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Some stinkbugs’ legs carry a mobile fungal garden

A dedicated organ grows the fungus, which deters parasitic wasps. Many insect species hear using tympanal organs, membranes roughly resembling our eardrums but located on their legs. Grasshoppers, mantises, and moths all have them, and for decades, we thought that female stinkbugs of the Dinidoridae family have them, too,…

Dune driving with Mercedes-Benz as it tests off-road systems

​The low-traction surfaces of the Dumont Dunes are a perfect test location.  Mercedes-Benz provided flights from Washington, DC, to Las Vegas and accommodation so Ars could drive the prototype GLC. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. LAS VEGAS—About 100 miles from Las Vegas, at the northern end of…

OpenAI signs massive AI compute deal with Amazon

Deal will provide access to hundreds of thousands of Nvidia chips that power ChatGPT.  On Monday, OpenAI announced it has signed a seven-year, $38 billion deal to buy cloud services from Amazon Web Services to power products like ChatGPT and Sora. It’s the company’s first big computing deal after…

Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed

Also: the science of regular vs. gluten-free spaghetti, catching high-speed snake bites in action, etc. It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we’ve featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we…