There was an announcement made last year that a Chinese scientist called Dr He Jiankui had used the gene-editing technique Crispr and managed to the world’s first genetically modified babies. At the same time, Elon Musk announced the true purpose of Neuralink. Read on to find out what his vision of Neuralink holds for us.

I flew across the country to Portland to experience the Adapt BB, Nike’s new self-lacing, Bluetooth-enabled sneakers, but the guy showing me around campus is wearing a pair of Zoom Flys that refuse to stay tied. Within 10 minutes of tying them, they’re untied again, flailing all over. I hate when people point out my untied shoes, but his feel intentional. Of course I notice the laces. Of course I point them out. He laughs and swears he’s not doing this on purpose, that Nike hasn’t delibe...

What is the correlation between screen time and adolescent well-being? It’s an important question for which we have limited and often contradictory answers. A story in Wired this week all but let our phones off the hook for any negative consequences — but I wonder if the study fully understands the way we live now. Much of the research to date on the potential effects of screen time on well-being relies on self-reported data from massive surveys, Wired reports.

The baby boomers have entered their golden years and medical advances are helping people to live longer; the combination is leading to an aging U.S. population. Statistics tell the story clearly. In 2000, slightly more than 12 percent of the U.S. population was over the age of 65. By 2020, that number will be close to 17 percent and by 2050 it will likely reach 22 percent. Our society must find ways to financially support this segment of the population for more years than ever before as life exp...

According to a new report from supply chain blog Macotakara, Apple could be in the process of developing a revised iPod touch. Further, the report says the 2019 iPhone might make the jump to USB-C, just like the 2018 iPad Pros. The report is rather vague, with Macotakara citing supply chain sources. Details on what changes a new iPod touch might feature are unclear at this point, but it is long overdue for an update. The 6th generation iPod touch was released in 2015 and for $199 with 32GB of st...

Come one, come all and behold the future of space travel: steam power! No, seriously; half a century after the world's first manned space mission, it seems that interplanetary travel has finally entered the steam age. Scientists at the University of Central Florida (UCF) have teamed up with Honeybee Robotics, a private space and mining tech company based in California, to develop a small, steam-powered spacecraft capable of sucking its fuel right out of the asteroids, planets and moons it&#...

R Kelly's daughter has broken her silence about the allegations of sexual abuse surrounding her estranged dad. On Thursday Buku Abi, real name Joann Kelly, posted on Instagram saying she was "devastated" by the recent accusations in the documentary Surviving R Kelly. The 20-year-old said she hasn't seen or spoken to him in years, calling him a "monster" and a "terrible" father. R Kelly has denied all the allegations against him.

During the Holocaust, Nazis referred to Jews as rats. Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals. In Less Than Human, David Livingstone Smith argues that it's important to define and describe dehumanization, because it's what opens the door for cruelty and genocide.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler handed the power of Jewish cultural life in Nazi Germany to his chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. Goebbels established a team of of regulators that would oversee the works of Jewish artists in film, theater, music, fine arts, literature, broadcasting, and the press. Goebbels new regulations essentially eliminated Jewish people from participating in mainstream German cultural activities by requiring them to have a license to do so.

Whenever I see a report touting possible new peanut allergy treatments, I devour it. I can’t help it. It’s an occupational hazard for any health journalist whose reporting specialty and medical history intertwine. I write about the business of health care, focusing on how consumers interact with the system — what we pay, what we get and why American care costs so much. But in this particular instance, I have another kind of authority: 26 years of life-threatening allergies to nuts and peanuts.

After testing 110 smartphones from multiple vendors, the Dutch Consumentenbond not-for-profit organization concluded that the face unlock feature in 42 of them can be circumvented using a high-quality portrait photo of the owner. Therefore, 38% of all the devices they tested would allow malicious third parties to immediately unlock phones that only use facial recognition as a locking mechanism and to gain access to all the data contained within, from photos to sensitive banking and personal data...

A newly disclosed vulnerability in Skype for Android could be exploited by miscreants to bypass an Android phone's passcode screen to view photos, contacts, and even launch browser windows. Bug-hunter Florian Kunushevci today told The Register the security flaw, which has been reported to Microsoft, allows the person in possession of someone's phone to receive a Skype call...

Judith Rich Harris once had a job writing psychology textbooks. She’d been kicked out of Harvard before earning a Ph.D. and suffered from chronic health issues, and this was something she could do from home. Then she quit that job, having decided to upend the field rather than “teaching the received gospel to a bunch of credulous college students.”

Each year, the Oscars present an In Memoriam – a roundup of the famous faces the world lost in the past 12 months. And as the year that’s seen warnings of apocalyptic worldwide extinctions with effects lasting millions of years into the future finally draws to its close, it’s only fitting that we do the same. So here’s IFLScience’s In Memoriam: a tribute to all the species we lost in 2018. Fittingly, the first wildlife obituary belongs to a movie star: the Spix’s Macaw. The star of R...

The Incas left no doubt that theirs was a sophisticated, technologically savvy civilisation. At its height in the 15th century, it was the largest empire in the Americas, extending almost 5000 kilometres from modern-day Ecuador to Chile. These were the people who built Machu Picchu, a royal estate perched in the clouds, and an extensive network of paved roads complete with suspension bridges crafted from woven grass. But the paradox of the Incas is that despite all this sophistication they never...

California is ringing in the new year as the first state in the country to ban stores from selling dogs, cats and rabbits that aren’t rescues. The Pet Rescue and Adoption Act, which was signed into law by California Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017, will go into effect on Tuesday, Jan. 1. The law requires all pet shops to identify the public animal control agency, shelter or rescue group that the animal came from. Such information must be on display on its cage or in its enclosure.

Transitioning from chemical-laden products to natural-based ones can help improve the look and feel of your hair. The all natural shampoo movement includes traditional liquid shampoos, the no-poo method—not using any shampoo—and eco-friendly shampoo bars.

A military couple reenacted the classic WW II kiss between a sailor and a nurse after a seven-month deployment. On Dec. 21, sailor Bryan Woodington, 33, stepped off the USS The Sullivans at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla., eager to greet Kenneth, his husband of one year. According to News 4 Jax, Bryan was one of 300 sailors returning to their families after seven months in the Persian Gulf and Europe.

For those that aren't aware, I'm a proper wuss. I have an irrational fear of spiders and other creepy crawlies, and I'd much rather watch the works of Walt Disney than Tobe Hooper. The scariest film I've ever seen is probably Alien, and I'd say the scariest game I've ever played, until recently, was The Last of Us. Halloween for me is carving pumpkins and hoping trick-or-treaters don't arrive to steal my chocolate. I'm not into horror on any level, really.

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk says a redesigned test vehicle for the company's next-generation reusable launch system could be ready for initial flights early next year. In a tweet early Dec. 24, Musk posted a photo of two parts of that initial test article, a conical section next to a cylindrical unit with landing legs. "Stainless Steel Starship," he wrote.

When the U.N. released its latest climate report in October, it warned that without “unprecedented” action, catastrophic conditions could arrive by 2040. For Amy Jordan, 40, of Salt Lake City, a mother of three teenage children, the report caused a “crisis.” “The emotional reaction of my kids was severe,” she told NBC News. “There was a lot of crying. They told me, 'We know what’s coming, and it’s going to be really rough.’ “

A Texas teenager’s kindness is encouraging others to pay it forward after he covered the tab of a Walmart shopper who wasn’t able to pay her grocery bill at the register. John Lopez Jr., 19, took a job at a Princeton, Texas, Walmart in March to earn money to help pay for college, CBS Dallas reports. During his shift on Monday night, a shopper named Laci Simms spotted Lopez, who was working at the register, pay for another customer’s full cart of merchandise.

The High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence released the first draft of its ethics guidelines for the development and use of artificial intelligence. Today, the High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, which was appointed by the Commission in June, released the first draft of its Ethics Guidelines for the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI).