Engineering Design

  1. Health & Medicine

    Ultrasound might become a new way to manage diabetes

    Ultrasound turns on production of the hormone insulin in mice. Someday, it might help maintain healthy blood-sugar levels in people who were recently diagnosed with diabetes.

    By
  2. Health & Medicine

    Explainer: Vaccines are not linked to autism

    Some parents say no to children’s vaccines because they worry immunizations could cause autism. But science has looked again and again and still finds no causal tie.

    By and
  3. Earth

    Explainer: Why sea levels aren’t rising at the same rate globally

    The ocean is rising all over the world. The rise seems speedier in some places. What gives? Many factors, it turns out, affect where — and why — the tide gets high.

    By and
  4. Earth

    Explainer: How is water cleaned up for drinking

    Unless you’re drinking well water, city folks typically get drinking water that has been treated in a water-treatment plant. Here’s what that means.

    By
  5. Earth

    Explainer: Where fossil fuels come from

    Despite one oil company famously using an Apatosaurus as its logo, oil, gas and coal don’t come from dinosaurs. They do, however, come from a long time ago.

    By
  6. Health & Medicine

    Explainer: What is a clinical trial?

    Scientists perform these to compare the effects of a new drug or therapy in treated — and untreated — people. Always people.

    By
  7. Planets

    Asteroids may have delivered water to early Earth

    Scientists shot mineral pellets at a simulated planet. It showed an impact wouldn’t have boiled off all of an asteroid’s water.

    By
  8. Tech

    New eyewear could help the visually impaired

    Young inventors develop novel electronics to help people identify colors and navigate obstacles.

    By
  9. Computing

    Fingerprints could help keep kids from dangerous websites

    A teen develops a program that estimates age based on someone’s fingers

    By
  10. Science & Society

    Heating up the search for hidden weapons

    Using an off-the-shelf camera and an innovative bit of software, a high-school student developed the means to inexpensively detect a hidden weapon.

    By
  11. Protecting deer with high-pitched noises

    After her uncle crashed his truck into a deer, this teen decided to find out if there was a sound that would drive the animals away from roads.

    By
  12. Tech

    Hurricane crisis inspires teen’s water-cleanup system

    In the wake of last summer’s devastating Hurricane Maria, a Puerto Rican Intel ISEF finalist developed a do-it-yourself system to create clean drinking water.

    By