Apple's Siri automated assistant, pre-approved credit card offers, saving and investment offers from your bank, suggestions on Amazon, Expedia or Netflix are all examples of machine learning in action. What all these uses have in common is that each looks to create the highest quality prediction possible of future behavior based on history. Machine learning excels at solving complex problems that are predicated on creating accurate predictions.

A private company is aiming to break into the developing asteroid mining business with a concept that could turn the minor planetary objects into rudimentary spacefaring vessels. The Mountain View, Calif.-based Made In Space, Inc., responsible for the first 3D printer to function in zero gravity conditions, will use its additive manufacturing expertise and backing from NASA to continue work on its Project Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata (RAMA). That initiative "turns asteroids into basic spacecraft capable of moving themselves to useful locations in space," according to a blog post by Made In Space co-founder and chief technology officer Jason Dunn. NASA itself is already invested in the further study of the near-Earth objects (NEOs), and even aims to move a portion of an asteroid into Earth's orbit in the near future. And with the once-theoretical asteroid mining business now on its way to becoming an international industry, utilizing the cosmic bodies for the transport and harvesting of resources is now a practical interest.

The unusual shelter has been set up at the V&A Museum in London as part of a new "Engineering Season" that runs until November. It was created by a group from the University of Stuttgart in Germany: Achim Menges, an experimental architect and professor; Jans Knipper, a structural engineer and professor; Moritz Dorstelmann, a research associate and doctoral candidate at the university; and Thomas Auer, a climate engineer. It's called the Elytra Filament Pavilion, and it takes inspiration from the hardened "elytra" wings used by flying beetles. While they're shooting through the air, these insects raise their forewings into a flat, open position, revealing a pair of softer and more powerful sails underneath. "The shell of the flying beetle is a very light structure, because, well, the beetle has to fly," Knipper says.

It's tempting to think of technological advancement in terms of radical new materials or near-magical computer science--for example, the way driverless cars promise to teach artificial intelligence to drive better than humans. But just as often, new technology just makes smarter use of things we already have--for example, the way the novel "diverging diamond" interchange, or DDI, helps keep all-too-human drivers from ramming each other at high speed. By flipping two opposing lanes of traffic under a highway, the DDI design eliminates left-hand turns through opposing traffic. Left-hand turns of this sort, according to a traffic engineer speaking with Wired, are particularly dangerous and inefficient. The DDI design also makes it very hard for drivers to enter ramps going the wrong way, which, believe it or not, is a rather serious problem on the nation's highways.

Last month, the Washington Post reported on a surprising new job in Silicon Valley: bot-writer. "Increasingly, there are poets, comedians, fiction writers, and other artistic types charged with engineering the personalities for a fast-growing crop of artificial intelligence tools," the Post's Elizabeth Dwoskin wrote. These personalities, Dwoskin reported, will soon be joined by more specialized bots developed by other companies, among them Sophie and Molly, "nurse avatars" that talk to patients about their medical conditions. There's even a "guru avatar" in development, designed to teach meditation. These products are exciting and futuristic--just a decade ago, the possibility of conversing with a computer program seemed like science fiction.

Last month, the Washington Post reported on a surprising new job in Silicon Valley: bot-writer. "Increasingly, there are poets, comedians, fiction writers, and other artistic types charged with engineering the personalities for a fast-growing crop of artificial intelligence tools," the Post's Elizabeth Dwoskin wrote. These personalities, Dwoskin reported, will soon be joined by more specialized bots developed by other companies, among them Sophie and Molly, "nurse avatars" that talk to patients about their medical conditions. There's even a "guru avatar" in development, designed to teach meditation. These products are exciting and futuristic--just a decade ago, the possibility of conversing with a computer program seemed like science fiction.

They have been blamed for bringing worldwide destruction to Earth and triggering the kind of mass extinctions that wiped out the dinosaurs. But it appears we may owe our very existence to a comet that smashed into our planet billions of years ago. A spacecraft that has been orbiting a distant comet as it races through the solar system has sent back compelling evidence that suggests one of these icy objects brought the seeds of life to Earth. Comets are often thought of as harbingers of doom, causing mass extinctions and destruction on Earth. The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, which has been orbiting the duck-shaped Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko since August 2014, has discovered two key building blocks of life on the enormous block of ice and dust.

In a disused military aircraft hangar buried deep in a granite hillside, Johan Tofeldt flicks a switch on the future of mining. "Look, no hands!" he beams, as the truck lurches backwards and executes a precise reverse. "It's a little heavy on the clutch, but then it's not designed for driver comfort." The cheerful Swede is sitting in a standard Volvo FMX heavy duty truck, a haulage industry workhorse. But where once there was a narrow bed behind the seat there is now a laptop and a tangle of wires.

The lightest material on Earth now packs a powerful punch. Scientists from Texas and around the world have created a material that, by density, is lighter than air yet, when electrified, instantly and powerfully contracts. Their work is detailed in this week's issue of the journal Science. "These artificial muscles are very lightweight and can do wonderful things," said Ray Baughman, the study author from the University of Texas at Dallas. While the artificial muscle is unlikely to be used in humans or prosthetic limbs, Baughman says "these sheets of carbon nanotubes ... are of great practical interest for LEDs, solar cells, and other applications."

The Iller river stretches for 91 miles through southeastern Germany before meeting up with the Danube. This river, like all rivers, is filled with sediment-- rocks and pebbles from thousands of years ago that sit on the riverbed and along the bank. One day last year, Benjamin Maus was lounging near the Iller admiring a handful of pebbles. "I was basically just sorting pebbles and spraying them with sunscreen, which made the colors much more vivid," Maus recalls. At the time Maus, an artist, had no clue that these pebbles would inspire his latest work.