Computer viruses have a reputation for destruction. They can erase files, encrypt disks, steal passwords and make a computer unusable. But can malicious software cross the invisible boundary between code and matter and actually break the ma...
Read article
“The cloud” may be the most successful disappearing act in modern technology. Upload a photograph and it seems to float away. Stream a film and it arrives from nowhere. Ask an AI system a qu...
Read
You mention hiking boots over dinner. The next morning, an advertisement for hiking boots appears on your phone. You never remember searching for them. The coincidence feels too precise, and...
Read
Imagine stepping outside after a thunderstorm and discovering the road covered in frogs. Some are hopping. Others are lying in puddles or on rooftops. Witnesses insist they watched them fall...
Read
You see someone stretch their jaw, squeeze their eyes shut and take a long, involuntary breath. A few seconds later, your own mouth opens. Sometimes you do not even need to see the yawn: hea...
Read
Ask the meaning of life in the right corner of the internet and there is a good chance someone will answer with a number: 42. It has become one of popular culture’s most durable private joke...
Read
A fish can be surrounded by water and still run out of oxygen. That sounds like a contradiction only because we tend to think of water itself as the thing fish breathe. It is not. Most fish...
Read
Put a glass of water near a cat and it may drink calmly. Turn on a faucet and the same cat might become fascinated, batting at droplets for minutes. Lower it into a bathtub, however, and you...
Read
Space is famously cold. The number repeated in textbooks, documentaries and trivia lists is about 2.7 kelvin, or roughly −270.4 °C — less than three degrees above absolute zero.That number i...
Read
Ask a child to draw the Sun and there is a good chance they will reach for a yellow crayon. Search for a Sun emoji and you will find the same convention. For centuries, artists have painted...
Read