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

    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.

    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.

    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.

    Beats: Space Space is where we project our dreams–and our nightmares–of the future.

    The Human Machine

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

    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

    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 pair of hands repairing circuit boards with tools.

    How a Broken Toaster Can Help Fix the World

    Taking a visit to a “Restart” party, where dead electronics are given new life.
    Alice Bell
    Sep 30, 2014 6 min read

    The World’s Best Sports Technology Comes From the Military-Industrial Complex

    Sports have had a long relationship with the military–but over the past decade or so at least one aspect of that connection has deepened, and technological innovations developed for military purposes are making their way into sports of all kinds.
    Richard Moss
    Jul 11, 2016 6 min read

    Steven Johnson: In Conversation With Brian Eno

    “Cheating is actually all I ever do.”
    Steven Johnson
    Dec 18, 2015 9 min read