It’s crunch time on climate change, and companies, governments, philanthropists, and NGOs around the world are starting to take action, be it through donating huge sums of money to the cause, building a database for precise tracking of carbon e

AI Can Now Model the Molecular Machines That Govern All Life

Nov 16th, 2021 10m 4s

Thanks to deep learning, the central mysteries of structural biology are falling like dominos.Just last year, DeepMind shocked the biomedical field with AlphaFold, an algorithm that predicts protein structures with jaw-dropping accuracy. The U

Scientists Say We Need to Look Into Hacking the Sun Now—Before It's Too Late

Nov 15th, 2021 5m 51s

With the pace of emissions reductions looking unlikely to prevent damaging climate change, controversial geoengineering approaches are gaining traction. But aversion to even studying such a drastic option makes it hard to have a sensible conver

Beeple's New NFT Just Sold for $29 Million, and He'll Update It for the Rest of His Life

Nov 12th, 2021 4m 37s

Just a few months ago, most of us had never heard of an NFT. Even once we figured out what they were, it seemed like maybe they’d be a short-lived fad, a distraction for the tech-savvy to funnel money into as the pandemic dragged on.But it see

These Modular Houses Are Affordable, Carbon Neutral, and Go Up in Just 2 Weeks

Nov 11th, 2021 4m 41s

House prices have soared during the last year and a half, and the implications aren’t great (unless you’re a homeowner looking just to sell and not buy). Homelessness and housing insecurity have risen dramatically over the course of the pandemi

The First Continents Bobbed to the Surface More Than Three Billion Years Ago, Study Shows

Nov 10th, 2021 5m

Most people know that the land masses on which we all live represent just 30 percent of Earth’s surface, and the rest is covered by oceans.The emergence of the continents was a pivotal moment in the history of life on Earth, not least because

New Spiking Neuromorphic Chip Could Usher in an Era of Highly Efficient AI

Nov 9th, 2021 8m 52s

When it comes to brain computing, timing is everything. It’s how neurons wire up into circuits. It’s how these circuits process highly complex data, leading to actions that can mean life or death. It’s how our brains can make split-second decis

How Astronauts Could Produce Biofuel on Mars to Power Their Trip Back to Earth

Nov 8th, 2021 4m 30s

While getting humans to Mars is likely to be one of the grandest challenges humanity has ever undertaken, getting them back could be even tougher. Researchers think sending genetically engineered microbes to the Red Planet could be the solution

Alphabet Chases Wonder Drugs With DeepMind AI Spinoff Isomorphic Labs

Nov 7th, 2021 5m 51s

AI research wunderkind, DeepMind, has long been all fun and games.The London-based organization, owned by Google parent company Alphabet, has used deep learning to train algorithms that can take down world champions at the ancient game of Go a

This Restaurant Robot Fries Your Food to Perfection With No Human Help

Nov 5th, 2021 4m 28s

Four and a half years ago, a robot named Flippy made its burger-cooking debut at a fast food restaurant called CaliBurger. The bot consisted of a cart on wheels with an extending arm, complete with a pneumatic pump that let the machine swap bet

GE's New Autonomous Electric Pods Have No Steering Wheel, Pedals, or Cab

Nov 4th, 2021 3m 40s

Self-driving cars are taking longer to become a reality than many experts predicted. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t steady progress being made; on the contrary, autonomous driving technology is consistently making incremental advancements in

Scientists Mapped Every Large Solar Plant on the Planet Using Satellites and Machine Learning

Nov 3rd, 2021 5m 47s

An astonishing 82 percent decrease in the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) energy since 2010 has given the world a fighting chance to build a zero-emissions energy system which might be less costly than the fossil-fueled system it replaces. The

These Mice Pups Inherited Immunity From Their Parents—But Not Through DNA

Nov 2nd, 2021 8m 4s

The rules of inheritance are supposedly easy. Dad’s DNA mixes with mom’s to generate a new combination. Over time, random mutations will give some individuals better adaptability to the environment. The mutations are selected through generation

New Optical Switch Is Up to 1,000 Times Faster Than Silicon Transistors

Nov 1st, 2021 3m 42s

As Moore’s Law slows, people are starting to look for alternatives to the silicon chips we’ve long been reliant on. A new optical switch up to 1,000 times faster than normal transistors could one day form the basis of new computers that use lig

Animal Evolution: Fossil Discovery Hints First Animals Lived Nearly 900 Million Years Ago

Oct 31st, 2021 6m 1s

Ever wonder how and when animals swanned onto the evolutionary stage? When, where, and why did animals first appear? What were they like?Life has existed for much of Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history, but for most of that time it consisted excl

This Spooky, Bizarre Haunted House Was Generated by an AI

Oct 29th, 2021 3m 45s

AI is slowly getting more creative, and as it does it’s raising questions about the nature of creativity itself, who owns works of art made by computers, and whether conscious machines will make art humans can understand. In the spooky spirit o

Deciphering the Philosophers' Stone: How Scientists Cracked a 400-Year-Old Alchemical Cipher

Oct 28th, 2021 7m 53s

What secret alchemical knowledge could be so important it required sophisticated encryption?The setting was Amsterdam, 2019. A conference organized by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry had just concluded at the Embassy of th

This Tiny Personal Aircraft Costs Under $100K and Can Take Off From Your Driveway

Oct 27th, 2021 3m 38s

From buses to taxis to ambulances, the number and type of vehicles set to take to the skies in the allegedly near future keeps growing. Now another one is joining their ranks, and it seems to defy classification—it’s not a flying car, nor a dro

Friend or Foe? Single Neurons in the Brain Control Social Interaction, Study Finds

Oct 26th, 2021 8m 25s

Neurons live in a society, and scientists just found the ones that may allow us to thrive in our own society.Like humans, individual neurons are strikingly unique. Also like humans, they’re constantly in touch with each other. They hook up int

Not So Mysterious After All: Researchers Show How to Crack AI’s Black Box

Oct 25th, 2021 4m 34s

The deep learning neural networks at the heart of modern artificial intelligence are often described as “black boxes” whose inner workings are inscrutable. But new research calls that idea into question, with significant implications for privac

The Most Powerful Space Telescope Ever Built Will Look Back in Time to the Dark Ages of the Universe

Oct 24th, 2021 6m 29s

Some have called NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope the “telescope that ate astronomy.” It is the most powerful space telescope ever built and a complex piece of mechanical origami that has pushed the limits of human engineering. On Dec. 18, 202

Scientists Are on a Quest to Create the Perfect Cup of Coffee—Without the Beans

Oct 22nd, 2021 4m 55s

Ahh, coffee. Is there anything more delicious, more satisfying? It’s always there when you need it, be it first thing in the morning or for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. According to the Sustainable Coffee Challenge, global consumption of this vi

Would We Still See Ourselves as ‘Human’ if Other Hominin Species Hadn’t Gone Extinct?

Oct 21st, 2021 16m 13s

In our mythologies, there’s often a singular moment when we became “human.” Eve plucked the fruit of the tree of knowledge and gained awareness of good and evil. Prometheus created men from clay and gave them fire. But in the modern origin stor

AI-Savvy Criminals Pulled Off a $35 Million Deepfake Bank Heist

Oct 20th, 2021 5m 48s

Thanks to the advance of deepfake technology, it’s becoming easier to clone peoples’ voices. Some uses of the tech, like creating voice-overs to fill in gaps in Roadrunner, the documentary about Anthony Bourdain released this past summer, are h

Super-Precise CRISPR Gene Editing Tool Could Tackle Tough Genetic Diseases

Oct 19th, 2021 8m 40s

For all its supposed genetic editing finesse, CRISPR’s a brute. The Swiss Army knife of gene editing tools chops up DNA strands to insert genetic changes. What’s called “editing” is actually genetic vandalism—pick a malfunctioning gene, chop it