Your first encounter with "better" living through nanotechnology may be your sunscreen

Like some kind of techno-utopian Johnny Appleseed, a start-up called Meraki wants to cover the earth with ad hoc Wi-Fi networks

In a post-9/11 world, where security demands are high, personal privacy does not have to be sacrificed, says computer scientist Latanya Sweeney, who discusses a few ways to save it.

Like a tinfoil hat for your house, new technology promises to block hackers' access to your wireless transmissions—and protect against EMP attacks and explosions, to boot

Scientists may have turned mouse skin cells into embryolike stem cells, but prior claims for the power of adult cells have yet to stand the test of time

Americans pour billions of dollars into supplements every year—an investment in health or money down the drain?

Although you might not want to leave your protective gear at home, just know that if you do, drivers will be a lot more scared of hitting you.

Are medieval windows melting?

Exploding the myth that premium gasoline delivers better performance in the average automobile

The next time you want protection from a blowtorch--or space dust--consider an aerogel

A new green revolution based on genetically modified crops can help reduce poverty and hungerbut only if formidable institutional challenges are met

A shipping container stuffed with servers could usher in the era of cloud computing

Encoded light transmissions can provide the wireless devices in a room with multimedia Web services such as videoconferencing, movies on demand and more

An approach called network coding could dramatically enhance the efficiency and reliability of communications networks. At its core is the strange notion that transmitting evidence about messages can be more useful than conveying the messages themselves

Computer viruses are now airborne, infecting mobile phones in every part of the globe. Security companies, cellular operators and phone makers are moving to quash these threats before they spiral out of control

For Blu-ray and HD DVD, encryption and court orders prove futileagain

New way to spot hidden nukes gets ready to debut

Accidental infections in biosafety labs go unreported?

A machine-listening system that understands three speakers at once

A design to block RFID tags

Personal fabricators aim at letting you manufacture your own products

140 million years of geologic history in a bottle of wine

The political outcomes of biotechnology

Jon Cohen argues that the obstacles may be more human than viral

Computer scientist Latanya Sweeney helps to save confidentiality with "anonymizing" programs, "deidentifiers" and other clever algorithms. Whether they are enough, however, is another question

Drug companies do not see much of a market in treating diseases of developing nations. Michael Kremer hopes to change that--with a plan that taps the profit motive

Mahzarin Banaji can show how we connect "good" and "bad" with biased attitudes we hold, even if we say we don't. Especially when we say we don't

Hiroshi Ishiguro makes perhaps the most humanlike robots around--not particularly to serve as societal helpers but to tell us something about ourselves

Last fall Robert Klein got Californians to vote for embryonic stem cell work. That was a piece of cake compared with getting the resulting research agency off the ground