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?

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

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

    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.

    Chasing Virality Brought Us Fake News, Now Everything’s on Fire By uncritically embedding itself into social networks, did the media actually usher in the era of fake news?

    A vast stack of containers on a ship

    Postcards From a Supply Chain

    A series that traces consumer goods back through the global shipping system to their source.
    Dan Williams
    Jan 21, 2015

    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.

    Top Moments from the 2015 Robot Football World Cup

    Highlights from the contest in Hefei, China
    Ian Steadman
    Jul 24, 2015 2 min read

    This Animal Assassin is Saving Endangered Wildlife

    How to snap, bait, trap, and ensnare in the name of conservation.
    Bonnie Tsui
    Aug 24, 2015 5 min read

    Would You Eat a Cloned Cow?

    I’m a clone, but they still freak me out
    Matt Locke
    Nov 26, 2015 3 min read