Daniel Rourke /stream

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In his 1971 novella The Futurological Congress, the Polish science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem describes a group of futurologists who have gathered at the Hilton Hotel in Costa Rica to stave off…

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More than five years after the devastating tsunami and the 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck north-eastern Japan, causing the explosion of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, the Japanese town remains abandoned. Since…

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Jason Ray thinks the culture of “disaster prepping” is misunderstood.

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I have two cyborg implants. One is in my hand, and it lets me unlock phones and doors by waving at them. The other is in my uterus, and it lets…

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We are living in the Anthropocene age, in which human influence on the planet is so profound – and terrifying – it will leave its legacy for millennia. Politicians and scientists…

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Slime mold—a living network of tendrils found on rotting wood and other plant debris—is easily one of the strangest things alive. Neither plant, nor fungus, it’s a collection of individual cells…

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It’s been nearly 160 years since we Homo sapiens, or “wise people,” first got an inkling through Charles Darwin and the discovery of Neanderthal remains that we are just another evolving…

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Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Svante Paabo sequenced Neanderthal genes but what does it tell us about modern humans?

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Are we entering a new planetary era? A working group of scientists met in Berlin last week to start answering this Earth-shifting question.

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Floating around the Internet are plans for a semi-automatic pistol constructed out of sheet metal. Like so many plans for 3D printed guns, it appears no one has actually built one…

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There’s a fascinating Q&A in a recent issue of New Scientist with doctor and genetic researcher Karin Ljubic Fister. Fister studies “plant-based data storage,” which relies on a combination of artificially…

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To colonize Mars, researchers are developing a new kind of concrete that doesn't require water and is more than twice as strong. Concrete has been critical to the colonization of our…

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A strawberry Christmas cake, sexy pants, a pool table, three red jet planes, a hippy bandana, a dog sled, a jetpack, a pair of Adidas trainers, a Tudor throne, a bullet…

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The U.S. military has always been the one place in government with a plan, forever in preparation mode and ready to yank a blueprint off the shelf for almost any contingency.…

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Evolution’s retirement plan has been 3.6 billion years in the making. With the appearance of the modern human being, we now have an organism that can take over from natural processes…

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Is humanity’s impact on its environment so huge that the planet has entered a new geological era: the Anthropocene? The idea is gaining ground—and dividing scientists. Helen Gordon investigates

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On September 13, 1993, motorists driving on the Massachusetts Turnpike witnessed an unusual sight: A highway billboard for the Museum of Science in Boston had been covered by a ten-foot-by-ten-foot black…

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Looks like it's plastic for lunch. For the first time, plankton have been caught on camera munching on tiny pieces of plastic. Verity White from Five Films and her team captured…

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In his 1971 novella The Futurological Congress, the Polish science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem describes a group of futurologists who have gathered at the Hilton Hotel in Costa Rica to stave off…

Bookmark

More than five years after the devastating tsunami and the 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck north-eastern Japan, causing the explosion of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, the Japanese town remains abandoned. Since…

Bookmark

Leaving planet Earth isn’t easy. This year, NASA’s Astronaut Candidate Program received a record 18,000-plus applications from highly qualified scientists bent on discovering space’s deep abyss. It will choose a handful,…

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I have two cyborg implants. One is in my hand, and it lets me unlock phones and doors by waving at them. The other is in my uterus, and it lets…

Bookmark

Slime mold—a living network of tendrils found on rotting wood and other plant debris—is easily one of the strangest things alive. Neither plant, nor fungus, it’s a collection of individual cells…

Bookmark

Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Svante Paabo sequenced Neanderthal genes but what does it tell us about modern humans?

Bookmark

Are we entering a new planetary era? A working group of scientists met in Berlin last week to start answering this Earth-shifting question.

Bookmark

Floating around the Internet are plans for a semi-automatic pistol constructed out of sheet metal. Like so many plans for 3D printed guns, it appears no one has actually built one…

Bookmark

There’s a fascinating Q&A in a recent issue of New Scientist with doctor and genetic researcher Karin Ljubic Fister. Fister studies “plant-based data storage,” which relies on a combination of artificially…

Bookmark

Imagine constructing a building with no blueprints or architects, and no inkling of what the finished edifice should look like. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, and yet that’s what…

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A strawberry Christmas cake, sexy pants, a pool table, three red jet planes, a hippy bandana, a dog sled, a jetpack, a pair of Adidas trainers, a Tudor throne, a bullet…

Bookmark

The U.S. military has always been the one place in government with a plan, forever in preparation mode and ready to yank a blueprint off the shelf for almost any contingency.…

Bookmark

Evolution’s retirement plan has been 3.6 billion years in the making. With the appearance of the modern human being, we now have an organism that can take over from natural processes…

Bookmark

Is humanity’s impact on its environment so huge that the planet has entered a new geological era: the Anthropocene? The idea is gaining ground—and dividing scientists. Helen Gordon investigates

Bookmark

A few years ago in a lab in Panama, Klaus Winter tried to conjure the future. A plant physiologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, he planted seedlings of 10 tropical…

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Looks like it's plastic for lunch. For the first time, plankton have been caught on camera munching on tiny pieces of plastic. Verity White from Five Films and her team captured…

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The ultimate fate of waste plastic is hazy – but we know future geologists will find traces of a fleeting era written in the stones. Welcome to the Plasticene ONE million…