A blinking fish reveals clues as to how our ancestors evolved from water to land

An unusual blinking fish, the mudskipper, spends much of the day out of the water and is providing clues as to how and why blinking might have evolved during the transition to life on land in our own ancestors. New research shows that these amphibious fish have evolved a blinking behavior that serves many of the same purposes of our blinking.

Continue reading...

Beijing moves to force AI bots to display ‘socialist core values’

Chinese government officials are writing rules to censor artificial intelligence software, like the one behind ChatGPT.

Continue reading...

Days before dying, Japan's lunar lander snaps glorious photo of Earth during a total solar eclipse

Japan's Hakuto-R lander may have crashed on the moon, but the spacecraft still sent back valuable images.

Continue reading...

Oral sex is now the leading risk factor for throat cancer

Oropharyngeal cancer has now become more common than cervical cancer in the US and the UK.

Continue reading...

Astronomers solve the 60-year mystery of quasars – the most powerful objects in the Universe

Scientists have unlocked one of the biggest mysteries of quasars – the brightest, most powerful objects in the Universe – by discovering that they are ignited by galaxies colliding.

Continue reading...

Heat waves in India drive leading clean-energy state back to coal

Karnataka's situation foretells the challenge facing India as the planet warms: the need to fall back on coal as the only reliable fuel despite a growing clean energy supply.

Continue reading...

For the first time, scientists detect seismic waves rattling through Mars' core

The observations reveal how the interior of the Red Planet works

Continue reading...

Researchers discover two psychological traits that connect narcissism to sadism

Researchers In Italy were curious if sadism and grandiose narcissism may be related and what traits may facilitate this relationship. Their findings indicate that malicious envy and narcissistic rivalry are the characteristics that connect sadism to grandiose narcissism. The research has been published in Personality and Individual Differences.

Continue reading...

Wearable patch can painlessly deliver drugs through the skin

A wearable patch from MIT applies painless ultrasonic waves to the skin, creating tiny channels that drugs can pass through. The work, led by Canan Dagdeviren of the MIT Media Lab, could be used to treat a variety of skin conditions.

Continue reading...

Parrots learn to make video calls to chat with other parrots, then develop friendships, Northeastern University researchers say

Video chats like Zoom and FaceTime are great ways to stay in touch with loved ones—so great, in fact, that parrots are catching on. A new study from researchers at Northeastern University, in collaboration with scientists from MIT and the University of Glasgow, investigated what happened when a group of domesticated birds were taught to call one another on tablets and smartphones.

Continue reading...

E.P.A. to Propose First Controls on Greenhouse Gases From Power Plants

If the regulation is implemented, it will be the first time the federal government has limited carbon emissions from existing power plants, which generate 25 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases.

Continue reading...

SpaceX celebrated Starship's 1st launch. Some locals called it 'truly terrifying'

The world's largest, most powerful rocket caused some serious mayhem during its first launch. SpaceX's massive fully-integrated Starship launch vehicle lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase test facility in Boca Chica, Texas on April 20 at 9:33 a.m. EDT (1333 GMT; 8:33 a.m. local Texas time). Starship then flew for just over four minutes on its first orbital test flight — complete with somersaults — before automated systems initiated a destructive abort procedure and caused the rocket to explode.

Continue reading...

How A.I.-powered robots are changing retail

An army of inventory robots is being deployed to help retailers appease angry customers, boost sales and respond to the ongoing worker shortage.

Continue reading...

1,000-year-old canoe recovered from N.C. lake moves Waccamaw tribe members to tears

When Michael Jacobs first laid eyes on a canoe his ancestors expertly crafted a millennium ago, he says he "couldn't do nothing but cry." Jacobs is the chief of the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe in southeastern North Carolina, where a team of archaeologists and tribe members and local residents recently pulled a 1,000-year-old canoe from the water.

Continue reading...

Piracy Could Result in $113 Billion Loss for Streaming Services by 2027

Piracy is projected to expand to new heights in one of the most popular forms of entertainment consumption — streaming services. By 2027, there is a projected loss of $113 billion for streaming vid…

Continue reading...

70-Year-Old Mystery Over Bizarre 'Tully Monster' May Finally Have Been Solved

The most thorough study yet of a mysterious creature that lived 300 million years ago has ruled that it had no bones after all.

Continue reading...

Hundreds of years after the first try, we can finally read a Ptolemy text

It was only natural for Alexander Jones to feel thrilled when he saw a sixth-century palimpsest at the Ambrosiana library in Milan for the first time. It happened in 1984 when Jones was working on his dissertation using manuscripts in Italy. With the tools at his disposal, including a portable ultraviolet lamp and microfilm, he could only read a few lines. But Jones’ interest was piqued because there were pages of the text that no one had succeeded in reading.

Continue reading...

An experimental cancer trial in France is getting a boost from the Gates Foundation: ‘Potential game-changer’

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is known for spending billions to fight infectious diseases in developing countries, so a new investment in a French biotech company feels somewhat unusual. Smart Immune will receive $5 million from the foundation, according to the Financial Times. The company has developed a thymus-empowered T-cell therapy platform, called ProTcell, “to fully and rapidly re-arm the immune system.”

Continue reading...

Plastic wrap made from seaweed withstands heat and is compostable

A thin material made from seaweed can handle high temperatures but only takes a few weeks to break down in a composting bin

Continue reading...

No asteroid impacts needed: Newborn Earth made its own water, study suggests

'We learned something new about our own planet by looking at a large dataset of exoplanets.'

Continue reading...

ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it

The narrative around cheating students doesn’t tell the whole story. Meet the teachers who think generative AI could actually make learning better.

Continue reading...

A future 'God-like AI' could destroy humans or make them obsolete if not properly contained, a prolific AI investor warned

AGI would be "God-like" because it could develop by itself unsupervised, and companies rushing towards that are risking disaster.

Continue reading...

Chemical reactions on the early Earth may have formed its ocean

Conditions that favor water may be common in the formation of rocky planets.

Continue reading...

Could the dodo come back from extinction?

The dodo's genome has been sequenced from a DNA sample, but that's just the first hurdle to overcome in bringing a species back from the dead

Continue reading...

Emissions From Banned Ozone-Destroying Chemicals Are Mysteriously Rising

Thirty years after countries agreed to ease up on the use of chemicals damaging the ozone layer, there are promising signs that the ozone will be fully recovered by the 2060s. But we’re not out of the woods yet. A study published this month in Nature Geoscience shows that emissions from dangerous gases banned in the 1980s are actually on the rise today—with implications not only for the ozone layer but for climate change as well.

Continue reading...

Reddit Moderators Brace for a ChatGPT Spam Apocalypse

Reddit moderators say they already see an increase in spam and that the future will “require a lot of human labor.”

Continue reading...

A rare Texas wildflower gets protection under the Endangered Species Act

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has declared the bracted twistflower, native to the Edwards Plateau, a threatened species, a month after putting another Texas plant on the endangered list.

Continue reading...

Stem Cell ‘Junk Yards’ Reveal a New Clue About Aging

New research shows that the cells’ garbage-clearing function deteriorates with age—and opens the door to reversing the process.

Continue reading...

Lab-grown chicken meat is getting closer to restaurant menus and store shelves

A scientific quest to feed the world, protect animals, and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions is on the cusp of a major milestone in the U.S., advocates say.

Continue reading...

‘Smart bandage’ with biosensors could help chronic wounds heal, study claims

Scientists test device that can monitor and stimulate burns, diabetic ulcers and non-healing surgical wounds

Continue reading...

People do not necessarily become happier at older age, study finds

A large study in South Korea exploring the relationship between age and well-being revealed that whether well-being improves in advanced age or not depends on the personality traits of agreeableness and neuroticism. Notably, well-being did not increase in advanced age in people with low agreeableness and high neuroticism. The study was published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being.

Continue reading...

SpaceX will conduct a Starship launch rehearsal next week

SpaceX is preparing to carry out a launch rehearsal of its next-generation Starship rocket as early as next week.

Continue reading...

Over-consumption in the world’s richest countries is destroying children’s environments globally, new report says

The majority of wealthy countries are creating unhealthy, dangerous and noxious conditions for children across the world, according to the latest Report Card published today by UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti.

Continue reading...

Dozens of Democrats press Biden on soot pollution

A total of 88 House and Senate Democrats on Tuesday said the Biden administration’s proposed standards for soot air pollution are not stringent enough.

Continue reading...

New research shows even moderate drinking isn't good for your helath

A new analysis of over 100 studies debunks beliefs about possible benefits of alcohol.

Continue reading...

2 newfound black holes are the closest ever to Earth and like nothing seen before

The two black holes lie just 1,560 and 3,800 light-years from our planet, respectively.

Continue reading...

Harvard professor’s fossil fuel links under scrutiny over climate grant

Colleagues and students query role of Jody Freeman, who won prestigious research grant despite sitting on ConocoPhillips board

Continue reading...

AI will soon become impossible for humans to comprehend – the story of neural networks tells us why

Many of the pioneers who began developing artificial neural networks weren’t sure how they actually worked - and we’re no more certain today.

Continue reading...

AI won’t steal your job, people leveraging AI will

Just yesterday I commented on the ban to ChatGPT imposed in Italy by the Authority under the banner

Continue reading...

Is AI Coming for Coders First?

The tech industry is running a big experiment on itself.

Continue reading...

‘Bees are sentient’: inside the stunning brains of nature’s hardest workers

When Stephen Buchmann finds a wayward bee on a window inside his Tucson, Arizona, home, he goes to great lengths to capture and release it unharmed. Using a container, he carefully traps the bee against the glass before walking to his garden and placing it on a flower to recuperate.

Continue reading...

Japan to face 11 million worker shortfall by 2040, study finds

The working age population is expected to rapidly decline from 2027, according to the study by independent think tank Recruit Works Institute.

Continue reading...

New drug offers “two-for-one” treatment of heart failure, sleep apnea

Heart failure is a global health problem commonly complicated by sleep apnea, a co-morbidity that further reduces a person’s lifespan. A promising new drug has been developed that could treat heart failure and sleep apnea by targeting the nervous activity that drives both.

Continue reading...