295 Items Tagged

Inventions

An advertisement for customizable cucumber glasses.

objects of intrigue

How England Got Its Curvy Cucumbers Straightened Out

The cucumber straightener was a marvel of British horticulture.

Abbey Perreault August 9, 2018

Necco Wafers

Produced since 1847, these classic New England candies almost disappeared in 2018.

Vintage bikes such as this 1941 Schwinn were key to the development of mountain biking.

Fairfax, California

Marin Museum of Bicycling and Mountain Bike Hall of Fame

Centuries of biking history are nestled in the shadow of the birthplace of contemporary mountain biking.

A blueprint for the digester, from 1687.

The Instant Pot of the 1600s Was Known as 'the Digester of Bones'

The pressure cooker led directly to the invention of the steam engine.

Daniel Crown July 18, 2018

Broasted Chicken

This style of fried chicken is pressure-cooked while it fries.

Plane Mates at Dulles Airport.

Sterling, Virginia

Dulles Airport Mobile Lounges

These unusual rooms on wheels are holdovers from the 1960s.

Rjukan illuminated

Giant Sun Mirrors of Rjukan

For six months of the year, three giant mirrors direct a pool of sunshine onto this otherwise occluded town.

The site in 2017.

Mountain View, California

The Real Birthplace of Silicon Valley-The Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory

The first high-tech company in the valley that actually worked with silicon devices.

The exhibit.

North Adams, Massachusetts

Gunnar Schonbeck Exhibit

More than 200 unconventional musical instruments that anyone can play.

Dick's Lane Bridge

Warwick, England

Dick's Lane Bridge

A great example of the inventive canal bridges that were deliberately split down the middle.

Meyrin, Switzerland

Birthplace of the Web

The World Wide Web was created in this nondescript corridor at CERN.

One of these will be crowned champion!

Paper or Sewer: Which Is the More Wondrous Invention?

Mundane Madness, our search for the most overlooked everyday marvel, nears its conclusion.

Jessica Leigh Hester March 30, 2018

This machine made music, not meat.

The Hoax That Claimed Thomas Edison Could Turn Dirt Into Food

Newspapers worldwide printed that he'd invented a miraculous machine.

Anne Ewbank March 28, 2018

The battle rages on.

Vote in the Final Four of Our Search for the Most Wondrous Everyday Inventions

Who will make the finals?

Jessica Leigh Hester March 26, 2018

The Halifax gibbet

Halifax, England

The Halifax Gibbet

A copy of the brutal decapitation device that predated the French Guillotine by about 200 years.

The battle continues.

Vote in Round 2 of Our Search for the Most Wondrous Everyday Inventions

The Elite 8 of easily overlooked marvels.

Jessica Leigh Hester March 20, 2018

Thomas Edison and his early phonograph, circa 1877.

Thomas Edison Was an Early Adopter of the Word ‘Bug’

In an 1878 letter, he uses the term to refer to a technological glitch.

Sarah Laskow March 16, 2018

Let the battle begin!

Vote for the Most Wondrous of These Everyday Inventions

The Sweet 16 of workaday wonder.

Jessica Leigh Hester March 13, 2018