Ethics
-
Truth or Lies
August 17, 2009
A new study raises the question of whether being honest is a conscious decision at all.
-
Roboethics Redux
July 31, 2009
After Fox News misrepresents a military robot’s dietary habits, the world muses over what ethical behavior means for intelligent programs and machines.
ethics, intelligence, media, robotics, technology, week in review
-
Week in Review: May 29
May 29, 2009
Stem cell guidelines from on high, geoengineering on the cheap, how genetic engineering could have created a new model organism, and the evolution of big brains.
-
Week in Review: May 1
May 01, 2009
Swine flu looms large, a study finds prayer has no effect on medical treatment, Obama speaks at the National Academy of Sciences, neuroscientists plan to beef up Wikipedia, and a Republican senator switches to the Democratic Party.
diplomacy, disease, ethics, information, pandemics, politics, week in review
-
Hungry for Land
April 27, 2009
Growing food in foreign lands has a long history. But the 21st century version of outsourced agriculture presages something fundamentally new.
-
Week in Review: April 24
April 26, 2009
Fire bombings over animal research, Jim Carrey and the anti-vaccine movement, fossil of walking seal discovered, senator proposes science envoys, and transcription mapped.
-
Letter to Obama
January 16, 2009
Forty-nine American Nobel laureates and other distinguished American scientists call the president's attention to the importance of increasing funding for scientific research.
democracy, ethics, funding, governance, law, policy, politics
-
Of Primates and Personhood
December 12, 2008
Will according rights and "dignity" to nonhuman organisms halt research?
-
In Defense of Difference
October 07, 2008
Scientists offer new insight into what to protect of the world's rapidly vanishing languages, cultures, and species.
cities, demographics, development, ethics, globalization, population
-
Turning a Blind Eye
September 25, 2008
An image said to reveal an "unknown" tribe instead exposes a history of our ignorance and greed.
-
Carnivores Like Us
May 15, 2008
Humanity's rapidly increasing appetite for meat is fast becoming a matter of global consequence. Paul Roberts on the science, and morality, of our planet's modern palate.
-
Rise of Roboethics
July 16, 2007
Grappling with the implications of an artificially intelligent culture.
-
PZ Myers on Richard Dawkins
October 22, 2006
Richard Dawkins hasn't stopped his tirade against religion and its "dangerous nonsense"—he's fighting smarter. Has Darwin's rottweiler been house-trained?
-
Egg On His Face
November 30, 2005
Now on SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
-
Innovation
Let There Be Light
Astronomers will soon find scores of Earth-sized exoplanets, but imaging them may be decades away. That is, unless NASA decides to build a starshade.
-
Ideas
Into the Uncanny Valley
New findings shed light on a century’s worth of bizarre explanations for the eerie feeling we get around lifelike robots.
-
World
Signs from Above
The release of an apocalyptic movie prompts NASA to debunk planetary rumors, fowl play shuts down the LHC, and the Catholic Church discusses alien life.
