Paris Diderot University (Paris 7)

What if they could act as mentors in mindfulness, helping users stay attentive in order to achieve particular goals? Funneling a steady stream of diversions straight to your pocket, smartphones are often cast as the ultimate distractors. But a University of Michigan engineering professor sees potential for them to be something quite the opposite. What

Game Changers Advances in transportation technology are game changers. The advent of steam railways opened up the centers of the continents to settlement because it became economic to cultivate crops and ship them to distant markets.  The development of jet airplanes created worldwide tourism because it became possible for the masses to afford a holiday

ON Monday the Supreme Court will consider whether to fundamentally alter the way American patent law is litigated. Specifically, in the context of an otherwise unremarkable patent dispute, the Court has promised to decide the degree to which juries should be allowed to question whether a patent should have been issued at all. It’s a critical

Economic inequality among nations and other factors have contributed to a global food system in which billions are hungry or lacking crucial vitamins, whereas another billion are overconsuming, spawning a public health epidemic involving conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease Dear EarthTalk: I understand a recent government report concluded that our global food system

Finalists announced for the world’s first food system­ focused biomimicry innovation accelerator Earlier this year, hundreds of people from around the world took on a challenge to fix our global food system by looking to nature for design solutions. Now, eight finalist teams have been invited to prototype their solutions in an accelerator program that

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 million people worldwide died from tuberculosis in 2008. It’s definitely a disease to be taken seriously, so when people in remote locations are being tested for it, it’s best if they don’t have to wait for their samples to be processed at a distant lab. That’s why medical

One aspect of the Egyptian uprising (among the others, most ongoing) that was overpowered by the wild acclamation of social media is something that has been quietly but powerfully changing societal norms over the last decade. It is simply the inclusion, on almost every mobile phone sold, of a digital camera. When 90% of the

Marine scientists are calling for a re-think of how marine protected areas (MPAs) are planned and coordinated, following a global assessment of the conservation of tropical corals and fishes. Researchers from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE), at James Cook University in Townsville, analysed the extent to which