Author Archives: Charles Brass

Scientists have successfully taught a collection of human brain cells in a petri dish how to play the video game “Pong” — kind of. Researchers at the biotechnology startup Cortical Labs have created “mini-brains” consisting of 800,000 to one million living … Continued

Cast your mind back, if you will, to 1965, when Tom Lehrer recorded his live album That Was the Year That Was. Lehrer prefaced a song called “So Long Mom (A Song for World War III)” by saying that “if there’s … Continued

How do 1.4 kg of brain tissue create thoughts, feelings, mental images, and an inner world? The ability of the brain to create consciousness has baffled some for millennia. The mystery of consciousness lies in the fact that each of … Continued

 A California-based organisation wants to harness the power of machine learning to decode communication across the entire animal kingdom. But the project has its doubters A dolphin handler makes the signal for “together” with her hands, followed by “create”. The … Continued

    Being gifted at performing the technical aspects of a job can take an employee only so far. To become a stellar employee or an admired leader requires an arsenal of skills that are harder to measure but critical … Continued

Futures studies is the systematic study of possible, probable and preferable futures. It can be used to help leaders and communities manage uncertainties and increase their resilience and innovation. We spoke with futurist Dr. Stuart Candy about the latest developments … Continued

“All we know is, we opened a gate. We just hope we didn’t open a Pandora’s box.” It looks like algorithms can write academic papers about themselves now. We gotta wonder: how long until human academics are obsolete? In an editorial … Continued

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN TRY TO CREATE YOUR OWN “EUREKA” MOMENTS. Have you ever had a great idea right before you fell asleep — only to forget it the next morning when you wake up? A new study says there’s … Continued

Today’s computers guzzle large amounts of electricity, raising concerns about the climate impact of technology. A breakthrough in superconducting electronics could reduce the power bill significantly, while also making computers far faster. The phenomenon of superconductivity was first discovered in 1911 … Continued

A vast array of 12,000 solar panels are set to become Europe’s largest floating solar park when they finish taking position atop the Alqueva reservoir this year. Supplying a third of the electricity to the nearby towns of Moura and … Continued

For the first time in recorded history, wind power was the second-largest source of electricity in the country for an entire day. That’s according to data from the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Hourly Electric Grid Monitor, which on March 29 spotted wind … Continued

Nasa is taking a step in a distinctly Star Trek direction with a new communication method it tested on the International Space Station (ISS). It’s called ‘holoporting’ and, as you’d expect, is a mix between a hologram and teleportation. And it resulted in … Continued

A team of engineers at Stanford University have developed a solar cell that can generate some electricity at night. The research comes at a moment when the number of solar jobs and residential installations are rising. While standard solar panels can provide electricity during … Continued

Taking the “right to repair” one step further, a Viennese repair bonus is going national — and keeping thousands of items out of the junkyard Sepp Eisenriegler loves giving second chances: To the defunct electrical appliances awaiting repair or refurbishment, … Continued

The human brain is only the latest chapter in the ancient story of thinking on Earth. Rocks do not think. Rocks do not feel. Rocks do not share their experiences with fellow rocks in the hope that their hard-won knowledge … Continued

Arts and Industries Building 900 Jefferson Drive, SW Washington, DC Part exhibition, part festival, FUTURES presents nearly 32,000 square feet of new immersive site-specific art installations, interactives, working experiments, inventions, speculative designs, and “artifacts of the future,” as well as historic objects … Continued