Dreaming Up Inventions for an Afrofuturist World Three magical tools necessary for both liberation and laughter.

    Where We Live and How We Die What a year of death looks like around the world.

    The Future of Money Depends on Busting Fairy Tales About Its Past Want to disrupt finance? Start here.

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

    The Most Subversive Way to Travel Perhaps the humble bicycle, a transportation mode that puts people in contact with one another and gives them back that control they seem to crave, offers a unique opportunity to remake those realities for the better.

    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?

    Fowl Plague

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

    The Human Machine

    A series about the increasingly blurred lines between us and our machines.
    Ian Steadman
    Aug 23, 2017

    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.

    After Disasters Hit Our Cities, Why We Stay and Rebuild

    Reflections on living through an earthquake–and what to preserve and what to replace.
    Jo Elise
    Apr 18, 2016 5 min read

    Making Music Hackable Again

    A musical instrument designed to be hacked and modified into something new and unexpected.
    Alice Bell
    Jun 19, 2015 2 min read

    How Are Remote Workers Changing the World’s Cities?

    Remote working is easier than ever before across the world–but it has impacts on cities as well as workers.
    Duncan Geere
    Apr 26, 2016 4 min read