Inventions

Inventor Bob Evans thinks he’s found the future of fuel efficiency

New Gene-Z device identifies diseases in plants, water, and food within 30 minutes, researchers say.

Do we really need to smell the items featured in TV programming? A materials expert has created a function for your TV or portable device that can generate thousands of odors.

Mark Humayun taps the burgeoning field of bioelectronics to help the blind to see and the lame to walk.

From innovation in architecture and robotics to mobile apps and interactive games, technology is reshaping our understanding of and approach to world hunger.

Two recent design international conferences exult in the future of design, which can be harnessed to solve social problems as well as sell mobile phones.

The bottom-of-the-pyramid marketing movement tries to profit the developing world and make a profit at the same time.

University of Georgia professor William Kisaalita engineers simple, practical solutions — a milk chiller, a nutcracker and an egg incubator — for Africa's rural poor.

A U.S. government project combining two well-known technologies — swamp coolers and water-absorbing compounds — generates an amazingly efficient air conditioner.

Although some set-up hurdles remain, a market in scientific predictions may help us forecast innovation.

A mixed picture emerges as science organizations examine the U.S. lead in innovation and where that lead is headed.

Despite years of research on everything from 'HeroRATS' to TNT-sniffing bees, humans still remove most landmines by poking — very, very carefully — in the ground.

A new book by W. Brian Arthur, a pioneer in the area of positive feedback in economics, argues that genius is overrated and technology drives its own innovations.

Sto Corp's self-cleaning Lotusan exterior paint uses the plant's micro-structural qualities to remove dirt just after a rain.

A growing number of scientists, ecologists and entrepreneurs have begun to incorporate 'biomimicry' across a vast spectrum of enterprises.

MIT students use the concept of phototropism to design a sun-tracking solar panel that requires no motor or electronic control system.

An African skyscraper built in 2007 features a unique climate-control system inspired by the gigantic termite mounds found in the Zimbabwean bush.

Jock Brandis invented a low-cost, people-powered peanut sheller that could raise millions out of poverty around the world. Now, if someone would just come up with the money to distribute it.

A Massachusetts architect and a personal solar power system — Portable Light — bring comfort and better medical chances to South African TB patients.