Where do a zebra's stripes, a leopard's spots and our fingers come from? The key was found years ago – by the man who cracked the Enigma code.

The breaking of the Enigma Code is one of the most interesting stories in the history of computing—but it's not necessarily easy to get your head around. Fortunately, this video provides an amazingly straightforward explanation of how the code was cracked.

Yesterday we told you about the world's greatest Agent Coulson action figure. At the time, we called it the world's greatest action figure. But AF-Coulson would do well to watch his back; over on deviantART, graphic artist datazoid has put together a series of digitally painted "Heroes of Science" action figures…

Sixty years ago, Alan Turing sat down to write a computer algorithm which could play a human at chess. Sadly, he never got to see it running on a computer, but now it's been coded up and who better to pit it against than... Garry Kasparov? Gulp.

Mike Davey wanted to build a real Turing machine, but unfortunately he could not find the infinitely long tape required for the project. His solution? Using 1000 feet of white 35mm film leader and a dry erase marker. Result? Brilliance.

Today's Dilbert cartoon reminds me of Addy's brilliant story about Zoltan, the man who married a robot made with a sex doll, hacked teledildonics, and A.L.I.C.E., the artificial intelligence software that makes her brains. Some people made fun of Zoltan, but this cartoon shows a simple fact: many humans, bosses,…

You know those anti-spam tests that make you enter funny characters to prove you're a human? Well, non-humans can finally fake their way into systems using the "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart" too—even Yahoo's pretty secure system, according to new reports.