It was a bit surreal to stand in the middle of Times Square and hear a throng of revelers chant “NASA! NASA!” as if the space agency had just won a gold medal in the Olympics. They were cheering the successful landing of …
Alt Tech
Hacking Your Memory: Could Total Recall Really Happen?
“Total Recall” features technology that erases and implants memories. Is that just sci-fi nonsense, or will we one day be able to reprogram our memories as we see fit?
Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Future of U.S. Space Exploration After Curiosity
In four days, NASA’s Curiosity rover will hopefully survive its “seven minutes of terror” and land safely on the surface of Mars. What comes next for U.S. space exploration?
Techland decided to ask famed astrophysicist Neil …
The Doctor Will Email You Now: Sherpaa Handles Healthcare Online
Dr. Jay Parkinson, 36, gained notoriety in 2007 when he started his own practice in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a neighborhood known for its influx of arty types and bars. Gawker quickly dubbed him the “Hipster Doctor.” He’s also …
Windows that Generate Electricity from Invisible Light? Is This the Future or What?
Slapping solar panels on your humble abode may not seem like the height of fashionable home design, but what if you could just use your windows to gin up a little juice?
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles …
The Laser Beam 1,000 Times as Powerful as the U.S.
For all the heady talk about the misleadingly “deific,” recently confirmed quantum specks named after a Scottish physicist, another kind of historic event has transpired: in a shot fired on July 5, a record-shattering laser beam …
Mission to Mars: 8 Amazing Tech Tools Aboard NASA’s Curiosity Rover
Everyone’s talking about the $2.5 billion Curiosity rover‘s “terrifying” Hollywood-blockbuster-worthy landing: seven knuckle-in-teeth minutes in early August during which its aeroshell-armored bulk will plummet through Mars’ thin …
Can We Fix Computer Science Education in America?
The tech industry is one of the few bright spots in a dim economy. So why aren’t we teaching kids the skills they need to participate in it?
Quantum Computing at Room Temperature — Now a Reality
You’ve read about the world’s first quantum network built from two atoms and one proton. You’ve heard about the quantum computer someone plonked inside a diamond to grapple with something called “quantum decoherence.” I mean, who …
Allen Institute: Microsoft Cofounder’s Organization Holds Brain Hackathon
Yesterday, I wrote about a researcher “hacking” into Stephen Hawking’s mind with a new device called the iBrain. But for most scientists, hacking the brain doesn’t mean bypassing the physical body — it means making sense of the …
Reading Stephen Hawking’s Mind to Keep His Voice Alive
Philip Low almost didn’t meet Stephen Hawking.
Running his own start-up, NeuroVigil, was exhausting for Low and after his speech at the World Science Festival in New York, the last thing he wanted to do was socialize at an …
Google Joins Fight to Save Nearly 3,000 Endangered Languages
The last native speakers of Miami-Illinois died in the 1960s. Two centuries earlier, Jesuits came to the United States and found two tribes — the Miami and the Illinois, which both shared a common language.
“The Jesuits …
