You Know It’s a Placebo. So Why Does It Still Work?
You booked this doctor’s appointment weeks in advance. You took off work, endured the trip here, filled out paperwork while a cooking show blared from a TV on the wall, …
longreads
Scientists Have an Audacious Plan to Map the Ancient World Before It Disappears
In the center of Siena, Italy, a cathedral has stood for nearly 800 years. A black-and-white layer cake of heavy stone, fine-cut statuary, and rich mosaics, the imposing structure—now visited …
Crispr Pioneer Jennifer Doudna Has the Guts to Take On the Microbiome
OK, you’ve lost me. What do you mean by “bring in a molecule”? It literally just means allowing a molecule into a cell. And if that molecule is a gene …
The View From the Center of the World’s Myopia Epidemic
.jpg "The View From the Center of the World’s Myopia Epidemic")
Doing surgery on the back of the eye is a little like laying new carpet: You must begin by moving the furniture. Separate the muscles that hold the eyeball inside …
A New Turing Test: The Path to Navigating the Age of AI
There was a time in the not too distant past—say, nine months ago—when the Turing test seemed like a pretty stringent detector of machine intelligence. Chances are you’re familiar with …
Can the Local-First Software Movement Break the Prison of the Cloud and Liberate Us?
He describes Shapiro’s paper as “an awakening.” In CRDTs, Kleppmann saw the technical basis for a new class of software that no one was providing. But the algorithms were mostly …
CEO of Uber Vows to Address Criticisms and Improve Company Operations
Are you using generative AI at Uber? AI is part of the Uber DNA. We use large models to predict your ETA, to process documents that drivers upload, to predict …
The Arrival of the AI-Enabled, Completely Self-Operating Future of Warfare
A fleet of robot ships bobs gently in the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, somewhere between Bahrain and Qatar, maybe 100 miles off the coast of Iran. I am …
The Hidden Dark Secrets Lurking in Red Cloud Boarding School
When Small entered the cemetery for the first time in the summer of 2012, she burned sweetgrass—a plant with spiritual significance across Native cultures. “The sweetgrass brings the spirits in, …