Modern man's inner hunter-gatherer

• Gesture politics
  

  When foraging, hand signals may convey more useful information than speech (1)

• • • Men and women navigate differently (Apr 2010)
    • (19)
  • • People are altruistic because they are militaristic, and cultured because they are common (Jun 2009)
    • (18)

Preventive maintenance

• 
  Waving for help

  How machines can monitor themselves (5)

• • • Metal, heal thyself
    • (2)
  • • “Smart” bridges use sensors to warn of impending danger

The future of biofuels

• 
  The post-alcohol world

  Biofuels are back. This time they might even work (32)

• • • Electric cars: A sparky new motor
    • (46)
  • • The rise of Big Solar: Growing pains
    • (31)

Old media v new

• 
  The Difference Engine: Beyond content

  Dragging publishers and broadcasters into the new-media age - Babbage (9)

• • • The race to organise television: Struggling for control
    • (7)
  • • A special report on television: Changing the channel
    • (20)

Biodiversity

• 
  More complicated than you think

  A new, giant virus is confounding old certainties (11)

• • • The least of God's creatures has value
    • (7)
  • • A new deep-ocean expedition is revealing previously unknown living treasures (Aug 2010)
    • (8)

Politics and pornography

• 
  Rising to the occasion

  Electoral victory brings a surprising consequence: the winners look at smut (12)

• • • Power corrupts, but it corrupts only those who think they deserve it (Jan 2010)
    • (65)
  • • Palaeolithic pornography unveiled (May 2009)
    • (73)

Printing technology

• 
  Debossed, yes. Debased? Maybe

  The ancient art of letterpress printing is being revived thanks to modern materials and graphic-design software - Babbage (9)

• • • The internet's limited trove of fonts is finally set to grow
    • Babbage
    • (12)

Beefier batteries

• 
  Monster power

  Lithium-ion batteries start to take on the big stuff (31)

• • • A carbon composite bodywork could double as a battery in an electric car (Jun 2010)
    • (2)
  • • Batteries are beginning to power aircraft of various kinds (Jun 2010)
    • (2)

Crowd-funding

• 
  The Q&A: Perry Chen of Kickstarter

  A website that enables a growing community of DIY artists - Prospero (1)

• • • An atom-based product, developed in bits, and funded by crowds
    • (9)
  • • Artists are using the internet to aggregate lots of small donations to fund their work (Sep 2010)
    • (7)
  • • The micro-price of micropatronage (Sep 2010)
    • (2)

• Also on this channel

• Small computers

  The Difference Engine: Sleeping tablets

  The search for a proper pocket-sized PC (57)

• Evolution and coat colour

  Well spotted

  The reason why some cats are plain and others are patterned (1)

• Computer vision

  Eye robot

  Poor eyesight remains one of the main obstacles to letting robots loose among humans. But it is improving, in part by aping natural vision (14)

• Policing

  The aftershocks of crime

  An idea borrowed from seismology may help to predict criminal activity (29)