Several years ago, the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District offered up the peninsula of Key Haven, a tiny suburb of Key West, for the first United States test of genetically modified mosquitoes built to blunt the spread of dengue and Zika, it was only a matter of time before opposition mounted. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/25/us/zika-florida-keys-mosquitoes.html?emc=eta1&_r=0 Today, even as […]

The ride-sharing firm Uber will, for the first time, allow users to hail self-driving cars within a fortnight, the company has confirmed. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37117831 Uber said the launch would take place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It added that it was teaming up with Volvo. At first, the vehicles will be supervised by a driver, who can take […]

 For the first time since a cholera epidemic imported by United Nations peacekeepers began killing thousands of Haitians nearly six years ago, the office of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has admitted that the United Nations played a role in the initial outbreak and that a “significant new set of U.N. actions” will be needed to […]

A new team of specialist police officers is being set up to investigate online so-called online hate crime on Twitter and Facebook. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37076995 The London-based hub will include a team of five officers who will support victims and identify online abuse. The two-year pilot will cost £1.7m and has received £452,000 from the Home Office, […]

China will push for the commercialization of genetically modified soybeans over the next five years boosting output of the crop by the world’s top soy importer and consumer. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-gmo-idUSKCN10L0NX China, which has spent billions of dollars researching GMO crops, has already embraced the technology for cotton but has not yet permitted the cultivation of any […]

It’s the summer of bots, after a spring of bots, probably before an autumn of bots. At the Republican and Democratic conventions, news outlets trotted out their new experiments: BuzzFeed’s Facebook messenger bot collected news, The Washington Post’s bot on wheels rolled around live streaming video, and CNN reported the news to teenagers via a […]