Giant Jell-O measures crowd volume in wobbles
Sports arenas across the United States could soon have a new, jiggly way to measure the excitement of a game. Jell-O, the company most known for its physics-defying gelatin dessert,…
2026
Astronauts set distance record, revealing the Moon as a place to be explored
After staring at the Moon for almost eight hours Monday, the commander of NASA’s Artemis II mission finally ran out of ways to describe what he was seeing. “No matter…
Trump’s next budget once again calls for massive cuts to science
On Friday, the Trump administration released its proposed budget for 2027. The budget blueprint includes significant cuts to NASA, but it targets even more severe limits for other science-focused agencies,…
How to rescue an old laptop by installing Linux on it
No matter how sprightly and speedy your laptop was when you first bought it, it will inevitably slow down to a sluggish pace eventually. And it’s when you reach this…
Rome unleashed an ancient ‘machine gun’ on Pompeii
(Left), the axonometric hand drawing of the polybolos, by A.R., was partially colored by V.C. using the graphic post-production software GIMP 3.0.4.; (right), the 3D model by C. Formicola based…
7 captivating photos of train travel’s first century
In 1804, a British man named Richard Trevithick invented the first steam-powered locomotive. But it was Americans who truly ran with Trevithick’s invention in the decades that followed. In 1830,…
Humans can still beat AI at video games
Ask someone to chart the progression of artificial intelligence (AI) models over the past few decades and you’ll likely hear some reference to how good they are at playing games.…
Trump proposes steep cut to NASA budget as astronauts head for the Moon
President Donald Trump released a budget blueprint on Friday calling for a 23 percent cut to NASA’s budget, two days after the agency launched four astronauts on the first crewed…
Ice Age dice show early Native Americans may have understood probability
Native Americans have been playing with dice in games of chance for more than 12,000 years, according to a new paper published in the journal American Antiquity. And the oldest…
“Cognitive surrender” leads AI users to abandon logical thinking, research finds
When it comes to large language model-powered tools, there are generally two broad categories of users. On one side are those who treat AI as a powerful but sometimes faulty…