Tech Updates

When millions of people died in Europe during the Black Death, biodiversity suffered too, new research suggests. The findings suggest that human activities once promoted biodiversity in the landscape — and experts say we could use these findings to boost biodiversity in our modern agricultural landscapes. The 14th century was a tumultuous time for the […]

Quick facts What it is: Pa 30, a supernova remnant Where it is: 7,500 light-years away, in the constellation Cassiopeia When it was shared: Oct. 6, 2026 A mysterious “guest star” recorded by medieval astronomers nearly 850 years ago has revealed new secrets after scientists obtained the clearest images yet of its explosive aftermath. New

When temperatures spike, California redwoods slow down photosynthesis, new research has found. This finding has serious implications for the long-term survival of the iconic trees in a warming world, and their role in storing carbon from the atmosphere. California redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forests are among the largest aboveground carbon stores on the planet. These towering

Recent research challenges a long-standing idea about how the brain develops: Rather than arising from a single source, the brain may emerge from two distinct populations of cells, the study finds. “The brain appears as one organ,” said study co-author Kyle Loh, an associate professor of developmental biology at Stanford University. “However, we discovered that

Sometimes, it takes a great struggle to build towering peaks. And what more thunderous event is there than the clashing of continental plates? Geological pileups have birthed some of the largest and tallest mountains on the planet, including Mount Everest and its Himalayan neighbors. But has there ever been a peak taller than Mount Everest,

Archaeologists digging at a 13,800-year-old site in interior Alaska have unearthed thousands of artifacts and fossils, including what may be the bones of the earliest domesticated dogs in the Americas, the earliest needles and dwellings in the Western Hemisphere, and stone tools that reveal cultural connections across the Bering Land Bridge. At a site called

Benchmarks are the rulers of AI, in both senses of the word. As measuring sticks, they work according to an extremely simple logic: If you want to know what an AI model can do, devise a standardized test to gauge it. But AI benchmarks can also dominate the behavior of the entire field. In 1987,