Human beings live every day with the understanding of our own mortality, but do animals have any concept of death? It’s a question that has long intrigued scientists, fueled by reports of ants, for example, appearing to attend their own”funerals”;…

According to a new study published in Nature Mental Health, people with autistic traits tend to favor imitation over inferring the motives behind others’ actions when learning through observation. These findings could lead to a deeper understanding of the cognitive…

A recent study published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience found that people on both sides of the immigration debate tend to endorse factual statements that align with their own beliefs and favor messages from people within their group. Importantly,…

In the beginning, North Korean hackers compromised the banking infrastructure running AIX, IBM’s proprietary version of Unix. Next, they hacked infrastructure running Windows. Now, the state-backed bank robbers have expanded their repertoire to include Linux. The malware, tracked under the…

The Federal Communications Commission is taking a closer look at how broadband data caps affect consumers, and is considering whether it has authority to regulate how Internet service providers impose such caps. Democrats are spearheading the effort over the opposition…

Facing a lawsuit, the Food and Drug Administration has decided to reconsider its decision to take popular weight-loss and diabetes drugs off of the national shortage list, which will allow compounding pharmacies to continue selling cheaper copycat versions—at least for…

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights a significant relationship between high-skilled immigration and regional entrepreneurship in the United States. By analyzing newly awarded H-1B visas, the researchers found that when the number…

At the University of Toronto, just across the street from the football stadium, workers are putting up a 14-story building with space for classrooms and faculty offices. What’s unusual is how they’re building it — by bolting together giant beams,…

How people respond to jokes about their nation may depend on their level of national narcissism, according to a new study published in Personality and Individual Differences. Researchers found that individuals with inflated views of their country are more prone…

SpaceX is seeking approval for changes to Starlink that the company says will enable gigabit-per-second broadband service. In an application submitted to the Federal Communications Commission on October 11, SpaceX claims the requested “modification and its companion amendment will enable…

A recent study published in the British Journal of Health Psychology has provided new insights into how climate anxiety relates to generalized anxiety and common health behaviors. Contrary to what might be expected, the study found that fluctuations in an…

This fall, thousands of fake albums were added to Spotify, with some appearing on real artist pages, where they’re positioned to lure unsuspecting listeners into streaming by posing as new releases from favorite bands. An Ars reader flagged the issue…

After Elon Musk provided his “long-term” vision for autonomous, humanoid robots at last week’s “We, Robot” event, we expressed some skepticism about the autonomy of the Optimus prototypes sent out for a post-event mingle with the assembled, partying humans. Now,…

Apple quietly announced a new version of its iPad mini tablet via press release this morning, the tablet’s first update since 2021. The seventh-generation iPad mini looks mostly identical to the sixth-generation version, with a power-button-mounted Touch ID sensor and…

The birth of a planet starts with a microscopic grain floating in a protoplanetary disk, a swirling cloud of gas and other particles surrounding a young star. How the gas and dust interact has implications for the formation of new…

On Monday, Google announced an agreement with Kairos Power to purchase nuclear energy from multiple small modular reactors (SMRs), marking the first deal of its kind. The partnership aims to bring Kairos Power’s initial SMR online by 2030, with additional…

Sexual desire for a long-term romantic partner may be linked to increased desire for alternative partners, according to a study published in Human Nature. Traditional relationship science posits that sexual desire enhances relationship maintenance, reducing interest in alternative partners. However,…

Alzheimer’s disease may harm the brain in two distinct phases, according to a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in Nature Neuroscience. Using advanced brain mapping techniques, researchers discovered that in the first phase, which…

A recent study published in Translational Psychiatry found that ketamine, a medication typically used as an anesthetic, may significantly reduce suicidal thoughts in individuals with recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD) compared to those prescribed more common antidepressants. The research shows…

Porsche provided flights from Washington to Stuttgart and accommodation so Ars could drive the Macan and Macan 4S. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. STUTTGART, Germany—Porsche made its reputation with its rear-engined sports cars, but today it’s the SUVs…

A longitudinal study of a racially and socioeconomically diverse group of girls found that those diagnosed with ADHD in childhood tend to become less conscientious, agreeable, and emotionally stable as they grow up. Girls from higher-income families tended to describe…

A recent study published in Genomic Psychiatry has unveiled a promising new therapy that may help improve memory and reduce anxiety. The study, conducted by scientists at Cognigenics, explores the potential of an innovative intranasal treatment known as COG-201. This…

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifted off Monday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, kicking off a $5.2 billion robotic mission to explore one of the most promising locations in the Solar System for finding…

For a while now, companies like OpenAI and Google have been touting advanced “reasoning” capabilities as the next big step in their latest artificial intelligence models. Now, though, a new study from six Apple engineers shows that the mathematical “reasoning”…

On Monday, Adobe announced Firefly Video Model, a new AI-powered text-to-video generation tool that can create novel videos from written prompts. It joins similar offerings from OpenAI, Runway, Google, and Meta in an increasingly crowded field. Unlike the competition, Adobe…

A New York judge recently called out an expert witness for using Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot to inaccurately estimate damages in a real estate dispute that partly depended on an accurate assessment of damages to win. In an order Thursday, judge…

The Internet Archive has brought its Wayback Machine back online “in a provisional, read-only manner” as it continues to recover from attacks that took the site down last week, founder Brewster Kahle said in a post last night. The archive.org…

On Friday, Ward Christensen, co-inventor of the computer bulletin board system (BBS), died at age 78 in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. Christensen, along with Randy Suess, created the first BBS in Chicago in 1978, leading to an important cultural era of…

A new study has found that individuals who prefer sweet foods and drinks are more likely to experience depression. Published in the Journal of Translational Medicine, the research revealed that people with a “sweet tooth” had a 31% higher likelihood…

Rebecca Ferguson returns as Juliette in the second season of Apple TV’s Silo. Apple TV’s dystopian sc-fi drama Silo, based on the trilogy by novelist Hugh Howey, was one of the more refreshing surprises on streaming television in 2023: a…

AeroGarden, which sells Wi-Fi-connected indoor gardening systems, is going out of business on January 1. While Scotts Miracle-Gro has continued selling AeroGarden products after announcing the impending shutdown, the future of the devices’ companion app is uncertain. AeroGarden systems use…

The world is full of people who have excessive confidence in their own abilities. This is famously described as the Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes how people who lack expertise in something will necessarily lack the knowledge needed to recognize their…

What if there was a way to sneak malicious instructions into Claude, Copilot, or other top-name AI chatbots and get confidential data out of them by using characters large language models can recognize and their human users can’t? As it…