This Year's Sundance Lineup Might Be Its Most Crucial Yet
Every year important movies come to the Sundance Film Festival. Documentaries about global warming, narrative features about the trials of incarceration, stories of marginalized communities—they’re all screening from sunup to sundown. Yet this year’s Sundance lineup might be its most crucial, and timely, yet. Related Stories That’s because at a time when less than 5…
The Education of Brett the Robot
The Berkeley Robot for the Elimination of Tedious Tasks—aka Brett, of course—holds one of those puzzle cubes for kids in one hand and with the other tries to jam a rectangular peg into a hole. It is unhappily, hilariously toddler-like in its struggles. The peg strikes the cube with a clunk, and Brett pulls back,…
Thanks to Binges and Benders, Postmates Knows the True You
Uber knows where you live and work; Amazon tracks your spending habits; Facebook logs your Likes. But Postmates—the refuge of homebodies, impulse shoppers, and the lazy, hungry masses—understands the real you: your moods, your flings, your celebrations, and your munchies. We tapped a team of data scientists at the anything-goes delivery company to reveal our…
Physicists Capture the Elusive Neutrino Smacking Into an Atom's Core
Every second of every day, trillions of tiny particles called neutrinos are raining down on your head. But unlike raindrops, hailstones, or bird poop, these elementary particles go right through your body—and through Earth’s crust, mantle, and core—at nearly the speed of light. After they sail through the entire planet, they fly silently back into…
Beach Culture Versus Tech Money: Fight!
The road to dystopia is paved with errors. It winds and undulates, and its off ramps include avoidable catastrophes like Madmaximum, where a boneheaded energy policy un-terraforms Earth, and the suburban nightmare of the Handmaid’s Vale, with all its orderly fascism. But honestly, the destination that freaks me out the most is the collection of…
How Climate Change Denial Threatens National Security
In a cramped meeting room Wednesday on Capitol Hill, House Democrats hosted a roundtable to discuss climate change with several national security experts. In attendance were two former admirals, a retired general, a once-ambassador to Nigeria, and the former undersecretary to the Secretary of Defense. Over several hours of questioning, they described how climate change…
US Farms Could Suffer as the Arctic Heats Up
Planet Earth is getting hotter. One of the more confusing aspects of this global trend is the persistent, undeniable discomfort of winter. Even more confusing is when that chilly weather continues into April, May, or godforbidpleasenot June. This might clear the confusion (but probably not the frustration): Those colder temperatures in the first half of…
Augmented Reality Is Transforming Museums
New York’s Museum of Modern Art is under siege. Well, a virtual siege, at least. A group of renegade artists has co-opted the brightly-lit Jackson Pollock gallery on the museum’s fifth floor, turning it into their personal augmented reality playground. To the uninitiated, the gallery remains unchanged; Pollock’s distinctive drip paintings are as prominent and…
Puerto Rico’s Slow-Motion Medical Disaster
Hurricane Maria left a ruined island and 16 Puerto Rico residents dead. But public health experts worry that figure could climb higher in the coming weeks, as many on the island fail to get medicines or treatment they need for chronic diseases. Roads are blocked, supplies are stuck at the ports, and only 49 of…
The Brotox Boom: Why More Men Are Turning to Plastic Surgery
Brent looks like the archetypal thirtysomething tech guy. Clad in dark jeans and a button-up, the marketing director fits right in at his startup in San Jose. He landed the gig with the usual Silicon Valley pedigree, having worked at a couple of startups and Fortune 500 companies. He keeps a regimented gym schedule. He’s…