Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales makes the point that technology adopters in the Third World are able to make use of evolved technologies like broadband rather than suffer through the slow evolution experienced in the West. …

Unlike other underwater drones, RU27 and its kin are able to travel without the aid of a propeller. Instead, they move up and down through the top 100 to 200 meters of seawater by adjusting …

UC Santa Cruz emeritus professor David Cope has for 20 years been working on software, called Emily Howell, that generates original and modern music. Using algorithms that mathematically mixes, recombines, and alters musical combinations, his …

Teleportation has been an enduring dream of science fiction. We’re nowhere near the ”Beam me up, Scotty” stage, but there are already hints of teleportation today. It started, in fact, in the 1970s, when—first with …

Online social networks could help with communications and recovery for people with disabilities following major natural disasters, or even terrorist attack, according to a research paper in the International Journal of Emergency Management. …

Devices allowing people to write letters or play pinball using just the power of their brains have become a major draw at the world’s biggest high-tech fair. … Read more

Nitrogen fertilization is essential for profitable corn production. It also is a major cost of production and can contribute to degradation of the environment. Is it possible to “teach” corn to fix its own nitrogen, …

Using advanced tools to see the human brain at work, a new generation of marketing experts may be able to test a product’s appeal while it is still being designed, according to a new analysis …

Cityscapes of glass-clad buildings gleaming in the sun make Anna Dyson think about wasted energy. Dyson heads the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology, or CASE, a research consortium that wants to turn office windows …

The Obama administration is weighing the merits of taking China’s censorship of Google Inc. to the World Trade Organization as an unfair barrier to trade, a move that could further raise diplomatic tensions. …

There are more genes in the flora in the intestinal system than the rest of our bodies. So many that they are being dubbed our “second genome”. A study published in the journal Nature details …

Of all the economists in Iceland Dr. Eyjolfur Gudmundsson has the most unlikely vantage point from which to observe the tribulations of the financial markets: deep space. Dr. Gudmundsson is the lead economist for CCPgames, …

Wide-scale adoption of low-emission distributed energy could reduce the cost of transitioning to a low-carbon future by as much a $130 billion by 2050, according to a new report released today by CSIRO. … Read …

University of Calgary chemistry professor David Cramb is a step closer to helping solve a complex problem in nanotechnology: the impact nanoparticles have on human health and the environment. … Read more

New methods of targeting certain treatments to smaller patient populations could drastically change the sales patterns of well-known drugs—for better or worse. … Read more

City residents across the U.S. are campaigning for a slice of the millions Google plans to spend on broadband. … Read more

We already have iris and fingerprint scanning but noses could be an even better method of identification, says a study from the University of Bath, UK. … Read more

EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said yesterday that Greece must reveal new measures “in the coming days” to allay officials’ concerns that the current austerity plan falls short. … Read more

One of the most common weed killers in the world, atrazine, can chemically castrate male frogs, turning them into females that lay eggs, say U.S. researchers. … Read more

A heart patient’s own skin cells soon could be used to repair damaged cardiac tissue thanks to pioneering stem cell research of the University of Houston’s newest biomedical scientist, Robert Schwartz. … Read more

Authorities have smashed one of the world’s biggest networks of virus-infected computers, a data vacuum that stole credit cards and online banking credentials from as many as 12.7 million poisoned PCs. … Read more

The regular pension system alone – which doesn’t include public employees – is on course to swallow up 17% of GDP by 2040, from 7% in 2007, according to a report last year by the …

Daimler AG and BYD Co., the Chinese carmaker backed by billionaire Warren Buffett, will jointly develop an electric vehicle to be sold in China, the world’s largest auto market. … Read more

They are among about 300,000 families driven to Damascus, Aleppo and other cities in one of the “largest internal displacements in the Middle East in recent years,” according to a Feb. 17 report by the …

In recent years, climate change seems to have elbowed out other environmental issues to become the No. 1 global problem. But the alarming worldwide water scarcity is an equally important issue, and an even more …