A Practical Machine: The Wright Brothers in Dayton
Orville and Wilbur Wright wanted to create a practical machine—not a novelty or a gimmick—and they accomplished that at Ohio’s Huffman Prairie on October 5, 1905.
The Politics of Our AI Overlords
Fears of AI often focus on domination by algorithm-powered capitalism, but science fiction once used societies ruled by computers as analogs for communism.
Arthur C. Clarke’s Scuba Adventures and Ocean Frontiers
Clarke’s interest in oceanic exploration in the 1950s was, like his undersea fiction, often neglected by an audience focused on the race for outer space.
Is AI Good for the Planet?
The algorithms that promise to predict wildfires and optimize energy grids are powered by servers that drink up rivers and belch out more carbon than cars.
Using Pollen To Make Paper, Sponges, and More
Reengineered, the powdery stuff could become a range of eco-friendly objects.
Super-Resolution Microscopes Showcase the Inner Lives of Cells
Advanced light microscopy techniques have come into their own—and are giving scientists a new understanding of human biology and what goes wrong in disease.
Convincing Peasants to Fly in the Soviet Union
With air-minded films, poems, and demonstrations, Soviet leaders sought to lift peasants out of their “backward” lives and into the world of the modern proletariat.
Before Deep Blue: the Automaton Chess Player
You may have heard of IBM’s chess-playing computer, but Johann Nepomuk Maelzel’s Automaton Chess Player beat Deep Blue to the (mechanical) punch. Check mate.
Putting a Cork in It: In Construction, That Is
The bark of the evergreen oak Quercus suber has been used for millennia as a construction material. Could it be our answer to sustainable buildings?
Tyler S. Sprague on the Intersection of Structure and Design
An interview with Tyler S. Sprague, a historian of the built environment whose work depends on multidisciplinarity and a deep knowledge of structure and materials.