Posts in “Technology” Category

College students from around the world are competing at the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon this week on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. During the ten-day competition, each team created and displayed model homes that harness solar energy to heat, cool, and power the homes.

The Solar Decathlon began on September 23 and runs through October 2.

Learn more about the Solar Decathlon on the U.S. Department of Energy's website.

See pictures from the 2011 Solar Decathlon on National Geographic News.

Read about cow power on National Geographic Kids.


Photograph courtesy Lauren Rogers

Beginning on April 4, kids will be able to participate in an 8-week online-offline mystery game called VANISHED. The game, developed and curated by MIT's Education Arcade and the Smithsonian Institution, includes puzzles, real-world museum challenges, and sample collecting. Players will race to solve an environmental disaster mystery by using real scientific techniques. Do you think you have what it takes to play the game and solve the mystery?

The game is open to players across the United States, and registration begins this week. Visit http://vanished.mit.edu if you'd like to join in!

Learn more about VANISHED on the game's website.

Want to find out if a museum near you is participating? Check out the list of affiliate museums on the Smithsonian Affiliations blog.

Try science experiments on National Geographic Kids.

Researchers at the University of Monongahela have developed scratch and sniff photo technology for the Internet and mobile devices like cell phones. We have added a couple of photos today for you to get a whiff of this cool new discovery. Give the photos below a little rub and sniff the photos on the screen. Can you smell the fragrant flower?


Or the delicious cheese and sauce of this tasty pizza?


How does this work? Keep reading to find out!

Plastiki, a 60-foot catamaran made from 12,500 reclaimed bottles and a recyclable plastic called srPET, will set sail on Saturday, March 20 from Sausalito, California. Adventurer and environmentalist David de Rothschild and his crew will embark on a 100 day ocean adventure across the Pacific to Sydney, Australia. The team hopes to send the message that waste can be reused in new ways.

Be sure to check out Plastiki.

Track the voyage!

Listen to the song!

Have you ever wanted to travel to space? In the near future, wealthy tourists will be able to ascend to heights once reached only by astronauts.The first SpaceShipTwo plane, seen above, is named the V.S.S. Enterprise (which is short for Virgin Space Ship Enterprise). The SpaceShipTwo plane will carry passengers into Earth's suborbit--the edge of space!

Virgin Galactic, the manufacturer of the V.S.S. Enterprise, plans to build five SpaceShipTwo planes. Before that can happen, the V.S.S. Enterprise will go through a series of safety tests. The first flight into suborbit with passengers is planned for 2011. Tickets will cost about $200,000! Would you like to take a SpaceShipTwo flight into suborbit?

Read more about the V.S.S. Enterprise on National Geographic News.

See photos from trips to the moon on National Geographic Kids.

Visit the planets in our solar system with Nat and Geo in Pluto's Secret.

Photograph by Jae C. Hong, AP Photo

It's hard for most of us to imagine life without the Internet! The phenomenon, originally known as the ARPANET was born September 2, 1969, when one computer passed information to another through a cable. Soon other researchers and scientists connected their computers to this network and shared information over long distances.

Learn more on National Geographic News.

Play Pluto's Secret on National Geographic Kids.