New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has reportedly ordered the NYPD not to arrest people for smoking marijuana in public ahead of outright legalization of the drug in the city. Currently, only medical marijuana is legal in NYC. The mayor flagged the policy change on social media last week, but city hall aides told... Continue Reading →

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are seen as a potential means by which severely physically impaired individuals can regain control of their environment. BCIs use the electrical activity in the brain to control an external device. They have seen growing use in people with severe motor disabilities, for communication (by controlling a keyboard), mobility (by controlling a... Continue Reading →

Wealth inequality is one of the great moral issues of our time. In an era when the world has more money than ever before, billions still live on less than $3 a day. The disparity becomes more striking in the light of studies that show most income inequality comes down to luck, with people of... Continue Reading →

The robot revolution is here, at least for your morning caffeine fix. Cafe X Technologies is a new, automated barista designed by the award-winning team behind Dr. Dre's Beats headphones and speakers: the Ammunition Group. The Jetsons-style coffeemaker can sling 120 cups of joe per hour at specs that satisfy finicky roasters (and project partners)... Continue Reading →

From a first-principles perspective, the task of feeding eight billion people boils down to converting energy from the sun into chemical energy in our bodies. Traditionally, solar energy is converted by photosynthesis into carbohydrates in plants (i.e., biomass), which are either eaten by the vegans amongst us, or fed to animals, for those with a... Continue Reading →

Year after year, cities expand and pristine natural habitats are turned into farms and pastures to support the world’s growing population. But despite our encroachment into the environment, we still struggle to feed everyone. Vertical farms could offer a solution by producing higher crop yields year-round in less space. What is vertical farming? With land... Continue Reading →

Who will clean self-driving vehicles? I found myself wondering this recently as my son and I tidied the family car after a road trip. We'd been driving for only five hours, but we had produced two grocery bags of trash: water bottles, parking stubs, wrappers from lunchtime hoagies, reading material, a roll of Scotch tape,... Continue Reading →

While more than three in four Americans do not believe lying is the American way, two-thirds of U.S. residents say people lie to them, at least, some of the time, according to an exclusive THIRD RAIL WITH OZY-Marist poll. In fact, many Americans think dishonesty exists at even the highest level of American society. A majority... Continue Reading →

The economy may be chugging along, but many Americans are still struggling to afford a basic middle class life. Nearly 51 million households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone, according to a study released Thursday by the United Way ALICE... Continue Reading →

HAND-EYE COORDINATION Robots are increasingly populating — and in some cases taking over — the workplace, performing tasks that humans aren’t capable of, or making others more efficient. But they can’t do it all just yet. One seemingly simple job that robots still struggle with is identifying objects and picking them up. But researchers from MIT and Princeton... Continue Reading →