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Robots are the most powerful blank slate humans have ever created. Want a helpful robot? No problem. Want a mean one? Sure, if that’s what you’re into. A robot is a mirror held up not just to its creator, but to our whole species: What we make of the machine reflects what we are. That…

This is not a story about how the polar vortex is bad—bad for the human body, bad for public transportation, bad for virtually everything in its path. This is a story about how one being among us is actually taking advantage of the historic cold snap: Cassie the bipedal robot. While humans suffer through the…

Last week, Stanford researchers revealed that that they had built tiny drones that can open doors. I'm not sure I'm happy about this: How will we keep the robots out of our houses if they can just open the doors? But this is also pretty cool. These tiny drones (or micro air vehicles) are able…

In the three and a half decades since HIV/AIDS was discovered, the deadly disease has killed 35 million people. While drugs now allow patients to live long lives with the virus, only one man, an American named Timothy Ray Brown, otherwise known as the “Berlin patient,” is believed to have been cured. Now, it appears…

A large yet tidy refugee camp rises from the desert near the Syrian-Jordanian border. Most people wouldn’t think of this as a hub of innovation, but nevertheless, a science and technology show has arrived with cameras and microphones. They’re interviewing officials from UNICEF who describe the techniques they developed to safely remove sewage from the…

There was an art accident recently. A man fell into a black hole—OK, not that kind of black hole, but an art exhibit consisting of an 8-foot-deep circular hole painted black. The idea was to represent the feeling of a super deep, even endless hole. I guess the guy didn't realize it was a hole…

If you're a nefarious sort, you might use a commercial drone to smuggle drugs, carry explosives, or to just spy on your neighbors. Drones are appealing to criminals in part because they seem fairly anonymous, flitting through the sky with an invisible digital tether to its owner. But anonymity is no longer a safe bet.…

At the beginning of 2018, Elon Musk predicted that SpaceX would pull off 30 launches. The goal seemed far-fetched; among other reasons, some of those flights were planned for the Falcon Heavy, which at the time had yet to fly. Indeed, the company didn’t hit that figure. But the 21 launches it did pull off…

A future in which your hamburger is grown from animal cells in a lab is rapidly approaching. The idea is that by culturing meat in a vat, you not only cut down on animal slaughter but greatly reduce emissions, on account of cattle taking a lot of energy to raise and butcher and ship. That's…

This story originally appeared on Slate and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Two weeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a dire report that made crystal clear that we have about a decade to stop catastrophic levels of climate change. The report caught fire for another extremely near deadline: It suggests…