Daniel Rourke /stream

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We have learned how to manipulate the code of life. Why this hasn’t received more attention is beyond me. Synthetic Biology is a multidisciplinary field that often defies definition. Yet despite…

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Human-engineered structures and gadgets from cities to cellphones now represent an enormous mass weight of nearly 30 trillion tonnes on the planet, or vastly more than the world’s forests or life…

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­­The conditions that obtained when life had not yet emerged from the oceans have not subsequently changed a great deal for the cells of the human body, bathed by the primordial…

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Among the white nationalists on 4chan’s “politically incorrect,” or /pol/ board and on “alt-right” Twitter — or anywhere you might run into a picture of Pepe the Frog — there is…

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The Turing Test has a serious problem: it relies too much on deception… Consider the interrogator asking questions like these: How tall are you?
 Tell me about your parents.

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Imagine you’re moving apartments and shopping for new furniture at a couple of stores. You see a couch you like, but you’re not sure, so you leave thinking maybe you’ll return…

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An adorable black kitten is sitting on a bookshelf, eyes fixed on an insect. It sits, paws perfectly aligned. Then, out of nowhere, it pounces — leaping off the shelf and…

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Janet Vertesi, assistant professor of sociology at Princeton University, had an idea: would it be possible to hide her pregnancy from big data? Thinking about technology—the way we use it and…

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Defecating ducks, talking busts, and mechanised Christs — Jessica Riskin on the wonderful history of automata, machines built to mimic the processes of intelligent life.

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The things we create define us, as a culture and as a species. Yet, so often, as we hurtle into the future, our creations seem to take on a life of…

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German artist Ralf Baecker gives technology a life of its own. His new piece Irrational Computing, which debuts International Triennial of New Media Art, use semiconductor crystals (quartz sand) and connects…

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The librarian was nondescript in the way that everyone standing behind a counter is, probably in her 30s, with straight, fox-colored hair.

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The decisive violence imposed on life by the capitalist mode of production derives from its quest for radical simplification.

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To the computer scientist Leslie Valiant, “machine learning” is redundant. In his opinion, a toddler fumbling with a rubber ball and a deep-learning network classifying cat photos are both learning; calling…

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It astonishes me how much we seem to know about aliens. They build technology-driven civilisations and pilot spaceships across the galaxy. They create energy-harvesting structures around their stars. They beam interstellar…

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We have learned how to manipulate the code of life. Why this hasn’t received more attention is beyond me. Synthetic Biology is a multidisciplinary field that often defies definition. Yet despite…

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As a planetary astrobiologist, I am focused on the major transitions in planetary evolution and the evolving relationship between planets and life.

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Human-engineered structures and gadgets from cities to cellphones now represent an enormous mass weight of nearly 30 trillion tonnes on the planet, or vastly more than the world’s forests or life…

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Among the white nationalists on 4chan’s “politically incorrect,” or /pol/ board and on “alt-right” Twitter — or anywhere you might run into a picture of Pepe the Frog — there is…

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Neil deGrasse Tyson was once asked about his thoughts on the cosmos. In a slow, gloomy voice, he intoned, “The universe is a deadly place. At every opportunity, it’s trying to…

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Imagine you’re moving apartments and shopping for new furniture at a couple of stores. You see a couch you like, but you’re not sure, so you leave thinking maybe you’ll return…

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An adorable black kitten is sitting on a bookshelf, eyes fixed on an insect. It sits, paws perfectly aligned. Then, out of nowhere, it pounces — leaping off the shelf and…

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Jacques Toussaint Benoît believed that snails, once mated, had a lifelong telepathic bond. (Photo: Pierre Watson/shutterstock.com)

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The things we create define us, as a culture and as a species. Yet, so often, as we hurtle into the future, our creations seem to take on a life of…

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Bringing children into a disintegrating environment used to be a theoretical fear. Now it’s a very real one The decision whether or not to have a child is one of the…

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The librarian was nondescript in the way that everyone standing behind a counter is, probably in her 30s, with straight, fox-colored hair.

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The decisive violence imposed on life by the capitalist mode of production derives from its quest for radical simplification.

Bookmark

To the computer scientist Leslie Valiant, “machine learning” is redundant. In his opinion, a toddler fumbling with a rubber ball and a deep-learning network classifying cat photos are both learning; calling…

Bookmark

It astonishes me how much we seem to know about aliens. They build technology-driven civilisations and pilot spaceships across the galaxy. They create energy-harvesting structures around their stars. They beam interstellar…