Articles

Space
A Pulsar, a White Dwarf and a Third Star That Is Still Burning
Supernovae are hard on families. When a massive star collapses and blows off its outer layers, the sudden loss of mass and the kick delivered to the remnant usually wreck whatever gravitational…
By Diana Brinker3w ago5 min read
AI & Technology
Talking to an AI Assistant Costs More Accuracy Than Typing at It
The microphone button keeps moving closer to the middle of the screen. Assistants now open in voice mode, cars and headphones take dictation, and the implicit promise is that speaking a question and…
By Wilkens Etienne3w ago3 min read
Science
A THC Drug Cut Nightmares in a PTSD Trial, and Left the Rest of the Disorder Untouched
The dream repeats. For many people with post-traumatic stress disorder it is the same dream, most nights, for years, and the exhaustion it produces feeds back into everything else: the depression,…
By Gabriela Szalayová3w ago5 min read
Natural Disasters
What Does Ten Thousand Years of Simulated Himalayan Earthquakes Show?
Nepal's earthquake record is long by the standards of most countries and far too short by the standards of the fault underneath it. Written accounts of damaging shaking reach back a few centuries.…
By Steven Kasten3w ago5 min read
AI & Technology
The Privacy Tool That Thinks Like a Snoop, and the Catch Buried Inside It
European data-protection practice contains a small thought experiment. Imagine a stranger who is reasonably competent, has access to public records and search engines, and genuinely wants to work out…
By Wilkens Etienne3w ago6 min read
Environment
Half the World's Wheat Importers Buy From Exporters Whose Harvests Fail Together
Most of the wheat that crosses an international border in a given year leaves one of about a dozen countries. Most of the nations that buy it order from several of those exporters at once, which…
By Andreja Jezernik3w ago5 min read
Natural Disasters
Nobody Alive Has Felt the Earthquake ShakeAlert Is Built for, so Someone Checked Whether the Fake Ones Are Good Enough
No seismometer has ever recorded a great earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The fault runs offshore from northern California to British Columbia, and the last time it broke along most of its…
By Anna Kotlyar3w ago4 min read
Environment
Mid-May Is the Hinge: An Early Thaw and a Green Summer in the Altai
Spring in the Altai arrives as a boundary moving down through the soil. The frozen layer that has held since autumn softens from the top, water becomes available to roots, and whatever grows there…
By Anna Kotlyar3w ago3 min read
Environment
Greenland Cooled for Four Decades Before It Began Warming Fast
For most of the second half of the twentieth century, Greenland did something the rest of the planet was not doing. It got colder. While global mean temperature climbed, the annual mean at the…
By Anna Kotlyar3w ago4 min read
Space
A New Telescope Network Catches Meteoroids Hitting the Moon, Ahead of the Seismometers That Will Feel Them
Somewhere on the Moon, a rock the size of a fist arrives at tens of kilometers per second and stops. There is no atmosphere to slow it and nothing to burn it up on the way, so all of that energy has…
By Diana Brinker3w ago5 min read
AI & Technology
Two Models, Two Different Pictures, and a Conversation That Agrees the Difference Away
Imagine two people on the phone, each holding a photograph. Neither can see the other's. Their job is to decide whether the two pictures are the same and, if not, to find the difference. This is a…
By Oli Kotyk4w ago4 min read
Space
Twelve Years Under the South Pole Push the Milky Way's Neutrino Signal Past Five Sigma
Cosmic rays arrive at Earth with no return address. They are charged particles, and the Galaxy is threaded with magnetic fields, so by the time one reaches an instrument its direction says nothing…
By Victor Kuklin4w ago5 min read

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Articles

A Pulsar, a White Dwarf and a Third Star That Is Still Burning

Talking to an AI Assistant Costs More Accuracy Than Typing at It

A THC Drug Cut Nightmares in a PTSD Trial, and Left the Rest of the Disorder Untouched

What Does Ten Thousand Years of Simulated Himalayan Earthquakes Show?

The Privacy Tool That Thinks Like a Snoop, and the Catch Buried Inside It

Half the World's Wheat Importers Buy From Exporters Whose Harvests Fail Together

Nobody Alive Has Felt the Earthquake ShakeAlert Is Built for, so Someone Checked Whether the Fake Ones Are Good Enough

Mid-May Is the Hinge: An Early Thaw and a Green Summer in the Altai

Greenland Cooled for Four Decades Before It Began Warming Fast

A New Telescope Network Catches Meteoroids Hitting the Moon, Ahead of the Seismometers That Will Feel Them

Two Models, Two Different Pictures, and a Conversation That Agrees the Difference Away

Twelve Years Under the South Pole Push the Milky Way's Neutrino Signal Past Five Sigma