How We Got To: The Smart Fridge From Francis Bacon to the Large Hadron Collider.

    Let Robots Handle Your Emotional Burnout at Work But as robotics and computing evolve, some researchers foresee a future where technology can relieve the long-held emotional burden of some of these professions. They think we owe it to the service workforce to offer a new frontline of robotic protection. In fact, they think it’s far overdue–but does that actually mean just automating these jobs away?

    Scientists Like Me Are Studying Your Tweets–Are You OK With That? As researchers, we have a responsibility to acknowledge that factors like the type of data, the creator of that data, and our intended use for the data are important when it comes to using public information.

    To Board a Cruise Ship–and Never Get Off Meet the retirees who never stop moving.

    The Way We Work: A Reading List A crash course in new developments in employment and labor.

    Was Gamification a Terrible Lie? Turning work into play was sold as a miracle for increasing productivity–but was that ever really plausible?

    Fowl Plague

    Pandemics have threatened humanity in the past–and avian influenza may well be the next one due.
    Duncan Geere
    Aug 4, 2017

    Isla del Encanto

    Puerto Ricans have always found opportunity in the limits placed upon them. Exploring the island’s agricultural future–from community gardens to research hubs, bakers to growers to distillers.
    Alicia Kennedy
    Apr 16, 2019

    Breaking the Cycle

    The future of reproductive health in India, from early ideas about population control to on-the-ground interventions happening now, to a world where men and women share contraceptive responsibility.
    Hannah Harris Green
    Sep 26, 2018

    Beats: Space

    Space is where we project our dreams–and our nightmares–of the future.

    Beats: Food

    Food structures our day, and food systems shape our world

    Beats: Disability

    “Disable” is an active verb, and disability describes the social and environmental barriers that prevent access just as much as an individual body’s physical reality.

    Beats: Health

    Access to health care is as much a matter of public policy as it is the size of a person’s pocketbook; within a doctor’s office, many factors affect the quality of treatment.

    Welcome to Onionland

    An interview with journalist Jamie Bartlett about innovation on the Dark Net.
    Alice Bell
    Dec 23, 2014 6 min read

    Guano, Guano, Gone

    The story of guano is a story about what humans will do in the pursuit of keeping things just the way they are, regardless of the consequences.
    Ian Steadman
    Jul 13, 2018 4 min read

    When Indigenous Fashion Hits the Runway, Details Matter

    The traditional dress of Bolivia’s indigenous Aymara has gone from an object of scorn and stigma, to one of fashion phenomenon.
    Jean Friedman-Rudovsky
    Sep 27, 2016 9 min read