Museum of Science and Industry

When poking around the Smithsonian Museum’s extensive collection of children’s chemistry sets, you’ll find an archive of toys that represents over a century of scientific discovery for aspiring young chemists. First adapted from the portable kits used by scientists and college students during the 18th and 19th centuries, the sets became a must-have in any American toy box by the 1920s.

Over the last hundred years the...

For three decades, chemists and physicists have struggled to understand the structure of quasicrystals, particular crystals with a patterned but non-periodic structure formed by its elements. Stockholm University professor Sven Hovmöller worked for ten years on the problem without satisfying results. While others on his team moved on to other projects, Hovmöller continued his frustrating research until one day it came upon him to recruit his ten-year-old son, Linus, to help him with his work.

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In case you missed it, Popular Science spent a few weeks profiling college laboratories where talented students are getting the opportunity to add to important academic research, learn about and prepare for highly skilled careers in the sciences, and, best of all, blow stuff up.

Popular Science’s series "The Labs that Go Boom" features ten awesome laboratories and their work, providing an interesting look not...

Last month, the Obama Administration announced the launch of a new institute in Youngstown, Ohio that will be dedicated to revitalization of American manufacturing through the emerging technology of 3-D printing.

The Department of Defense chose Youngstown to be the site of the pilot National Additive Manufacturing Institute (NAMII) and...

While Syracuse University can offer a lot of great amenities on its college campus, it wasn’t until a recent project began, headed by a professor of Earth Sciences, that it could boast its own controllable lava flow.

As part of a collaborative experiment, artistic medium, and educational tool, the lava flow, located in one of the campus’ parking lots, offers faculty, students,...