present Souther Pacific Railroad lines of Sacramento.

The Transcontinental Railroad Wouldn’t Have Been Built Without the Hard Work of Chinese Laborers

A new exhibit at the National Museum of American History details this underexamined history

Fifth-grader Eric and fourth-grader Isa spent a year working to bring their idea to life

Massachusetts Elementary Students Led Campaign to Install ‘3-D’ Crosswalk in Front of School

The optical illusion uses shaded block of paint to make crossing stripes appear to float in the air

The National Museum of American History has in its collection this Autoped motor scooter from 1918.

Pop History

The Motorized Scooter Boom That Hit a Century Before Dockless Scooters

Launched in 1915, the Autoped had wide appeal, with everyone from suffragettes to postmen giving it a try

Hobo King Dutch, who first set out to ride the rails when he was 10 years old, meets up at the festival’s boxcar with Britt resident John Pratt.

The Last of the Great American Hobos

Hop a train to Iowa, where proud vagabonds gather every summer to crown the new king and queen of the rails

The “Human Organ Monitoring Apparatus for Long-distance Travel” (HOMAL) measures the biophyisiologic properties—temperature, pressure, vibration and altitude—of an organ.

Drones’ Newest Cargo Might Just Be Human Organs

Surgeon Joseph Scalea is developing a cooler, biosensors and an online platform with GPS to monitor organs in transport in real time

Trending Today

Magnetic North Is Cruising Toward Siberia, Puzzling Scientists

It has drifted so far that scientists made an emergency revision to the World Magnetic Model

The Nexus Air Taxi could have Uber airborne within a decade.

Seven Unforgettable Inventions Unveiled at This Year’s CES

From a self-driving suitcase to a flying taxi, these concepts made a splash at the huge trade show in Las Vegas

The plate’s display resembles a Kindle, except that letters and numbers are made up of monochromatic “e-ink.”

Will Digital License Plates Drive Us Forward or Leave Us Fuming?

California-based Reviver Auto has rolled out an electronic license plate that could benefit drivers, as well as cities and states

John Krafcik (left) and Dmitri Dolgov

2018 Smithsonian Ingenuity Awards

Why Waymo’s Fleet of Self-Driving Cars Is Finally Ready for Prime Time

Your driverless car is already here, thanks to the visionary engineers behind a bold experiment

A view of the wreckage in the Malbone St. Tunnel

The Malbone Street Wreck of 1918

A confluence of circumstances led to the deadly disaster, 100 years ago today, in the New York subway that killed 93

A Boeing 747 takes flight.

Traveling the World Was Never the Same Once the Boeing 747 Debuted

Wave goodbye to the beloved jet that took us to new heights

A Brief History of the RV

In 1915, technology merged with the “back to nature” movement, leading to the invention of the motorhome

A proposed street of the future could be made of hexagonal blocks containing lights.

Rethinking How We Build City Streets

Sidewalk Labs envisions modular streets that can morph to meet the everyday needs of a neighborhood

Most garages can double as EV charging stations.

For Electric Vehicles to Take Off, Apartments Need to Come with Charging Stations

As EVs make more inroads, giving tenants somewhere to plug in their cars could become a selling point

The Boarding Glasses have two round lenses in front and two on the side, the hollow rims each half filled with blue liquid.

Could These Glasses Cure Your Motion Sickness?

These odd-looking spectacles are the latest invention to try to resolve the common ailment

The Harmony is an all-electric vehicle designed by Texas A&M engineers.

Personal Flying Machines of the Future Won’t Look Much Like Jet Packs

Judging from the GoFly competition, they’re much more likely to resemble flying motorbikes

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