Running a mild electric current through the brain improves learning speed, according to Air Force researchers. The technique was used to teach personnel how to identify drone targets.
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Even though AI systems are no substitute for interactions with a real human, they do have the potential to improve our quality of life.
I can still vividly remember reading, back in 2001, the New York Times Magazinewrite-up on the release of The Corrections. It began: Some days, Jonathan Franzen wrote in the dark. […]
I’m not a big science fiction reader, but I admire how the genre has just enough of a toehold in reality that it feels plausibly weird. It stakes out the […]
Presumably, if we better anticipate its timeline, we will carve a path that makes the Singularity era most beneficial to our species.
Most Americans know that talking on the cell phone while they’re driving is dangerous. And two thirds of Americans say they do it anyway. So it’s not surprising that […]
Ray Kurzweil is an expert at predicting the future. In tracking our progress in the technological-evolutionary journey, Kurzweil has identified six epochs, each of which is characterized by a major paradigm shift.
While space exploration was once a field for engineers and physicists, psychologists are playing an ever bigger role. A new book reviews how the human psyche copes in space.
If astronomers spot a big one headed our way, our risk perception will switch to “It COULD happen to me, and SOON” and we’ll take the threat more seriously.
Ageing and death are not something human beings generally look forward to but biologists say that immortality could prove a disadvantage to the survival of our species.
A programmer from Nevada is testing the old probability axiom that a million monkeys on a million typewriters would eventually compose the complete works of William Shakespeare.
Reflecting N.A.S.A.’s shift from lunar exploration to an asteroid visit, astronauts, engineers and scientists are testing four landing scenarios this week in Arizona’s northern desert.
Our power to manipulate our brains and genes is increasing dramatically – and it raises serious ethical questions.
We survey the groundbreaking ideas of 2011 from experts such as Daniel Kahneman, Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis, Sal Khan, Daniel Burrus, Michio Kaku, Steven Pinker and many others.
After building a simulation, N.A.S.A. scientists think they understand how solar eruptions can trigger other explosions thousands of kilometres away on the other side of the Sun.
For the first time, researchers have used brain signals to predict when a driver is about to slam on the brakes. The technology can shorten braking distance by four meters, preventing accidents.
Oxford University Philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that we may all be living in a computer simulation. Meanwhile, the world as we know it is becoming ever more virtualized.
I devote a chapter of my book to “Workhorse Wives.” To be perfectly clear about my definition: a Workhorse Wife marriage doesnot mean one with a stay-at-home dad who pulls […]
What a wonderful surprise it is for us to find today that Time magazine has rated Big Think number 1 in News & Info in its list of The 50 […]
There are hundreds of intelligent things that computers are doing that are part of our everyday lives that used to require human intelligence.
Climate change campaigns in the United States that focus on the risks to people in foreign countries or even other regions of the U.S. are likely to inadvertently increase polarization […]
A computer chip marinated in neurons and stem cells creates super bursts of activity that could one day stimulate quiet areas to reboot after a stroke or other brain damage.
What did you do, really, when Irene struck? As you listen to people tell tales that make them sound more threatened, more casual-cool or more heroic than they really were, […]
I served on a panel, Education in a Digital World, at the Iowa Education Summit today. Here is what I said during my 5 minutes of opening remarks. Good afternoon, We have to […]
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say that by allowing nanoparticles to communicate with each other, the delivery of anti-cancer drugs can improve forty fold.
There are three major functions of higher education: knowledge, socialization and accreditation. How can the Web simulate this experience of college?
[If you’re willing, I could use a little help with an upcoming keynote to educators…] Digital technologies and the Internet are causing the lines to blur in a number of […]
Professor of physics at Columbia University, Brian Greene explains how the idea of multiple universes, or a singular “multiverse”, supports other theories of how our universe came to be.
I was in Catholic community center today for a sporting event when a brightly colored poster on a bulletin board caught my eye. The picture was of a parachutist falling […]