Science of the Future
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Growing crops on Mars? Geologists explore ways to feed a Martian colony without hauling soil into space
Practically speaking, astronauts cannot haul an endless supply of topsoil through space. So University of Georgia geologists are figuring out ...
Will we ever eat lab-grown meat? Infant industry faces technical hurdles and fickle consumers
Blood, sweat and tears are a given, but we’ll also need to see significant movement in the price and availability ...
Here’s when and how the biotechnology revolution first got lift off
Early in the morning of Tuesday, October 14, 1980, the phone rang at Paul Berg’s house in Stanford, Cal. The ...
Podcast: Can we harness the power of germline editing without inviting disaster?
Gene editing has moved rapidly from the lab to real-world applications in medicine, yielding novel treatments for diseases like sickle ...
‘Organic electronics’ poised to create edgy new products, from bendable solar panels to transparent books to human-looking robots
Electronics made from carbon rather than silicon could lead to a new generation of medical devices, sensors and perhaps even ...
Viewpoint: The chilling impact of the virulent spread of anti-science thinking
"Anti-scientific thinking" is a bad disease of our time, and one which may affect a wide range of human beings, ...
As independent scientists’ do-it-yourself-COVID-vaccines proliferate, bioethicists counter with warnings
"It's actually simpler than most recipes in home cookbooks," said Preston Estep, chief scientist and co-founder of a DIY [COVID ...
Not quite total recall: How limits on what humans can remember is helping us ‘teach’ AI
An artificial neural network learns by adjusting synaptic weights—how strongly one artificial neuron connects to another—which in turn leads to ...
Scientists create mutant enzyme that chomps plastic bottles for lunch
A team of researchers that previously re-engineered a plastic-eating enzyme named PETase have now combined it with a second enzyme ...
4 of the most promising planets where we might find alien life
The Earth’s biosphere contains all the known ingredients necessary for life as we know it. Broadly speaking these are: liquid ...
‘Editing Humanity’: Kevin Davies’ new book on CRISPR, the ‘miracle of our age’
“The Crispr story has arrived for the grand telling as a miracle of our age,” the [MIT Technology Review announced ...
Meet the cyborg who can help decode the human brain
His motion capture suit, sensor-embedded gloves, and virtual reality eyewear were already enough to turn heads. But what stopped people ...
‘Swallowable surgeons’: Battalion of salt-crystal sized microbots in development that could revolutionize medicine
Drs. Marc Miskin, Itai Cohen, and Paul McEuen at Cornell University spearheaded a collaboration that tackled one of the most pressing ...
Artificial Intelligence’s Orwellian dangers – and what we should do about it
Individualistic western societies are built on the idea that no one knows our thoughts, desires or joys better than we ...
Viewpoint: AI ethics guidelines will fail unless they account for regional and cultural differences
AI systems have repeatedly been shown to cause problems that disproportionately affect marginalized groups while benefiting a privileged few. The ...
Podcast: The future of cancer care—How genomics is transforming research and treatment for all
In this episode, sponsored by Thermo Fisher Scientific, we’re taking a look at how genomic technologies are transforming cancer care ...
‘Detecting consciousness’: Living with a missing cerebellum and other mysteries of the brain
Can electrical impulses in the brain explain the stuff that dreams are made of? ...
How can we detect alien organisms that don’t look like life on Earth?
Nearly all previous life detection instruments have looked for volatile organic compounds using a gas chromatograph–mass spectrometer, or GC-MS. The Viking ...
First Contact with aliens could be a life-altering event. How should we respond?
Peter Hatfield and Leah Trueblood from the University of Oxford say that our experience with the COVID-19 pandemic is preparing ...
Science not yet ready for CRISPR gene-edited babies, US-UK commission concludes
[T]he science [behind gene edited babies] isn't advanced enough to ensure safety, says an international panel of experts who also ...
Interstellar evolution: Why life could emerge anywhere in the universe
[T]he impetus to go interstellar might have nothing to do with dreams of exploration or empire, but all to do with ...
What would life on Earth be like if humans were wiped out?
What would happen to our planet — to our cities, to our industries, to nature — if humans disappeared? There ...
How do you make meat without animals? The 5-step ‘recipe’ for a lab-grown, cell-based burger
Cultured meat, lab grown meat, cell based meat, clean meat, and cultivated meat are all terms used to describe meat ...
Race detector: AI’s ability to categorize us raises fears of bias
Today, more than a dozen companies offer some form of race or ethnicity detection, according to a review of websites, ...
Is artificial intelligence (AI) medicine racially biased?
The power of artificial intelligence has transformed health care by using massive datasets to improve diagnostics, treatment, records management, and patient ...
‘Like, wow’!: 3-D ultrasound images allow blind parents ‘glimpse’ at their newborn’s face
[S]ophisticated technology allows [blind parents] to “see” their little ones before they are born by creating a 3-D image to ...
Viewpoint: Is there a scientific basis to ban gene drive technology that can rid us of virus-carrying rodents and mosquitoes?
Gene drives may be invaluable tools to control the spread of parasites, invasive species, and disease carriers. But the technology ...
Meet STACI: STAT’s fascinating interactive guide to AI in healthcare
The Covid-19 pandemic underscores the importance of the technology in medicine: In the last few months, hospitals have used AI ...
