Some sci-fi scenarios depict robots as cold-hearted clankers eager to manipulate human stooges. But that’s not the only possible path for artificial intelligence. Humans have evolved emotions like anger, sadness and gratitude to
More than five years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are still discovering the after-effects of not only the virus but also the prolonged period of stress, isolation, loss, and uncertainty
Last week, the Trump administration announced a set of sweeping AI policy recommendations to “usher in a new golden age of human flourishing.” Among the suggested environmental rollbacks laid out in both an
McKenzie Prillaman is a science and health journalist based in Washington, DC. She holds a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in science communication from the
The X-37B, the US Space Force’s secretive space plane, will soon take flight again. On Monday, the Space Force announced that it will fly the small, Space Shuttle–shaped vehicle on the program’s eighth
Some people may already have a tiny bit of protection against H5N1 bird flu. Several recent studies have found that those who caught seasonal flus or received flu vaccinations have low levels of
Our brains might prime our immune system merely by seeing someone who looks sick. A study published July 28 in Nature Neuroscience found that participants who saw sick-looking faces in virtual reality showed
Grabbing a meal with a friend is way better than dining solo — and killer whales agree. The whales prefer to hunt for herring in pairs, researchers report July 3 in Current Biology.
A team of astronomers from the University of Montreal has discovered a new potentially habitable exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf star L 98-59, 35 light-years from Earth. This discovery means there are now
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1994, an earthquake of a proof shook up the mathematical world. The mathematician Andrew Wiles had finally settled Fermat’s Last Theorem, a
