Technology Who's driving? Autonomous vehicles have a problem There’s a strong case to be made for remotely piloted planes and self-driving cars – but letting a machine drive flies in the face of human nature Opinion
Life Dinosaurs shrank for 50 million years to become birds From left to right: a neotheropod, a tetanuran, a coelurosaur, a paravian and Archaeopteryx (Image: Davide Bonnadonna) It took 50 million years of continual shrinking to turn massive, lumbering dinosaurs into the first small flying birds . "No other dinosaur group has undergone such a long and extended period of miniaturisation," says Mike Lee of … 51¶¯Âþ
Space Comet mission must not keep space fans in the dark The European Space Agency should change tack and not sit on pictures from a pioneering mission to a comet, says a space science writer Opinion
Technology Traffic light hackers could cause jams across the US Sometimes it's easy being green BRANDEN GHENA pulls his car up under a traffic light in a city in Michigan. He plugs a radio transmitter into the car's power adapter, connects it to his laptop and, with a few keyboard strokes, takes control of every traffic light in town. "We were able to advance the … 51¶¯Âþ
Technology The spy who bugged me: spook kit from the 1960s (Image: CIA Museum) ANYONE who read Peter Wright's book Spycatcher will be familiar with the tricks he and his MI5 colleagues used as they "bugged and burgled" their way around London in the 1950s and 1960s, listening and watching for signs of the Red Menace. Drilling silently into walls to plant bugs, they eavesdropped on … Regulars
Technology Who's flying this thing? End in sight for pilots Video: Pilotless jet lands on ship Computer pilots could make human error a thing of the past. But would you get on a plane flown by a machine instead of a captain? 1 JUNE 2009: Air France flight 447 is cruising from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it hits a tropical storm in the … Features
Festival shows the promises and perils of open data People enjoying the Open Knowledge Festival (Image: Gregor Fischer) Governments and big businesses want information to be free, but how will it work? A Berlin festival last week cast a friendly but critical eye over the idea From science journals to research data, there is a movement towards setting data free for everyone to use. … CultureLab
Feedback: Plumbing to be proud of Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more Plumbing to be proud of FEEDBACK'S random-access piling system has thrown up Wayne Plummer's intriguing photograph of a sign in a hotel in Saffron Walden, UK. "This en-suite bathroom," it declares, "is fitted with a Saniflow toilet which will not … Regulars