Researcher seek to understand the various uses of wild mushroom species. Like many mushroom harvesters, I got interested in foraging for fungi during the COVID-19 pandemic. I had been preparing for a summer of field work studying foraged desert plants in a remote part of Australia when the pandemic…
Light is the greatest threat to 19th-century masterpieces like James Ensor’s The Intrigue, study finds. The emergence of synthetic pigments in the 19th century had an immense impact on the art world, particularly the availability of emerald-green pigments, prized for their intense brilliance by such masters as Paul Cézanne,…
Organizers had a way for attendees to track CO2 levels throughout the venue—even before they arrived. Hacker conferences—like all conventions—are notorious for giving attendees a parting gift of mystery illness. To combat “con crud,” New Zealand’s premier hacker conference, Kawaiicon, quietly launched a real-time, room-by-room carbon dioxide monitoring system…
Genes with related functions cluster together, and the AI uses that. AI systems have recently had a lot of success in one key aspect of biology: the relationship between a protein’s structure and its function. These efforts have included the ability to predict the structure of most proteins and…
Ars chats with director Tom Barbor-Might about new National Geographic documentary A Road Trip to Remember. Millions of people around the world are living with the harsh reality of Alzheimer’s disease, which also significantly impacts family members. Nobody is immune, as A-list actor Chris Hemsworth discovered when his own…
An unexpectedly large city lies in a sea of grass inhabited largely by nomads. Today all that’s left of the ancient city of Semiyarka are a few low earthen mounds and some scattered artifacts, nearly hidden beneath the waving grasses of the Kazakh Steppe, a vast swath of grassland…
With the government shutdown over, the FAA has lifted its daytime launch curfew. Welcome to Edition 8.20 of the Rocket Report! For the second week in a row, Blue Origin dominated the headlines with news about its New Glenn rocket. After a stunning success November 13 with the launch…
Eclipse tables in the Dresden Codex were based on lunar tables and adjusted for slippage over time. Astronomical events such as eclipses were central to Maya culture, reflected in the care the Maya took to keep accurate calendars to aid in celestial predictions. Among the few surviving Maya texts…
The splatter master was more clumsy than graceful in his movements, which are key to his distinctive style. Not everyone appreciates the artistry of Jackson Pollock’s famous drip paintings, with some dismissing them as something any child could create. While Pollock’s work is undeniably more sophisticated than that, it…
A rundown of what we know of the third extrasolar object we’ve identified. Since early July, telescopes around the world have been tracking just our third confirmed interstellar visitor, the comet 3I/ATLAS—3I, for third interstellar, and ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) for the telescope network that first spotted…
