December 1, 2025 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm The Her Talking Phone May Have Arrived—She Speaks Chinese The company behind TikTok is rolling out a smartphone AI assistant that behaves less like an app and more like a secretary By Deni Ellis Béchard edited by Claire Cameron A 3D display from a…
The Soyuz spacecraft blasting off on 27 November Roscosmos space corporation, via AP/Alamy The International Space Station (ISS) may soon become slightly less international. Russia’s only launch site capable of sending humans to orbit has suffered serious damage that could put it out of commission for two years. That would pose a dilemma for NASA:…
December 1, 2025 1 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm ‘Living Fossil’ Sharks, Rays and Whale Sharks Get a Lifeline amid Extinction Threat The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora on Friday updated its regulation and monitoring of several iconic shark and ray species By Claire Cameron edited…
In 1944, Erwin Schrödinger published a book called What Is Life?. The physicist, famous for his alive-and-dead cat, clearly relished a brainteaser. Today, there is still no good definition. Life is generally agreed to require a minimum of two things: metabolism and reproduction. But the question of how chemistry morphed into biology billions of years…
Major surgery takes a major toll on the body — not unlike running a marathon. You wouldn’t attempt a marathon without training, so why would you undergo major surgery without preparing your body for the trauma it will experience? That’s the premise of prehabilitation, which prepares the body through exercise, nutrition and cognitive training to better…
December 1, 2025 2 min read WHO Sets GLP-1 Weight-Loss Drug Guidelines New WHO guidance calls for a worldwide obesity treatment “ecosystem” to ensure that GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are used fairly By Dan Vergano edited by Claire Cameron New World Health Organization guidelines for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs state that “intensive behavioral therapy” should be combined…
The archaeological site of Seyitömer Höyük in western Turkey represents a typical Luwian settlement Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums, Department of Excavations and Research; Luwian Studies #0255 A survey of archaeological sites in western Turkey has identified hundreds of large towns that thrived there during the Bronze…
An HPV vaccine delivered into the nose can treat cervical tumors in mice. The vaccine targets a cancer protein produced by the virus.
Netflix’s adaptation of The Electric State. Author Simon Stålenhag has a new work out this month. Netflix December is traditionally a quieter month for new releases from publishers and that’s definitely true this year, with a sparser than usual science-fiction offering to chew over. That said, there are some intriguing titles out this month, and…
Will computers ever match or surpass human-level intelligence — and, if so, how? When the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), based in Washington DC, asked its members earlier this year whether neural networks — the current star of artificial-intelligence systems — alone will be enough to hit this goal, the vast majority…
