Supposed “first octopus” was something else entirely. Pohlsepia mazonensis, a visually underwhelming fossil from Illinois, fundamentally broke our understanding of cephalopod evolution. Described in 2000 and hailed as the oldest known octopus in the fossil record, the specimen dated back to the late Carboniferous period, roughly 311 to 306…
AI tools could help moderators sift through mountains of suspicious incidents These days, it seems like every tech company and their corporate parent is looking to squeeze AI tools and features into their products, whether they’re wanted or not. So when files with names and functions referencing a “SteamGPT”…
After leaks on Artemis I and II, Orion’s next flight to the Moon will need new valves. Apart from pesky issues with the spacecraft’s toilet and waste disposal system, most of the Artemis II mission has proceeded like clockwork. NASA has made few changes to the flight plan since…
Improved gene editing process reactivates the fetal version of a hemoglobin gene. Almost as soon as researchers started exploring the capabilities of the CRISPR/Cas9 system, they recognized its potential use in targeted gene editing. But the intervening decades have seen slow progress as people worked to determine how to…
Western Union exec says there were “challenges” working with Broadcom. Amid customer dissatisfaction around Broadcom’s VMware takeover, rivals have been trying to lure customers from the leading virtualization firm. One of VMware’s biggest competitors, Nutanix, claims to have swiped tens of thousands of VMware customers. Speaking at a press…
Rare event suggests relational dynamics may play a role in collective violence, along with cultural markers. In the 1970s, the late Jane Goodall observed a community of chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania, breaking into two factions; the males in one group ended up killing all the males in the rival…
“I’m actually getting chills right now just thinking about it. My palms are sweating.” On the home stretch of their nine-day mission, the four astronauts flying aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft are just beginning to reflect on their experience of flying beyond the Moon. Their memories of Monday’s encounter with…
Yet another automaker cancels an EV for gasoline SUVs in America. Among the requirements of Volkswagen’s Dieselgate settlement with the Department of Justice back in 2016 was to start building electric vehicles locally at the company’s factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee. That was a reality by 2021, when we drove…
After the pivot to humanoid robots and AI, does Tesla want to be a car company again? One of life’s abiding mysteries—at least to this writer—has been Tesla’s enduring success over recent years despite offering so few choices for customers. With the death of the low-volume and antiquated Models…
A World War II-era policy is stopping old coal plants from closing. At one time, the US electricity grid ran mostly on coal. But coal-fired power plants have steadily been decommissioned. Power producers found the plants were too expensive to operate and carried risks tied to toxic air pollution,…
