Tag: Science

If self-driving cars become widespread, society will have to grapple with a new burden: the ability to program vehicles with preferences about which lives to prioritize in the event of a crash. Human drivers make these choices instinctively, but algorithms will be able to make them in advance. So will car companies and governments choose to save the old or the young? The many or the few?

A new paper published today by MIT probes public thought on these questions, collating data from an online quiz launched in 2016 named the Moral Machine. It asked users to make a series of ethical decisions regarding fictional car crashes, similar to the famous trolley problem. Nine separate factors were tested, including individuals’ preferences for…

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Snap revealed yesterday to The New York Times that it has helped 418,000 users register to vote within a recent two-week period through Snapchat. Notably, many of those users live in potentially contentious states like Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Texas.

Snap’s efforts began at the end of September when it started displaying a link to a voter registration page on the profile of every user over 18 years old. Snap also sent out a video message to users promoting voter participation.

By linking users to TurboVote.org, Snapchat hopes to improve the historically low voter turnout of young people. For instance, in the 2014 midterm elections, less than one-fifth of the 18- to 25-year-old demographic cast their votes. About 78 percent of people…

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A small beetle can cause big losses to bean crops. But a new study has narrowed down the genetic locations of several weevil resistance genes in the common bean.

These “boda-boda” drivers teamed up with a photographer and fashion designer to complete their signature looks.

It’s Halloween! Time to stay in, eat someone else’s candy, and fire up some horror classics.

New research has found evidence for a large number of double supermassive black holes, likely precursors of gigantic black hole merging events. This confirms the current understanding of cosmological evolution — that galaxies and their associated black holes merge over time, forming bigger and bigger galaxies and black holes.

A new breed of start-ups aim to make a pile of money from doing good, assisted by thought leaders, foundations, and the guileless public.

These are the best instant cameras you can buy this year

Like piranhas, Piranhamesodon pinnatomus found uses for its razor-sharp teeth.

It’s going to a person who collects both, which sounds like quite the life.