Controversial 2025 study “represents the encroachment of pseudoscience into the heart of biological research.” Last year, a team of scientists presented evidence that spruce trees in Italy’s Dolomite mountains synchronized their bioelectrical activity in anticipation of a partial solar eclipse—a potentially exciting new insight into the complexities of plant…
The automaker follows Ford and GM in writing down huge sums after betting wrong. The automotive industry’s big bet on a rapid adoption of electric vehicles—at least here in the United States—continues to unwind. Today, Stellantis, which owns brands like Jeep and Dodge, as well as Fiat, Peugeot, and…
NASA shall evaluate the “viability of transferring the ISS to a safe orbital harbor” after retirement. Members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee voted to approve a NASA authorization bill this week, advancing legislation chock full of policy guidelines meant to give lawmakers a voice in the…
Amazon has booked 10 more launches with SpaceX, citing a “near-term shortage in launch capacity.” Welcome to Edition 8.28 of the Rocket Report! The big news in rocketry this week was that NASA still hasn’t solved the problem with hydrogen leaks on the Space Launch System. The problem caused…
Claude Opus 4.6 and OpenAI Frontier pitch a future of supervising AI agents. On Thursday, Anthropic and OpenAI shipped products built around the same idea: instead of chatting with a single AI assistant, users should be managing teams of AI agents that divide up work and run in parallel.…
Hamster Corp.’s new “Console Archives” does what Nintendon’t. In 2018, we lamented as Nintendo officially replaced the Virtual Console—its long-running line of downloadable classic games on the Wii and Wii U—with time-limited access to a set of games through a paid Nintendo Switch Online subscription. Now, Hamster Corporation is…
“Kanzi is able to generate an idea of this pretend object and at the same time know it’s not real.” Little kids hosting make-believe tea parties is a fixture of childhood playtime and long presumed to be exclusively a human ability. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University presented evidence in…
AirDrop came to the Pixel 10 last year, and more Android phones will join the party in 2026. There is very little functional difference between iOS and Android these days. The systems could integrate quite well if it weren’t for the way companies prioritize lock-in over compatibility. At least…
Sam Altman calls AI competitor “dishonest” and “authoritarian” in lengthy post on X. On Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch complained on X after rival AI lab Anthropic released four commercials, two of which will run during the Super Bowl on Sunday, mocking the…
Dubbed “Jetty McJetface,” the tidal disruption event’s energy keeps getting brighter and should peak in 2027. Back in 2022, astronomers were puzzled by a so-called “tidal disruption event” (TDE), dubbed AT2018hyz, that had faded when it was first noticed three years earlier, only to unexpectedly reanimate and burp out…
