Technology

The Woman Who Made a Device to Help Disabled Veterans Feed Themselves—and Gave It Away for Free

World War II nurse Bessie Blount went on to become an inventor and forensic handwriting expert

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The Innovative Spirit

The Innovative Spirit: Changing Our World For the Better

In partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, we look at the innovative spirit within the Smithsonian and beyond

Jason Moore, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State, David Pepley, a doctoral student studying mechanical engineering, and Yichun (Leo) Tang, an undergraduate student studying mechanical engineering, work with the needle simulator training device.

This New Needle Simulator Could Train Medical Students To Have a Steady Hand

Penn State researchers have developed a device that could help future doctors perfect their needle insertion technique—before they start on people

Stanford Ovshinsky, 2008

Stanford Ovshinsky Might Be the Most Prolific Inventor You’ve Never Heard Of

A new book calls attention to the 20th-century genius with more than 400 patents to his name

The project aims to map the "Big Four," or the four most common venomous snakes in India—the spectacled cobra, saw-scaled viper, Russell’s viper (shown here) and common krait.

This App Is Saving Thousands of Snakes (and Humans) in India

The Big Four Mapping Project's conservation tool helps prevent snakebites and the killing of common venomous species

The coating, if used on enough buildings at once, could also help deal with so-called “urban heat islands.”

This New Coating Could Help Keep Buildings Cool

The porous polymer uses tiny air holes to reflect all wavelengths of sunlight, cooling buildings far better than white paint

The antennas are made from a special two-dimensional metallic material called MXene.

Are Spray-On Antennas the Future of Wearables?

The ultra-thin, flexible antennas can be applied to nearly any surface using an airbrush

A Mobius strip.

The Mathematical Madness of Möbius Strips and Other One-Sided Objects

The discovery of the Möbius strip in the mid-19th century launched a brand new field of mathematics: topology

A satellite image of Los Angeles

What Can Satellite Imagery Tell Us About Obesity in Cities?

A new AI can figure out which elements of the built environment might influence a city's obesity rate

A long exposure of the Treasury at night illuminated by candlelight

Zooming In on Petra

How digital archaeologists are using drones and cutting-edge cameras to recreate the spectacular 2,000-year-old ruins in Jordan

New "robotic skins" technology developed by Yale researchers allows users to turn everyday objects into robots.

These "Robotic Skins" Turn Everyday Objects Into Robots

A team at Yale University has developed flexible robotic sheets that can make just about anything move

How Wireless Water-to-Air Communication Could Revolutionize Marine Research

Solving a longstanding puzzle, MIT researchers have developed a way of sending signals from underwater to airborne devices

"The Right Trousers"

These Robotic Pants Could Help Some Disabled People Walk Again

'The Right Trousers' combine soft artificial muscles and electric stimulation to get people moving

The vibrant Baltimore Oriole can be found migrating throughout large portions of eastern and central North America.

Scientists Can Predict When Birds Will Migrate Up to a Week in Advance

A new forecasting model using years of bird migration data and weather radar could help us protect migrating birds from harm

A jaw of an Eoconodon coryphaeus—a house cat-sized omnivore that lived between about 66 and 63 million years ago—that Williamson collected in the San Juan Basin.

Nuclear Technology May Help Bring Early Mammal Evolution Into Focus

Using a neutron scanner at Los Alamos, paleontologists are generating high-resolution imagery of early mammal fossils

Rice University scientists have programmed drones to coordinate their tracking efforts with each other.

Teaching Drones to Sniff Out Toxic Air

Swarms of the flying devices, using sensors and AI, will learn to find and track harmful gases

Aerial view of crop circles

How Center Pivot Irrigation Brought the Dust Bowl Back to Life

Crop circles saved the Great Plains when farmer Frank Zybach invented a new sprinkler system in the 1940s

How Scientists Can Learn About Human Behavior From Closed-Circuit TV

While researchers used to rely on interviews and experiments, raw video reveals subtle, previously hidden reactions

Bloede Dam (ca. 2016) near Ilchester, Maryland

Drones Will Track One of the Largest Dam Removals on the East Coast

When a Maryland dam comes down this fall, a team of scientists will deploy drones to monitor the flow of more than two million cubic feet of sediment

A Brief History of the RV

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

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