The Spanish flu infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide, and killed tens of millions. A century later, we have vaccines, antibiotics, advanced life support, and high-tech monitoring networks. And, yet, disease outbreaks - from Ebola, to Zika, to measles - continue to surprise even experts. Medical historian Mark Honigsbaum has chronicled the outbreaks and epidemics of the twentieth century in his new book, The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris . He

Retailers like Walmart are embracing robots – here's how workers can tell if they'll be replaced Beth Humberd , University of Massachusetts Lowell and Scott F. Latham , University of Massachusetts Lowell Walmart recently said it plans to deploy robots to scan shelves, scrub floors and perform other mundane tasks in its stores as the retail giant seeks to lower labor costs . While the retail giant did not say which jobs, if any, might be lost as a result, the announcement – and the many more

"Scientists - not just scientists, anyone - can fall into the trap of thinking that once we have a certain amount of knowledge, we really understand how things work, we don't need to question it anymore. But the lessons of these epidemics is that as much as we've learned and as much as we know there were always these unknowns out there, or these partial understandings, and we only learned what we're missing when the next epidemic comes along." - Mark Honigsbaum

First, it was White Castle and Red Robin. Then, Burger King. Vegan meat substitutes are popping up at fast food chains across the nation, raising questions about how much better they really are for the environment, and for you.

By Judith Weis , Professor Emerita of Biological Sciences, Rutgers University Newark Many invasive species are found along U.S. coasts, including fishes, crabs, mollusks and marsh grasses. Since the general opinion is that invasives are harmful, land managers and communities spend a lot of time and resources attempting to remove them. Often this happens before much is known about their actual effects, either good or bad. The common reed Phragmites australis is a tall perennial grass with long

Imagine a world in which your toaster will only toast bread from approved vendors and your dishwasher will only clean approved dishes using specific brands of soap. Think that’s far-fetched? Cory Doctorow doesn’t.

A strange whirring noise caught the attention of teachers at Puman Middle School in China’s Hunan province last year. For months, the sound hummed throughout the night and over the school’s holiday breaks. The internet slowed. The building’s electricity bill doubled. When Chinese police went to investigate the complaint, they discovered a bank of specialized computers mining cryptocurrency—performing energy-intensive calculations that give many digital currencies their value. Authorities fired

Living Lab Radio this week.

Air pollution triggers the premature death of more than 100,000 people each year — around the population of Cambridge, Massachusetts. That’s according to new research from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last week.

It’s been just over a year since the first pedestrian was hit and killed by a self-driving car. Since then, we’ve learned a lot about the algorithms that drive autonomous vehicles.