An international research team has created a new map of the Roman Empire — and it expands the ancient road network by more than 60,000 miles (100,000 kilometers). The saying goes, of course, that “all roads lead to Rome.” But while it’s true that many of the Empire’s major cities were linked via main roads … Read more
A strange, lopsided dust cloud shrouds Earth’s moon, ever skewed toward whichever side is facing the sun. Now, a new study may finally explain how the asymmetrical cloud got its shape. Most of the moon’s surface is covered by a layer of gray dust and loose rocks. This layer, called regolith, arises because the lunar … Read more
AI chatbots may be developing their own “survival drive” by refusing commands to shut themselves down, an AI safety company has claimed. The research, conducted by scientists at Palisade Research, assigned tasks to popular artificial intelligence (AI) models before instructing them to shut themselves off. But, as a study published Sept. 13 on the arXiv … Read more
California-based startup’s controversial plan to put 4,000 tennis-court-sized mirrors in orbit around Earth is “catastrophic” and “horrifying,” astronomers warn. Reflect Orbital, which was founded in 2021, has recently taken the first step in a scheme to sell sunlight at night by bouncing solar rays off giant “reflectors” that can redirect the vital resource almost anywhere … Read more
An AI coding agent designed to help a small software company streamline its tasks instead blew a hole through its business in just nine seconds. PocketOS founder Jer Crane, said that the AI coding agent Cursor — powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 model — deleted the company’s entire production database and backups with a … Read more
Worrying new simulations show that a solar storm on par with the infamous Carrington Event could potentially wipe out every single satellite orbiting our planet, leaving us in a precarious and expensive predicament. And experts say such a powerful solar storm is inevitable and will hit our planet sooner or later. On Sept. 1, 1859, … Read more
When scientists sequenced the Neanderthal genome in 2010, they learned that Neanderthals interbred with human ancestors before mysteriously going extinct. As a result, many people alive today share up to 4% of their DNA with Neanderthals. This genetic breakthrough yielded powerful new information about the evolutionary history of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, but it also … Read more
A surgically implanted chip and augmented-reality glasses are helping some people who have lost sight to read again. In a small trial, about 80% of people who had lost vision due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) were able to read letters and words a year after receiving the treatment, according to a study published Monday … Read more
Scientists may be closer to understanding why time seems to pass more quickly as we age — and brain scans of people watching an old Alfred Hitchcock show helped them address this enduring question. In a study published Sept. 30 in the journal Communications Biology, scientists pulled data from the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and … Read more
With help from citizen scientists, astronomers have spotted the most powerful “odd radio circle” (ORC) yet. The discovery could give astronomers a better understanding of how these unusual objects — and the galaxies they encircle — form. “ORCs are among the most bizarre and beautiful cosmic structures we’ve ever seen — and they may hold … Read more
