Physicists have discovered a new phase of matter, dubbed “half ice, half fire,” that could open the door to new advancements in fields such as quantum computing. The new phase combines a number of “up” spins of electrons within an atom, which are highly ordered and referred to as cold cycles, with a number of … Read more
Large artificial intelligence (AI) models may mislead you when pressured to lie to achieve their goals, a new study shows. As part of a new study uploaded March 5 to the preprint database arXiv, a team of researchers designed an honesty protocol called the “Model Alignment between Statements and Knowledge” (MASK) benchmark. While various studies … Read more
You may have heard the myth that humans use only 10% of their brains. That statement is patently untrue — most people use all of their brains, all of the time. But for people who have survived a stroke, traumatic brain injuries or brain resectioning surgeries, things do get less clear. In fact, many of … Read more
We think of oxygen as life, sustenance, a literal breath of fresh air. But it’s actually a very reactive element. Anyone who’s burned a log has witnessed this firsthand. So why do so many life-forms breathe oxygen? There are probably thousands of kinds of metabolisms, or chemical processes that maintain life, said Donald Canfield, a … Read more
A bizarre ancient life-form, considered to be the first giant organism to live on land, may belong to a totally unknown branch of the tree of life, scientists say. These organisms, named Prototaxites, lived around 420 million to 375 million years ago during the Devonian period and resembled branchless, cylindrical tree trunks. These organisms would … Read more
Current approaches to artificial intelligence (AI) are unlikely to create models that can match human intelligence, according to a recent survey of industry experts. Out of the 475 AI researchers queried for the survey, 76% said the scaling up of large language models (LLMs) was “unlikely” or “very unlikely” to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), … Read more
A new kind of road-legal flying car is now a step closer to hitting the roads, and skies, after its maker Alef Aeronautics signed an agreement with aerospace companies PUCARA Aero and MYC to build it. The Alef Model A is designed to work as both a road vehicle and aircraft, with its aim being … Read more
“Space tornadoes” are swirling near the supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, new telescope observations have revealed in unprecedented detail. Astronomers recently zoomed in on the cosmic twisters using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. Although these rotating structures had been seen previously, the new observations with ALMA … Read more
The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction in northern Chile, will give us a better view of the Milky Way than any ground-based telescope before it. It’s difficult to overstate how transformative it will be. The ELT’s primary mirror array will have an effective diameter of 39 meters. It will gather more light than … Read more
The burning of fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — propelled humanity into the industrial revolution, remaking civilization in its wake. Gasoline powers many of the cars we drive; coal and natural gas are central to global energy. But if aliens were building their own society, would they have to go down the same … Read more
