Feb 03 Watch 5:47 Scientists try to regrow a dying coral reef 25 times faster than nature By PBS News Hour The world’s coral reefs are in perilous danger due to overfishing, pollution and climate change. But a team of scuba-diving scientists has developed a groundbreaking method for speeding up coral growth in hopes of stemming the underwater crisis. Hari Sreenivasan… Continue watching
Jan 30 Watch 7:43 A push to use the human genome to make medicine more precise By PBS News Hour President Obama introduced a new plan to create a database of genetic information of a million Americans in order to better tailor medical treatments for groups of patients. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien interviews Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes… Continue watching
Jan 28 How playing with dangerous x-rays led to the discovery of radiation treatment for cancer By Dr. Howard Markel When the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen’s announced his discovery of the x-ray in December of 1895, he was lauded on the front page of just about every newspaper in the world. Indeed, many journalists called this phenomenon “X-Ray… Continue reading
Jan 15 Watch 3:39 Drive the car of the future? No, it drives you By PBS News Hour A big sensation at the Consumer Electronic Show this year was a preview of the autonomous driving car, a vehicle equipped with a supercomputing chip and software that can recognize other vehicles and obstacles. Special correspondent Steve Goldbloom takes the… Continue watching
Jan 07 How communism turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers By Jenny Marder Just outside Havana, in the childhood bedroom of illustrator Edel Rodriguez, a washing machine engine welded to a boat propeller has become a makeshift fan. This kind of cobbled-together contraption is common in Cuba. So are stoves that run on… Continue reading
Jan 07 Photo essay: The bizarre, brilliant and useful inventions of Cuban DIY engineers By Travis Daub, Jenny Marder Long walled off from world trade and modern technology, Cuba has developed a robust culture of DIY engineers who turn household items into useful inventions. Water pump motors propel bicycles, clothes dryers are repurposed into coconut shredders. Cuban artist Ernesto… Continue reading
Jan 06 WATCH: This machine turns human waste into water By Ruth Tam The Janicki Omniprocessor converts sewer sludge into water, electricity and fertilizer. Continue reading
Dec 26 Watch 5:13 Conservators shine new light on irreplaceable art By PBS News Hour A series of paintings created by Mark Rothko for Harvard University was thought irreparably damaged by years of sun exposure and removed from view. Thirty-five years later, the paintings have returned, thanks to art historians and curators using digital projection,… Continue watching
Dec 22 Watch 7:35 Building literacy among the blind with a teen inventor’s low-cost Lego printer By PBS News Hour Continue watching
Dec 22 Today’s science champions, tomorrow’s Nobel scientists By Adelyn Baxter Forget homemade volcanoes and models of the solar system. Today’s science fairs feature self-driving cars and computer-generated simulations of galaxies. And the prizes, if you’re really good, award way more than extra credit. The most ambitious young inventors have… Continue reading