As temperatures rise, some creatures pick fights while others struggle to learn. On a blazing hot day in South Africa, female southern pied babblers can’t think straight. The medium-sized black-and-white birds are trying to get at tasty mealworms behind a see-through barrier. On cooler days, the birds can quickly…
A new book looks into the long history of people who have opposed vaccines. Stanley Plotkin, 93, was instrumental in developing a number of vaccines over the course of his career. He recently said that he’s “beginning to regret having lived so long—because we’re going downhill.” How could we…
Peer review now optional, political staff would screen grants for forbidden topics. Last August, the Trump administration issued an executive order intended to fundamentally alter how grant funding is handled by the US government. Under the system that had made the US a scientific superpower, peer reviewers rated the…
The botnet was reportedly tied to a Russia-based residential proxy network. Authorities in the Netherlands said they dismantled a botnet that comprised more than 17 million devices and were managed by 200 servers in a joint operation by the police and the National Cyber Security Center. The action, announced…
Until recently, a driver had maybe a six in ten chance of finishing a race. First off, apologies for the lack of a Canadian Grand Prix report at the beginning of this week; Ferrari chose last weekend to show us its new electric vehicle, and between that and Memorial…
They seem to reorganize their tissues and then just keep living. Organs, arms, appendages, and other complex tissues usually decay rapidly when they’re separated from their host. Over the years, biologists have seen some success with keeping them alive outside of the body—organ transplants depend on it—but it has…
Audi has developed an entirely new electric torque-vectoring rear differential. Audi provided flights from Washington, DC, to Munich, Germany, and accommodation so Ars could drive the RS5. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. SAALFELDEN, Austria—Audi may have built a reputation for technology over the years, either pioneering or…
Undisclosed addition in jqwik instructed AI coding agents to delete app output. The controversy over vibe coding reached a new high this week after a developer added hidden instructions to his open source Java testing app to sabotage projects performed by AI coding agents. The instructions were added to…
If it scales up, it can help us diversify our sources of a key element. While we make batteries based on many different chemistries, nothing has approached the massive scale at which we can produce lithium batteries. That scale makes the economics of lithium-ion batteries hard to compete with.…
The port seems solid, and all DLC is supported—but there’s no crossplay, sadly. Despite all the graphics capabilities of modern Macs, being a Mac gamer is generally a thankless existence. Every once in a while, though, Mac gamers get a bone thrown to them that is substantial enough that…
