Science and Technolgy blog
Archaeologists have found 188 medieval reliquaries during excavations at a square in Berlin. Some of them still contain human bones of people considered to be saints or holy.
A recent study published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B sheds light on how early family dynamics and adult sibling relationships influence cognitive health in later life. The findings suggest that positive sibling interactions during childhood and frequent contact…
Over the past month, we’ve seen a rapid cadence of notable AI-related announcements and releases from both Google and OpenAI, and it’s been making the AI community’s head spin. It has also poured fuel on the fire of the OpenAI-Google…
Louisiana’s health department has been barred from advertising or promoting vaccines for flu, COVID-19, and mpox, according to reporting by NPR, KFF Health News, and New Orleans Public Radio WWNO. Their investigative report—based on interviews with multiple health department employees…
Yesterday, US Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Joshua Hawley (R-MO) sent letters to the heads of Ford, General Motors, and Tesla, as well as the US heads of Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Stellantis, Subaru, Toyota, and Volkswagen, excoriating…
In the 1970s, technological advances let scientists peer through stars’ atmospheres. Now, scientists can measure roiling gas in the stars themselves.
This year, we learned that our Neanderthal cousins were a lot like us, despite treading their own path that ended in extinction.
Officials say they’ve eradicated northern giant hornets, nicknamed “murder hornets,” after years of tracking the invasive giant wasps in Washington state.
In the hit virtual reality game Gorilla Tag, you swing your arms to pull your primate character around—clambering through virtual worlds, climbing up trees and, above all, trying to avoid an infectious mob of other gamers. If you’re caught, you…
COVID-era telehealth laws made health care more accessible for rural patients, but telehealth might not be as easy to access next year.
Scientists investigating the frozen Lake Enigma in Antarctica discovered an ecosystem teeming with strange microbial communities.
A new study has found that the relationship between sexual satisfaction and marital satisfaction strengthens as individuals grow older, contrary to the belief that its importance diminishes over time. Published in Social Psychology, the study found that age, rather than…
Women with Stage 0 breast cancer who got biannual mammograms and delayed surgery for two years fared as well as those who got immediate surgery.
Large language models represent text using tokens, each of which is a few characters. Short words are represented by a single token (like “the” or “it”), whereas larger words may be represented by several tokens (GPT-4o represents “indivisible” with “ind,”…
The declaration of a state of emergency in California over avian influenza comes within days of the first severe human case of bird flu in the U.S.
The Denmark Strait cataract is a sloping portion of the seafloor between Iceland and Greenland that funnels cold water from the Nordic Seas into the Irminger Sea, fueling Atlantic Ocean currents.
A study of individuals who experienced the death of a loved one due to COVID-19 found that complicated grief following such a loss can lead to adverse mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety. However, feelings of connectedness to nature…
This is another in our series of stories identifying new technologies and actions that can slow climate change, reduce its impacts or help communities cope with a rapidly changing world. Today, many people regularly live with dangerous summer heat. To stay cool, most…
A new magnetic survey of the ancient Assyrian capital of Khorsabad has revealed several structures, including a villa, buried underground.
A Japanese astronomer captured several impacts on the moon during the Geminid meteor shower.
Can women be mansplainers, too? New research published in Psychological Science shows that “unresponsive advice,” often linked to mansplaining, can harm women’s self-perception. Surprisingly, the negative effects—feeling less respected, powerful, and listened to—occurred regardless of the advisor’s gender. The study…
With legs and wings, the RAVEN can take off with no runway, and even hop along the ground.
Almost no one ever writes about the Parker Solar Probe anymore. Sure, the spacecraft got some attention when it launched. It is, after all, the fastest moving object that humans have ever built. At its maximum speed, goosed by the…
Recent research published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin sheds light on the role of belief systems in shaping partisan prejudice in the United States. The study reveals that while believing political ideologies are unchangeable (trait essentialism) reduces prejudice…
It’s been a really busy month for Google as it apparently endeavors to outshine OpenAI with a blitz of AI releases. On Thursday, Google dropped its latest party trick: Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental, which is a new AI model…
Another company has publicly cut ties with Broadcom’s VMware. This time, it’s Ingram Micro, one of the world’s biggest IT distributors. The announcement comes as Broadcom eyes services as a key part of maintaining VMware business in 2025. But even…
Home Assistant announced today the availability of the Voice Preview Edition, its own design of a living-room-friendly box to offer voice assistance with home automation. Having used it for a few weeks, it seems like a great start, at least…
In a study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, researchers discovered a bidirectional relationship between loneliness and posttraumatic stress among U.S. adolescents. Adolescence is a pivotal stage of development, often marked by increased vulnerability to both loneliness and mental…
For months, popular fighting game YouTubers have been under attack. Even the seemingly most cautious among them have been duped by sophisticated phishing attacks that hack their accounts to push cryptocurrency scams by convincingly appearing to offer legitimate sponsorships from…
On Thursday, a large group of university and private industry researchers unveiled Genesis, a new open source computer simulation system that lets robots practice tasks in simulated reality 430,000 times faster than in the real world. Researchers can also use…
Intel’s Core Ultra 200S desktop processors—the company’s biggest overhaul of its desktop platform since 2021—consume less power and run a lot cooler than the company’s 13th- and 14th-generation Core CPUs. However, early reviewers found that the processors sometimes struggled to…
The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily banned drones over parts of New Jersey yesterday and said “the United States government may use deadly force against” airborne aircraft “if it is determined that the aircraft poses an imminent security threat.” The FAA…
When the impossibly punctuated S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl released on November 20, after many delays (that included the Russian invasion of the developer’s native Ukraine), it seemed like it could have used even more delays. Stalker 2 had big…
Fossilized plant remains discovered near a Utah ghost town have stumped scientists, who are unable to link them to any modern or extinct plants.
Galaxies in the early universe tend to be clumpy, but the new JWST discovery of a “grand design” spiral galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang has scientists stumped.
Scientists at CERN’s ALICE detector are replicating conditions found during the Big Bang, attempting to get to the bottom of how matter came to dominate over antimatter.
A new study exploring how gender equality relates to Machiavellianism—a personality trait characterized by manipulation, exploitation, and deceit—has revealed a surprising trend: countries with higher gender equality tend to exhibit larger differences between men’s and women’s scores on this trait.…
The publisher of a high-profile, now-corrected study on black plastics has been removed from a critical index of academic journals amid questions about quality criteria, according to a report by Retraction Watch. On December 16, Clarivate—a scholarly publication analytics company—removed…
In a widely anticipated test, Blue Origin may ignite the seven main engines on its New Glenn rocket as soon as Thursday at Launch Complex-36 in Florida. This is the final test the company must complete before verifying the massive…
Audi provided flights from Washington, DC, to San Francisco and accommodation so Ars could drive the Q6 and SQ6. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. HEALDSBURG, Calif.—Earlier this summer, Ars got its first drive of Audi’s new Q6 e-tron…
Each year we dedicate the final issue of Science News to reviewing the big stories in science, technology and medicine. And each year, I marvel at the many significant news events and research discoveries crammed into a year. Most significant:…
Noteworthy findings include jumbo black hole jets, an ultrapetite frog, ancient asteroid remnants and more.
From 1999 to 2022, the rate of cold-related deaths rose from about 4 per 1 million people to 9 per 1 million in the United States.
Building muscle might do more than improve physical health — it could also help protect against depression. A study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders has found that adults with stronger grip strength and greater muscle mass were less…
David Corenswet stars in James Gunn’s Superman reboot. The Internet has been buzzing the last few days about James Gunn’s Superman reboot slated for release next year. The studio released a “motion poster” earlier this week set to a moody…
The AI-generated video scene has been hopping this year (or twirling wildly, as the case may be). This past week alone we’ve seen releases or announcements of OpenAI’s Sora, Pika AI’s Pika 2, Google’s Veo 2, and Minimax’s video-01-live. It’s…
A machine learning algorithm identified the top five flavor notes in 16 types of whiskey. Each matched the aggregate of what a panel of human pros said.
Ground squirrels have turned into carnivorous killers in a local park after vole numbers exploded in Contra Costa County, California.
The remains of ancient bronze statues, including sculpted snakes up to 35 inches long, have been found within a hot spring in Italy.
Amazon workers at seven warehouses walked out Thursday morning, launching a strike ahead of the holidays after Amazon failed to meet a bargaining deadline set by the Teamsters union representing the workers. In a press release, Teamsters declared it “the…
