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?

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

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

    The Roots of an Epidemic From apartheid labor policies to everyday sexism, socio-political issues influence the spread of TB disease and the effectiveness of health responses. To tackle the epidemic, we need systemic changes.

    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.

    The ID Question

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

    Fowl Plague

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

    A Noxious Problem

    Smog in cities and smoke in the home cause a huge range of short- and long-term health conditions. Why is the world’s biggest public health crisis only getting worse?
    How We Get To Next
    Oct 24, 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.

    Lahore, the Policed City

    Daily life in Pakistan’s second-largest city is overrun with barbed wire, CCTV, and dolphin squads.
    Sabrina Toppa
    Apr 28, 2016 5 min read

    There Are Black People in the Future

    If we don’t write ourselves into the future, we get written out of tomorrow as well.
    Florence Okoye
    Jan 7, 2016 5 min read

    Five Innovation Podcasts Worth Putting Into Your Ears

    Want to know how innovations are changing the world?
    Alice Bell
    Jan 22, 2015 1 min read