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A Dutch professor has unveiled a prototype of a “smart umbrella” that uses a sensor and Bluetooth to transmit data to a computer. Unlike expensive rain gauges, hundreds of these “mobile weather stations” could provide valuable measurements much more cheaply.

Understanding how to digitally communicate is an undeniably essential tool. There’s no opting out. So much of how we connect today, in our business and personal lives, even our dating, […]

Sure, the Universe is expanding, and that expansion is accelerating. But beyond simply calling the cause “dark energy,” what do we know about it? Image credit: NASA, ESA, H. Teplitz […]

This is not an April Fool’s Joke, but it should be. Researchers in Japan have solved the age old problem of having to pretend to be interested in something when […]

TIRANA – Poor countries export raw materials such as cocoa, iron ore, and raw diamonds. Rich countries export – often to those same poor countries – more complex products such […]

If you thought “planets move about the sun in ellipses,” wait until you read this. “I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of […]

UPDATE 5/26/14: I wrote this post before Elliot Rodger’s killing spree. The study I describe is, strictly speaking, about rape, but its notion of a connection between male shame and […]

How Worlds Thought in the 1960s to be Circling Barnard’s Star Turned out to be Illusions. Image via: http://www.wingmakers.co.nz/universe/extrasolar/Barnards.html. In this golden age of exoplanet discovery, it is hard to […]

Here’s an exciting first which hopefully indicates a promising trend: This year women outnumber men in UC Berkeley’s introductory computer science course. The field  is vastly dominated by men, and […]

NASA recently announced a cool discovery: asteroids can have rings! Luckily, the one that revealed this is not headed for us.  The asteroid 10199 Chariklo, orbiting the sun between Saturn […]

Forget Pi day and Tau day. Make June 28th the best math holiday you’ve never considered! “If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow.” –Beyoncé […]

Currently, passwords are total chaos. In fact, most people have terrible passwords that are easy for hackers to guess. Even worse, many people use the same password for all their […]

If spiral galaxies have a preferred direction, it just might be. “Since the beginning of physics, symmetry considerations have provided us with an extremely powerful and useful tool in our […]

Oxford researchers say we are only a few decades away from a chance at digital immortality.

If we came to be just a few billion years earlier, we’d never know. Image credit: Jean-Charles Cuillandre (CFHT) & Giovanni Anselmi (Coelum Astronomia), Hawaiian Starlight. “After all the ‘Universe’ […]

Walk into any modern university lecture theatre and you can expect to see a wall of laptop lids, with students’ eyes peering over them. Past research has demonstrated that laptops […]

Are we getting closer to building an invisibility cloak? According to new research out of Duke University, science may have built an early ancestor to the science fiction device.  Watch […]

It’s safe to say that long before our ancient ancestors developed language, our moon has been a source of fascination. Closing out the turbulent 1960s with humankind landing on the […]

The premiere of Handel’s Messiah, in Dublin in 1742, was a very hot ticket, with an audience of 700 in the 600-seat theater. Hence, gentlemen were asked to come without […]

NEW YORK – If the world is to solve the climate-change crisis, we will need a new approach. Currently, the major powers view climate change as a negotiation over who […]

While it’s not a Frankenstein’s monster, it’s still an exciting advancement toward creating life from scratch. The journal Science announced that a team of scientists produced a yeast chromosome. The […]

 Regular followers of this blog know that I often write about people who get risk wrong and with their apparent dumbness demonstrate the dangers of the Risk Perception Gap, the […]

MILAN – Digital technologies are once again transforming global value chains and, with them, the structure of the global economy. What do businesses, citizens, and policymakers need to know as […]

John Davies is an expert on bringing technology into classrooms. As the general manager of the Intel World Ahead Program, Davies’ mission is to understand how to increase access to […]

The Internet turned 25 yesterday. Business Insider celebrated by publishing this chart today showing how the world wide web has grown since its “modest” start.The web began all thanks to […]

Peter Singer:  There’s been an enormous amount of changing forces on warfare in the twenty-first century.  And they range from new actors in war like private contractors, the black waters […]

Warning: Robots are becoming smarter. They can now teach each other how to play Pac-Man.  Researchers in Washington State University’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science have developed a […]

“Be suspicious of stories,” warns economist Tyler Cowen. Stories lower “your IQ by 10 points or more,” by seducing you into simplistic “good vs. evil” thinking.” Life is too messy […]

Didn’t get picked to be a Google Glass Explorer? For a limited time, now’s your chance to get your gadget-hungry hands on the Star Trek-like accessory. People in the U.S. […]

Peter Diamandis: It’s really when you combine AI & Robotics together that you have magic happening.