Let Robots Handle Your Emotional Burnout at Work But as robotics and computing evolve, some researchers foresee a future where technology can relieve the long-held emotional burden of some of these professions. They think we owe it to the service workforce to offer a new frontline of robotic protection. In fact, they think it’s far overdue–but does that actually mean just automating these jobs away?

    Dreaming Up Inventions for an Afrofuturist World Three magical tools necessary for both liberation and laughter.

    How to Dress for Ultimate Privacy In the age of surveillance, achieving invisibility through fashion isn’t a futuristic idea–it’s already possible.

    Chasing Virality Brought Us Fake News, Now Everything’s on Fire By uncritically embedding itself into social networks, did the media actually usher in the era of fake news?

    Your Classroom Is Making You Fail Almost everyt traditional classroom design makes it harder to learn–yet the fixes are often simple.

    Red Planet: How We’ll Govern Mars Technical and engineering obstacles are solvable when it comes to interplanetary colonization–the real challenge is governance.

    A vast stack of containers on a ship

    Postcards From a Supply Chain

    A series that traces consumer goods back through the global shipping system to their source.
    Dan Williams
    Jan 21, 2015

    Breaking the Cycle

    The future of reproductive health in India, from early ideas about population control to on-the-ground interventions happening now, to a world where men and women share contraceptive responsibility.
    Hannah Harris Green
    Sep 26, 2018

    Isla del Encanto

    Puerto Ricans have always found opportunity in the limits placed upon them. Exploring the island’s agricultural future–from community gardens to research hubs, bakers to growers to distillers.
    Alicia Kennedy
    Apr 16, 2019

    Beats: Space

    Space is where we project our dreams–and our nightmares–of the future.

    Beats: Food

    Food structures our day, and food systems shape our world

    Beats: Disability

    “Disable” is an active verb, and disability describes the social and environmental barriers that prevent access just as much as an individual body’s physical reality.

    Beats: Health

    Access to health care is as much a matter of public policy as it is the size of a person’s pocketbook; within a doctor’s office, many factors affect the quality of treatment.

    Slimed! A Brief History of Gunge

    Icky green slime is far older than Nickelodeon.
    Alice Bell
    Feb 18, 2015 3 min read

    Charted: Who Doesn’t Go to College, and Why

    Data on higher education enrollment around the world is patchy, but we can still learn important lessons
    Graeme Atherton
    Dec 23, 2016 5 min read

    Never go to space it’s terrible omg

    Space does very, very, very bad things to the human body.
    Leigh Alexander
    Aug 19, 2016 6 min read