October 16, 2025 3 min read Jake Paul’s Sora Stunt Previews Risks and Rewards of a Deepfake Marketplace New video apps like Sora could turn faces into moneymaking assets and hint at a future where everyone can rent out their digital likeness By Deni Ellis Béchard edited by Andrea Gawrylewski & Clara Moskowitz Boxer Jake…
Gamma rays show up in surprisingly high concentrations in the centre of the Milky Way The centre of our galaxy is behaving strangely, and it may be because of dark matter. In 2009, observations from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope revealed a surprisingly high concentration of gamma rays coming from the middle of the Milky…
October 16, 2025 3 min read A Solution to the CIA’s Kryptos Code Is Found after 35 Years After decades of speculation, two writers uncovered the answer to the Kryptos code’s final cipher By Humberto Basilio edited by Clara Moskowitz Kryptos, a work of art made of encrypted code, sits on the grounds of the…
AIs rely on data centres that use vast amounts of energy Jason Alden/Bloomberg/Getty Being more judicious in which AI models we use for tasks could potentially save 31.9 terawatt-hours of energy this year alone – equivalent to the output of five nuclear reactors. Tiago da Silva Barros at the University of Cote d’Azur in France…
Tens of thousands of preschool-aged children in the Gaza Strip haven’t had nearly enough to eat, putting their young lives at grave risk. A 20-month study of wasting among young children living in the Gaza Strip estimates that, in August this year, more than 54,600 children were acutely malnourished, with nearly 13,000 of them severely…
October 16, 2025 5 min read A Mathematical Paradox Shows How Combining Losing Strategies Can Create a Win In certain circumstances, losses create a sure path to victory, an idea with implications for biology and cancer therapy By Manon Bischoff edited by Daisy Yuhas Filo/Getty Images (images); Scientific American (animation) In 1996 Spanish physicist Juan…
Some schools require students to leave their phones in lockers all day Robin Utrecht/Shutterstock Many people are concerned about the negative consequences of too much screen time, particularly if phone use at school distracts students and affects their learning. But a study suggests banning them from schools makes some students lonelier, at least initially. “If…
Bright flecks of burning wood stream through the smoky air and toward a hapless house. Before the one-story structure, the glowing specks, each merely centimeters in size, seem insignificant. But each lofted ember is a seed of destruction. Researchers estimate that embers cause somewhere between 60 to 90 percent of home ignitions. Next to the…
The shutdown of the US government, about to enter its third week, is starting to take a toll on US science. Since the shutdown began, the administration of US President Donald Trump has cancelled funding for clean-energy research projects and laid off public-health workers. The activities of some federally funded museums and laboratories have been…
I have a penchant for old sci-fi with trashy covers so terrible they are brilliant. My dream is that someone creates a wallpaper of them so I can use it to paper my downstairs bathroom. In the meantime, I recently came across a book in a charity shop I ended up loving: Sheri S. Tepper’s…
