Invented by Buddhist monks, secularized and developed by Western science, mindfulness seems to be everywhere. But the aim is to make the most of life, not to seek nirvana.
Category: Future
PARIS — After changing the way we listen to music with the iPod and kickstarting the smartphone era with the iPhone, is Apple Pay going to revolutionize how we pay? The least we can say is that the Cupertino giant has done everything to maximize its chances of succeeding in its objective: to relegate wallets […]
MANILA — Sometimes to get around Manila, you need to take a trike, otherwise known as a motorcycle with a sidecar. The drivers weave around the traffic and up onto sidewalks. Trikes are noisy and emit a lot of exhaust too. But not the one Alfredo Forelo drives. A few months ago, the 38-year-old traded in his old one for a new, battery-powered e-trike. It holds up to eight passengers and is so quiet that it can hardly be heard. On the old tricycles, he used to get sick a lot, he says — colds, flu, asthma. But not anymore. […]
Video game competitions can attract millions of spectators online. A Swiss “cyber athlete” shares his story as the booming industry sets its sights on real-world credibility.
Dutch aerospace student Boyan Slat, 20, has an idea that could conceivably remove millions of tons of toxic trash from the world’s waters. It even has a revenue model. But will it work?
Recent behavioral and developmental studies of animals such as rabbits and rats show striking similarities to patterns we see in how childhood relationships and experiences shape humans.
Tiny freshwater hydrae have incredible powers of regeneration. In the quest for human longevity, researchers in Switzerland are trying to learn from their very little and long lives.
European Union regulations will now require lower maximum voltage on vacuums. It may making cleaning slower, purchase prices higher, but hopefully long-term energy saving benefits.
After the latest preparatory races in mid-August on England’s Donington Park circuit, all eyes are now on the first world championship of electric cars, to be held Sept. 13 in Beijing. Get used to the name: it’s called Formula E. “Even if it will probably never overtake Formula One, Formula E should be considered the […]
Nepal has commissioned meteorologists and geologists to remap the wind systems, mountains and valleys on the “Roof of the World.” It could help us predict natural disasters.
The Russian hacking community is as ambigious as the country itself: admired and feared, all at once. A reformed hacker takes us into the bowels of the criminal Deep Web.
From Gaza to the U.S.-Mexican border, the latest innovations in detecting illicit tunnels that transport people and goods below the radar.
Categories
Are Mind-Powered Drones Next?
MUNICH — As the pilot sits in the cockpit with his hands in his lap, the airplane’s control stick moves all by itself. The plane lands perfectly. Automatic pilot? No, the pilot controls the flight simulator — using only the power of thought. From electrodes on the test pilot’s head, “We read brain signals that […]
SAO PAULO — Vitamin D was named as such when it was first discovered in 1910, but it wasn’t until two decades later that its real structure was identified. In fact, it is a steroid hormone. Even today, the use of the term “vitamin” is a source of debate among health professionals. Vitamin D deficiency […]
Taranto’s ILVA steel plant, Europe’s largest, emits toxic pollution that doctors believe has long been causing cancer in young victims and sky-high infant mortality. Yet it still operates.
TEL AVIV — Don’t know where to run when you hear the sirens? Want to send a distress signal in an emergency to security forces or assure your family you’re okay with a tweet? Here is a list of the latest smartphone applications that are getting downloaded during the current military “Operation Protective Edge,” as […]
If you are 15 or 50, you will have a different way of seeking work, friendship, or even love online. But being “off-the-grid” is ever more a ticket to isolation.
Chikungunya, which causes high fever and severe joint pain, arrived from Africa last December, and has killed 33 and infected 300,000 in the Western Hemisphere. How to stop the spread.
After students were hospitalized in the Bordeaux winegrowing region, pesticides were blamed. Parents calling for new rules near schools face a “code of silence” protecting the wine sector.
TEL AVIV — When Lucy Brown fell in love with her current husband a decade ago, she immediately went to work. When she arrived, she lay down in the latest fMRI brain scanner, closed her eyes and thought of him. “It’s not that I was looking for scientific proof that I was in love,” Brown […]
So-called lifeloggers track and record their personal data, often sharing it with the world. Why? To make connections that can improve health and sleep…and maybe avoid oblivion.
It may be billions and billions of years away, but right now the annihilation of the Universe is a foregone conclusion. Should scientists try to do something to change that?
Cyberpirates engage in extortion on individuals as well as companies, through data kidnapping and threats to reveal sensitive information. Red Alert for the accounting department.
BEIJING — Three years after the epic battle in Transformers: Dark of Moon, it’s time for the Autobots and Decepticons to face off again for viewers around the world. There is particular attention in China, where the fourth installment, Transformers: Age of Extinction, has been chosen to be the closing feature at the Shanghai International […]
GENEVA — In a way, the worst thing that could have happened for physicists at CERN, the world’s largest particle physics research center, was discovering the holy grail of physics — the so-called God particle, also known as Higgs boson. Because after finding it in July 2012 — and confirming it six months later, after […]
MUNICH — Citing the failure of antibiotics to work effectively in their patients, a group of German doctors and other healthcare providers are laying blame on the factory farming industry — and calling for reform. The doctors say that antibiotics no longer work because of multi-resistant germs that patients carry, at least some of which […]
Categories
Robots Park Your Car At Dusseldorf Airport
Starting on Tuesday, arriving passengers at Düsseldorf airport will be able to turn their car over to robot Ray who’ll park it for them. Vehicles are left in one of six boxes about the size of a car-wash unit. Each box is equipped with its own Ray. Once the car is parked in the box, […]
Juliano Alves Pinto hadn’t walked since a 2006 car accident. Then, just a few days ago, the world watched as he wore a mind-controlled exoskeleton to make the opening kick of the World Cup in Brazil.
The online world’s big data and nanosecond velocity means we are losing control of the machines we’ve built ourselves. How can we avoid becoming victims of our own intelligence?
The digital economy promised to create markets that were fluid by definition. But even in the so-called “sharing” economy of mobile applications, there are bound to be winners and losers.
PALERMO — It’s a genetic test, but no body parts or blood are being analyzed — it’s bottles of wine instead. A team of researchers have developed a system they say will revolutionize the concept of traceability used in proving the origins of agricultural products: in this case, the vine, the quality of yeast used […]
PALAWAN — For 25 years, Filipino lawyer Gerthie Mayo-Anda has tirelessly campaigned for better legal protection of the environment. Often called a forest hero, in the 1990s she established the Environmental Legal Assistance Center (ELAC) to halt environmental destruction through court. “I thought it was important to establish a public interest environmental law group where my knowledge and skills as a lawyer can be utilized to help the poor and marginalized communities,” she says. Her group has filed dozens of cases against illegal logging, fishing and mining. “For now, the most difficult field is mining and coal because the parties […]
The abduction of three young Israelis unfolded across the Internet, even as newspapers in Israel were barred from reporting it. What does social media mean for both democracy and security?
There is growing evidence that different species of animals can actually become what we humans think of as ‘friends.’ This is science, not Walt Disney…
FLORENCE — The Italian national soccer team has landed in Brazil, and each player is carrying an extra card with them. It’s similar to an ATM bank card, though instead of money it will give them access to a database where they can find any and all relevant information about the World Cup. Manager Cesare […]
GENEVA — When it comes to insomnia, some use the megaphone of the digital era, posting Facebook status updates to round up companions of misfortune — one-night or lifelong problem sleepers who want to talk. But there are myriad other coping mechanisms for this growing societal issue. And though insomnia can mean pure agony, it […]
“Science needs time. Bear with us, while we think,” declares a new movement of researchers pushing back against the demands to always make breakthroughs and publish findings.
Some 15 million, mostly Spanish-speaking quiz junkies may right now have their heads deep into Preguntados. Its 28-year-old founder is building a mini tech empire in Buenos Aires.
First established in Colombia, kangaroo care for underweight babies relies on constant mother-child contact and avoids costs and complications of incubators that rarely arrive in Africa.
Information technology was supposed to usher in a new borderless utopia, but instead new walls are reappearing.