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Game over for privacy-minded lemurs. A new facial recognition system from George Washington University and Michigan State University, adapted from open-source software designed for human faces, claims up to 98% accuracy identifying specific lemurs. The research is an example of how open-source AI software, in this case facial recognition, can disrupt well-worn human systems, like […]

This was a surprisingly interesting and helpful experience—I highly recommend it. With three exceptions, I found something to like about everyone I talked to (though many of the things they said I strongly disagreed with). Although it shouldn’t have surprised me given the voting data, I was definitely surprised by the diversity of the people […]

The US opioid epidemic, which now kills 91 people per day, began with good intentions based on misinformation: Doctors in the mid-1990s started prescribing opioid painkillers more freely to help suffering patients after drug companies falsely advertised them as safe to use for chronic pain. In reality, though, drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin are highly […]

Lieutenant general H.R. McMaster speaks in complete sentences, peppering his conversation with quotes from ancient Greek and German philosopher-soldiers. His reputation for erudition and intelligence was a big reason why much of the world gave a collective sigh of relief this weekend when president Donald Trump named him as the US national security advisor, replacing […]

The US Department of Homeland Security issued two new memos that flesh out how it will carry out US president Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Like Trump’s border wall proposal, they are rooted in a harsher view of immigrants and how they should be treated. And like the wall, they raise many questions about […]

United Airlines and American Airlines started selling seats today for their least-sexy class of service. Basic economy is large airlines’ version of the type of service found on ultra-low cost carriers like Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines. In exchange for a low fare, passengers who opt for basic economy forgo such perks as choosing their […]

With no clear end in sight to Syria’s protracted war, civilians are now also being threatened by a catastrophic flood. The United Nations warned earlier this week that the Tabqa Dam, Syria’s largest (paywall), is in serious trouble not only from the militant group ISIL, which has controlled the dam since 2014, but also from […]

In a stunningly short period of time, Facebook has become one of the most powerful media platforms in the world. It’s not simply because its users can easily share and spread information far and wide. It’s also because a lot of its power lies in the knowledge it has about those users. That knowledge is […]

History does not stand still. Sometimes, it repeats itself subtly and incrementally. Other times, the patterns are sudden yet plain for the world to see. This Sunday, Feb 19, is the 75th anniversary of the Day of Remembrance, marking the authorization of Executive Order 9066 in 1942. The order—which set in motion a mass internment […]

Before he died last year, Uzbekistan president Islam Karimov was a killer. Accused critics and dissidents were tortured and died in prisons under his quarter-century rule. On a state visit to neighboring Turkmenistan during the 1990s, Karimov walked up to me, his finger wagging. “We hope that one day you will understand our country,” he […]

Some 160,000 Spanish protestors took to the streets in Barcelona on Saturday to call on the government to take in more refugees. Demonstrators criticized the government for falling short of a 2015 pledge to allow more than 17,000 refugees into Spain within two years. The huge demonstration is a striking reminder of what Carmen González-Enríquez, […]Read More

At a rally in Florida on Saturday, US president Donald Trump once again blamed migration in Europe for a spate of terror attacks in Brussels, Nice, and Paris. He then added an incident in Sweden to the list, telling thousand of supporters: “You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last […]Read More