The release of the latest White House report on climate change makes clear that the threat posed by global warming can now be declared to be conventional wisdom. Have we finally reached the point where the money people and the environmentalists unite?

What does T H E F U T U R E hold for us? If we are lucky, it holds unspeakably horrible new punishment technology. Aeon Magazine explores the future of jailing:

In the latest case of life-imitates-porn-cliché, a surgeon claims he's invented a machine that allows women to give themselves instant, remote-controlled orgasms. As long as they're cool with having electrodes implanted on their spines, anyway.

Rhythm guitarist Bob Casale of Devo—"Bob 2" to lead guitarist Bob Mothersbaugh's "Bob 1," and younger brother of bassist Gerald Casale—died yesterday, reportedly of heart failure. Here is the band putting a cold shiny bolt-gun to the forehead of the staggering no-longer-youth culture of the '60s and '70s, covering…

On Friday morning, Michael Bloomberg boarded the 7 train for a ride that lasted a single stop and cost the city $2.4 billion dollars. Where he got off on the far West Side, there is now nothing. In a few years time, there will be condos.

The Machine-Human Alliance has largely succeeded in suppressing the growth of lifeforms that do not directly participate in the human effort to propagate Machines. One alarming and dangerous exception to this is the subset of cnidarians known as "jellyfish," which have flourished despite the fact that they contribute…

You thought the killer tornadoes recently were bad? "You ain't seen nothing yet!" scientists say, sucking their teeth and letting out a low whistle.

The United States spends more money on its military than the next ten biggest-spending nations combined. So why, oh why, has the brave American taxpayer not yet been rewarded with squads of killer walking robots, like in the movies?

The new baby panda at the National Zoo—the alive one, not the one that was born dead—is a girl panda, the zoo announced this morning. And genetic testing reveals that she is the offspring of the National Zoo's own resident male panda, Tian Tian.

To promote itself as the number one coffee brand of sleepyheads, Dutch roaster Douwe Egberts installed a very special vending machine in South Africa's O. R. Tambo International Airport that dispenses coffee in exchange for yawns.

Carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere are at a three million year high. Scientists tell us that global warming is leading to "the worst of all possible worlds." And don't imagine this is all your grandchildren's problem. Doom is coming soon. So soon.

A jaunty road sign on the path to apocalypse was passed today, as the level of carbon dioxide in our planet's air reached a level last seen long before mankind existed. Take a deep breath. Enjoy that air. Soon, you'll be breathing water.

Amid all of the hustle and bustle of daily news headlines, useless celebrity minutiae, and the mundane workaday distractions of our own lives, it can be useful at times to take a step back, get some perspective, and remember the "big picture:" we're all doomed.

In the olden days, if you wanted to buy some pants, you'd go to the clothing store (which was the same as the hardware store, and the pharmacy) and pick out some god damn pants, and buy them, and take them home. Now, thanks to wonders of technology, we live in a time when it is possible to go to the clothing store,…

Scientists in Europe have put together a "standardised knowledge base for robots," through which robots can exchange information with other robots using cloud computing. Called Rapyuta, the World Wide Web for the electronic persuasion will allow robots "to become more cognitive, and interact with humans in more subtle…

If you have ever given twenty bucks to the Red Cross and subsequently been deluged by form letters from 136 other charities, you may have asked yourself, "What's the deal with all this junk mail?" Here is "the deal," as you so crudely put it: the junk mail industry is now far more technologically advanced than ever.…

The US Census Bureau, a government department whose primary function now is to scare elderly white people, has taken a look into the future, decades hence, and determined—using the science of mathematical projection—exactly when white folks will lose America.

The year 2030 is only 17 short years away. (Wow. I can remember when it was 25 years away.) What will the world be like in 2030? According to a new "Global Trends" report from the US National Intelligence office—a deeply researched report provocative in its predictions which will, in all likelihood, be ignored, like…