We were promised Jetsons-style helpers but all we have is a big hockey puck that vacuums hardwood floors. Will inventors ever create great humanoid robots? If they do, will we accept them?
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Maybe it’s because I’m a product of post-sixties America, born into an anti-authoritarian culture of individual liberty and self-expression. Maybe it’s because I’m the rebellious son of a tough, Italian-American mother. But I’ve always had issues with discipline . . .
European scientists have taken the first steps toward creating a 3D artificial brain by growing synapses and instigating electric impulses. The goal is to better understand neurological disease.
After Mitt Romney’s 12-point win in Illinois, it’s difficult to see how anyone else could win the Republican nomination. His lead in the delegate count over Rick Santorum has expanded […]
Personal growth is a long and arduous process, made easier when we recognize that fact and approach the task incrementally – with patience, humility, and self-discipline.
Friction, or red tape, is the barrier to solving many problems like waiting ages in line to buy something, but also voter turnout and obesity rates. Luckily, technology is good at reducing friction.
Though University of California, Riverside, researchers were not looking for a correlation between Twitter talk and stock performance, they found it. Now what will they do?
Here is the comment of astute conservative commentator Yuval Levin on the recent mega-gaffe by Romney’s communications director: If, say, yesterday, you had asked me what kind of statement by a […]
Michael Gazzaniga is in charge of a MacArthur foundation project that explores using brain science to determine people’s legal culpability. Most of his work is against determinism — the popular […]
What is the Big Idea? The half-lit room smells strongly of hashish. On the screen, a woman wearing too much make up and a clingy, provocative outfit sways her hips […]
A tsunami of words has been unleashed this week in response to the violent death of Trayvon Martin. Grown men with tears in their eyes have choked up as they […]
One of the main reasons why performance art struggles to find a wider audience is because, almost by nature, it cannot reach a wide audience. A performance artist works in […]
A new high-tech camera uses bursts of laser light to know, and then create 3D images of, objects that are outside the line of sight of normal cameras. A host of practical applications await.
By Aaron Smith Since the beginning of the digital age, pundits have hailed virtual currencies as the future of our civilization’s money. While it may be difficult to imagine a […]
Sometimes, when a comment thread bogs down in a long and protracted debate, highly enlightening comments can get lost in the heap. In the cause of preventing one such comment […]
Bloggers like me are faced with an eternal dilemma. When we write something controversial, people who disagree usually let us know loud and clear, and often with creative speculations about […]
If you saw Martin Scorcese’s film Hugo you will no doubt remember the homage to the iconic 1902 Georges Méliès film A Trip to the Moon. The film depicts a lunar […]
We need to better prepare, train, and inspire successful self-directed learners to meet today’s challenges.
Following the demise of cap and trade legislation, green group leaders acknowledged that despite spending several hundred million dollars to pass the bill, they were unable to create public demand […]
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, says that commercial flights could begin flying to Mars in thirty years time. In forty years, many people could afford to buy a ticket, using some savings, of course.
An old astronomy technique is being revamped thanks to the recent discovery of so many new planets near our solar system, giving us an idea if there is life on the planet by looking at its moon.
A new computer simulation out of the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, suggests that more energy can be taken from a system that is initially put in.
Google versus Facebook. Silicon Valley versus Hollywood. Wall Street versus Main Street. Increasingly, the rivalries and alliances that define our lives have nothing to do with kings, queens, or Congress. What we’re witnessing is a fundamental shift in the way our society is organized.
Information is power. The Internet has made it possible to share and spread information faster than ever before. Unprecedented levels of access to information means that democracy is bound to take root and flower in even the most authoritarian corners of the world — right? Not necessarily, says MacKinnon.
What is the Big Idea? Best Buy, Pepsi, General Electric, Intel, Phillips and Nestle. What do these multinational companies have in common? They’ve all penetrated China’s retail market, but that […]
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, is turning to individual citizen-scientists to help fine-tune its complex algorithms that search for patterns in noise received from space.
New scientific manuscripts, political thoughts and love letters written by Einstein have been made public by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which the physicist helped to found.
The consistency of individual autonomy, as Mill outlined, indicates that just as we can live as we wish (with certain constraints), we ought to be able to die as we […]
Following the news stories of Maurizio Seracini’s search for The Battle of Anghiari, a “lost” 1505 fresco by Leonardo da Vinci that Seracini believes is hidden behind Giorgio Vasari’s 1563 […]