They hid the number zero from an artificial intelligence system in the hope that it would discover it on its own; what happened teaches us an important lesson about the future of AI
Can a machine learn mathematics so deeply that it invents a missing idea on its own? A new Princeton University study puts that question…..
Scientists at MIT have created a robot with an “elephant’s memory” that promises to tell you where you left your keys last night—and it does so in a matter of seconds
Could a robot one day tell you where you left your keys, wallet, or an unfinished part on a factory floor? Researchers at the…..
Science
A few cookie crumbs on a trail may seem insignificant, but a new study conducted in Panama suggests that they can distract ants from a task that is key to a plant’s expansion
A few cookie crumbs on a hiking trail may not look like much, but a…..
Cockroaches already seemed indestructible, but a new genomic study has just revealed something even stranger: they harbor thousands of fragments of bacterial DNA hidden within their own genome
Cockroaches already have a reputation for surviving almost anything. Now, a new genome study suggests…..
The Giants’ Causeway was not formed as a result of a battle between giants, but rather by an explosive volcanic event that took place 60 million years ago—an event that, as scientists have now determined, occurred over a shorter period of time
For generations, Giant’s Causeway has sat between myth and science. The legend says the Irish…..
Greenland’s ancient frozen landfills contained microbial traces dating back 4,500 years that provided insights into hunting, agriculture, hygiene, and daily life; now, the melting ice is exposing these remains
Ancient garbage may not sound glamorous, but in Greenland, it has become a frozen archive…..
Switzerland just scanned what’s under everyone’s feet, turning secret geology into a national GPS for planners
How much sunlight reaches the ground beneath a forest, beside a highway, or on a…..
It all started with a simple bowl of oatmeal and an apple; now scientists believe that these foods contain more than 139,000 compounds that could change the way we understand nutrition
That bowl of oatmeal, apple slice, cup of coffee, or piece of grilled fish may…..
It all began with a material thousands of times thinner than a human hair; now scientists believe they have found an unexpected way to manufacture much more efficient superconductors
A tiny redesign beneath an ultrathin superconductor may point toward a new generation of far…..
Neutron stars may double as dark-matter detectors — because who wouldn’t use cosmic wrecking balls for science?
Dark matter is still one of the biggest missing pieces in modern science. Astronomers can…..
XRISM is reading the Perseus cluster’s elemental gossip, one X-ray whisper at a time
A new X-ray study has taken a sharper look at the hot gas inside the…..
The Space Station’s quantum lab just went colder, edging scientists closer to physics so weird it makes gravity blush
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have switched on a newly upgraded NASA Cold Atom…..
Mobility
China’s wild idea: a 1,118-mile rail bridge across the Gobi that dares gravity, sandstorms, and basic common sense
A new rail bridge rising out of the Gobi has been described as a 1,118-mile mega-project that…..
A heavy-lift ship is heading to Hobart to pick up the world’s largest battery-electric ferry for South America, and the scale point is that the vessel is about 430 feet long and built to carry around 2,100 passengers on the Argentina-Uruguay route
A heavy-lift ship is heading to Hobart, Tasmania, for an unusual job. The MV Black Marlin will…..
Energy
Economy
Neither the U.S. nor Iran: Spain discovers a rare-earth gold mine capable of meeting 33% of Europe’s needs and revolutionizes the geopolitical landscape of the green transition
Europe’s clean-energy race may have a new flashpoint in central Spain. In Campo de Montiel,…..
The world’s largest floating city is back in action: 80,000 residents, a stadium, schools and even eight helipads
It sounds like something pulled from a science fiction movie. A vessel about one mile…..
European beavers turn out to be secret carbon hoarders, stashing 26 % more than any human climate model guessed
No one expected the humble beaver dam to look like climate infrastructure. Yet a new…..
Egypt’s dead-serious plan: build an entire desert city from scratch and crown it with a 1,312-foot skyscraper that nobody saw coming
Egypt is building a new capital from scratch in the desert about 28 miles east…..
Construction of Jeddah Tower just reached the 100th floor, and the number that makes it feel unreal is the target, more than 3,280 feet tall with over 167 floors as Saudi Arabia aims for the world’s tallest building by 2028
Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower has moved past a milestone that once sounded almost unreal. The…..
Elon Musk admits that convincing married engineers to relocate to Starbase, 40 minutes from Brownsville and near the Mexican border, has become his biggest silent problem
During a recent interview, Elon Musk described SpaceX’s Starbase launch site complex in South Texas…..
Saudi Arabia imports sand even though it’s a desert country, but desert sand is too smooth and rounded to make strong concrete
Saudi Arabia has some of the largest deserts on Earth, but in 2023 it still…..
ExxonMobil is leaving New Jersey as its legal home after more than 140 years, and what matters isn’t the new address but what it signals about taxes, headquarters power, and corporate strategy
ExxonMobil shareholders have approved moving the oil giant’s legal home from New Jersey to Texas,…..
An 11,000-carat ruby find (about 4.85 pounds) reshapes mining in Myanmar, and the giant stone reopens the debate over value, traceability, and the real price of gemstones
Miners near Mogok, Myanmar, have unearthed an 11,000-carat rough ruby, a find large enough to…..
What started as a routine highway survey near Hradec Králové turned into one of Bohemia’s biggest Celtic finds, a 62-acre settlement where archaeologists pulled up gold and silver coins, Baltic amber, and workshops that suggest a production center, not just a stopover
A future highway in the Czech Republic has led archaeologists to something far older than…..
Technology
Environment
An animal about the size of a small house cat has just caused quite a stir in Mexico after becoming the first known photographic evidence of the mysterious Cozumel dwarf fox
For more than two decades, one of the world’s rarest wild dogs seemed to have…..
Georgia has just created a $2 million fund to save farms before these centuries-old fields are turned into housing developments, warehouses, and data centers
Georgia is trying to protect working farms before more fields become subdivisions, warehouses, and data…..
Everything pointed to another cut, but Grand Staircase-Escalante has just narrowly avoided, at the last minute, a decision that would have forever changed one of the most impressive natural monuments in the United States
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah has survived another attempt to weaken the rules…..
NASA photos reveal San Carlos Reservoir shrinking to a mud-ring, visual proof that drought plus demand equals trouble
San Carlos Reservoir in Arizona has become a stark snapshot of what drought can do…..
Sponge-city tech is teaching concrete to drink stormwater like a thirsty park — and it can’t happen fast enough
Cities around the world are trying to become more like sponges. The idea sounds simple…..
Coral reefs seemed doomed by marine heatwaves, but a new global map has just identified 64,200 square miles that may still have a real chance
For years, coral reef news has felt like one long alarm bell. Marine heatwaves have…..
Switzerland has excavated a “second country” beneath the Alps: more than 1,400 tunnels and about 1,243 miles beneath the rock to change the climate… without almost anyone noticing when traveling
If you ride a train through Switzerland, there is a moment when daylight disappears, your…..
The season’s first named storm might morph out of Gulf Coast rainclouds—Mother Nature’s reminder she writes the calendar
The season’s first named storm might morph out of Gulf Coast rainclouds—Mother Nature’s reminder she…..
