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Report Says MIT Makes Strides With Women Scientists

BOSTON -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has succeeded in boosting the number of women on its science and engineering faculties and in making the university a friendlier and more supportive place to work in the decade since a pair of scathing reports on the status of women at the school, yet more remains to be...

Internet for Robots: It's Not Skynet, It's RoboEarth

It's one of science fiction's most familiar ideas: computers that can, when hooked up to other computers, become self-aware and exhibit human characteristics. The results are often sinister, as the machines perceive humanity as a threat and defend themselves to the death. "Star Trek" had its Ultimate Computer, among many...

'Pants' Up, 'Trousers' Down on Google's Ngram Viewer

(Dec. 17) -- Never one to be caught resting on its laurels, Google has released a massive, searchable database that will give linguists and historians a new tool for quantitatively understanding how language and culture have changed over time. It also makes for a good time-waster on languishing Fridays before the...

Planes Don't Kill People -- Plane Exhaust Does

(Oct. 11) -- If you can't fly the friendly skies without a stiff drink or a sedative, take note: The fumes from airplanes are to blame for more annual deaths than actual airplane crashes. Maybe not the most reassuring of factoids, but one that offers a reminder of just how safe (relatively speaking) air travel really...

Panel: Arrest of Harvard's Gates Was Avoidable

(June 30) -- The disorderly conduct arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. that led to last summer's White House "beer summit" could have been avoided, as both the professor and the police sergeant missed chances to end the encounter peacefully, according to an independent review released today. The arrest by...