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That Google and other companies track our movements around the Web to target us with ads is well known. How exactly that information gets used is not—but a research paper presented last week suggests that some of the algorithmic judgments that emerge from Google's ad system could strike many people as unsavory.

Malaria kills half a million people each year, mostly children in tropical Africa. The price tag for eradicating the disease is estimated at more than $100 billion over 15 years. To do it, you’d need bed nets for everyone, tens of thousands of crates of antimalaria drugs, and millions of gallons of insecticides. But it would take more than stuff. You’d need things the poorest countries in the world don’t have, like strong governments, purchasing power, and functioning public health systems. So malaria keeps killing.

Technology is now allowing artists to do something they’ve aspired to since the stone age: make their paintings move.

A billion dollars is quite a lot of money to invest - even if your goal is saving the world from the ill effects of super-smart artificial intelligence that humans can’t control.

Scientists are developing ways to edit the DNA of tomorrow’s children. Should they stop before it’s too late?

A video posted to YouTube last year provides proof that some people can't be trusted behind the wheel even when their car is doing all the driving. In the clip, the driver tests the automatic cruise control and lane assist in an Infiniti Q50 by hopping into the passenger seat as the car hurtles down the autobahn in Germany. Who would be liable in an accident – the carmaker or the driver?

There are four northern white rhinoceroses left in the world. Will a 360-degree documentary help us preserve them?

A highly realistic simulated world is proving vital to robotics researchers.

Millions of people are refusing to let intrusive, distracting, or irrelevant ads load on their devices. It’s an opportunity for consumers to demand a more mutually beneficial relationship with online advertisers.

We have the technology to dramatically increase the independence of people with spinal-cord injuries. The problem is bringing it to market and keeping it there.

In a three-month period at the end of 1879, Thomas Edison tested the first practical electric lightbulb, Karl Benz invented a workable internal-combustion engine, and a British-American inventor named David Edward Hughes transmitted a wireless signal over a few hundred meters. These were just a few of the remarkable breakthroughs that Northwestern University economist Robert J. Gordon tells us led to a “special century” between 1870 and 1970.

Zanish Khan runs a tiny shop in Delhi's Basrurkar Market, where India's middle class comes to buy life's essentials. All around him, other merchants offer everything from electric fans to dried lentils that shoppers can scoop from 100-pound burlap bags. By contrast, Khan's merchandise is kept under glass and packed with state-of-the-art electronics. Still, Khan fits right in.

Will this year mark the first drone delivery, or the first time you encounter a robot at work or in your home? We saw significant advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence in 2015. Here’s what we’re watching closely in 2016.

Lab notebooks could determine who was first to invent a revolutionary gene-editing technology.

In just a few months, the Microsoft wearable device that blends virtual reality with the real world seems to have gotten closer to becoming a commercial product.

Biology professor Erin Lindquist was in the middle of class when she got the phone call telling her that a prenatal test had returned abnormal results. Lindquist, who was 36 and pregnant with her second child, had had noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT), which looked for abnormal chromosomes in her blood. Since about 10 percent of DNA in maternal blood comes from the fetus, this test is used to detect fetal genetic abnormalities. The results were "very devastating", says Lindquist: an extra copy of chromosome 13 and a missing copy of chromosome 18.

Deep inside its laboratories, Monsanto is learning how to modify crops by spraying them with RNA rather than tinkering with their genes.

A reincarnation of one of the oldest ideas in artificial intelligence could finally make it possible to truly converse with our computers. And Facebook has a chance to make it happen first.

When Southwest Airlines pilot Paul Watson lands in a new city, he often strikes out to visit the labs of local scientists studying Down syndrome. He likes to stay current because his 14-year-old son, Nathan, has the condition. And Watson can take some credit for one idea spreading among parents: that the drug fluoxetine, also known as Prozac, might actually treat Down syndrome.

The heat wave gripping India on a day in late May feels particularly intense in the booming Delhi suburb of Gurgaon. Temperatures have soared to 109 °F by 12:30 p.m., and they aren't done rising. Lizards are looking for shade. A profusion of new office parks, roads, and malls has obliterated any vegetation that might have preserved a little of the previous night's coolness.