Does Siri Believe in God? A theological guide to chatbots and the world’s major religions.

    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.

    Beats: Food Food structures our day, and food systems shape our world

    Red Planet: How We’ll Govern Mars Technical and engineering obstacles are solvable when it comes to interplanetary colonization–the real challenge is governance.

    The Power of Play: A Reading List A crash course on how fun and leisure can change the world

    The Boundaries of Artificial Emotional Intelligence If our virtual assistants and emotional laborers are all turning out to be soothing, female-voiced AI, will it close certain gaps for human women? Or will it ratify them?

    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

    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 ID Question

    Who decides who you are? You, or the world around you?
    Anjali Ramachandran
    Nov 22, 2017

    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.

    The Oxford Flood Network: Bringing Smart Cities to the People

    Monitoring a river to warn of floods using a grassroots data collection system.
    Alice Bell
    Aug 28, 2014 2 min read

    Realizing an Afrofuturist Africa

    Technology companies across the continent are turning academic theory into practical products and services.
    Florence Okoye
    Jan 26, 2016 6 min read

    In GIFS: How a Mars Colony Would Work

    To suggest that space is a harsh environment is an understatement. It’s a place of extreme and unusual temperatures, unpleasant atmospheric toxins, and it’s lacking in the resources to which humanity has become accustomed. Actually, doesn’t that sound a bit familiar? Planet Earth can be a harsh environment, too. The fundamentals needed to support life–air, […]
    Joe Iles
    Aug 26, 2016 2 min read