latest advancements in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including medical breakthroughs, space exploration, and new gadgets and software.
It has now been over a year since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, with more than 8,300 recorded civilian deaths and counting. The tech workers who left everything behind to flee Russia warn that the country is well on its way to becoming a village: cut off from the global tech industry, research, funding, …
During the past three years of the pandemic, testing sewage water for the virus that causes COVID has become a valuable tool: it has spotted surging infections and new variants weeks before they showed up in medical clinics, for instance. The technology has also warned of other health threats such as seasonal viruses and increased …
A Valuable Early-Warning System for Disease Outbreaks Could Be Shut Down Read More »
Kelso Harper: Do you haste your open-plan office? Are you even in an office anymore? COVID changed how we use office spaces, and now many employers are starting to rethink their design. Today, we’re talking about how insights from Deaf and autistic communities could finally make open-plan offices better for everyone. I’m Kelso Harper, and …
Open Offices Aren’t Working, so How Do We Design an Office That Does? Read More »
Mountaineers have visited Rifugio Casati, a four-story building 10,725 feet above sea level in the Italian Alps, for nearly a century. In 2016 Renato Alberti, who had overseen the structure for 35 years, noticed a vertical crack in one of the outer walls. Alberti, now age 67, filled the gap with repair foam, but the …
Buildings Crumble High in the Alps as Permafrost Thaws Read More »
In the skies over Ukraine, a new epoch in air warfare is emerging: drone-on-drone combat. These aerial duels don’t involve bullets, missiles or bombs. In some, hobby-type camera quadcopters that are used to spy on enemy positions simply ram each other in a crude aerial demolition derby. In other encounters, highly sophisticated craft use advanced …
Drone-on-Drone Combat in Ukraine Marks a New Era of Aerial Warfare Read More »
CLIMATEWIRE | A controversial idea for cooling the earth’s climate through artificial means would likely require a much longer global commitment than policymakers and the public understand, according to a recent study that raises new questions about the potential for using solar geoengineering. If world leaders decide to use solar geoengineering to meet international climate …
Geoengineering Is Not a Quick Fix for the Climate Crisis, New Analysis Shows Read More »
HOUSTON — NASA has named its first astronaut crew bound for the moon in more than 50 years. The space agency on Monday (April 3) announced the four astronauts who will launch on its Artemis 2 mission to fly around the moon. The crew is expected to become the first moon travelers since the Apollo …
NASA Announces the Astronaut Crew for Artemis II Lunar Flyby Read More »
(This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here.) Advances in artificial intelligence tend to be followed by anxieties around jobs. This latest wave of AI models, like ChatGPT and OpenAI’s new GPT-4, is …
AI might not steal your job, but it could change it Read More »
When computer science students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Software Research returned to campus in the summer of 2020, there was a lot to adjust to. The department had moved into a brand-new building, complete with experimental super-sensing devices called Mites. Embedded in more than 300 locations throughout the building, these light-switch-size …
A bitter campus privacy row, and AI-powered lawyers Read More »
“I think this is going to be pretty much a disaster from a security and privacy perspective,” says Florian Tramèr, an assistant professor of computer science at ETH Zürich who works on computer security, privacy, and machine learning. Because the AI-enhanced virtual assistants scrape text and images off the web, they are open to a …
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are using an obscure legal tool to demand data from elementary schools, news organizations, and abortion clinics in ways that, some experts say, may be illegal. While these administrative subpoenas, known as 1509 custom summonses, are meant to be used only in criminal investigations about illegal imports or unpaid …
ICE Is Grabbing Data From Schools and Abortion Clinics Read More »
Software supply chain attacks, in which corrupt hackers widely used applications to push their own code to thousands or even millions of machines, have become a scourge, both insidious and potentially huge in the breadth of their impact. But the latest major software supply-chain attack, in which hackers who appear to be working on behalf …
Massive 3CX Supply-Chain Hack Targeted Cryptocurrency Firms Read More »
No, of course you don’t buy a speaker to look at it. But should your gaze fall upon your speaker while you’re enjoying its sound, ideally the sight of it shouldn’t make you wince. So it’s just as well that Era 300, the latest Sonos wireless speaker and the company’s first foray into spatial audio …
Sonos Era 300 Review: Stunning Spatial, Superior Sound Read More »
Tea Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse is due to enter the public domain in 2024. Victoria Schwartz, professor of law at Pepperdine’s Caruso School of Law, explains that the trademark Disney holds on the Steamboat Mickey might give the company some coverage when copyright law no longer can. Copyrights expire, but trademark protections can …
‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’ Turned a Children’s Icon Into a Murderer. Good Read More »
Zoox has designed a whole suite of sounds for its vehicles. The resulting audio palette sounds like the synthy soundtrack to an ’80s movie that’s been sliced into tiny bits. The car’s interior aura is a slow ambient hum, like something you’d hear on the chill-out radio station Hearts of Space. The idea is to …
As a result, if abortion jurisprudence continues using fetal viability as its central criterion for whether abortion should be allowed, abortion in the ectogenesis era risks becoming less morally and socially acceptable than it is today. There is a real risk that future legislation, especially in conservative communities, states, and countries, will fully prohibit abortion …
Artificial Wombs Will Change Abortion Rights Forever Read More »
If you calculate all those individual services with the cost of the Pixel 7 Pro over the course of two years, your total comes out to $1,806. So you are effectively paying less ($486 less, to be exact). But it’s only really worth it if you watch a ton of YouTube and use YouTube Music, …
Best Google Pixel Phone (2023): Which Model to Buy, Cases and Accessories, Feature Drops Read More »
Ella Balasa was 26 when she realized the routine medical treatments that sustained her were no longer working. The slender lab assistant had lived since childhood with the side effects of cystic fibrosis, an inherited disease that turns mucus in the lungs and other organs into a thick, sticky goo that gives pathogens a place …
In the War on Bacteria, It’s Time to Call in the Phages Read More »
It’s essentially a problem of scale. Proteins like soy and pea are produced on a mass scale for very low prices, but the cultivated meat industry is still linking on supply chains that exist for the pharmaceutical industry, where margins are much higher. In Oxford in the UK, scientists at cultivated meat firm Ivy Farm …
Your First Lab-Grown Burger Won’t Contain Much Beef Read More »
The easiest way to use the digital anonymity service Tor is through the Tor Browser. You download and use it like a regular browser, and it covers your digital footprints as you go, making it very difficult for anyone to track your online activity. On top of that, the Tor Browser is designed with countersurveillance …
Mullvad VPN and Tor Project Create New Privacy-Focused Mullvad Browser Read More »