How Computer Science Became a Boys’ Club
Women were the first computer programmers. How, then, did programming become the domain of bearded nerds and manly individualists?
Botanists Use Machine Learning to Accelerate Research
A new artificial intelligence program called ARADEEPOPSIS will help botanists rapidly classify plant phenotypes.
When the Push Button Was New, People Were Freaked
The mundane interface between human and machine caused social anxiety in the late nineteenth century.
The Whole Earth Catalog, Where Counterculture Met Cyberculture
Long before Facebook or Twitter, an L.L. Bean-style catalog for hippies inspired the creation of one of the world’s first social networks.
What’s the Deal with Crypto Art?
Thirty years after the invention of blockchain, an artist sold a JPG using that technology for nearly $70 million. Huh?
The Invention of the Test Tube
Chemists learned to blow their own glass vessels in the nineteenth century. It definitely beat using wine glasses.
How Technology Got Its Modern Meaning
If we give technology credit for changing history, does that mean we give ourselves less?
An AI Bot is Clogging Our Submissions Inbox
So naturally, we thought of all the kind stories we've written about artificial intelligence over the years. We take it all back!
Are the Posthumans Here Yet?
Implanting machine components into human bodies, argues one scholar, could make for a better society.