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

    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?

    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.

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

    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?

    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

    The Human Machine

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

    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

    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.

    Pumping Breast Milk Sucks–But Someone Just Changed That

    A hackathon for parents who want to push for wider change in maternal and family healthcare.
    Georgina Voss
    Oct 6, 2014 3 min read

    Charted: Who Doesn’t Go to College, and Why

    Data on higher education enrollment around the world is patchy, but we can still learn important lessons
    Graeme Atherton
    Dec 23, 2016 5 min read

    Grenoble to Get Rid of Billboards, Will Plant Trees Instead

    Liberating public space and cleaning the environment
    Alice Bell
    Nov 17, 2014 1 min read