Video gaming has become a global phenomenon, with over 2.46 billion players worldwide in 2022 contributing to a staggering $347 billion in revenue. A significant portion of this revenue comes from microtransactions — small in-game purchases that enhance the gaming…

Enlarge / A scientist defeathers one of the birds used in hands-on experiments to replicate Neanderthal butchering and cooking methods. (credit: Mariana Nabais) Archaeologists seeking to learn more about how Neanderthals prepared and cooked their food conducted a series of…

Enlarge / Will investors care that Tesla’s car sales and profit margins are shrinking, not growing? (credit: Karol Serewis/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) Tesla posted its second-quarter financial results ahead of an investor call this afternoon. Earlier this month, it…

Enlarge (credit: Getty) The Amazon business unit that focuses on Alexa-powered gadgets lost $25 billion between 2017 and 2021, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported this week. Amazon claims it has sold more than 500,000 Alexa devices, which included Echo…

Enlarge (credit: Bernhardt Lang) On Friday, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit denied a request to put a hold on recently formulated rules that would limit carbon emissions made by fossil fuel power plants. The request, made…

Enlarge (credit: Benj Edwards / Getty Images) In the AI world, there’s a buzz in the air about a new AI language model released Tuesday by Meta: Llama 3.1 405B. The reason? It’s potentially the first time anyone can download…

In a recent study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, researchers have found that cannabidiol (CBD) does not mitigate the disruptive effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) on brain connectivity. In fact, the study suggests that CBD might even exacerbate these effects in…

Enlarge / As Cruise ramps up its robotaxi service, it won’t be in these cool-looking driverless pods. (credit: Cruise) The Cruise Origin was definitely the least conventional of all the myriad vehicles that General Motors planned to build using its…

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | AaronP/Bauer-Griffin) A government investigation has revealed more detail on the impact and causes of a recent AT&T outage that happened immediately after a botched network update. The nationwide outage on February 22, 2024, blocked over…

Enlarge / Google, like most of us, has a hard time letting go of cookies. Most of us just haven’t created a complex set of APIs and brokered deals across regulation and industry to hold onto the essential essence of…

Enlarge / Intel’s Core i9-13900K. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) For several months, Intel has been investigating reports that high-end 13th- and 14th-generation desktop CPUs (mainly, but not exclusively, the Core i9-13900K and 14900K) were crashing during gameplay. Intel partially addressed the…

Enlarge (credit: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images) The people of San Francisco haven’t always been kind to Waymo’s growing fleet of driverless taxis. The autonomous vehicles, which provide tens of thousands of rides each week, have been torched, stomped on,…

New research has found that psilocybin reduces alcohol consumption in rats by altering specific brain pathways, particularly in the left nucleus accumbens. This suggests that psilocybin could potentially be a useful treatment for reducing alcohol use, but more research is…

Enlarge / Travelers navigate customer service and ticketing lines at Ronald Regan Washington National Airport on July 19, 2024 in Washington, DC. A global computer outage started from an update from the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike that impacted flights worldwide along…

Enlarge / With Dragon and Falcon, SpaceX has become an essential contractor for NASA. (credit: SpaceX) There is an emerging truth about NASA’s push toward commercial contracts that is increasingly difficult to escape: Companies not named SpaceX are struggling with…

Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga star in Joker: Folie à Deux. This weekend will be all about San Diego Comic-Con and the hotly anticipated theatrical release of the summer blockbuster Deadpool and Wolverine, but Warner Bros. is already looking ahead…

A recent study on mice found that chronic social isolation reduces the activity of neurons in the anterior insular cortex region of the brain, resulting in impaired social memory. Treatment with (R)-ketamine counteracted this reduction, restoring social memory functioning in…

Enlarge / The left spoke has controls for adaptive cruise control and lane keeping, the right spoke is for controlling settings and audio functions. (credit: Volkswagen) Of all the recent trends in automotive technology and design, the adoption of capacitive…

A recent study published in the journal Translational Psychiatry has uncovered that a single dose of a common antidepressant, specifically a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, can change how the brain processes internal bodily sensations. This effect is particularly evident when…

Enlarge / Infrastructure! Howdy, Arsians! Last year, we partnered with IBM to host an in-person event in the Houston area where we all gathered together, had some cocktails, and talked about resiliency and the future of IT. Location always matters…

A series of seven studies published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology investigated how leaders who reward flattery are perceived as naive, potentially damaging their reputation and the perceived fairness of their organizations. Flattery is an age-old tactic…

A new study published in the journal Autism Research sheds light on the attentional patterns of young autistic children and their relationship with sensory experiences. The researchers found notable connections between “sticky attention” and certain sensory behaviors, such as heightened…

Enlarge / A top-down view of United Launch Alliance’s first Vulcan rocket before its liftoff in January. (credit: United Launch Alliance) United Launch Alliance is targeting September 16 for the second test flight of the new Vulcan rocket, and a…

Look at these pictures. Can you see a cube on the left and a face on the right? Can you imagine seeing things in your mind? Can you hear an inner voice when you think or read? One of the…

Enlarge (credit: Getty | David Paul Morris) A second Colorado poultry farm has reported a case of bird flu in a worker, marking the state’s seventh human case this month amid the ongoing outbreak among dairy cows. Colorado health officials…

A recent study published in Psychophysiology sheds light on the relationship between anxiety and brain function, specifically focusing on how anxiety impacts the cognitive control network of the brain. The findings suggest that major anxiety disorders are associated with decreased…

Enlarge (credit: Carl the Person/YouTube) Smart TV owners have been subjected to a growing amount of ads and tracking. Ad fatigue, only worsened by a trend that sees streaming providers trying to force customers into subscriptions with commercials, is understandable.…

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg) The European Commission (EC) has finally taken action to block Meta’s heavily criticized plan to charge a subscription fee to users who value privacy on its platforms. Surprisingly, this step wasn’t taken under…

A new study published in Psychology and Aging reports that loneliness may accelerate biological aging and exacerbate chronic health conditions in older adults. Loneliness is a growing public health concern. Previous research has linked loneliness to a range of health…

Enlarge (credit: tigerstrawberry) Founded in Dresden in the early 1990s, Germany’s Solarwatt quickly became an emblem of Europe’s renewable energy ambitions and bold plan to build a solar power industry. Its opening of a new solar panel plant in Dresden…

Enlarge / Image of some of the atmospheric circulation seen during NeuralGCM runs. (credit: Google) Right now, the world’s best weather forecast model is a General Circulation Model, or GCM, put together by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.…

A new study highlights the significant role mental wellbeing plays in determining healthy aging, regardless of socioeconomic status. By analyzing genetic data from over 2.3 million Europeans, researchers found that better mental wellbeing leads to healthier aging, characterized by greater…

Enlarge / Researchers write, “In this image, the person on the left (Scarlett Johansson) is real, while the person on the right is AI-generated. Their eyeballs are depicted underneath their faces. The reflections in the eyeballs are consistent for the…

Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg) After years of controversies over plans to scan iCloud to find more child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), Apple abandoned those plans last year. Now, child safety experts have accused the tech giant of…

Enlarge / A bad update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon security software crashed millions of Windows PCs last week. (credit: CrowdStrike) By Monday morning, many of the major disruptions from the flawed CrowdStrike security update late last week had cleared up. Flight…