One big question

Amidst the rocket models, jet engines and satellites at the 33rd Annual Space Symposium, we found a quiet corner to sit down with Scott Fouse, the vice president of Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center. We asked him: What will space exploration look like in 2040?

While it seems everyone is jumping on the AI bandwagon, we were wondering just how advanced the technology really is. So we put a question to Igal Raichelgauz, the founder of Cortica, an image-recognition company that relies on AI technology: Why is artificial intelligence still kind of dumb?

You might not think your crock pot would have a lot to do with your love life, but as we enter the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), connected devices can collect data about our behaviors that might actually help match us with our ideal partners. We explore this idea through One Big Question.

At the recent SUNZ Summit we met up with Dr Amy Fletcher and asked her whether we should consider bioengineering animals that could live in the world we're creating, rather than in the one we're destroying?

As more and more devices bathe our eyes in blue light at night, our sleep patterns will be disturbed and it's even possible that some cancer risks might increase​. So what to do? Do blue-light-blocking glasses, screens and filters do anything to help?​ We asked an expert to find out.

As part of our regular "One big question"​ feature, we asked Neil Jacobstein, the former president and current chair of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Track at Singularity University, how the potential downsides of artificial intelligence can be managed.

As part of our regular "One Big Question" series, asked transportation engineer Steven Shladover from UC Berkeley if the advent of driverless cars means that kids being born today will never need to learn how to drive. Here's what he said.

​All of the smartphones bursting into flames these days has us thinking about batteries. Specifically, we were wondering if the need to periodically discharge cell phone batteries to keep them conditioned is really necessary. So, as part of our regular One Big Question series, we asked an expert.

New Atlas asks Peter Murphy from the University of South Australia a single question as part of our regular One Big Question series: What goes into making a color-changing military tank?

Earlier this year, a giant cable was laid between Japan and the United States to deliver 60 Terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth under the Pacific. As part of our One Big Question series, we asked Kenichi Yoneyama of NEC for more details on how the giant cord was installed.

We recently reported on heart structures 3D-printed in a weightless environment. For the first of a regular new feature, we asked one of the company’s chief scientist what was the single biggest impediment to having lab-grown organs available right now. Here’s what he had to say.