In 2024, Scottish futurist David Wood was part of an informal roundtable discussion at an artificial intelligence (AI) conference in Panama, when the conversation veered to how we can avoid the most disastrous AI futures. His sarcastic answer was far from reassuring. First, we would need to amass the entire body of AI research ever … Read more
Very few people live beyond a century. So, if no one had babies anymore, there would probably be no humans left on Earth within 100 years. But first, the population would shrink as older folks died and no one was being born. Even if all births were to suddenly cease, this decline would start slowly. … Read more
If a global catastrophe suddenly led to a nuclear winter, millions of people could starve. But now, scientists have figured out what crops we would need to grow to sustain a city if such a calamitous event occurred. According to a new study, farming spinach, sugar beets, wheat and carrots in urban and near-urban areas … Read more
We live in places that will be flooded by rising sea levels. We have food production systems dependent on specific climates. And we have built economic structures, trade relationships and social dynamics contingent on certain temperatures. What’s more, we are not alone in this world, and the rapidly changing climate is a threat to the … Read more
Earth’s total fresh water has plummeted to an alarming new low, and it could be a sign that climate change is pushing the world into a dangerous phase of global drying, according to a new study. Since 2015, our planet’s lakes, rivers and aquifers have lost 290 cubic miles (1,200 cubic km) of fresh water, … Read more
Last October, an asteroid impacted Earth’s atmosphere just hours after being detected — somehow, it managed to circumvent impact monitoring systems during its approach to our planet. However, on the bright side, the object measured just 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter and posed very little threat to anything on Earth’s surface. This asteroid, designated … Read more
Yoshua Bengio is one of the most-cited researchers in artificial intelligence (AI). A pioneer in creating artificial neural networks and deep learning algorithms, Bengio, along with Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun and former Google AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton, received the 2018 Turing Award (known as the “Nobel” of computing) for their key contributions to … Read more
Black holes are massive, mostly invisible and so powerful not even light can escape them. So what would happen if one entered our solar system? It depends on a lot of factors, including the size and distance of the black hole, experts told Live Science. But in many scenarios, not much would happen.”They’re not, per … Read more
The remarkable aurora in early May this year demonstrated the power that solar storms can emit as radiation, but occasionally the sun does something far more destructive. Known as “solar particle events”, these blasts of protons directly from the surface of the sun can shoot out like a searchlight into space. Records show that around … Read more
Spaceflight is anything but safe, and the quest to explore the final frontier comes with huge risks for the astronauts leading the charge. But has spaceflight actually cost people their lives? Yes, 21 people have died in space, Nigel Packham, NASA’s associate director of safety and mission assurance, told Live Science. Five spaceflight missions — … Read more
