Tech

Evolution of intelligent life on earth may not have been so unlikely

Evolution of intelligent life on earth may not have been so unlikely

A popular model of evolution concludes that it was incredibly unlikely for humanity to evolve on Earth, and that extraterrestrial intelligence is vanishingly rare. But as experts on the entangled history of life and our planet, we propose that the coevolution of life and Earth’s surface environment may have unfolded in a way that makes the evolutionary

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How will Trump’s fund cuts hit the US’s technological competitiveness?

How will Trump’s fund cuts hit the US’s technological competitiveness?

America has already lost its global competitive edge in science, and funding cuts proposed in early 2025 may further a precipitous decline. Proposed cuts to the federal agencies that fund scientific research could undercut America’s global competitiveness, with negative impacts on the economy and the ability to attract and train the next generation of researchers. I’m an astronomer, and

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The quest to extend human life is both fascinating and fraught with moral peril

The quest to extend human life is both fascinating and fraught with moral peril

“Who wants to live forever?” Freddie Mercury mournfully asks in Queen’s 1986 song of the same name. The answer: Quite a few people – so much so that life extension has long been a cottage industry. As a physician and scholar in the medical humanities, I’ve found the quest to expand the human lifespan both

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DeepSeek rushes to launch new AI model as China goes all in

DeepSeek rushes to launch new AI model as China goes all in

DeepSeek is looking to press home its advantage. The Chinese startup triggered a $1 trillion-plus sell-off in global equities markets last month with a cut-price AI reasoning model that outperformed many Western competitors. Now, the Hangzhou-based firm is accelerating the launch of the successor to January’s R1 model, according to three people familiar with the

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Researchers spot a clue as to why human and mouse genomes overlap

Researchers spot a clue as to why human and mouse genomes overlap

Eighty million years ago humans, rats, and mice shared the same mammalian ancestor. More recently, researchers made the astonishing discovery that even today our genomes contain close to 500 segments that have remained totally unchanged since then. These segments are called ultra-conserved elements (UCEs). Nearly all the UCEs are also highly unchanged in the chicken

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Volatile Climate Splits Weather Agencies on El Niño Messaging

(Bloomberg) — Predicting the onset and intensity of the weather-roiling El Niño and La Niña events is crucial for global markets, and meteorologists need to get the messaging right or risk sparking confusion and backlash. Australia’s forecaster, which faced criticism last year after an unusual El Niño, is taking a less-is-more approach, while the World

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Photo of Intuitive Machine's Athena lunar lander

Wednesday’s Stacked SpaceX Launch Is Sending Groundbreaking Science to the Moon and Beyond

Should Wednesday’s launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center proceed as planned, it’s gonna be carrying a buttload of science with it. The rocket will be carrying not one, not two, but three important payloads, including a satellite set to orbit the Moon, a privately operated lunar lander, and a spacecraft

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Photo: Sarah Kerver

Chegg Sues Google, Says AI Search Results Are Killing Its Business

Chegg is sort of on its last dying breath at this point, but it will go out fighting. The online education company, which started out renting textbooks and later expanded into online homework help, sued Google on Monday for anticompetitive practices, saying it is unfairly scraping material from Chegg for its AI-powered search results. The

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Saving nature can 'unite world', countries told at rebooted UN talks

Saving nature can ‘unite world’, countries told at rebooted UN talks

Environmental activists take part in a flash mob at Circo Massimo as the COP16 biodiversity conference resumes at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) headquarters in Rome, February 25, 2025. | Photo Credit: AFP Global talks to protect nature restarted Tuesday with a call for humanity to come together to “sustain life on the

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