Author: Charles Humphreys

A report from a future where genetic engineering has sabotaged society.

Why human intelligence and AI will co-evolve.

Will recording every spoken word help or hurt us?

Imagine that a loved one, let’s say your brother, has suffered a serious brain injury. After languishing in a coma, he finally “emerges”—that is, he cycles between sleep and wakefulness, yanks his hand away when it’s pricked, is startled by loud noises, and so on. But it’s not clear that he’s ever truly awake; his […]

Exposing the reasons we fail to understand the minds of others.

I venture to Cuba in search of the world’s smallest bird.

How the best-selling author brings his incredibly strange worlds to life.

Kate Nichols’ nanoparticle paints have changed how she sees color.

Mangroves are sturdy trees. Recognizable by their extensive root systems, these trees can thrive in muddy soil, sand, peat, even coral. They tolerate water much saltier than most other plants and survive flooding during severe storms. It is perhaps their sturdiness that led mangroves to be one of the most significant targets in the Vietnam […]

You don’t have to look very hard to see that our culture has some pretty powerful associations between colors and feelings. As a recent example, the new Pixar film Inside Out has characters representing emotions, and the color choices for these characters—red for anger, and blue for sadness—feel right. Red, specifically, is one of the […]