Japan's love affair with the fax machine – a strange relic of technological fantasies

FabrikaSimf/Shutterstock With Japan riding the crest of its postwar economic miracle, Sony chairman Akio Morita and Japan’s Minister of Transport Shintarō Ishihara unleashed a manifesto. The document, published in 1989, contained a prophecy that propelled it to domestic bestseller status, and into the concerned hands of officials at the CIA.Continue Reading

Fossil footprints prove humans populated the Americas thousands of years earlier than we thought

Are these the footprints of the first-known American teen? Matthew Robert Bennett, Author provided Our species began migrating out of Africa around 100,000 years ago. Aside from Antarctica, the Americas were the last continents humans reached, with the early pioneers crossing the now-submerged Bering land bridge that once connected easternContinue Reading

Sir Clive Sinclair, inventor of the UK’s first mass-market home computer, has died at the age of 81. Pioneer of tiny portable devices, truly affordable computers and novel, electric forms of transportation, he leaves behind what some see as a checkered history of hit-and-miss inventions. But Sir Clive’s contribution toContinue Reading

Do the northern lights make sounds that you can hear?

John A Davis/Shutterstock It’s a question that has puzzled observers for centuries: do the fantastic green and crimson light displays of the aurora borealis produce any discernible sound? Conjured by the interaction of solar particles with gas molecules in Earth’s atmosphere, the aurora generally occurs near Earth’s poles, where theContinue Reading

It's still not fully understood how placebos work – but an alternative theory of consciousness could hold some clues

Shutterstock If you’ve had both of your COVID vaccinations, you may have suffered some side-effects – perhaps headaches, fatigue, fever or a sore arm. These effects are mainly caused by your immune system’s reaction to the vaccine. But most scientists agree that there is another cause: the human mind. TheContinue Reading