Orion Jones

Where is the intersection of nature and nurture? The world’s largest medical database, which compiles the lives of 500,000 patients from birth to death, will help us understand the answer.

The Data Design Diabetes challenge asks participants to bring human-center design and open data to the diabetes community. Here we examine the competition’s semi-finalists. 

In two unrelated studies, researchers found that adults who eat chocolate regularly are slimmer than abstainers and that consuming fast food is strongly linked to depression. 

A new start-up is offering a fast track to satisfying employment by connecting applicants with jobs that offer more emotional fulfillment than a big pay check, though that doesn’t hurt.

Under new legislation, start-up companies will be able to raise up to $1 million through small (online) donations without disclosing much beyond a rudimentary business plan. 

In a whirlwind interview, Chomsky explains how Richard Nixon is a left-wing radical, how the ultimate expression of science is art and what climate change has to do with communism. 

An independent study confirms that the businesses of Silicon Valley are some of the most innovative on Earth. They actively create a culture of innovation, which can be replicated anywhere. 

Design experts say the furniture of the digital age will be dematerialized, meaning a minimalism no longer imposed by style alone but by the material necessities of digital devices. 

The all-knowing device used in the TV program Star Trek has been brought to real life by cognitive scientist Peter Jansen, who equipped the machine with an impressive array of sensors. 

A start up backed by a Skype co-founder is giving away free smartphone covers that provide about a gigabyte of free wireless per month. Internet is a right, not a privilege, says the company.

The very technology that keeps us constantly connected to work can also create a new understanding of labor in the modern age. The no-hour work week means using technology humanely. 

Will moving money to digital devices widen the digital divide or provide a way for everyone to participate in a new economy that will run on exciting new digital innovations?

How soon until you can roll up your computer screen like a newspaper? Two recent developments will make computer screens and e-reading devices flexible enough to bend. 

Think the private sector has a monopoly on innovation and government is just hopeless bureaucracy? Not DARPA. It’s the agency that invented the Internet and flies at Mach 20. 

Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, are developing a suite of satellites armed with powerful lasers to change the course of asteroids that threaten Earth. 

The amino acids that can be found inside comets, which are also the building blocks of life, sustain the heat and pressure of an impact, say researchers, and even form peptide bonds. 

The super-Earths discovered by NASA’s Kepler mission may be better at supporting life than Earth itself, says the Harvard astronomer who coined the term super-Earth. 

When density perturbations in space cause it to collapse, black holes are created in a range of sizes. Some are extremely small and could pass straight through the Earth. 

Facebook says employers who request applicants’ passwords will face ‘unanticipated legal challenges’. What does that mean, exactly? Would you hand your password over for a job?

No matter the job, institutions increasingly require applicants to maintain an online presence, whether than means managing content, tweaking a website’s design or writing code in earnest. 

Email overload is linked to decreased productivity, an inability to focus on important tasks, even emotional and physical stress. Activity streams, a potential alternative, are gaining popularity. 

By turning super computers loose on massive amounts of data, companies are able to make more informed decisions, but making decisions based on computer output can be humbling. 

PayPal is coming to a store near you. In fact, PayPal may be building a store near you. The online payment company wants to bring its ideas to physical stores, changing how we use money. 

Embellished products created by Western companies cannot survive a globalized market where countries like India and China create alternatives for their citizens at a fraction of the price. 

Financial expert Mohamed El-Erian says the American economic recovery is underway but still too fragile to sustain rapid growth. Educating workers will be a key source of growth. 

As President Obama travels to South Korea, matters of the state will be on hand. But what about the people living in North Korea? Their treatment is at once frightening and bizarre. 

“We can have huge wealth in the hands of a relatively few people or we can have a democracy. But we can’t have both,” said Louis Brandeis. Today, income inequality is an all time high. 

Despite dire predictions of the future, brought on quite naturally by the protracted recession, professor Philip Auerswald believes the world is headed for epic prosperity. Here’s why…

Reflecting on the care she gave her husband after a massive stroke, author Diane Ackerman writes a graceful and informative piece on how the brain functions when in love. 

York College behavioral scientist Robert Duncan addresses whether researchers have successfully located consciousness in the brain’s biology and what that might mean.