Between hybrid cars, organic cotton t-shirts, and energy efficient light bulbs, it’s clear the environment is increasingly on people’s minds—not least for those who design these eco-items. In this useful new book, Thorpe, a senior... Read More

Two women are undergoing in vitro fertilization. The embryologist whose job it is to sort and prepare the embryos for implantation mixes them up. Nine months later one of the women gives birth to the other woman’s baby. Is it human... Read More

Many people see technological advances as a smooth linear process. A new product is introduced, commercial applications are discovered, and the new technology is embraced, then improved upon as the price drops to a level where the... Read More

People do not like to be alone. Although they may claim to desire privacy, in reality most need the comfort of having someone—or something—close by for company. That’s the reason that television is so omnipresent, theorizes... Read More

Scene 1: The man with the rifle has been holding police at bay for several hours on the Los Angeles freeway. He has fired some shots but hasn’t hit anyone. Local television stations are providing live, nonstop coverage of the standoff... Read More

Imagine a book of essays that covers, among many other subjects, the ever increasing underground traffic in stolen transplant organs; or “identity cards” ostensibly used for identifying legal residents of the United States, but which... Read More

JavaScript is to web pages what fourth generation languages were to mainframe computers in the seventies and eighties. It allows web pages to pass information to and from computer programs on web servers. JavaScript has the ability to... Read More