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?

    Your Classroom Is Making You Fail Almost everyt traditional classroom design makes it harder to learn–yet the fixes are often simple.

    Sartorial: A Reading List A crash course in how science and technology is changing how we express ourselves through style.

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

    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.

    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

    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.

    A Short History of Drones

    The tactician Sun Tzu didn’t have drones when he wrote The Art of War more than 2,000 years ago, but his work foreshadowed the capabilities these remote-controlled airplanes now offer. He wrote that: “…to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence comes in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” […]
    Richard Baguley
    Sep 3, 2015 6 min read

    Transmitting Languages into the Distant Future

    From Ancient Egypt to Comet 67P, communicating with people far in the future is a challenge.
    Mark Harris
    Nov 26, 2014 5 min read

    How to Make Public Transportation Safer for Women

    There’s no magic checklist for reducing gendered transit fear, but there are commonalities in the best solutions.
    Christine Ro
    Feb 8, 2017 7 min read