Innovation Now

Bees seem to navigate through dense forests without a care. And now scientists in Sweden may have discovered their secret.

For centuries opiates have brought relief to people in severe pain. But the relief came with consequences. Now researchers are engineering an alternative to morphine.

Exploring comets, asteroids, and small moons can be a difficult task. So what kind of design could be used for autonomous exploration?

The Crystal Cabin Awards honor industry developments that improve cabin comfort when we fly. And Boeing’s Fresh Lavatory on-board toilet took the prize this year.

A NASA Langley team is working with the Forest Service to construct a patented light-weight fire-resistant shelter made of the same woven materials designed to protect a spacecraft from the blistering heat of re-entry.

A forest may take hundreds of years to grow to maturity, so a team at Washington State University has created a cyberforest program to study long term effects on trees.

For the millions of us who wear glasses, switching from our indoor glasses to sunglasses can be a hassle. And transitional lenses that change color when exposed to sunlight just don’t change fast enough to be effective. But now putting on sunglasses could be as simple as flipping a switch.

Whether planning an outdoor event or getting ready for the day, we look to weather forecasts to help us prepare. But more than just day-to-day conditions, weather events can be life or death matters, so researchers at NASA are working hard to develop forecasts that could save lives.

In an effort to learn about combustion in space, NASA scientists set a fire in a Cygnus capsule, and watched it burn.

The shipping lane between the Port of New York and New Jersey is one of the busiest on the east coast, but it’s also home to an incredible population of marine animals – and now scientists have a way to listen in to the sounds beneath the sea.