Sci & Tech

Home > Sci & Tech

Coded Bias

In her first semester at the MIT Media Lab, Joy Buolamwini faced a peculiar problem: commercial face‑recognition software detected her light‑skinned classmates but couldn’t “see” her. Only when she donned a white plastic mask in frustration did the system recognize her face. Coded Bias is...

AI and Breast Cancer

Machine intelligence takes a big step into the clinic, with a technology that helps identify patients with an elevated risk of breast cancer. In 2014, Regina Barzilay learned that she had breast cancer. As a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,...

Eat, Sleep, and Move Right

Our obsession with digital screens is depriving us of sleep and hurting our health. Study after study shows that we are staying up till late, glued to our gadgets, which in turn leads to another unhealthy habit: night-time snacking. “Even healthy food eaten at this...

Anna Mani, Indian weather scientist

A few years ago, independent journalist Nandita Jayaraj came across an anthology of essays on Indian women in science. Titled Lilavati’s Daughters, the collection featured stories of nearly 100 female scientists – from the Victorian era to contemporary times – but what caught Jayaraj’s attention...

Measuring Blood with Light

Some components of blood can be measured without a needle stick. Now an innovation in light-based methods could make even more of them visible. For about 40 years, physicians have been able to measure some qualities of blood using pulses of light. A recent breakthrough...

Gentle Giants of Gujarat

“My first memory of whale sharks is when I was 10 years old, traveling from Mombasa to Bombay via Porbandar on a ship,” recalls Mike Pandey, an Indian wildlife filmmaker who was born in Kenya. He had seen these majestic creatures—the world’s largest fish—swim alongside...