Scientists have recently discovered that caffeine may counteract some of alcohol’s effects on the brain’s reward system, particularly by blocking certain dopamine responses typically triggered by alcohol. Their new study, published in Translational Psychiatry, provides evidence that caffeine can prevent…

There’s a general consensus that we won’t be able to consistently perform sophisticated quantum calculations without the development of error-corrected quantum computing, which is unlikely to arrive until the end of the decade. It’s still an open question, however, whether…

A study of emerging adults in Italy found that both men and women who experienced emotional abuse as children, and who exhibited higher levels of vulnerable narcissism and emotion dysregulation, were more likely to engage in binge-watching. The paper was…

Amazon is shutting down Freevee, its free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) service, as it heightens focus on selling ads on its Prime Video subscription service. Amazon, which has owned IMDb since 1998, launched Freevee as IMDb Freedive in 2019. The…

In a new study, researchers found that a single guided treatment session involving the video game Tetris could reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in healthcare workers who faced trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic. This brief, guided session led to…

President-elect Donald Trump today announced that a new Department of Government Efficiency—or “DOGE”—will be led by Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk and Ramaswamy, who founded pharma company Roivant Sciences, “will pave the way for my…

Concerns about the long-term impacts of concussion and head injury have become prominent in recent years, particularly among participants and stakeholders of contact and collision sports. Many people have been left wondering about the risk of head injury in sport…

By now, it has been firmly established that the Earth went through a series of global glaciations around 600 million to 700 million years ago, shortly before complex animal life exploded in the Cambrian. Climate models have confirmed that, once…

Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based company resurrected from bankruptcy, is riding high these days. In a few months, Firefly will attempt to become the second company to safely place a commercial lander on the Moon. Firefly’s Alpha rocket has reached orbit…

The classic PC games market is “in a sorry state,” according to DRM-free and classic-minded storefront GOG. Small games that aren’t currently selling get abandoned, and compatibility issues arise as technology moves forward or as one-off development ideas age like…

It’s Half-Life 2 week at Ars Technica! This Saturday, November 16, is the 20th anniversary of the release of Half-Life 2—a game of historical importance for the artistic medium and technology of computer games. Each day up through the 16th,…

A recent study published in the journal eLife has found that teenagers with lower sustained attention ability may be at higher risk of cigarette and cannabis use in early adulthood. Researchers observed that adolescents with reduced capacity to maintain focus…

Tesla has issued yet another recall for the angular, unpainted Cybertruck. This is the sixth recall affecting the model-year 2024 Cybertruck to be issued since January, and it affects 2,431 vehicles in total. And this time, there’s no fix being…

Polestar’s range expands a little more today. The Swedish spinoff announced that it is opening its order books for a cheaper, longer-range version of the Polestar 3 electric SUV that rather impressed us when we drove it earlier this year.…

A British Columbia teen who contracted Canada’s first known human case of H5 bird flu has deteriorated swiftly in recent days and is now in critical condition, health officials reported Tuesday. The teen’s case was announced Saturday by provincial health…

Former US Air National Guard Jack Teixeira was sentenced to 15 years in prison for leaking confidential military documents on Discord. Teixeira was arrested last year for sharing hundreds of pages of information online, some of which detailed national security…

A recent study published in Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry suggests that cannabidiol (commonly known as CBD) may have a significant effect in reducing fever. The researchers found that CBD effectively lowered fever in mice by altering certain biological…

Elon Musk’s support for Donald Trump is set to boost X’s flagging business, with some marketers poised for a return to the social media platform in order to seek favor with the incoming administration. Media executives told the Financial Times…

In 1971, Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo conducted a notorious experiment in which he randomly divided college students into two groups, guards and prisoners, and set them loose in a simulated prison environment for six days, documenting the guards’ descent…

A perspective piece published in Communications Psychology by Katy Y.Y. Tam and Michael Inzlicht suggests that digital media use may actually contribute to higher levels of boredom. Despite the growing accessibility of entertainment, people are reporting more frequent experiences of…

Neurobiologists have made a breakthrough in understanding how environmental factors might contribute to autism spectrum disorders. A recent study shows that early neurotransmitter switching—where neurons change their chemical messengers—may lead to lasting autism-like behaviors in mice. These findings provide new…

On Friday, research organization Epoch AI released FrontierMath, a new mathematics benchmark that has been turning heads in the AI world because it contains hundreds of expert-level problems that leading AI models solve less than 2 percent of the time,…

Mary the elephant shows off her hose-showering skills. Credit: Urban et al./Current Biology Mary the elephant shows off her hose-showering skills. Credit: Urban et al./Current Biology An Asian elephant named Mary living at the Berlin Zoo surprised researchers by figuring…

For years now, many AI industry watchers have looked at the quickly growing capabilities of new AI models and mused about exponential performance increases continuing well into the future. Recently, though, some of that AI “scaling law” optimism has been…

Barely nine months after the last cut, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will again reduce its workforce. On Wednesday, the lab will lay 325 employees off, representing about 5 percent of the workforce at the California-based laboratory that leads the development…

Bitcoin hit a new record high late Monday, its value peaking at $89,623 as investors quickly moved to cash in on expectations that Donald Trump will end a White House crackdown that intensified last year on crypto. While the trading…