Where do America's most racist people live? "The rural Northeast and South," suggests a new study just published in PLOS ONE. The paper introduces a novel but makes-tons-of-sense-when-you-think-about-it method for measuring the incidence of racist attitudes: Google search data . The methodology…

In many professional jobs, expectations that one be an “ideal worker”—fully devoted to and available for the job, with no personal responsibilities or interests that interfere with this commitment to work—are widespread. We often think of problems with these expectations as women’s problems. But men…

Posted by Drew Hintz, Security Engineer and Justin Kosslyn, Google Ideas [Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog ] Would you enter your email address and password on this page? This looks like a fairly standard login page, but it’s not. It’s what we call a “phishing” page, a site run by people…

L. Jansan The McMurdo Dry Valleys form the largest ice-free region in Antarctica. They also make up the coldest and driest environments on the planet. Yet, despite these extreme conditions, the valleys' surface is home to a large diversity of microbial life. Now, new evidence suggests that a vast…

Above: Microsoft's HoloLens in action. Image Credit: Microsoft At its Build 2015 developer conference today, Microsoft announced the Windows Holographic Platform. In short, the company will let developers turn Windows 10 apps into holograms for HoloLens. On stage, Microsoft showed a Windows video…

When it comes to education the differences between the developed and developing worlds remain stark. There has been a convergence in the number of pupils enrolling in primary school, with many more young children in developing countries now having access to school. But when it comes to average…

Using a robotic telescope at Lick Observatory that scans the sky night after night, astronomers have discovered three planets – supersized Earths ‑ around a nearby star. Artist’s impression of a view from the HD 7924 planetary system looking back toward our sun, which would be easily visible to the…

Going by hacker stereotypes, it’d be pretty easy to physically identify anyone committing an act of digital crime. A combination of pallid skin, hoody and laptop is the biggest giveaway. Such hackneyed images of hackers are, of course, evidently wrong, bordering on offensive. Real hackers…

Amir Taaki and Cody Wilson are cruising north through Texas on Interstate 35 in the 4:30 am predawn darkness. One of the headlights on the aging BMW Wilson's driving is burned out, and he’s wearing sunglasses. “They’re prescription,” he says drily. It’s May Day, every anarchist’s favorite holiday,…

Stacy Donohue Contributor Stacy Donohue is an investment partner at Omidyar Network focused on innovations in civic tech. More posts by this contributor Civic Tech Brings Power And Positivity To The People Civic Tech Is Ready For Investment Editor’s note: Stacy Donohue is an investment partner at…

Layout of IBM's four superconducting quantum bit device. Using a square lattice, IBM is able to detect both types of quantum errors for the first time. This is the best configuration to add more qubits to scale to larger systems. Credit: IBM Research IBM scientists today unveiled two critical…

Fraud has a long prehistory that can be traced back to the swindles of wily Odysseus and the Old Testament ruse in which Jacob tricks his twin brother out of his birthright, but I’ll pick up the story in the Middle Ages. Dante Alighieri , the poet laureate of fraudulence, devotes a full thirteen…

Lawrence Lessig on Why Elizabeth Warren Needs to Run for President

In the first episode of our series Under the Influence, we go from the streets of the Lower East Side all the way to South Korea to examine one of the most distinctive genres to sprout from the concrete of New York City: hardcore.

I think my heart it outside my body now because it tried to leap out of my throat an uncountable number of times as I was watching James Kingston explore the Sepulveda Dam in LA from his point of view. Narrow beams, far jumps, high walls, obstacles, fear, normal human weaknesses don’t seem to apply…

NEW YORK (PIX11) - Four Swedish police officers heading to a Broadway show found themselves in the middle of a New York City subway brawl, and decided to take a break from their vacation -- stopping the fight and subduing both opponents. While on their way to watch "Les Miserables," two homeless men…

TAMPA The U.S. Department of Justice will review the Tampa Police Department's enforcement of bicycle laws after a Tampa Bay Times investigation found 79 percent of the agency's bike tickets go to black residents. Mayor Bob Buckhorn said Wednesday that he and police Chief Jane Castor asked federal…

Editorial Forcing Black Men Out of Society An analysis in The Times — “1.5 Million Missing Black Men” — showed that more than one in every six black men in the 24-to-54 age group has disappeared from civic life, mainly because they died young or are locked away in prison. This means that there are…

Life in Finland, one of the world's best functioning welfare states and least known success stories, can be complicated. Consider the dilemma confronting parents looking for day care for a 4-year-old daughter in Kuhmo, a town of 10,000 near the middle of the country. Should they put their child into…

It was the end of term at Kirkkojarvi Comprehensive School in Espoo, a sprawling suburb west of Helsinki, when Kari Louhivuori, a veteran teacher and the school’s principal, decided to try something extreme—by Finnish standards. One of his sixth-grade students, a Kosovo-Albanian boy, had drifted far…

Helsinki Journal Jari Sirkia, a traffic police officer, monitoring speeds via radar near Helsinki, Finland, where penalties are calculated by income. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times HELSINKI, Finland — Getting a speeding ticket is not a feel-good moment for anyone. But consider Reima…

Though the past winter was the hottest on record , it was chilly enough on the East Coast to send seasonal sheets of ice creeping across the Great Lakes. Now that that ice has cleared with spring, Lake Michigan is clear enough that shipwrecks lying on the lake bottom can be seen from the air.…

The Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle is designed to take humans to Mars, but with less than 20 cubic meters of pressurized volume for a crew of four it could get more than a little cozy en route. Commercial cargo vehicles designed to supply the International Space Station (ISS) may add some…

(This post is from our new blog: Unofficial Sources .) There is no sign of an end to the erosion of Constitutional liberties that began under George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks and continues under Barack Obama, a group of seven national security whistleblowers said Monday. “The government chose…

There’s something almost alchemical going on at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Scientists there have genetically transformed skin cells into heart cells and used them to 3D print mini-organs that beat just like your heart . Another darker organoid fused to a mini-heart mimics…

In the fall of 2011, the U.S. Secret Service orchestrated a sting operation. The target was a Vietnamese man named Hieu Minh Ngo. Investigators believed he was a big-time identity thief who sold packages of data known as “fullz,” each of which typically included a person’s name, date of birth,…

By Diane Luckow Lower back pain is one of the most common health issues for humans, yet doctors can’t always definitively explain what causes many of our back problems. Scientists have long pondered whether there is a link between walking upright and back problems, since humans experience more back…

I got my first period when I was only 11. In the first few years, my periods were not only a source of occasional embarrassment, they were also excruciatingly painful. I would lie curled up in my bed with a hot water bag, unable to move or breathe, and I would wonder: "why me?" Of course, I wasn't…

When preparing to apply for a job in the video game industry, the average applicant will be looking to emphasize their past experience, and why it gels well with what the company in question is looking for. For Boise, Idaho-based Alexander Velicky, there's only one studio that he wants to work at --…

The Leadership Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question “What advice would you give someone looking to start their own business? ” is by Tien…

For two months last summer an unusual bank robber shocked, mystified and captivated the US. She was a woman, she was short, young and well-dressed, and she held up a string of banks in quick succession. The Bombshell Bandit told Jeff Maysh her story. Sandeep Kaur pulled on a wig and adjusted her…

Michael Botticelli, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, offering greetings at a Baltimore treatment center. Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times BALTIMORE — Six recovering substance abusers sat in an inner-city treatment center, sharing their stories. When Michael’s…

Chipotle's announcement that it has removed all GMOs from its menu items is part of a growing food industry trend. From left: Nestle chocolates, Chipotle tortillas, Diet Pepsi, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner, a Subway sandwich. All of these companies have dropped ingredients over the past year in…

It’s 2 AM. You’ve just returned to your hotel room after a night carousing on the town. The corner stores have long-since closed, and you’ve been left tipsy, alone, and in need of an after-hours morsel. And then, like some culinary apparition, it beckons you from the corner of the room: the hotel…

S eventeen hundred miles from what is customarily called civilization—in this case, the western shore of the Republic of South Africa—lies a tiny British-run volcanic island populated by fewer than three hundred people who lay claim to living in the most isolated permanent habitation in the world. I…

Last year, hackers competed to exploit the connected parts of a Tesla Model S to win $10,000 . Researchers from Chinese security, search and app store giant Qihoo 360 won. But that competition was not exactly Tesla-approved. Later this year, however, at the Defcon convention in Las Vegas , Tesla…

SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower submission system that media organizations can use to securely accept documents from, and communicate with anonymous sources. It was originally created by the late Aaron Swartz and is currently managed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation . The SecureDrop…

Today, we’re announcing the latest major release of SecureDrop, our open-source whistleblower submission system. SecureDrop 0.3 uses the same basic architecture found in 0.2, but contains numerous improvements focused on better usability for both journalists and sources, a radically simplified…

Federal health officials Monday changed the recommended amount of fluoride in drinking water for the first time since 1962, cutting by almost half the maximum amount of fluoride that should be added to drinking supplies. The Department of Health and Human Services recommended 0.7 milligrams of…

At first glance, there is not the slightest doubt: to us, the universe looks three dimensional. But one of the most fruitful theories of theoretical physics in the last two decades is challenging this assumption. The "holographic principle" asserts that a mathematical description of the universe…