Science and Technolgy blog
A recent study published in Behaviour Research & Therapy shows that better pre-treatment response inhibition in individuals with trichotillomania predicts more positive treatment outcomes, irrespective of treatment type. Trichotillomania (TTM), a psychiatric condition characterized by repetitive hair pulling, often leads…
Most Windows 10 PCs will stop getting new security updates in October 2025, less than a year from today. For businesses and schools, the company is offering up to three years of extended security updates, with prices that increase steadily…
One of the biggest bummers about the modern Internet has been the decline of Google Search. Once an essential part of using the web, it’s now a shadow of its former self, full of SEO-fueled junk and AI-generated spam. On…
Russia has fined Google an amount that no entity on the planet could pay in hopes of getting YouTube to lift bans on Russian channels, including pro-Kremlin and state-run news outlets. The BBC wrote that a Russian court fined Google…
More than 500 Amazon workers reportedly signed a letter to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) CEO this week, sharing their outrage over Amazon’s upcoming return-to-office (RTO) policy that will force workers into offices five days per week. In September, Amazon announced…
The image of Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope.
New finds in the Finding Fluorescence site include a Japanese beetle with a glowing blue mouth and a mushroom that gleamed bright red under its cap.
A recent study published in the Journal of Personality explores the dynamic relationship between certain dark personality traits and mental health symptoms over time. Researchers found that traits like narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy interact with depression, anxiety, and stress in…
Google revealed today how it plans to use generative AI to enhance its mapping activities. It’s the latest application of Gemini, the company’s in-house rival to GPT-4, which the company wants to use to improve the experience when searching for something.…
Last night, Nintendo pulled off a surprise launch of a new Nintendo Music smartphone app, offering many of the company’s staple soundtrack songs as a perk to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. But the new subscription freebie could give Nintendo additional…
As the Popo Agie river wends its way down from the glaciers atop Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains toward the city of Lander, it flows into a limestone cave and disappears. The formation, known as the Sinks, spits the river back…
The discovery of an important enzyme involved in Huntington’s disease may pave the way for future treatments to prevent the condition, researchers say.
A recent neuroimaging study conducted in China suggests that a higher body mass index is associated with reduced brain volume and increased damage to white matter. Published in Health Data Science, the study found that individuals younger than 45 with…
In addition to studying the world’s only nonmigratory blue whales, marine biologist Asha de Vos seeks to change her compatriots’ attitudes toward the ocean.
The future of smarter robots may lie in combining neural networks with advanced computer vision.
A recent study published in Nature Communications suggests that stress may boost sperm respiration (energy production) and motility (movement) in both mice and men, with effects emerging several months after a stressful event. This finding points to a possible link…
After closing a $69 billion deal to buy virtualization technology company VMware a year ago, Broadcom wasted no time ushering in big changes to the ways customers and partners buy and sell VMware offerings—and many of those clients aren’t happy.…
In 2015, U.S. Navy pilots were flying training missions off the U.S. East Coast when they spied something highly unusual. An oval-shaped object appeared to skim across the top of the water. It moved at incredibly high speed and seemed…
Watch Comet C/2024 S1 (ATLAS) make a death dive into the sun in this eerie footage from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft.
Global warming during the Last Interglacial period caused so much Arctic ice to melt that Atlantic currents collapsed — and scientists say these are the conditions we could be heading toward.
Does Donald Trump speak differently from other modern U.S. presidents? A new study in PNAS Nexus suggests he does. By applying machine learning to a vast array of speeches—from debates to campaign rallies and State of the Union addresses—the team…
Cyberpunk 2077, one of the most graphically demanding and visually impressive games in recent years, will soon get a Mac release, according to developer and publisher CD Projekt Red. The announcement was published on CD Projekt Red’s blog and also…
Slivered onions are the likely source of the multi-state E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounder burgers that continues to grow, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday. Onions were one of two primary suspects when the…
Microsoft reported quarterly earnings that impressed investors and showed how resilient the company is even as it spends heavily on AI. Some investors have been uneasy about the company’s aggressive spending on AI, while others have demanded it. During this…
For many, horror movies are more than just scary—they’re an exciting escape that combines fear and thrill. But what drives people to watch films filled with fright? A recent study found that a person’s enjoyment of horror is linked to…
Apple’s week of Mac announcements has wrapped up this morning with the launch of the new M4 MacBook Pros, and we now have a full picture of the M4 chip lineup that will drive the Mac for the next year…
For some, microwaving fish in the employee lunch room is the ultimate work faux pas. But for one (likely mortified) employee of a seafood distribution plant in Maryland, it’s probably causing a mass poisoning with the homemade noodle dish they…
Researchers have found new versions of a sophisticated Android financial-fraud Trojan that’s notable for its ability to intercept calls a victim tries to place to customer-support personnel of their banks. FakeCall first came to public attention in 2022, when researchers from…
Dropbox is laying off 528 employees in a move that will reduce its global workforce by 20 percent, CEO Drew Houston announced today. Houston wrote that Dropbox’s core file sync and sharing “business has matured, and we’ve been working to…
NASA lost contact with the interstellar Voyager 1 spacecraft for nearly a week after a technical glitch shut off the probe’s main transmitter. Using Voyager’s weaker backup transmitter, engineers are assessing the problem from 15 billion miles away.
As of now, 17 states have reported H5N1 bird flu cases in humans, but there is still no evidence for transmission between people. Could that change?
According to a study published in Personality & Individual Differences, belief in a just world is negatively associated with conspiracy theory endorsement, but only among individuals with low ambiguity tolerance. There is long-standing interest in how people make sense of…
AT&T improperly obtained money from a government-run broadband discount program by submitting duplicate requests and by claiming subsidies for thousands of subscribers who weren’t using AT&T’s service. AT&T obtained funding based on false certifications it made under penalty of perjury.…
Streaming in the US has become a broken and fiendishly complex tangle of ephemeral choices—and that’s before you factor in sports. You can see why it might seem somehow easier to stream shows from other countries, where the networks, some…
Robert Downey Jr. has declared that he will sue any future Hollywood executives who try to re-create his likeness using AI digital replicas, as reported by Variety. His comments came during an appearance on the “On With Kara Swisher” podcast,…
In May 2023, Reddit announced that its API would no longer be free, signaling the demise of most third-party Reddit apps and the start of a new Reddit era. Reddit was always interested in making money, but the social media…
Paleontologist David Hone’s latest book fleshes out our understanding of dinosaur behavior.
A Bronze Age settlement hidden on the Arabian Peninsula reveals secrets about the slow growth of urbanization in the region.
New research published in The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine has found a link between higher omega-3 fatty acid intake and improved cognitive abilities in older adults. Analyzing data from a nationally representative health survey, researchers discovered that participants…
The fossilization of the tadpole’s “delicate structures,” like its eyes and gills, allowed for a detailed analysis of the rare find.
On Tuesday, Google’s CEO revealed that AI systems now generate more than a quarter of new code for its products, with human programmers overseeing the computer-generated contributions. The statement, made during Google’s Q3 2024 earnings call, shows how AI tools…
Fossils of the ancient frog Notobatrachus degiustoi push the known tadpole timeline back more than 30 million years.
In a recent study published in American Politics Research, political scientists examined a unique 2024 primary election race in Alabama’s First Congressional District, where two sitting members of Congress from the Republican party, Jerry Carl and Barry Moore, faced each…
Apple is following the M4 iMac and the redesigned Mac mini updates with one more major refresh this week: a new lineup of M4 MacBook Pros. These updates mostly follow the template set by last year’s M3 MacBook Pro refresh:…
In November, Hyundai will formally unveil its next electric vehicle. It’s the new Ioniq 9, a three-row SUV that uses Hyundai Motor Group’s highly competent E-GMP platform seen in the Ioniq 5 and 6. Ahead of that reveal, the automaker…
Apple’s week of Mac announcements isn’t extending to an M4 MacBook Air—rumors indicate that the Air, as well as desktops like the Mac Studio and Mac Pro, will get new processors sometime in 2025. But Apple is bringing one of…
A little more than a year ago, a snippet of video that wasn’t supposed to go public made its way onto United Launch Alliance’s live broadcast of an Atlas V rocket launch carrying three classified surveillance satellites for the US…
Alphabet’s profit jumped 34 percent in the third quarter as the parent company of search giant Google reported strong growth in its cloud business amid robust demand for computing and data services used to train and run generative artificial intelligence…
A new AI machine learning technique helped historians analyze 76,000 pages from astronomy textbooks spanning nearly two centuries.
A study of individuals prone to emotional eating showed that a 16-minute body scan meditation procedure reduces negative affect and food cravings. This effect did not depend on participants’ tendency to ruminate or their perceived body boundaries. The research was…
