Science & Technology

The elusive actor tells Fresh Air about his new film, Her -- but he insists he's not really that interesting. "If I was driving and I heard this, I'd change the channel," he says.

The U.S. needs to start treating the Internet like electricity or railroads, law professor and author Susan Crawford says. "We can't create a level playing field for all Americans or indeed compete on the world stage without having some form of government involvement," she says.

Scientists think an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. In today's extinction, humans are the culprit.

The astrophysicist says that participating in a "great unfolding of a cosmic story" should make us feel large, not small. This spring, Tyson hosts a TV series called Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey.

Barbara Ehrenreich -- a rationalist, atheist and scientist by training -- has written a new memoir called Living With a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything.

For the first time, a computer passed the test for machines engaging in intelligent thought. Linguist Geoff Nunberg says the real test is whether computers can behave the same way thinking people do.

Pinterest has created a database of things that matter to humans. And with a programming team that's largely been hired away from Google, the company has begun offering what it calls "guided search."

Some of the nation's restaurants are using technology to make diners commit before their night out. It's convenient for the restaurant an customer -- and it may pry people away from old habits.

In The Innovators, Walter Isaacson explains that Pentagon officials wanted a system the Russians couldn't attack, and 1984 made the public wary of new technology's Big Brother potential.

Teenage girls explained to writer Hanna Rosin that boys collect sexts like baseball cards or Pokemon cards. "There's so much free porn out there that these pictures serve a different role," she says.

The ultimate smart-home vision is a home that basically runs itself, from coffee makers to washing machines. But we're not there yet: The real world is a hard place for little computers to operate in.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the roots and resonance of the latest tech buzzword to catapult into the mainstream. "Disrupt" may be ubiquitous now, but could the term be on the eve of a disruption?

The machines have long been used in manufacturing, but Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots, says they're now poised to replace humans as teachers, lawyers and even journalists.

Apple's newest product is a screen on your wrist, with its own operating system and software. Tech correspondent Alexis Madrigal calls the Apple Watch "a powerful extension of what your phone can do".

Jamie Bartlett exposes an encrypted underworld to the Internet in his book The Dark Net: "Anybody with something to hide, whether it's for good reasons or for ill, finds a very natural home there."

Silver analyzes polls and predicts election outcomes on his website, FiveThirtyEight. This year's is "maybe the most fascinating nomination race that we've ever seen," he says.

In her new book, Pandemic: Tracking Contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, Shah discusses the history and science of contagious diseases. She notes that humans put themselves at risk by encroaching on wildlife habitats. "About 60 percent of our new pathogens come from the bodies of animals," she says.

Graphic novelist Daniel Clowes, best known for his graphic novel Ghost World, has a new book, Patience, a love story that was five years in the making. In it, Clowes uses time travel to explore themes like tragedy and regret.

Robert Walker, a retired congressman from Pennsylvania who served as chairman of the Science Committee, responds to allegations that the Bush administration has mishandled scientific issues. Walker now serves as chairman of Wexler & Walker, a lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.

In his new book The Republican War on Science, journalist Chris Mooney contends that the Bush administration has distorted research and misinformed the public on issues ranging from stem-cell research to global warming. The motivation, Mooney argues, is political power.