Brian Gongol
Made-from-scratch genome powers a new bacterium
It's being called the first synthetic life form -- but it is life. Sometimes, it seems like even the most wide-eyed optimist about the future of science is still a decade behind the curve.
How long will we have to wait before politicians stop talking about jobs and start talking about wealth?
Nobody should be bothered if we become a nation of leisure, with all the hard work being done by robots. We might not have "jobs" in that sense, but we could still be far better off than we are today.
News Corp says the British Library and Google are picking a fight
There's a plan to digitize huge amounts of old newspaper content and put it online -- which on one hand is a great announcement for the spread of knowledge, but also probably a huge problem for copyright law. Which is broken anyway. Either way, the project is supposed to take ten years, so it's not going to be an overnight phenomenon, and the plan is to charge for online access. Meanwhile, Google is in trouble for collecting data from private Wi-Fi networks while sending its Street View cameras out on the roads. Oops.
The greatest use of Steadicam ever
Steadicam is the technology that keeps a moving camera from getting jumpy. And it's used to stunning brilliance in a Eurovision contest. Even if nobody in America wants to know what Eurovision is, they should see this brilliant camera work.
"I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die"
And other observations for the modern world
That "chomp-chomp-chomp" sound you hear is America's 2nd-quarter productivity going down the drain as we all play Pac-Man on Google today
Players are abandoning "Farmville" on Facebook at a stunning rate
Darth Vader and the coolest baby-shower cake in history
