Abstract Studies of animal behavior consistently demonstrate that the social environment impacts cooperation, yet the effect of social dynamics has been largely excluded from studies of human cooperation. Here, we introduce a novel approach inspired by nonhuman primate research to address how social…

It's the end of 2015, and one fact about the internet is quickly becoming clear this year: Americans' freedom to access the open internet is rapidly dissolving. Broadband access is declining, data caps are becoming commonplace, surveillance is increasing, and encryption is under attack. This is not…

A judge has ruled internet mogul Kim Dotcom is eligible for extradition to face charges in the United States. However, Dotcom immediately said he would file an appeal, ensuring the long-running courtroom drama will continue for some time yet. Following lengthy arguments in the North Shore District…

Free Basics, a service by Facebook initiative Internet.org , is having a rough week in India. First, an email campaign by the social media network was criticized for being heavy-handed and misleading. Now Reliance Communications , one of Facebook’s partners, has agreed to temporarily halt Free…

The most famous experiment conducted by Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, after the Trinity test itself, is the one with the most evocative name. “Tickling the Dragon’s Tail,” also known internally as just “Dragon,” is straightforward about its meaning, compared to the enigma of “Trinity.”…

During Saturday’s debate, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton said the U.S. should commission a “Manhattan-like project,” a reference to the secret World War II-era atomic bomb endeavor, to address the alleged threat encryption poses to law enforcement. She also admitted she doesn’t…

All too often, new police surveillance tools are initially applied to only the “worst of the worst” and then slowly—but surely—expanded to include an ever-growing number of less culpable individuals. We’ve seen it with DNA collection . And now we’re starting to see it with GPS tracking . That’s why…

Late last Friday, the US Congress and President Obama signed into law the CISA Surveillance Law using very underhanded methods. With it came the loss of numerous protections extremely important to internet privacy. To understand why the CISA surveillance law is bad for email privacy, we will go over…

Accuracy and confidence at the initial identification Several lines of research indicate that the confidence expressed at trial (trial confidence) is less diagnostic of guilt than the level of confidence an eyewitness has in the accuracy of their memory when they first pick a suspect out of a lineup…

With many cities in northeast China smothered by thick smog in recent months, the widespread use of face masks and air purifiers comes as no surprise. But some local governments have turned to a less familiar tool for combating air pollution: the mist cannon. Late last year, Hunan Jiujiu Mining…

By Joe McNamee A press conference was organised this morning on behalf of Mr Santa Claus. At the conference, a spokes–elf confirmed that there had been repeated attempts to hack the “naughty or nice (NON)” database. The NON-database was thought to be used by Mr Claus to keep records of young…

‘On social media we were constantly lurching towards instant cold judgment’ ... Jon Ronson. Photograph: Christopher Lane for the Guardian I n December 2013 a PR woman called Justine Sacco tweeted to her 170 Twitter followers: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get Aids. Just kidding. I’m white!” The…

Lyft has authorized a Series F round in which it could raise as much as $1 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg , citing a Delaware state filing. We hear that Credit Suisse is running the fundraise — the big banks are getting involved with some of these large rounds, sorting everything out…

After it drilled two holes in the "Buckskin" rock on Mars, the Curiosity rover took a series of photos that were turned into this panoramic self-portrait. The rover is sitting on the crest of a 20-foot hill. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS In a finding that suggests "considerable water activity" on Mars, NASA…

The drug cartels aren’t just buying golden Uzis anymore. As the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, or CBP , has upped its drone patrols along America’s Mexican border, narcotics traffickers have responded with expensive technology of their own. “The bad guys on the border have lots of money…

HistorySource The combat operations center of what was then called the North American Air Defense Command, in Colorado Springs, around 1961. Credit Bettmann/Corbis Sixty years ago this month, near the height of the Cold War, Col. Harry W. Shoup, the new chief of the combat operations center of the…

George Washington’s lower denture: note the hole for his only surviving tooth to poke through.Photograph: Courtesy of the New York Academy of Medicine T he sharp pinch of a large needle piercing the tender flesh inside the mouth. The high-pitched sound of a drill shattering tooth enamel. The…

T onight, at 11:48 PM Eastern Time, is the moment of the winter solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is pointed as far away from the sun as it ever gets. It will be the longest night of the year, and tomorrow will be the day with the fewest hours of sunlight. Extreme cold froze parts of Turkey’s…

The Democratic debate Saturday night featured familiar themes: Bernie Sanders hit Hillary Clinton as beholden to Wall Street, Clinton hit Sanders as soft on gun control, Martin O’Malley had a tough time getting a word in edgewise — as this sad exchange with moderator Martha Raddatz demonstrates:…

In places around the world, supplies of groundwater are rapidly vanishing. As aquifers decline and wells begin to go dry, people are being forced to confront a growing crisis. Pumped Dry The global crisis of vanishing groundwater In places around the world, supplies of groundwater are rapidly…

Every decade or so Microsoft seems to feel the need to buy a Ray Ozzie company. This time it’s Talko , a Boston-based startup dedicated to helping workgroups (or families or other sets of associates) collaborate using their smartphones . Terms were not disclosed but in a blog post, Microsoft said…

The fact can no longer be avoided: You are your phone. The pattern of smartphone use is the pattern of the self. This is who you are: The Wall Street Journal reports today that Silicon Valley lending startups are looking to base personal loan decisions on analyses of data from individuals’ phones.…

Matt Cardy/Getty Images In the age of Netflix, Spotify, and unwanted LinkedIn Premium subscriptions, it can be difficult to keep track of where your money is going on a monthly basis. Trim, a San Francisco startup from former venture capitalists Thomas Smyth and Dan Petkevich, wants to ensure you…

It took 10 years, 14 psychiatrists, 17 medications, and nine diagnoses before someone finally realized that what Maya has is autism. Maya loves numbers, and with her impeccable memory, she can rattle off these stats: that the very first psychiatrist she saw later lost his right to practice because…

What It's Like to Be Noam Chomsky's Assistant

Roger Highfield, The Physics of Christmas: From the Aerodynamics of Reindeer to the Thermodynamics of Turkey (1999). Penne L. Restad, Christmas in America (1996). Christian Rasch and Claudia Muller-Ebeling, Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide (2006) .…

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's government said Monday it is not ignoring the slavery and forced labor in its lucrative shrimp industry that was highlighted in an Associated Press investigation published last week. Government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd, flanked by police, navy and other officials, held…

Apple CEO Tim Cook is defending his opposition to providing intelligence agencies with backdoors to access encrypted information on his company’s products. In the wake of the Paris terrorist attack, in which assailants are believed to have used encrypted devices to avoid government surveillance,…

Do you hate me, too? Photo: Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images Over the last year or two, certain Americans have delighted in screenwriter Craig Mazin’s candid recollections of his time as Texas senator Ted Cruz’s freshman-year roommate. According to Mazin, the current presidential candidate…

There are a few universal conversations at large political events: Who’s sleeping less, transportation woes, etc. But each event also has its own unique conversation, and for the fifth GOP debate, at the Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas, it was this: “Who just bought the Las Vegas…

This will be the last time I go along this area of discussion for a while because it’s just going to get very old very quickly. But I wanted, in one place, a quick manifesto/rant about this position. So here we go. FUCK THE CLOUD. By the cloud, of course, I mean this idea that you have a local…

PathDoc/Shutterstock T here’s a New Yorker cartoon that shows a doctor telling the patient lying in bed, “I don’t think you’re getting enough stress.” The cartoon is funny because it plays on the idea that stress is bad—how absurd is it that a doctor would prescribe more of it? Why not just offer…

An archaic species of the genus Homo from China, thought to be long extinct, likely survived until as recently as 14,000 years ago, a thigh bone found among the remains of China’s ‘Red Deer Cave people’ suggests. Artist’s reconstruction of a Red Deer Cave man. Image credit: Peter Schouten. The…

For decades the thought of colonising the Moon has tantalised scientists and visionaries alike. Various colonies have graced our screens, from the sprawling Moonbase Alpha in Space: 1999 to the compact mining colony in Moon . A lunar colony is arguably the next logical step for mankind. It is our…

Our Tropical Future: A new report on the State of the Tropics has revealed rapid changes in human and environmental health in the Earth’s tropical regions. This is the first in a four-part series about the new report, based on the work of 12 universities and research institutions worldwide , which…

For the last half decade, ever since digital books and e-readers first came on the scene, news headlines have been at war. “The physical book is dead,” some reports declared , while others vehemently argued for the eternality of the printed word . Data, actually, supports the latter sentiment. At…

Edmon de Haro S tep into an American preschool classroom today and you are likely to be bombarded with what we educators call a print-rich environment, every surface festooned with alphabet charts, bar graphs, word walls, instructional posters, classroom rules, calendars, schedules, and motivational…