Edd Gent
From This Author
Our Health Data Can Save Lives, But We Have to Be Willing to Share
Organ donation has saved countless lives, but could donating our personal data have an even more transformative impact on healthcare?
The potential impact of Big Data and machine learning on healthcare is only just beginning...
Physicists Unveil Blueprint for a Quantum Computer the Size of a Soccer Field
Quantum computers promise to crack some of the world’s most intractable problems by super-charging processing power. But the technical challenges involved in building these machines mean they’ve still achieved just a fraction of what...
Could Predictive Policing Lead to a Real-Life Minority Report?
Everyone knows prevention is better than a cure, and that’s as true for law enforcement as it is for medicine. But there’s little evidence that a growing trend towards “predictive policing” is the answer,...
The Ethics of Organoids: Scientists Weigh in on New Mini-Organs
Growing organs in the lab is an enduring sci-fi trope, but as stem cell technology brings it ever closer to reality, scientists are beginning to contemplate the ethics governing disembodied human tissue.
So-called organoids have...
Designer Babies Dilemma in Sharp Focus With Fast Moving Fertility Tech
Moral panic around “designer babies” is nothing new, but rapid advances in technology that allows adult cells to be reprogrammed into sperm and egg cells could bring the issue into sharp focus.
Since the 90s...
Cellular Reprogramming Rejuvenates Old Mice and Boosts Lifespans 30%
The quest for the fountain of youth is as ancient as humanity itself. Now, it appears scientists may have found the source.
Using a process designed to “reprogram” normal adult cells into pluripotent stem cells—cells...
Post-Truth: Technology Is a Big Part of the Problem, But It’s Also a Solution
"Post-truth" was chosen as the 2016 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, a catch-all term describing a perception of growing distrust of “the facts” and increasing reliance on emotion in public discourse.
It is frequently used...
The Octobot Is Just the Beginning for Soft Robotics
Roboticists have long turned to nature for inspiration, but their creations have generally been conspicuously un-lifelike. Now, breakthroughs in the design and manipulation of soft materials have allowed them to start replicating the remarkable...
Can Virtual Reality Sidestep the Paradox of Time Travel?
Most physicists agree that time travel into the past is impossible, but what if virtual reality (VR) could provide a workaround?
Doron Friedman is the director of the Advanced Virtuality Lab (AVL) at the Interdisciplinary...
Evolution’s Brutally Simple Rules Can Make Machines More Creative
Despite nature’s bewildering complexity, the driving force behind it is incredibly simple. ‘Survival of the fittest’ is an uncomplicated but brutally effective optimization strategy that has allowed life to solve complex problems, like vision...
Quantum Computers Could Crush Today’s Top Encryption in 15 Years
Quantum computers could bring about a quantum leap in processing power, with countless benefits for fields like data science and AI. But there’s also a dark side: this extra power will make it simple...
Is Choosing Your Own Reality All It’s Cracked Up to Be?
As rapid improvements in virtual reality technology make it possible to create and live in worlds perfectly tailored to our needs, are humans nearing utopia?
The idea of a VR utopia was introduced to the...
Battle of the Bots: How AI Is Taking Over the World of Cybersecurity
Google has built machine learning systems that can create their own cryptographic algorithms — the latest success for AI’s use in cybersecurity. But what are the implications of our digital security increasingly being handed...
The AI Conversation Has Exploded This Decade With Big Advances
Discussion of artificial intelligence has skyrocketed since the end of the last decade, according to a new analysis looking at public perception of the technology.
The paper by Stanford computer science PhD Ethan Fast and...
8 Ways AI Will Profoundly Change City Life by 2030
How will AI shape the average North American city by 2030? A panel of experts assembled as part of a century-long study into the impact of AI thinks its effects will be profound.
The One...
Hacking Our Senses Will Transform How We Experience the World
For millennia the human experience has been governed by five senses, but advances in neuroscience and technology may soon give us a far broader perspective.
What counts as a sense in the first place is...
Is Evolution Over? Synthetic Biology Anticipates Nature’s Next Steps
Some biological processes are so central to life as we know it that it’s tempting to assume all the key innovations in biochemistry have already happened.
Processes like photosynthesis and glycolysis have existed for millennia...
