Science & Technology

A printed circuit board. (Ann Ronan Pictures / Print Collector / Getty Images) This article appears in the June 29/July 6, 2020 issue. Race After Technology opens with a brief personal history set in the Crenshaw neighborhood of Los Angeles, where sociologist Ruha Benjamin spent a portion of her childhood. Recalling the time she set […]

Types of plague The Black Death was a bubonic plague, the disease’s most common form. The name refers to telltale buboes—painfully swollen lymph nodes—that appear around the groin, armpit, or neck. Skin sores become black, hence its foreboding nickname during the 14th-century pandemic. Initial symptoms of this early stage include vomiting, nausea, and fever. (Black […]

The tech industry is a notoriously lonely place for African Americans. Black workers comprise only 6.9 percent of STEM employees, and less than 5 percent of the workforce at tech companies in Silicon Valley. At tech behemoths like Google and Yahoo, Black workers made up 1 percent of the workforce. A new study shows that […]

As technology transforms the global economy, Dr. Bernice King, the CEO of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, is striving to make sure these new economic opportunities are available to everyone—including the Black community. The daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, Dr. King inherited a long legacy of fighting […]

Tech and business efforts in Detroit have received a significant investment. The Detroit Free Press reports that the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (Knight Foundation) has committed $19.8 million in grants to support 12 Detroit projects to create a “vibrant and thriving city,” according to Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, the foundation’s president and CEO. […]

Black Mirror has presented a slew of creative, frightening, and intriguing scenarios for the future of technology across its seven series, interactive film, and holiday special. Most of these stories are presented as cautionary tales about how technology can control people, punish people, and even cause their violent demise. It is a harrowing anthology series […]

Disease name: Alkaptonuria, also known as “black urine disease” Affected populations: The exact prevalence of alkaptonuria worldwide is unknown. However, estimates suggest that the disease affects between 1 in 250,000 and 1 in 1 million people in the U.S. More than 1,000 cases of alkaptonuria have been reported in the medical literature. Individuals from any […]

A majority of Black adults have had at least one negative experience with a health care provider, according to a new report. But young Black women are particularly likely to report a harmful interaction during routine health care.  More than 70% of Black women ages 18 to 49 said they’ve experienced at least one negative interaction […]

The first game of the 2021 NBA season is on Tuesday night, when the Milwaukee Bucks take on the Brooklyn Nets. But what should have been an exciting rematch for the two teams that faced off last year for the Eastern Conference semifinals is being overshadowed by a COVID scandal: One of the league’s biggest […]

DETROIT (WXYZ) — About 1,000 metro Detroit students took over the Michigan Science Center on Thursday for an event designed to increase Black representation in technology fields. Watch Evan Sery’s video report: Digital empowerment summit take over the Michigan Science Center The youth takeover marked the first day of a three-day Detroit Digital Empowerment Summit […]