Competitions spur creativity and promise tangible results to address some of the world’s biggest problems Just over three years ago, engineer and entrepreneur Peter Diamandis took the winner... Read more
San Francisco (where else?) has launched a new plan to deal with disasters using collaborative consumption. Will they actually be able to make a difference? After superstorm Sandy ravaged th... Read more
Provita, a company staffed entirely by kids under 18, is working on a project (with funding from the Gates Foundation) to use mosquitoes to help carry important vaccines. Joshua Meier, CEO o... Read more
A study by researchers from Hospital for Special Surgery has shown that platelet-rich plasma (PRP) holds great promise for treating patients with knee osteoarthritis. The treatment improved... Read more
Using the sun to light office buildings instead of electricity saves energy. But is it affordable? The radiometer tracks the sun’s progress across the Manhattan skyline and sends a sig... Read more
What if there were only a couple dozen police officers to patrol all of Manhattan? Now imagine that the borough protected something far more valuable than gold, something that heavily armed... Read more
The design debuted at the government’s Solar Decathalon, but instead of just being a show piece, new versions of it are being installed around Washington by Habitat for Humanity. The Departm... Read more
The people who run U.S. Steel have not had much reason to celebrate in a long time. Once the icon of American manufacturing, the company became shorthand for the country’s industrial decline... Read more
The serial philanthropist’s project is helping people raise tons of money for their causes, while keeping the attitude light and funny. In October, and before an audience of 800 Chicago Idea... Read more
New computer model takes a page from weather forecasting to predict regional peaks in influenza outbreaks Scientists have developed a system to predict the timing and severity of seasonal in... Read more
The pharmaceutical industry funnels money to prominent scientists who are doing research that affects its products–and nobody can stop it When Robert Lindsay chose to become a medical... Read more
The Mayor’s Challenge is a contest run by Bloomberg Philanthropies to find the best ideas bubbling out of our cities–from data mining to turning foreclosed houses into urban farms. It’... Read more
Betaville is like SimCity, if SimCity actually simulated a real city. We recently had the opportunity to play the new version of SimCity, a city-building game series that has been popular fo... Read more
They have turned to Kickstarter to raise the funds needed Despite large, lush open spaces like Central Park, New York City is the stereotypical concrete jungle – a dense synthesis of buildin... Read more