Video Games That Encourage Human Interaction Can Build Better Vibes
Gamers have long been stigmatized as lonely weirdos. Some of that has been deserved—ask anyone who’s had a bunch of children shout horrible slurs at them during a match of Call Of Duty. But some leaders in the gaming industry want to push back against that narrative by creating games that encourage users to form…
Marmosets swap brain cells with their siblings
Marmoset siblings share many things – including brain cells Werner Layer/ Alamy A large number of cells within the brains of marmosets actually come from their siblings, potentially influencing their behaviour – and the same may be true of human fraternal twins. We already know that marmosets, small monkeys native to South America, carry their…
OpenAI Cofounder Reid Hoffman Gives Sam Altman a Vote of Confidence
Hoffman and others said that there’s no need to pause development of AI. He called that drastic measure, for which some AI researchers have petitioned, foolish and destructive. Hoffman identified himself as a rational “accelerationist”—someone who knows to slow down when driving around a corner but that, presumably, is happy to speed up when the…
Andromedids: See a forgotten meteor shower caused by a dead comet this weekend
A colour lithograph from 1877 depicts the Andromedid meteor shower of 1872 Antiqua Print Gallery/Alamy A “lost” meteor shower may surprise skywatchers this weekend, astronomers have found, with the potential for as many as 200 meteors per hour on 2 December. The shower in question is the Andromedids, which is caused by dust and rocks…
Israel-Hamas Conflict Sparks Meta Oversight Board’s First Emergency Case
Today, Meta’s Oversight Board announced it would take on two expedited cases, the first ever, both dealing with the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. The case will look at two posts that were initially removed from and then reinstated on Instagram and Facebook for violating Meta’s policies against sharing graphic imagery and depicting dangerous…
Why you don’t need to bother raking up dead leaves from your lawn
Max belchanko/Shutterstock IT IS late autumn where I live in London – a time of year that sees millions of gardeners like me, across the northern hemisphere, donning their thickest jumpers and spending hours raking giant piles of leaves into plastic bags at the end of driveways. In the US alone, nearly 10 million tonnes…
The Generative AI Copyright Fight Is Just Getting Started
The biggest fight of the generative AI revolution is headed to the courtroom—and no, it’s not about the latest boardroom drama at OpenAI. Book authors, artists, and coders are challenging the practice of teaching AI models to replicate their skills using their own work as a training manual. The debate centers on the billions of…
Robot eel reveals how the strange fish swim so efficiently
Tests with an eel-inspired robot show that the unusual fish may swim most efficiently by reducing their speed Source link
Don’t Worry, It’s Just ‘Fire Ice’
The finding suggests that far more fire ice is vulnerable to climate-induced melt than scientists realized, and it could be a significant source of planet-warming gas in the future. “It’s a very, very, very large source of carbon,” says Davies. “What we’re showing is there are routes for that carbon to be released that we…
The best new science fiction books this month from Terry Hayes to Geoff Ryman
Gabrielle Korn’s Yours for the Taking is set in a 2050 ravaged by climate change. vicnt/iStockphoto/Getty Images December is traditionally a quiet month for new fiction, but there are still some science fiction gems to look forward to – not least of which are an extraordinary-sounding new title from the award-winning Geoff Ryman, and the…