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What if your child’s tablet was really a guardian angel? What if a dating app forced you and your match to kill someone? And what if your car suddenly became sentient and wanted revenge for that fender bender from last summer? These frightening technological scenarios may form the basis of the next season of Netflix’s […]

Preparations are underway across the Gulf Coast of the southern US today as residents brace for the first big hurricane of the season. Hurricane Harvey developed so quickly that it took national forecasters by surprise. “It happened faster than expected. I was lead forecaster 24 hours ago. I didn’t know it’d be this fast,” said […]Read More

On Aug. 14, after three days of heavy rains, a massive landslide in and around Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown created a national emergency that is fast becoming one of Africa’s worst disasters in recent memory. But as the tragedy unfolded, Sierra Leone’s cry for “urgent support” was largely met with silence. There have been no […]Read More

At its core, Amazon’s goal is to remove as much friction as possible from a customer finding what they want, ordering it, and having it land on their doorstep. Its ambitions started with books, but have since extended to just about every other category, including clothes. While it works to achieve a frictionless future in […]

In late 2016, several American diplomats who had been stationed in Cuba were reportedly forced to cut their tours of duty short and return home after suddenly and inexplicably losing their hearing. Unnamed US officials conducted an investigation into the incidents, according to a report by the Associated Press, and found that an “advanced sonic […]

Hurricane Harvey is gaining steam, and is set for landfall on the coast of Texas late tonight (Aug. 25). By then it is expected to have gained the power of a category 3 hurricane, which would destroy poorly constructed houses, severely damage apartment buildings and shopping centers, and leave large areas without water and electricity […]

As Hurricane Harvey nears the Texas coast, thousands of people are evacuating along the state’s major highways to escape 125 mile per hour winds and “catastrophic flooding” that the US government predicts will accompany the storm. In an unusual move, Border Patrol checkpoints, which check individuals’ documents to make sure they are legal residents of […]Read More

Usually, a company’s research department winning a top conference prize isn’t that noteworthy. Unless the company is Apple. The notoriously secretive tech company published its first research paper on artificial intelligence in December 2016, giving a rare peek at what its lab is up to. (Quartz reported earlier on Apple’s AI pursuits.) Then in July, […]Read More

Are electronic medical records largely to blame for the growing crisis of physician burnout? One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is meeting new medical students every year. I invariably find myself not only impressed by their talent and intelligence, but also struck by their optimism and idealism. They want to become doctors […]

Being a Russian diplomat seems to be bad for your health. When Migayas Shirinsky, ambassador to Sudan, was found dead (paywall) in his residency’s swimming pool in Khartoum on Aug. 23, he became the ninth Russian foreign official to surprisingly pass away since January 2016. Here’s the full roster. However, before getting carried away with […]

AI 18 AssemblyAI, CureSkin, De-ID, Escher Reality, Flock, Headstart, May Mobility, Modular Science, Percept.AI, Plasticity, Semantix, Standard Cognition, Totemic Labs, VergeSense, Zendar + 2 stealth companies Biotech 10 BilliontoOne, Cambridge Cancer Genomics, Darmiyan, Helix, Modular Science, Oncobox, Rev Genomics + 3 stealth companies Health 9 BilliontoOne, Caelum Health, Cambridge Cancer Genomics, Darmiyan, Oncobox, OneMedical, Spect, […]

The German federal government will adopt new guidelines for self-driving cars inside the country, which will prioritize the value and equality of human life over damage to property or animals. These guidelines, presented on Aug. 23 by an ethics committee on automated driving, stress that self-driving cars must do the least amount of harm if […]