Discussions
When the Sun Disappears and Dolphins Do Back Flips
During total eclipses of the sun, at least one ancient culture performed mass human sacrifice to placate the gods. While our understanding of these celestial phenomena has grown, the author rediscovers the scientific curiosity they engender.
An Artist Explores the Lab
A recent photography exhibit goes behind the closed doors of major laboratories to shed fascinating light on the research shaping modern life.
Bringing High Tech to Low-Income People
From Seattle to Newark, nonprofit community-based organizations are now teaming up with high-tech companies to reinvigorate inner-city economic life.
Melding Mind and Machine
The computer and the human brainwork differently. Instead of trying to force one to emulate the other, designers would do better to ensure complementarity.
From Here to Eternity
Digitized memorabilia such as home videos and family photograph albums can last forever. But they may well drown our descendents in accumulated megabytes
Defusing Airline Terrorism
A variety of high-tech bomb detectors are under study, but certification, cost, and privacy dilemmas could keep them from your local airport.
The Medium is Only Half the Message
Technologists and storytellers: Can’t we all just get along?
Creating The People's Computer
One of the nation’s foremost computer scientists, exasperated by the unfriendliness of today’s computer systems, suggests what designers can do to make machines serve human needs–rather than the other way around.
Paint the Town White--and Green
Urban heat islands are not inevitable, but the product of dark roofs, black pavement, and loss of vegetation. A “cool communities” approach would lower air-conditioning use and make the air healthier.
Electronically Implanted "Values"
Software that renders the Internet child-safe can also screen out a wide range of legitimate information. Whose agenda is being served?
