Category: 9. Sci/Tech

A little over 5 million years ago, water from the Atlantic Ocean found a way through the…

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.

Large language models work well because they’re so large. The latest models from OpenAI, Meta, and DeepSeek use hundreds of billions of “parameters”—the adjustable knobs that…

The bitter bracket fungus, Amaropostia stiptica, is probably not available at your local farmer’s market, and if you didn’t get the hint from its name, it’s because it tastes really, really terrible.

In fact, this bracket fungus is so bitter…

Have you ever had trouble taking in information in a noisy environment? A new study suggests that tapping your fingers in a steady rhythm could help you ‘tune in’ through the noise.

The researchers designed a series of experiments to uncover…

Find it difficult to do several things at once? First, the good news is you’re not alone – most people are terrible at task-switching. Secondly (and in even more good news), psychologists have been studying it for decades to figure out…

A new theoretical study suggests that the mysterious force driving the accelerated expansion of the universe—known as dark energy—may actually be rooted in a deeply quantum structure of space-time. This new preprint study could…

Bacteria is amazing. We’ve found bacteria we’ve never seen on the ISS, and even bacteria that can eat forever chemicals. But what do you get when you combine a Raspberry Pi, 12 motorized arms, and some microbial inspiration? A…

Ever wished upon a shooting star? Though beautiful, shooting stars are also signs of the cosmic shooting range through which Earth is currently whizzing. The ammunition consists of countless space rocks, microscopic to mountainous, moving…

You’ve probably seen the videos as you scroll through your social media feed: It starts with a cat minding their own business, calmly eating kibble or…

In a world of calorie-counting fitness trackers and workouts promising to ‘shred your belly fat’, we’ve grown used to the idea that exercise equals weight loss. The more miles on the treadmill, the more calories you burn, the more weight you…