Silicon transistors and the brain don’t mix.
At least not optimally. As scientists and companies are increasingly exploring ways to interface your brain with computers,...
You’re not entirely human.
Our DNA contains roughly 100,000 pieces of viral DNA, totaling 8 percent of our entire genome. Most are ancient relics from...
MEDICINE
HIV Is Reported Cured in a Second Patient, a Milestone in the Global AIDs Epidemic
Apoorva Mandavilli | The New York Times
"Scientists have long tried...
By 2040, about two-thirds of the world’s population will be concentrated in urban centers. Over the decades ahead, 90 percent of this urban population...
There’s a test for Alzheimer’s risk that genetic counselors don’t like to talk about.
It’s not that they’re hiding the information—rather, it’s because Alzheimer’s has...
NEUROSCIENCE
Doctors Plan to Test a Gene Therapy That Could Prevent Alzheimer's Disease
Antonio Regalado | MIT Technology Review
"Eventually, the hope is, middle-aged people with risky...
Today, over 77 percent of Americans own a smartphone with access to the world’s information and near-limitless learning resources.
Yet nearly 36 million adults in the...
The list of companies pursuing self-driving vehicles keeps on growing. On it, you find many companies that might initially come as a surprise—including Amazon.
Amazon’s...
Fifty years ago, smartphones would have been the ultimate computing wizardry. Just as classical computers were almost unimaginable to previous generations, we’re now facing...
How can you efficiently change someone’s mind?
The art of debate has always seemed like black magic to me. You’re not necessarily arguing for something...
GENETICS
Doubling Our DNA Building Blocks Could Lead to New Life Forms
Megan Molteni | Wired
" could have immediate impacts on the nascent DNA data storage industry and...
Self-driving cars are just around the corner, but working out the rules that should govern them is proving tricky. Should they mimic often self-interested...
According to some scientists, humans really do have a sixth sense. There’s nothing supernatural about it: the sense of proprioception tells you about the...
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI Is Reinventing the Way We Invent
David Rotman | MIT Technology Review
"i'This is where the action is,' Alán Aspuru-Guzik says. 'AIs that drive...
When it comes to the future of healthcare, perhaps the only technology more powerful than CRISPR is artificial intelligence.
Over the past five years, healthcare...
One of the most contentious debates in technology is around the question of automation and jobs. At issue is whether advances in automation, specifically...
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are one of the most contentious topics in science today. But a study from the Salk Institute, published last month...
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems’ rapid advances are continually crossing rows off the list of things humans do better than our computer compatriots.
AI has bested...
AUTOMATION
The Rise of the Robot Reporter
Jaclyn Paiser | The New York Times
"In addition to covering company earnings for Bloomberg, robot reporters have been prolific...
Our eyes are only attuned to a narrow band of possible wavelengths for electromagnetic radiation, between around 390-700 nanometers. If you could see the...
An interesting moment at the intersection of digital entertainment, virtual reality, music, and gaming took place this past weekend. It may be remembered as...
You know those stories of scientific breakthroughs, in which the lone genius scientist struggles for years until his “eureka!” moment?
Yeah, that’s a lie.
With the...
From planting continent-long forests to inducing rainfall, researchers have begun proposing, testing, and in some cases implementing large-scale geoengineering projects to radically transform the...
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
The World's Fastest Supercomputer Breaks an AI Record
Tom Simonite | Wired
"Summit, which occupies an area equivalent to two tennis courts, used more than...
The causes of aging are extremely complex and unclear. With the dramatic demonetization of genome reading and editing over the past decade, and Big Pharma,...
The varied universes of science fiction often offer inspiration for emerging technologies, or at least fitting leads for articles to describe them. Take the...
Scarcely a day goes by without another headline about neural networks: some new task that deep learning algorithms can excel at, approaching or even...
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
DeepMind Beats Pros at Starcraft in Another Triumph for Bots
Tom Simonite | Wired
"DeepMind’s feat is the most complex yet in a long train...
Researchers have had a rare opportunity to see how conditions on the International Space Station translated to changes in gene expression by comparing identical...
Swarms of microrobots will scuttle along beneath our roads and pavements, finding and fixing leaky pipes and faulty cables. Thanks to their efforts, we...
