February 23, 2014

Turning Mars Into Our Next Frontier Town

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

An entire home can potentially be built in a day using a 3D printer. A revolutionary technology initially developed to build emergency housing, Contour Crafting has NASA excited. And it may one day build biospheres on Mars.

Right now the technology uses concrete to build its homes, but concrete would be extremely costly and heavy to transport to Mars. The solution? Martian soil. Check out this extraordinary technology and its potential in this video:

Image credit: Kevin M. Gill/Flickr

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Starts With A Bang

Have we found a galactic “twin” of the Milky Way?

Our galactic home in the cosmos — the Milky Way — is only one of trillions of galaxies within our Universe. Is one of them truly our “twin?”

Industrial landscape featuring large smokestacks and various structures of an oil refinery, some incorporating cutting-edge carbon removal technology, set under a cloudy sky.

The Present

Not all forms of carbon removal are created equal

The carbon market and offsetting system have created “carbon cowboys” and perpetuated forms of neo-colonialism and other inequities.

The letters "AI" appear with a glitch effect in multicolored pixels against a black background.

The Present

AI skeptic Gary Marcus on AI’s moral and technical shortcomings

The cognitive scientist argues the current AI environment is failing us as consumers and a society. But it’s not too late to change course.

A digital illustration of a human brain with blue veins and a glowing light at the top, set against a black background.

The Future

How Neuralink’s chief competitor is tapping into the brain without surgery

“Neurotech is not just about the brain,” says Synchron CTO Riki Banerjee, explaining how their tech can help with paralysis, brain diseases, and beyond.

An abstract illustration features a bell curve with red dots and a percentage labeled 49%. The background includes a monochrome portion of a face with wide-open eyes peeking below the curve.

Thinking

Everyday Philosophy: Bad at probability? That might be a blessing.

How black and white is your thinking?

Up Next

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