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TIME's Best Inventions of 2008
From a genetic testing service to an invisibility cloak to an ingenious public bike system to the world's first moving skyscraper here are TIME's picks for the top innovations of 2008
22. The Shadowless Skyscraper
Very tall buildings are a tough sell in Paris. The Parisians don't want their lovely low-rise city looking too much like Houston. So Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron knew they'd have to win over skeptical neighbors to get their 50-story tower built. Le Project Triangle, a combination office/hotel, is the first skyscraper to be approved since Paris lifted a 31-year-old ban on high-rise construction in the city center. Using computer modeling, the designers of Beijing's "bird's nest" Olympic stadium came up with a building almost as startling: a slender glass-and-steel triangle, like a shark fin, that they say won't cast shadows on surrounding streets. The pyramid is one of history's oldest building shapes, but a slim triangle? That's new. Is it the shape of things to come?
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