When FCC chairman Tom Wheeler passed the Open Internet Order in February of 2015, it was the culmination of decades of work. After countless advocacy campaigns and legal fights, the order classified internet providers as common carriers — falling...
Scientists have genetically engineered bacteria to make a protein that squishes silicon and carbon together long enough for them to stick to one another — forming a bond that, until now, only chemists had managed to create. If scientists can teach...
Two weeks ago PewDiePie, the world’s most popular YouTuber, announced he was ending his vlog. Four days later Casey Neistat, one of the fastest rising stars over the last two years, said he was ending his daily vlog. Imagine Beyoncé and Taylor...
Almost three weeks after Election Day, Wisconsin is getting ready to recount its votes, and Pennsylvania and Michigan may soon follow suit. Green Party candidate Jill Stein has raised over $6 million to fund the effort, saying fears of a hacked...
Few people saw Donald Trump’s victory coming, including Donald Trump. There are easy culprits to blame for the surprise win (skewed polls and fake news come to mind), but the biggest enemy might be our own egos. It’s natural to ignore everything...
Carmakers and tech companies working on self-driving cars are pushing back against the Obama administration’s request to share data and safety specifications with the federal government. But they are expressing hope that President-elect Donald...
At 5:59AM local time Tuesday morning, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake shook the east coast of Japan. The Japan Meteorological Agency issued tsunami warnings and evacuation orders soon after the quake hit, warning of possible 10-foot waves. The quake...
The human mouth is a disgusting place, capable of emitting awful smells. Viruses, fungi, and possibly more than 1,000 species of bacteria live inside this dark, moist orifice. Nestled into the crevices between your gums and teeth, these microbes...
The door is bright red, perched at the top of a mossy stone staircase in the middle of a floating island. When I approach, a mysterious tune begins emanating from it, as if playing from the other side. Right now, it’s just a simple prop, and there...
It’s a couple of weeks before the Daydream View headset launches, and at Google’s Mountain View headquarters, the team has filled a room with pieces of its past. The tables are littered with fabric swatches, molded foam shells, and things that...
In Hillary Clinton’s concession speech last Wednesday, she thanked supporters, activists, community leaders — and called upon the members of secret Facebook groups to speak out. “I want everybody coming out from behind that,” she said. “And make...
The key to developing a new drug to fight HIV may lie in the blood of a patient whose immune system can control the infection, a new study says. Scientists discovered proteins in the patient’s blood that blocked the virus from infecting immune...
Yesterday afternoon, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation met with representatives from the world of augmented reality for the first Congressional hearing on the industry. That included general counsel from the...
Good news for those despairing at our rapidly warming planet: we can supercharge plants to help fight the effects of climate change. Scientists have found two ways to make plants better at turning carbon dioxide into energy — and these techniques...
In the days leading up to and following this election, Facebook has been called lots of things — "a website," "an internet company," "a major player in the media universe," "a strange new class of media outlet," a "tech behemoth," a "cesspool of...
A new stick-on wearable sensor uses the symphony of internal rumblings, whooshing, gurglings, and cracklings to help doctors diagnose different conditions. And this souped-up, miniaturized stethoscope could one day be a way for clinicians to...
One week after the election, President-elect Trump’s White House staff is still being formed, but one familiar name has already surfaced: Peter Thiel. The PayPal co-founder has become one of the most controversial figures in Silicon Valley, thanks...
In 2015, New York City launched a municipal identification program with the goal of giving some of the city’s most vulnerable residents access to services that require an ID. Mayor Bill de Blasio gave the plan vocal support, saying the card...
The FBI has a new view into what’s happening on Twitter. Last week, the bureau hired Dataminr, a Twitter-linked analytics firm, to provide an “advanced alerting tool” to over 200 users. Twitter owns a 5 percent stake in Dataminr and provides it...
When GoPro launched its Karma drone earlier this year, it seemed like the perfect fit. The company was founded on action cameras, but had seen sales of its flagship Hero line sink since 2014. Over the same time period, the sale of camera drones to...
Even before the votes were counted on Tuesday night, phone calls were pouring into suicide hotlines across the US in record numbers. Americans, including those in the LGBTQ community, were looking for help coping with feelings of anxiety,...
President-elect Donald Trump is causing a stir in Silicon Valley. After riding the path to the White House in part thanks to his anti-immigration rhetoric, Trump is now casting a shadow over the tech industry’s use of high-skilled foreign labor....
There is a thick fog drifting through the woods, obscuring everything more than few feet in front of my face. I can see a crooked sapling, and then behind me I hear the crunching of dry leaves. Turning, I spot several figures lurching slowly...
Hundreds of bird species around the world are endangered even though they’re not classified as such, according to a new study. Using geographical data, scientists analyzed the habitats of certain birds and concluded that the International Union...
Yesterday, as groups across the country hit the final stretch of their get-out-the-vote campaigns, workers at NextGen Climate noticed some problems with their automated dialer program. As the team started its morning hours, the program used to...
Almost all the world’s illegal ivory comes from elephants that have been recently killed, researchers say. The new study shows that seized ivory isn’t coming from old stockpiles, but from African elephants that have been poached less than three...
Friday afternoon, US election officials got an unpleasant surprise. The security firm Cylance released a report disclosing a new attack on the popular Sequoia AVC Edge voting machine, potentially compromising both the machine’s public vote tally...
The carbon dioxide emissions I produce as an average American destroy about 650 square feet of Arctic sea ice every year. That’s according to a new study that directly links the amount of annual CO2 released in the atmosphere to the amount of...
Cannabis is becoming more popular across the US. Four states have legalized recreational marijuana and five more, including California, will vote on the issue next Tuesday. This is good news for many, but there is one big downside: legal pot can...