In the Greek tale of 'the lion and the man', Androcles removes a thorn from a lion's foot. Years later, the lion repays the favour when facing Androcles in the Roman Colosseum. Afterwards, people would say "This is the lion, a man's friend; This metaphor is of how a man and a lion benefitted by helping each other, but what lessons are there for small rural regions to learn from large cities?

The majority of scientists, according to NASA, believe that humans are responsible for the rise of climate temperature. The main culprit, it is argued, is carbon dioxide, better known as CO2, and its increasing levels in the atmosphere, now at their highest in over half a million years. Could we make better use of this CO2?

Scientists are not only trying to enhance human abilities with new technologies, but also creating plants with superpowers. Several successful experiments on flowers and vegetables have been conducted, and the field is developing rapidly. If you haven’t heard about green cyborgs yet, it's time to learn about their future potential!

Usually artificial intelligence is only considered to affect professions and fields that are characteristically less creative, but we can already also see ever tighter cooperation between man and machine in arts. The quality of some AI-generated pieces is already so high that people don’t even necessary realise that they are admiring art created by machines.

Scientists have just used the gene-editing CRISPR technology to eliminate a family of viruses in pigs that could be transmitted to humans in transplants or other cases. This new gene-editing technology is here to stay and can profoundly impact genetics as we know it. It may also prove to be a way to eliminate the risks involved with animal-to-human transplants, which could save millions of lives every year.

The Singularity. This idea of technology improving itself ever more rapidly and having a profound impact in society (and possibly leading to the extinction of our own species) is not new. It has been around since I. J. Good described an "intelligence explosion" in 1965, and has been the subject of many sci-fi novels and movies, most of which with a dark ending for human civilization.

Ray Kurzweil, one of the world’s leading inventors, thinkers, and futurists, stated in a recent interview that we are going to witness the end of the nation-state as we've known it. He believes that the elementary particles of the classical world order are about to change as technology will keep on making our borders less and less relevant.

How can you identify reliable knowledge sources and trustworthy experts? What types of knowledge or information need to be memorised, learnt, comprehended, and mastered? How is reliable knowledge created, how should we access it, and what kind of knowledge should be saved?

Much has been said about how industrial and non-industrial robots are changing the world. When we think of robots, most of us think of industrial robotic arms, military robots, or anthropomorphic service robots. In other words, big robots. Few think of those robots that are rarely visible to the naked eye: microrobots.

Data and AI technologies are driving the development of our industries; and a demand for experts in STEM-related fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), and wages paid in those jobs, are growing fast in many countries.

When we talk about 3D printing, many people first picture small-scale products, such as car parts or smartphone covers. But what happens when we attempt to build larger structures, like houses or bridges, with 3D-printing?

A group of scientists from the University of California, Riverside, got inspired by Wolverine, a comic character from the X-Men, who has self-healing abilities. As a result, they created transparent, self-repairing and highly stretchable material that can be electrically activated. Therefore, it’s especially suitable for improving the performance of smartphones, robots and other electronic devices.