Stories by Annalee Newitz
If the controversial video game were a movie, we'd all be mightily impressed by its dark, ironic vision of a world at war with itself.
Posted on May 7, 2008
The Web makes it easy for crowds to collaborate. But it also makes it simple for mobs to crush free expression.
Posted on Apr 30, 2008
The advantage of publishing online rather than in books? Nobody can burn the Internet.
Posted on Apr 23, 2008
A look at the facts on Microhoo!
Posted on Apr 16, 2008
Thomas Beatie is not the first transgendered man to get pregnant. So why is he getting so much attention, and why now?
Posted on Apr 8, 2008
Proper English is being supplanted by a language that reflects the lives of all the people who speak it.
Posted on Apr 3, 2008
The human proclivity for pointless, conflict-driven tribalism manifests itself on the web.
Posted on Mar 25, 2008
Eliot Spitzer's decision to pay money for sex was personal. It's not like he issued a policy of mandatory hookers for everybody.
Posted on Mar 19, 2008
Protesting online can be just as revolutionary as carrying signs, yelling, and storming the gates of power in the real world.
Posted on Mar 12, 2008
Our government is waging a war against science, endangering millions of lives in the U.S. and beyond.
Posted on Feb 27, 2008
Even if we spent as much money on space exploration as we do on war, funding a mission to Mars would not solve any of our problems.
Posted on Feb 19, 2008
I hate Facebook and I'm not afraid to say why.
Posted on Feb 12, 2008
Our brave new infrastructure is failing around us even as we claim that it offers a shining path to the future.
Posted on Feb 6, 2008
If only the government would warn you when it was recording your conversations, like Google.
Posted on Jan 29, 2008
People are freaked out by the FDA's ruling that cloned meat is safe to eat, but we eat cloned plants all the time.
Posted on Jan 22, 2008
Will blogs take on all the bad habits of the mainstream media or will it help the media progress just a bit further toward independence of thought?
Posted on Jan 17, 2008
The amount of information in the world is always expanding faster than the data storage systems available to capture it.
Posted on Jan 8, 2008
Gizmos that a decade ago would have been viewed entirely as communications tools and toys are now potential surveillance and killing machines.
Posted on Jan 3, 2008
How easily important information can fall into the wrong hands.
Posted on Dec 27, 2007
Recent studies of animal cognitive ability prove that humans aren't much more intelligent than dogs or monkeys.
Posted on Dec 19, 2007
Wii isn't just a consumer electronics death monster, it represents the future of technology.
Posted on Dec 12, 2007
Since there are no laws guaranteeing net neutrality, media conglomerates like Comcast are free to engage in net prejudice.
Posted on Dec 5, 2007
New companies claim to reveal the secrets of your DNA, but will the information cause more harm than good?
Posted on Nov 29, 2007
A new internet tool lets you see countries cracking down on user-generated content like YouTube and MySpace. But it could also be a tool to help us see our country's own suppression.
Posted on Nov 22, 2007
Sometimes when there are no good candidates at the moment, you have to vote for the one who'll be best in the future.
Posted on Nov 13, 2007
Carbon offset fees may be new, but the underlying notion goes back to the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church sold wealthy people indulgences to offset the spiritual cost of their sins.
Posted on Nov 5, 2007
Consumer biotech can measure and alter biological states for the mass market -- which goes much further than the consumer electronics craze over iPhones and Wiis.
Posted on Nov 1, 2007
Two scandals in the sci-tech world serve as reminders that science can be done in bad faith.
Posted on Oct 23, 2007
Moaning Lisa demonstrates the videogame-like properties of the female body -- to give it an orgasm you have to follow different patterns every time.
Posted on Oct 16, 2007
Instant Messenger is a medium of communication somewhere between e-mail, which can be too slow, and the phone, which can be too fast.
Posted on Oct 10, 2007
Jaime Sommers, heroine of the 1970s show
Bionic Woman is back, but in a gender role that seems older than the original.
Posted on Oct 2, 2007
Preserving a record of history, especially during times of conflict, also means keeping the scenes of violence that the mainstream media whitewashes over.
Posted on Sep 26, 2007
The government is cutting funds to the tools that climate researchers need most -- the satellite and sensor networks that study the way humans are impacting climate change.
Posted on Sep 18, 2007
When NASA sent the Voyager into space 30 years ago, it contained record albums intended for alien consumption.
Posted on Sep 12, 2007
When NASA sent the Voyager into space 30 years ago, it contained record albums intended for alien consumption.
Posted on Sep 11, 2007
Archaeologists have discovered that Brak, a Syrian city and one of the oldest urban areas in the world, was built in a way that completely defies conventional wisdom about how cities grow.
Posted on Sep 5, 2007
Mice genomes are about 85 percent similar to humans, but when the pesky creatures invade our home do we treat them as equals or shift into predator mode?
Posted on Aug 28, 2007
Anonymity online is on the rise, allowing people to write, lie and manipulate data without feeling responsible for it. But who's doing all this hiding? Hint: It's not angry, pajama-wearing bloggers.
Posted on Aug 20, 2007
A digital junkie makes the case for staying with paper.
Posted on Aug 16, 2007
Experts estimate that 75 to 90 percent of pornography winds up in the hands of children due to novel technologies and high-speed distribution networks. If you're ready to blame the internet, you're wrong.
Posted on Aug 7, 2007
1
