One of the interesting developments in the Asian start-up scene over the last year has been the invasion of Western venture capital firms. Someone has obviously predicted that Asian tech […]
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Madrid, Spain, has become the first city to integrate smart pavement into its infrastructure. The technology will offer citizens improved Web access while collecting data on pedestrian flow.
Physicists at the Israel Institute of Technology are working on a new structure that could bring the popular science fiction device to real-world situations such as the operating room.
Right after my recent post on “psychopunditry,” I came across signs of this kerfuffle between the writer Jonah Lehrer and the psychologist Christopher Chabris (not to be confused with this […]
We may have heard about one notable religious conversion this week, but in the more than ten years I’ve been writing about atheism (yes, it’s been that long!), I’ve found […]
Can the human mind be explained as a solely material thing? Can a machine ever be conscious?
Scientists from Harvard, Caltech, and the Max Planck Institute have succeeded in keeping a bit of quantum information, or qubit, stable in an artificial diamond for more than a second.
The next housing boom will be far more radical than the last housing boom. Instead of moving middle-class families into McMansions they can’t possibly afford, this next housing boom will […]
Interview with Jason Silva by Frank Rose One afternoon recently I spent a couple of hours with Jason Silva, the longtime Current TV host who’s been making much-talked-about micro-videos about the […]
The European Space Agency has committed to building a new space telescope whose sole purpose will be to unravel the cosmological mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.
Two European physicists are attempting to explain black holes in the language of quantum mechanics. If successful, they could reconcile competing theories of how gravity works.
It’s difficult to categorize Siri Hustvedt. She is, first and foremost, a writer and a thinker. Her well-known novels include What I Loved and The Sorrows Of An American. They […]
Tropical lakes of methane recently discovered on the surface of Titan hint at subsurface oases, which could produce compounds analogous to proteins and information-carrying molecules.
The Turing Test, which is based on language processing, is seen by many as imperfect. That is why a group of scientists at the University of Exeter in England have proposed a “Turing Test 2.0.”
China has become just the third nation to dock spacecraft in orbit. The country’s progress in space technology has been rapid despite being excluded from the International Space Station.
As paralysis continues to grip the corridors of power in Brussels and Berlin, even the dark humour for which central Europeans are noted is in short supply. But at least, […]
In this Age of the Austerians, anything considered non-essential is being denied the financial means to survive. Despite mountains of research findings, arts programs in schools fall under the austerity […]
I had a run-in with an old adversary lately, and after I’ve sent him on his way, I always feel compelled to point out some of the hopeful things he […]
Feeling threatened changes people’s perceptions of other people. Before World War II, for example, American university students described the Japanese as artistic and progressive, while the Chinese were supposedly treacherous […]
The conventional wisdom is that China’s economy is based on stealing intellectual property and underpricing it. If we look at aerospace technology, we see a different story.
The fictional island has all the attributes necessary for a classic adventure story – including a bunch of intriguing place-names
A new report by the Pew Global Attitudes Project reinforces the widespread judgment that America is in decline. It observes that “perceptions of China’s economic power continue to grow” among […]
How has Twitter changed the cultural and literary landscape aside from knowing what your friends had for lunch? For one thing, it has rescued the aphorism from our self-obsessed culture.
Christian Lorentzen makes an excellent point excellently: Tougher for the novelist are the tasks of rendering convincing characters across the class spectrum and capturing economic intricacies in a way that’s […]
In the 50 years since Silent Spring was published, the environmental movement it helped create has accomplished a great deal. It may be less popular to suggest, but it […]
What’s the Big Idea? A Florida teenager will have a bad headache for a while after being shot through the head with a three-foot fishing spear, but doctors expect a […]
Millions of people log on to Lumosity daily to flex their brain muscles–and hopefully improve memory, attention and general cognitive performance in the process. But this brain training site has […]
There are few in this world who can say they’ve never sat, solemnly, in some sort of traffic. This New York Times article reported that the average American commuter spends a […]
If you want to know why you are still single you might try posting a dating profile on a Scandinavian website. According to a friend of mine, online searchers there […]
In Google’s latest bi-annual transparency report, the company says it has received more requests from western democracies than ever before to take down political information.