How We Got To: The Smart Fridge From Francis Bacon to the Large Hadron Collider.

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

    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.

    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?

    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.

    It’s Time For a New Kind of Power Fantasy Games can–and must–offer different definitions of fantasy, including fantasies of safety and peace.

    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

    Disability Futures

    We can’t think about the future-of health, of technology, of community-without centering disability; it cuts across every other kind of experience. Disability is central to all of our lives.
    Kenny Fries
    Apr 30, 2019

    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.

    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

    Cable Cars Are Changing the World

    Once seen as only good for industry or tourists, the cable car is now emerging as a crucial form of public transit.
    Duncan Geere
    Mar 7, 2017 18 min read

    Disappearing Languages and Tooltips

    Obfuscating a feature is obviously not a great solution, and it’s arguably a total betrayal of the principles I laid out above. But it was the best compromise we found between giving people information we knew they’d want, while not promising something we couldn’t deliver in a fair and equal manner.
    Duncan Geere
    Apr 12, 2018 2 min read