Technology / Gadgets

Fierce Old Warplane Has a New Mission: Flying Into the Hearts of Thunderstorms

Equipped with heavy armor and an impressively 
powerful cannon, the A-10 Thunderbolt was built to survive. 03.27.2012

3-D Printers Spit Out Fancy Food, Green Cars, and Replacement Bones

The list of the new technology's applications grows monthly. 03.26.2012

Tools of the Trade: Curiosity, NASA’s Laser-Blasting Mars Robot

Curiosity will satisfy its curiosity by zapping rocks on the Red Planet and watching the resulting plasma. 03.16.2012

Impatient Futurist: Good News, Spock—We're Getting Closer to a Universal Translator

The rapid advancement of Google-style, statistical translation may help realize this long-time dream. 02.27.2012

Meet the Obscure, Useful Metals Lurking in Products All Around You

Without the rare earths, there would be no iPods and no hybrid cars. But who has even heard of erbium or ytterbium? 09.22.2011

The Internet May Soon Include All of the Things Around You

As wireless nodes become cheaper and more common, our electronic networks will expand to include many of the non-electronic things you really care about: your missing pants, a new shoelace, and the city’s best produce stand.
 08.22.2011

Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Bioplastics: 2 Birds With 1 Stone?

One chemist says he can slash atmospheric carbon dioxide to preindustrial levels in a decade, harnessing the sun's power to make useful products at the same time. 08.01.2011

Forget 3D Screens—We Need 3D Audio, Like in Real Life

A backward march of audio quality has left 
us listening to tinny, stripped-down MP3s. It’s time to show the kids what they are missing. 07.29.2011

Home-in-a-Box for Disaster Survivors

It rolls, unfolds, inflates, and habitates. 07.22.2011

Head-Mounted Laser Microscope Peers Inside Rats' Brains

The ingenious rig shows animals making real-world decisions in real time. 06.20.2011

Future Tech: Looking Forward to the Post-Screen Era

iPads, 3-D TVs, and other slick modern 
displays would be a lot better if they weren't hemmed in by frames and limited by solidity. 05.02.2011

The 100 Top Science Stories of 2010

Every year DISCOVER sorts through the scientific accomplishments of the past 12 months, and assembles a list of the coolest experiments, most brilliant discoveries, and most world-changing events. As you page through the countdown to the #1 science story, we think you'll come to the same conclusion we did: 2010 was quite a year. 12.16.2010

What Is This? A Long, Lost Painting by Joan Miro?

Hints: John Glenn had one on his historic flight. The colors were added to distinguish distance from the camera. 03.08.2010

The Latest Trend in Aircraft: Really, Really Tiny

Microfliers could search for missing people, detect bombs, and perhaps even deliver drugs inside the human body. 03.04.2010

#7: The Graphene Revolution

Flexible, see-through, one-atom-thick sheets of carbon could be a key component for futuristic solar cells, batteries, and roll-up LCD screens—and perhaps even microchips. 01.25.2010

A Deep-Water Submersible That Can Switch to Autopilot

The Nereus can take orders through a 25-mile-long fiber-optic cable, but if that snaps, it can find its way back to the mother ship. 01.14.2010

5 Questions for the Developing World's Disease Fighter

Jose Gomez-Marquez finds new vaccine technologies that work in the lab and in the real world. 01.09.2010

#69: Science Sets Its Eyes on the Prize

Big money awaits innovators who can build rockets, sequence genomes, predict people's movie preferences, harvest energy from the tides, or explore the Moon. 12.25.2009

#72: Tiny Robots Prepare for Surgery

Research groups around the world are developing ingenious robotic devices to improve people's health. 12.23.2009

Santa's 5 Best Tech Innovations

How does Santa accomplish his miraculous feats? With some kick-ass gear. 12.22.2009

Future Tech: Doctor on-Call? Cell-Phone Cameras Can Diagnose Disease

Developing nations often have a lack of medical facilities but good cell phones. The CellScope turns the latter into the former. 10.20.2009

Think Tech: The Best Gadgets to Buy This Month

Devices that are smart, green, portable, and super tough 10.01.2009

Set Your CT Scanner to "Kill" and Look Inside Some Fossils

Penetrating chunks of amber and ancient rock, powerful new imaging machines render 3-D portraits of fossil creatures concealed for millions of years. 08.26.2009

Think Tech: Taking Pictures at Another Time and Place

A new Olympus camera lets you take pictures like a photojournalist or a 19th-century photo pioneer. 07.08.2009

Think Tech: Technology Meets the Great Outdoors

New gadgets that can help you enjoy, document, and survive the wilderness 05.29.2009

Building the World's Wimpiest Space Thruster—Harder Than It Sounds

The ESA's new system is designed to counter the force of sunlight on a spacecraft—about the same as the force of gravity on a single human hair. 05.24.2009

Life After Silicon—How Graphene Could Revolutionize Electronics

Will the next generation of computers, phones, and even energy storage be built on a form of carbon? 05.19.2009

How to Make a Digital Display That Rolls Like a Magazine

Computer screens of the future may wrap around your finger. Here’s an inside look at how HP makes their prototype model. 05.14.2009

Pixels by the Yard: HP Prints Flexible Screens Like Newsprint

A flexible computer screen—one that you can roll up and stick in your pocket—is coming closer to reality. 05.13.2009

The Next Source of Green Energy: Your Car Itself

A new MIT invention turns shock absorbers into electric generators. 05.03.2009

Bringing Dead-Tree Misfits Into the Digital World

A new Fujitsu scanner merges business cards, receipts, and other important pieces of paper with the rest of your data. 04.27.2009

Countdown to Fusion: National Ignition Facility in Pictures

Researchers at Livermore National Lab expect to be producing energy with a controlled, self-sustaining fusion reaction within three years. 04.14.2009

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Money

Interesting info-nuggets about all that stuff you recently sent to the IRS. 04.14.2009

Can Smart Tech Keep Chevy Volt's Battery Running Longer Than Your Laptop's?

GM says that tightly controlling how the battery charges will keep it alive for 10 years/150,000 miles. 04.09.2009

Forget Megapixels: Here Comes the Gigapixel Sky Camera

The Pan-Starrs-1 telescope will scan the skies for asteroids and comets that could wipe out life on Earth. 04.03.2009

Play Nice: 9 Eco-Friendly Toys

This year's Toy Fair in NYC showed a notable trend toward green toys. 03.19.2009

4 Pieces of Crave-able AV Gear

From a killer $16,000 TV to devices that might finally bring the Internet to your living room 03.04.2009

LEDs Light Times Square, But Can They Light Your Office?

A bigger, better diode could bring LED lighting to the mainstream. 02.24.2009

The Climate Drone That Goes Where Scientists Fear to Tread

The Manta explores and monitors Greenland's treacherous glaciers. 02.23.2009

The Latest Hardware Is as Soft as Rubber

These electronic circuits can bend, stretch, and even curve into a spiral. 02.22.2009

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Television

A closer look at the boob tube on quasi-digital-switchover day. 02.17.2009

Autonomous Claw Could Become the World's Tiniest Surgeon

Snowflake-like robot could be used in biopsies and other procedures. 02.06.2009

Prepare for Truly Mobile WiFi

Microsoft's ViFi project uses smarter networking to eliminate Internet outages during travel. 01.28.2009

Gadgets that Can Save Your (Digital) Life

New technology can make your mail, music, and photos nearly indestructible. 01.27.2009

#7: Invisibility Becomes More than Just a Fantasy

Researchers are cloaking materials from light, sound, and even matter itself. 12.21.2008

#26: Sun Catcher Promises Cheaper Solar Power

Using laser technology, scientists build a low-cost solar concentrator. 12.17.2008

#77: X-Rays Reveal Ship-Wreckage to Be 2,000-Year-Old Astronomy Computer

The Antikythera Mechanism tracked heavenly movements like clockwork. 12.09.2008

The Geek's Guide to Christmas Shopping

Five high-tech gifts sure to bring holiday cheer. 11.12.2008

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Elections

Humans have a record of screwing up democracy, but we aren't the only species getting in on the act. 11.03.2008

What Is the Future of Time?

Our obsession with the clock has driven us to refine and control it—but where does that control end? 10.21.2008

6 Blue-Sky Ideas for Revolutionizing the Automobile

Eclectic visionaries imagine an alternate reality where cars walk, fly, and drive themselves. 10.20.2008

Want an Easy Way to Control Your Gadgets? Talk to Them.

AT&T's Watson leads a pack of new gadgets that understand spoken instructions. 10.17.2008

From Booze to Garbage to Fusion: The Future of Energy

How will we fuel the world in 50 years? By putting everything from wood chips to balloons to liquid plasma to work for us. 09.24.2008

Scientists Use High-Tech Dentures to Spy on Tongues

Now they can understand our surprisingly complicated oral physics. 09.22.2008

Want to Know Which Electronics Suck? Ask Your Computer.

A new program mines user reviews to create the ultimate computer-generated critique. 09.07.2008

The Future Is Now for Rechargeable Laptop Batteries

A space-age battery is about to revolutionize portable computing. 08.24.2008

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Sports Technology

How science makes modern athletes go higher, move faster, and stay safer. 08.14.2008

A GPS to Augment Your Entire Reality

Your cell phone will provide the important linkage between the real world and the digital universe. 08.11.2008

The Year the Olympics Went (Really) Hi-Tech

NASA-inspired sneaker soles, ping-pong paddles that whip the ball, "ballistic" artificial kayak courses... 08.08.2008

Does Your House Have Robotic Vision (Yet)?

Buckminster Fuller's revolutionary ideas go on public display. 07.01.2008

IBM May Have the Key to Wireless Hi-Def Video

New hi-tech chips put wireless communications on steroids. 06.26.2008

Ultracapacitors: The Key to Effective Electric Vehicles?

This promising tech may make the leap from bike lights to car motors. 06.24.2008

MTV for Geeks

A new show on Nova offers easily digestible chunks of science. 06.17.2008

The Lycra Swimsuit That's Worth Its Weight in Gold

A first-hand test of the tech that revolutionized swimming. 06.17.2008

Under the Hood of the First Real Fuel-Cell Car

The Honda Clarity is for real, but it's not zero-emissions. 06.08.2008

The Secret History of CIA Spy Technology

A new book by CIA insiders reveals the most James Bond-like real-world spy devices. 05.30.2008

3 Ideas That Are Pushing the Edge of Science

Medical bots powered by sperm, clean fusion power, and two-dimensional time. 05.29.2008

Hands-On at the Nation's Largest Robot Skunk Works

New bots will explore everything from Mars to your mouth—and perform surgery. 05.08.2008

One Hundred Movies on Just One Disk

Holographic digital storage will let consumers store a DVD library on a single disk. 05.08.2008

Who Let the Dogs Out (Into the Eco-Movement)?

New self-sustaining dog houses are perfect for the eco-conscious pooch owner. 05.06.2008

The Space Race For the New Millennium

Despite funding concerns, NASA has big plans for moon exploration. 04.23.2008

Think Tech: The Future of Electronic Displays

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are thin, bright, and energy-thrifty. 04.22.2008

A Science Fair for a Better Planet

A contest to show DISCOVER—and the rest of the humans—how to help Mother Earth. 04.01.2008

The Incredibly Strong See-Through Bicycle

Want a lighter bike? Poke holes in it—the more the better. 03.06.2008

The Sim That Saves People from Each Other

Preventing disaster in an unruly world. 03.03.2008

5 Most Radical Ways to Squelch a Climate Crisis

Why we may need to reprogram the planet—and how we can do it. 02.25.2008

The Latest Weapon Against Global Warming: Your Fridge

Smart appliances react to the grid to prevent blackouts—and pollution. 02.11.2008

Rearranging Stars to Communicate with Aliens

A proposal to create special constellations that nature would never produce 02.08.2008

The Cruelty-Free Dissection

Hi-res X-rays can peer inside meteorites, cavemen, and cell phones. 02.05.2008

Using X-Rays To Do Cruelty-Free Dissection

Hi-res, hi-tech imaging can peer inside meteorites, cavemen, and cell phones. 02.05.2008

It's 2008. Here's Your Jet Pack.

A few brave souls have accomplished individual, powered flight. 01.23.2008

Tiny Robot Walks Using Rat Heart Muscle

Similar bots may one day clear clots in blood vessels. 01.22.2008

58. Discovery Channel 2020: Living-Cell TV

"Hyperlenses" and "superlenses" could let us watch living cells in real time. 01.17.2008

6. Conservation Gets A Green Light

Can fluorescent bulbs save the planet? 12.12.2007

Got Your Back

A robotic-looking exoskeleton helps take the break out of backbreaking work. 09.26.2007

Sage Grouse Bot

09.06.2007

This is Your Brain on Video Games

Gaming sharpens thinking, social skills, and perception. 07.09.2007

How to Pinpoint a Pinniped

It's easy—stick a big radio transmitter on their heads. 05.04.2007

Shock Waves

Super-fast photography reveals the dynamics of explosions. 03.01.2007

Dude, Where's My Jetpack?

A look at the future that refuses to arrive 02.26.2007

Got Your Back

A robotic-looking exoskeleton helps take the break out of backbreaking work. 02.19.2007

Sage Grouse Bot

02.02.2007

Good News For Light Sleepers

Gravity-defying beds are no longer a figment of Stanley Kubrick's imagination. 12.08.2006

Neighborhood Watch Goes High Tech

Monitor your neighbors—or the Texas-Mexico border—right from your computer. 09.01.2006

How to Make Anything Look Like a Toy, Round II

More visual candy from artist Olivo Barbieri 08.16.2006

Boot Camp Just Got Harder

The Army adds shock treatment to target practice. 08.01.2006

Can You Hear Meteorology Now?

Now your cell phone can give you the latest weather updates. 08.01.2006

Jaron's World: Heads-Up

Why your next telephone may come mounted on a neck. 07.30.2006

Seeing Machine

A new device uses LED light to give a blind poet sight. 07.28.2006

Not Your Father's Bifocals

The future of senior vision 07.01.2006

How To Make Anything Look Like a Toy

It's a small world after all that frame tilting. 07.01.2006

Blinded by Science: Nightmare of Divided Loyalties

Fahrenheit has warm familiarity on its side, and Celsius weighs in with cool logic. We need something completely different 06.25.2006

A Better Energizer

An ultracapacitor is what really keeps going and going. . . . 05.28.2006

All Aboard The Cow Train

Natural gas from the manure of about 30 cows powers a train. 05.28.2006

High Powered Prosthetics

Bionic muscle is 100 times stronger than yours. 05.04.2006

Pot Hole Hunters

High technology conquers pot holes. 04.27.2006

Anything Into Oil

Turkey guts, junked car parts, and even raw sewage go in one end of this plant, and black gold comes out the other end. 04.02.2006

Vanishing Vertigo

New device restores balance to the impaired. 03.31.2006

Emerging Technology

Welcome to the fashionable world of digitized duds (batteries not included) 03.04.2006

Emerging Technology

Hey, Steve Jobs: How about a machine that knows some verbs? 02.20.2006

Time Machine

Will a clock that works flawlessly for 10,000 years become the greatest wonder of the world? 11.26.2005

The Physics of Bras

Overcoming Newton's second law with better bra technology 11.22.2005

Observer

10.01.2004

Tinker, Thinker, Inventor of the Modern World

Look around and you'll find Einstein's fingerprints on everything from GPS satellites to Viagra 09.30.2004

Observer

08.02.2004

The Biology of . . . Migraines

A gun that shoots magnetic pulses puts an end to an age-old scourge 08.02.2004

Throat Talkin'

07.25.2004

Observer

07.25.2004

Let the Sun Shine In

A novel idea for piping in sunlight where dreary fluorescent bulbs have long dominated 07.25.2004

Paper-View Movies

07.13.2004

Observer

Ups and Downs 06.27.2004

Cheddar Meets Its Match

Cheddar Meets Its Match 05.30.2004

Observer

The Lifesaver 05.29.2004

The Cryptography of . . . Voting Machines

Electronic skullduggery could create greater confusion than hanging chads 05.29.2004

Observer

04.21.2004

Emerging Technology

Tiny talking identification tags could change the very nature of consumerism 03.30.2004

MIT's Plasma Bus

03.28.2004

Observer

Sneaker Science 03.28.2004

Technology

01.02.2004

Kamikaze Cameras

01.02.2004

Light Flight

01.02.2004

How Smart Are You?

Bran Ferren's yellow plastic box is full of gadgets and gizmos. What you can figure out about them may be more revealing than any IQ test 12.03.2003

Technology for Humanity: Robert Fischell

The Inventor Who Saved 65,000 Lives 11.09.2003

Stop Driving With Your Feet

The genius of GM's Hy-wire isn't the fuel-cell platform—it's driving with just your hands 10.01.2003

Discover Roundtable: Can We Make Wireless Work?

Cell-phone coverage in the United States may be the worst in the world, and data transmission is even more troubling. Yet insiders insist there's hope 09.01.2003

Better X-Ray Vision

09.01.2003

The Electronic Grizzly

Can new 4-D mapping techniques keep these majestic creatures alive? 08.31.2003

The First Nerd Tool

Slide Rules 08.01.2003

Maximog

A scientist builds the ultimate SUV for field research 06.01.2003

Stopping Time

What can you do in a billionth of a billionth of a second? 06.01.2003

Sterilized by Sound

05.01.2003

Surgery by Sunlight

03.01.2003

Beyond Breathalyzer

03.01.2003

Technology

01.01.2003

The Next Photography Revolution

Here comes a digital-camera chip that could change everything 12.01.2002

Future Tech

Is the incandescent bulb becoming as quaint as the vacuum tube? 11.01.2002

Combustible Corpses

10.01.2002

Rain, Rain, Go Away

A superabsorbent polymer reinvigorates an old dream 09.01.2002

Waste Not, Want Not

09.01.2002

Future Tech

Laser beams make a play to replace the scalpel, the dental drill, and the X ray 06.01.2002

Follow Up:

06.01.2002

Fire in the Brain

Can programmable implants help epileptics detect the onset of seizures? 05.01.2002

Science's Favorite New Technology

How did we track ocean whirlpools, monitor volcanoes, predict earthquakes, and watch suspension bridges bend before GPS? 03.01.2002

Sky Lights

4 banishes blurry pictures from astronomers' photo albums 03.01.2002

Shake Your Viruses

03.01.2002

Technology

Year In Science 01.13.2002

Future Tech

Smart farm equipment knows how to tend the fields. Soon tractors won't even need a driver 11.01.2001

They Invented it

11.01.2001

They Invented it

10.01.2001

The Racer's Edge

10.01.2001

Seismic Shift

If a nuclear sub blows up in the ocean and no one hears it, did it really explode? The Russians won't say, but a seismologist in Arizona knows the answer 09.01.2001

Future Tech

Dogs can smell land mines, but humans cannot. Sensitive new chemical sniffers could fix that 09.01.2001

Program Advisers/Evaluators

Discover Magazine Innovation Awards 07.01.2001

Winner - $100,000 Christopher Columbus Foundation Award

Richard Craig, PhD; Staff Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Richland, Washington 07.01.2001

Winner - Health

Robert Wind, PhD; Staff Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Richland, Washington 07.01.2001

Saving The Children

Discover Magazine Innovation Awards 07.01.2001

Entertainment: Mark Billinghurst

Discover Magazine Innovation Awards 07.01.2001

Health: Robert Wind

Discover Magazine Innovation Awards 07.01.2001

They Invented it

05.01.2001

Radio Flyer

Can a tenacious lone inventor revolutionize wireless communications with a chip he invented in his garage? 05.01.2001

They Invented it

03.01.2001

Hot Fusion in a Can

03.01.2001

Molecules in 3-D

02.01.2001

Future Tech

Do children know a better computer when they see it? 12.01.2000

Future Tech

Motorists' prayers for decent radio will soon be answered—from outer space 11.01.2000

They Invented it

11.01.2000

Water Gate

11.01.2000

Sweat Tech

This year's Olympics are a showcase of science as well as skill 09.01.2000

Future Tech

Rebreathers are rapidly making scuba gear look like the underwater equivalent of a windup watch 07.01.2000

Future Tech

This tube of supercharged sound could make the biggest bang since internal combustion 05.01.2000

Works in Progress

Even the best technology in the world can't seem to calculate how high this mountain really is 05.01.2000

Bedroom MRI's

03.01.2000

I See Music

03.01.2000

Future Tech

Machines that turn ideas into objects are reshaping everything from Camrys to computers 02.01.2000

Smart Bra

10.01.1999

MacCready's Flying Circus

The father of human-powered flight sends imaginations soaring with gigantic solar-powered planes that fly forever and micro air vehicles that silently spy over the horizon 09.01.1999

Operation Sting

08.01.1999

Wristwatcher

08.01.1999

Liar, Liar, Face on Fire

The real truth is written all over your face. 07.01.1999

One-Minute Cholesterol Test

One-Minute Cholesterol Test 07.01.1999

If Appliances Could Talk

If Appliances Could Talk 07.01.1999

Video on a Chip

Video on a Chip 07.01.1999

New Light on 1

New Light on 1 07.01.1999

Ark de Triomphe

Wanted: Your message in a time capsule designed to last 50,000 years 06.01.1999

The Great White's Ways

Sharks gather off the coast of California each year and feast on seals and sea lions, but not humans. A new tracking system may help reveal why. 06.01.1999

Glib Globe

06.01.1999

THE GREAT WHITE'S WAYS

Sharks gather off the coast of California each year and feast on seals and sea lions, but not humans. A new tracking system may help reveal why. 06.01.1999

3-D Ultrasound

02.01.1999

Iris ID

01.01.1999

Plasmamobiles

12.01.1998

Turtle in a Tunnel

11.01.1998

Explosive Cooking

10.01.1998

Making Waves

10.01.1998

Microneedles

10.01.1998

The Mothmobile

07.01.1998

Hot Seat

Hot Seat 03.01.1998

Dining on the Fly

It's not every paparazzo who can catch a bug-eating bug in the act. 02.01.1998

Technology Watch

Tomorrow's Engine 02.01.1998

The Year in Science: Technology 1997

Being There (and Everywhere) 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Technology 1997

Plasma Mirror 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Technology 1997

Motion is the Root of All EvilLook, Ma 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Technology 1997

Motion is the Root of All EvilFast Car 01.01.1998

The Year in Science: Chemistry 1997

Magic Mushrooms 01.01.1998

Tokens of Science

12.01.1997

A Quiet Jackhammer

11.01.1997

The Sonar Cane

11.01.1997

The Plasma Car Wash

10.01.1997

Penguin Power

09.01.1997

Chasing the Jetsons

If life imitates art, why can't technology imitate cartoons? 09.01.1997

Breaking Waves

08.01.1997

The Surfball

05.01.1997

The Light on Life

With laser devices of his own making, Richard Zare can coax molecules to reveal their inner nature to him. Any sort of molecule will do--even one that might come from an extraterrestrial. 05.01.1997

What a Croc

04.01.1997

The Curse of QWERTY

O typewriter? Quit your torture! 04.01.1997

The Color of Stress

03.01.1997

The Nano-abacus

03.01.1997

Beauty and Magnets

03.01.1997

The Wired Butterfly

The world's tiniest radar tags are making a Rocky Mountain butterfly--and its ecology--a lot easier to follow. 02.01.1997

Roll Over Roentgen

01.01.1997

Stove-Top Rocket

12.01.1996

A Clock More Perfect Than Time

In a lab in Boulder, one physicist is building a clock that will not gain or lose a second for 300 million years. Next door, a colleague is putting together one accurate for 30 billion years. And when they've finished those, they'll start working on better ones. 12.01.1996

Jupiter in a Jar

11.01.1996

The Electronic Nose

Can't tell a Chateau Margaux '82 from an '84? Can't stop worrying whether you turned off the gas? Get a new nose. On a chip. 09.01.1996

Reinventing the Wheel

A flywheel may be the key to a car that's both powerful and efficient. 08.01.1996

The Left-Hearted Gene

Nobody questions Jack Bitterly's brilliance. But is this reclusive, curmudgeonly inventor truly on the verge of making the automobile engine obsolete? 08.01.1996

Touching the Heart

06.01.1996

Inflation Watch

01.01.1996

Boob Cube

12.01.1995

Boy oh Buoyant

12.01.1995

Atom Smith

Dick Siegel has invented a forge that manipulates matter a molecule at a time. 12.01.1995

The Sensitive Touch

A microscope that can feel inside a molecule and label each and every atom: researchers are designing one right now. 10.01.1995

Smart Plane

08.01.1995

Rube Awakening

08.01.1995

X-ray Dreams

Scientists of all stripes yearn for the incredibly powerful beacon of an X-ray laser. Charles Rhodes wants one so badly that he's willing to reinvent physics to get it. 07.01.1995

Magnetic Field Goal

A Penn State researcher has scored big with his maps of the human head's magnetic fields. These 3-D computer models could eliminate a vexing black hole at the center of some MRI scans. 06.01.1995

Tech Roulette

Looking for an all-terrain airplane? A hacksaw for titanium? A thumb-size microwave? The wonders of the former Soviet Union are now on sale--but at what price? 04.01.1995

Printing in 3-D

09.01.1994

The Brain at Work

07.01.1994

Rubes in Training

Students compete for the whackiest machine that can screw in a lightbulb. 08.01.1993

Metamusic

05.01.1993

Patently Ridiculous

12.01.1992

Power Suits

Coming Soon: Strap-on robot limbs that will give you the strength of a gorilla! The grace of a gazelle! The fantastic leap of a kangaroo! Despite decades of failure, a hardy band of engineers continues to dream. 12.01.1992

Fly Like a Cetacean

09.01.1992

Ticket to Ride

08.01.1992

If He Only Had a Brain

Right now it's floating in a dish in Japan. Someday it may be offering you advice. 08.01.1992

Uncommon Visions

06.01.1992

Machine Music

05.01.1992

Spin Doctor

Randy Lewis thinks the silky stuff of cobwebs may be the fiber of the future. 05.01.1992

Icarus Unbound

04.01.1992

Batteries Included

Designed by a team of visionary engineers, a unique new car is fast, sexy, and--with zero emissions--environmentally correct for the nineties. 03.01.1992

The Unfolding World of Chuck Hoberman

When is a building a mechanism? When is a mechanism a piece of art? When they're designed by Chuck Hoberman, the Buckminster Fuller of the 1990s. 03.01.1992