Forecasts of the impact of artificial intelligence range from the apocalyptic to the utopian. An October 2025 report from Senate Democrats, for example, predicted AI will destroy millions of US jobs.
CRISPR is a breakthrough technology with humble origins. Scientists first discovered the powerful gene editor in bacteria that were using it as a weapon against invading viruses called phages. Phages ...
For most of artificial intelligence’s history, many researchers expected that building truly capable systems would need a long series of scientific breakthroughs: revolutionary algorithms, deep ...
Despite their brief history, computers and AI have fundamentally changed what we see, what we know, and what we do. Little is as important for the world’s future and our own lives as how this history ...
Our eyes take in the dazzling greens of dense forests, blues of alpine lakes, and reds and purples of sunset. Yet there’s an entire world hidden from sight. Our eyes only perceive a narrow sliver of ...
It sounds like science fiction, but the system could help people with brain or spinal cord injuries regain lost abilities. In 2020, Keith Thomas dived into a pool and snapped his spine. The accident ...
It’s easy to take safe drinking water for granted. In most developed countries, access to safe water takes a simple flip of a kitchen tap or a run to the grocery store. But over two billion people ...
Generative AI is a data hog. The algorithms behind chatbots like ChatGPT learn to create human-like content by scraping terabytes of online articles, Reddit posts, TikTok captions, or YouTube comments ...
A couple months ago, friends and business contacts started asking me for a crash course on my professional research studying virtual environments. Their interest reflects an explosion—which you’ve ...
Our cells are like the ultimate soft robots. Made mostly of a liquid interior wrapped inside a fatty shell, they split, stretch, roam, and squeeze into every nook and cranny of the body. Actual robots ...
At the age of 45, Casey Harrell lost his voice to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, the disorder eats away at muscle-controlling nerves in the brain and spinal ...
Creativity is a trait that AI critics say is likely to remain the preserve of humans for the foreseeable future. But a large-scale study finds that leading generative language models can now exceed ...