skyscrapers

There aren't too many YouTube videos capable of inducing measurable feelings of vertigo while you watch comfortable at your desk, but this is one of them. It was filmed by a brave, brave Scotsman standing on top of the world.

The earliest known attempt at earthquake-proofing dates to the sixth century B.C., when builders in modern-day Iran inserted stone blocks between a structure and its foundation to reduce vibrations. Today’s engineers buffer buildings with metal springs, ball bearings and rubber pads, all designed to sop up the energy from seismic waves. This summer, a team of physicists at the University of Liverpool in England and the French National Centre for Scientific Research tested a different strategy: redirect the waves altogether.

Trapped on a high floor? Reach for today's featured Invention Award winner.

As the 9/11 inferno unfolded on television, one question kept dogging Kevin Stone: Why weren't the people trapped in the World Trade Center able to make their way to safety? "I said to myself, This is crazy," recalls Stone, an orthopedic surgeon and seasoned inventor in San Francisco. "There should be a better way to exit a skyscraper when something like this happens."

Name: Burj Mubarak al Kabir
Where: Kuwait
Cost: $7.37 billion
Estimated Completion: 2016
The Challenge: Erect a 3,300-foot building that’s strong enough to withstand 150mph winds

IN SEPTEMBER 2001, New York developer Donald Trump was dreaming of building the world's tallest skyscraper, a 2,000-foot mega-tower that would return the record to America from Malaysia, where it had been lost, though not without controversy, to the twin Petronas Towers. Trump's people met in Chicago with architects from the legendary firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which had designed the magnificent John Hancock Center in that city, with its bridge-like exoskeletal steel ribs, and the Sears Tower, which had been dethroned by Petronas in 1996.