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An Ethics for the Future of Genetic Testing
DebMomof3/FlickrThe available prenatal testing technologies for expectant parents are constantly changing in dramatic and subtle ways, and 2013 saw its share of those changes. These tests are tricky...
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Our Most Popular Tech Stories of 2013
Traffic is a strange beast. The stories we do about cyborg telemarketing, legal scholarship, spambots, opera, NSA spying, nuclear weapons, virtual worms, and crying in space all do well, but none of...
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NASA's Next Rover May Be This Crazy Walking Sphere
Biomimicry has taken us far in robotics. There's the snake. There's the mechanized pack animal. There's the birds, and the bees, and the fleas. And on and on. It makes sense that we would, in...
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What A Hot Mobile Device from the 16th Century Tells Us About 2014
A girdle book (British Library).This miniature book was meant to be worn like a holstered Blackberry. Those two holes across the top were for the string that would attach to one's girdle or belt. The...
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What You Need to Know about the Third-Party Doctrine
What are your rights to the information that other companies and people have about you? (Drab Makyo/Flick)In March 1976, a Baltimore woman reported to police that she had been robbed. She provided the...
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And Now There's Facial Recognition for the People in Your Pupils
If you get up really close to someone—or zoom in really close in a photo of that person—you can see what he sees, reflected into your own eyes. It's creepy and cool and occasionally profound: Staring...
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5 Intriguing Things: Tuesday, 12/31
1. What wearables might do to our ideas about phones, according to one glasshole's honest confession. "Glass kind of made me hate my phone — or any phone. It made me realize how much they have captured...
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In 1964, Isaac Asimov Imagined the World in 2014
America's Independent Electric Light and Power Companies/PaleofutureIn August of 1964, just more than 50 years ago, author Isaac Asimov wrote a piece in The New York Times, pegged to that summer's...
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Pickles, Possums, Peeps: The Things We Drop to Ring in the New Year
The Times Square ball drops to ring in 2013. (Countdown Entertainment via NYCGo)Why do we celebrate the New Year ... by dropping things? It started with ships. Maritime vessels, back before they could...
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5 Intriguing Things: Thursday, 1/2
1. You must watch the demo of Structure, a 3D scanner for the iPad that looks amazing. It has begun shipping to its Kickstarter backers. "The magic of 3D depth sensing begins with the ability to...
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How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood
If you use Netflix, you've probably wondered about the specific genres that it suggests to you. Some of them just seem so specific that it's absurd. Emotional Fight-the-System Documentaries? Period...
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Right Now, It's as Cold in Canada as Where Our Rover Is on Mars
Snow on the polar cap of Mars ... during the summer on the planet, photographed in April of 2000 (NASA/JPL/MSSS)Canada is having a cold snap at the moment. This week, in Southern Manitoba, the...
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Can Physicists Find Time Travelers on Facebook?
If you were from the future, would you pause to tweet? (Reuters) Twitter and Facebook have been asked to save journalism and overthrow autocrats. Now, two physicists have proposed an application even...
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How Did People in Ancient Pompeii End Up Eating Giraffes?
A team, with the help of a (modern) tablet, examines an ancient Pompeiian drain for food remnants. (University of Cincinnati)We tend to think of Pompeii mostly in terms of its ending. Before the city...
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5 Intriguing Things: Friday, 1/3
1. An epic poem constructed from descriptive phrases in NYT obits. "Children’s Book Author Singer of ‘The Birds and the Bees’ Scrappy Leader of Firefighters’ Union Head of a Tabasco Empire Jazz Dance...
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How Many Tons of World War II Munitions Are Found in Germany Each Year?
A police officer takes a look at the wreckage of an excavator and a crater caused by an explosion of a suspected World War II bomb. The driver of the excavator was killed. (Reuters/Ina Fassbender...
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Snowden and the Blizzard Made a Latin Word Suddenly Very Popular
ReutersPeter Sokolowski is a lexicographer and editor-at-large at Merriam-Webster. This means, perhaps most importantly, that he has access to their trend data. Sokolowski can see, ahead of anyone...
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The Snowy Northeast U.S. Looked So, So Gorgeous From Space
Today, NASA’s Terra satellite passed over the northeast United States, just as a massive snowstorm was blowing out. It captured a quietly beautiful image, below, in which you can see the snow-free...
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Google Scholar Is Doing Just Fine, Says Google
Under Larry Page, Google has had the stated strategic goal of putting "more wood behind fewer arrows." The company may dabble in robotics, but the company has steadily reduce the number of products it...
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