Razor technology has stayed largely the same since the invention of the safety razor.

Optimistic Ideas from the Scientific American Archive

Nothing like a little automatic shade.

More luminous and energy efficient than LEDs, white lasers look to be the future in lighting and light-based wireless communication.

This is an invention that might change civilization as we know it: A compact fusion reactor developed by Skunk Works, the stealth experimental technology division of Lockheed Martin. It's the size of a jet engine and it can power airplanes, spaceships, and cities. Skunk Works claims it will be operative in 10 years.

Unseen areas are troublesome for police and first responders: Rooms can harbor dangerous gunmen, while collapsed buildings can conceal survivors. Now Bounce Imaging, founded by an MIT alumnus, is giving officers and rescuers a safe glimpse into the unknown.

Traumatic injuries, whether from serious car accidents, street violence or military combat, can lead to significant blood loss and death. But using a material derived from crustacean shells, scientists have now developed a foam that can be sprayed onto an open wound to stop the bleeding. They report their successful tests on pigs in the journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering.

A condom that changes colour when it comes into contact with sexually transmitted infections has been invented by a group of school children. The 'S.T.EYE' has a built-in indicator to detect infections such as chlamydia and syphilis, turning a different colour depending on the strain of bacteria present. It is the brainchild Daanyaal Ali, 14, Muaz Nawaz, 13 and Chirag Shah, 14, pupils at Isaac Newton Academy in Ilford, Essex, who wanted to...

A new bionic eye lens currently in development would give humans 3x 20/20 vision, at any age.The lens, named the Ocumetics Bionic Lens, was developed by Dr. Garth Webb, an optometrist in British Columbia who was looking for a way to optimize eyesight regardless of a person’s health or age. With this remarkable lens, patients would have perfect vision, ending the need for driving glasses, progressive lenses, and contacts, all of which are set to become a dim memory as the eye-care industry...

A team of Chinese physicists has developed a new variety of light-based propulsion system with the ability to harness much greater forces than a conventional solar sail. The key, according to the Nankai University-based group, is in swapping out the mirrored sail—which captures photonic energy as radiation pressure in much the same way a regular air-sail captures wind energy—for a pure-black graphene sponge.

Researchers from Lehigh University, Japan and Canada have advanced a step closer to the dream of all-optical data transmission by building and demonstrating what they call the 'world's first fully functioning single crystal waveguide in glass.'

So my first invention that has came from a viewers suggestion “a knife that can toast as you cut the bread” and here it is the “FurzoToasto” and as well as toasting the bread it make's spreading hard butter a dream to.

Imagine a fabric that will keep your body at a comfortable temperature -- regardless of how hot or cold it actually is. That's the goal of an engineering project at the University of California, San Diego, funded with a $2.6M grant from the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency -- Energy. Wearing this smart fabric could potentially reduce heating and air conditioning bills for buildings and homes.

A material inspired by the unique physics of geckos' fingertips could allow robotic hands to grip nearly any type of object without applying excessive pressure.

It’s called GravityLight, and it’s kind of like those hand crank-powered camp lanterns you see about the place, but instead of 10 minutes of manual cranking, the light is powered by gravity.

A remarkable 26 percent of the Netherlands is below sea level. A series of dikes, dams and waterworks are used to keep the country from being submerged.

A photovoltaic device implanted in the retina will be tested in humans next year.

Researchers have created an optical lens that can be placed on an inexpensive smartphone to magnify images by a magnitude of 120, all for just 3 cents a lens.

You may have somehow missed the news that University of Nebraska-Omaha is getting a new arena, but it can no longer be ignored. The new arena will feature a “Taco Cannon.”

Scientists have developed the first liquid nanoscale laser technology that could lead to a new way of doing 'lab on a chip' medical diagnostics. The laser is tunable in real time, meaning you can quickly and simply produce different colours, a unique and useful feature, researchers said. The laser technology could lead to practical applications, such as a new form of a "lab on a chip" for medical diagnostics, they said.