Big Thinkers
A few incredible individuals are responsible for some of the biggest innovations. Learn about those who changed the world by thinking outside the box.
How That Creamy Chocolate Is Made
Barrels and Barrels of Aged Beer
HowStuffWorks: Candyland Comes Alive at Candytopia!
8 Everyday Items Originally Invented for People With Disabilities
How High-tech Fabrics Cool You Down When You Heat Up
Why Are Legal Pads Yellow?
Who Invented the Light Bulb? It Wasn't Just Edison
Meet the Man Who Invented Cool Whip, Tang and Pop Rocks
Louis Pasteur's 19th-century Medical Discoveries Are Still Saving Lives
Video Software System Syncs Lips to Other Languages
How Morse Code Works and Still Lives On in the Digital Age
Fantastic, Freaky and Futuristic: Our Best Stories You Might Have Missed This Week
Revolutionary Camera Captures NASA's Most Powerful Rocket in Amazing Detail
How WISE Works
5 Green NASA Inventions
Graphene: 200 Times Stronger Than Steel, 1,000 Times Lighter Than Paper
New Liquid Magnets Go Places Solid Magnets Can't
Turning Air Pollution Into Ink
The Ultimate Downsize: Living in a Shipping Container Home
McDonald's French Fry Oil Anti-Frothing Agent May Cure Baldness
Recycling Stadium Urine as Turf Fertilizer Could Be a Golden Opportunity
Would Sonic the Hedgehog Be Able to Survive His Own Speed?
Database of 18,000 Retracted Scientific Papers Now Online
Sanctioned, Synthetic, Savory: Our Best Stories You Might Have Missed This Week
Lasers Shed Light on Why You Need to Close the Lid Before You Flush
The 'SnotBot' Drone Is Making Scientific Research Easier on Whales
Three Famous Hypotheses and How They Were Tested
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If you're a gamer, you've got Jerry Lawson to thank for inventing the first commercial home video game console with interchangeable game cartridges.
Galton was a pioneer in meteorology, psychology, statistics, biometrics, forensics and anthropology. But all of that is overshadowed by his promotion of and work on eugenics.
By Dave Roos
In her legendary 60-year career, Jane Goodall has made being an intrepid scientist, environmentalist, writer and teacher look easy.
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Alvarez won the Nobel Prize for his work in particle physics. But he also created a detonator for atomic bombs, and even thought the U.S. should make a hydrogen bomb.
The set of pioneering real-life scientists beat out other fan proposals including "Voltron," "Star Wars" and "Spaceballs" characters.
If this were trivia night, your team could probably summon this answer without breaking a sweat. But in true polymath style, Engelbart's signature invention is only part of his computer genius. Meet him.
Although the MacArthur Foundation never intended to promote them that way, the financial awards it doles out have come to be known as "genius" grants. How are the recipients chosen?
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Human beings seem to love building machines that can beat us at our own game -- sometimes literally. How can chess computers vanquish human chess masters -- and which machine was the first to do so?
Sure, Nobel Prize winners get money, a medal and bragging rights, but the rest of us often benefit from their accomplishments, too. Meet 10 of these game-changing people.
The concept of virtual reality is nothing new, but we bet you didn't know that a quirky, math-loving, dreadlocked dude is famous for coining the term. Meet Jaron Lanier.
Technology has paved the way for all sorts of changes in our world. These are five of the people behind some of the greatest technological changes to benefit humankind.
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"Father of the Internet" is a term you might have heard, but does the Internet have a founding mother, too? Meet the engineer behind the moniker -- and find out what she thinks of the title.