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The Science of Reading Has an Implementation Problem. Could Engineering Help?
Researchers suggest that an "engineering of reading" could better translate evidence into practice.
Trump administration has cut or frozen $177 billion in grants across every state, analysis shows
Among the grants that were eliminated, frozen or delayed were ones related to maternal health in Michigan, education research in Mississippi and assistance to minority farmers in Iowa, the researchers found.
Scientists Observe Quantum Entanglement In The Extreme
An international team of researchers witnessed a strange phenomenon of quantum physics in Z bosons, massive particles that vanish almost as soon as they appear.
T. rexes were as warm-blooded as elephants, study finds
Scientists have long discussed whether and which dinosaurs were warm-blooded. Now, researchers say they have used chemistry to take the temperature of two T. rexes. Here's what they found.
Humans Are Now Changing How Sharks Survive—Scientists Sound the Alarm - Futura-Sciences
A worrying new trend in shark behavior This phenomenon is highlighted in the documentary Shark Beach with Anthony Mackie, available on National Geographic and Disney+. Several years ago, researchers and grassroots organizations began recording a troubling behavioral shift among sharks in the Gulf of Mexico: depredation. What does that mean?...
New trick could reveal text on 2,000-year-old scrolls charred by eruption of Mount Vesuvius
Using X-ray technologies and custom-made software, researchers were able to read text they wrote on a fake ancient scroll designed to mimic those destroyed at Herculaneum in A.D. 79.
Scientists finally know the body temperature of the Tyrannosaurus rex
Using a fossil-based thermometer on the dinosaur's teeth, researchers have revealed that the animal's body temperature was comparable to a human's.
Mice with millions of human neurons in their brains bring scientists closer to understanding mental disorders
Researchers in the United States and Spain have created living rodents with cerebral cortexes from healthy people to facilitate research into autism, schizophrenia, and epilepsy
Part-human part-mouse brain developed in science breakthrough
Researchers at Stanford University genetically altered mice to be able to receive and function with human brain cells.
Part-human part-mouse brain developed in science breakthrough
Researchers at Stanford University genetically altered mice to be able to receive and function with human brain cells.
Scientists create mice with part-human brains
Researchers hope to shed light on conditions such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability and rare forms of dementia
Scientists Fuse Human Neurons Into the Brains of Mice
The studies may help reveal the causes of brain disease in people and point the way to treatments. But researchers already are calling for new ethical guidelines.
'It is extremely rare to witness': Scientists record humpback whale mom grieving her stillborn calf in first-of-its-kind footage
Researchers in Australia captured footage of a female humpback whale repeatedly diving to make eye contact with her stillborn calf and lay next to its body on the seafloor.
Seoul National University of Science and Technology Researchers Develop a Reliable AI System for SSD Failure Prediction
/PRNewswire/ -- Solid-state drives (SSDs), which store data in computers and servers, are critical to data center reliability. SSD failures can cause service...
Scientists find the whole grain “sweet spot” for better heart health
Eating four to six servings of whole grains a day may deliver meaningful benefits for heart health, according to a large review of 87 clinical trials. Researchers found improvements in body weight, waist size, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, triglycerides, and some markers of inflammation.
EU membership bid gives boost to Moldova’s fledgling R&D landscape
Moldova’s push to join the EU is having the spillover effect of helping to improve the country’s R&D landscape, which in recent years has suffered from fragmentation, decreasing personnel and a lack of research infrastructure.The country became an EU candidate country in 2022, alongside Ukraine, and officially began accession negotiations in 2024. With a pro-EU government, Moldova has been actively carrying out reforms to align with EU standards. This has helped accelerate the development of R&D, said Igor Chiosa, acting head of the Research and Innovation Policy Directorate at Moldova’s Ministry of Education and Research. “Our R&D landscape is moving up, and we are more and more involved in the European Research Area,” he said. “The support we receive from the EU is very important, not only financially, but also because of incentives, consultation and capacity building.”The R&D landscape in the former Soviet republic is still relatively underdeveloped, despite attempts at improvement going back to a 2004 law on science and innovation and later reforms in 2017 and 2018. But the system remains in a “precarious situation” and “in the process of contraction,” according to an assessment carried out by the government for the current National Programme for Research and Innovation, which runs from 2024 to 2027. The analysis highlights in particular the declining number of researchers and PhDs, which has been continuously falling, as well as limited research funding. This is around 10 times lower than the EU average and “insufficient to maintain a level of research activity that supports higher education and meets the needs of the economy.” The mechanisms for allocating research funds are also described as inefficient, as well as the general fragmentation of the landscape, with research and innovation activities being carried out in 67 different places. The lack of strategic vision for research infrastructure is also noted. The strategy sets out to address these issues and is being fuelled by reforms linked to EU accession. Moldova now has a regulation on open science and gender equality. There is also a new support mechanism for technology transfer offices and a business-academia roadmap. In 2025, the country also became the first Eastern Partnership country to approve a Smart Specialisation strategy, which will coordinate its R&D efforts to focus on strengths, within a European context. “We’ve done a lot in terms of normative acts,” Chiosa said. Horizon Europe successMoldova is also seeing more success in the EU’s flagship R&D programme, Horizon Europe. The country has now won nearly €15 million in funding, already double the amount won under the previous programme, Horizon 2020, and more than the €10 million target set by the government. Chiosa said the priority has shifted now to winning more research-centred projects, rather than those related to support and capacity. Moldova is also targeting further involvement in large European projects. Last year, it joined the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking giving Moldovans access to Europe's supercomputing network. The country is also a member of Danubius-RI, a European research infrastructure focused on river and sea research. Despite these efforts, Moldova’s research capacity is still shackled by its limited R&D budget, which equates to 0.23% of its GDP. This is around half of what its neighbour Romania spends, which is the lowest in the EU. According to Chiosa, the research budget is increasing year-on-year, jumping by €6.34 million between 2024 and 2025. But this doesn’t show up when looking at it as a proportion of GDP. “Of course, it’s difficult,” he said. “That is why we are putting more emphasis on collaboration between business and academia, as well as participation in Horizon Europe, to try to diversify our sources of funding.”A World Bank loan of €30 million, plus a grant of €7.8 million, was agreed in 2025 to support the modernisation of Moldova’s universities. As part of this, a call was launched this year to provide universities grants of up to €900,000 to develop their research infrastructure. Moldova is also collaborating closely with Romania, with which it shares a common language, funding 100 joint projects in 2023 and 2024. This support has been instrumental. “They are helping with sharing their expertise, inviting us into consortia, and lots more,” Chiosa said. Looking forward, Moldova is eagerly anticipating joining the EU. “We are looking closely at what the EU is doing and will shape our future national programme in research innovation accordingly.”EU accession “blocked at a technical level”Moldova is aiming to join the EU by 2028, but despite its swift and eager efforts to meet the accession criteria, there remain obstacles outside of the country’s control. For a country to join the EU, it must have certain legislation in place and meet specific standards in various areas. This is categorised into six thematic clusters containing 33 chapters. Moldova and the EU have so far opened two of the clusters, numbers one and six. The first covers fundamental laws, such as the judiciary, security and financial legislation. The sixth covers external relations. The remaining four clusters are still unopened. This includes the third cluster, on competitiveness and growth, which contains the chapter on science and research.Related articlesQ&A: Albania’s ambition to become a ‘moderate innovator’Data corner: Horizon success rates are droppingThe European Commission has confirmed that these clusters are ready to be opened, with an official saying that the Commission is encouraging EU governments, who have the final say, to move forward on the matter. However, both clusters two and three remain blocked by the EU Council’s working party on enlargement and countries negotiating accession to the EU, a different official, representing the Council, confirmed.This working party is set to meet several times in the coming weeks, with a Council meeting scheduled for mid-October in which enlargement, and Moldova’s bid, will be discussed. But there is no certainty that these talks will lead to progress. According to the Council source, it is “completely impossible to foresee if and when the file will be unblocked,” citing the sensitivity of the matter. Moldova’s situation is particularly complicated. One factor is that it borders Ukraine and is increasingly embroiled in Russia’s war, with drone incursions occurring more often on its territory. Another is Transnistria, a Russian-backed breakaway state that lies within the territory of Moldova. It is unclear how the EU would be able to accept Moldova into the bloc while this situation remains unchanged. While there is no direct reason to delay opening cluster three with Moldova, as it covers matters unrelated to security, it could be that the EU is reluctant to speed through accession negotiations without first resolving broader, geopolitical issues.Chiosa is confident that, if and when the chapter on science and research is opened, Moldova will be able to finalise it quickly. It doesn’t require any legislative changes and is only a matter of proving certain standards, which Chiosa believes Moldova is well prepared to do. “We hope that chapter 25 on science and research will be one of the first chapters opened and closed,” he said.
'Science of the AI mind': AI researcher Cameron Berg on the need to study AI behavior
Cameron Berg, Reciprocal Research director, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss calls to slow AI development, why he's calling for a 'science of the AI mind' to help study and monitor AI behaviors, future of AI regulation, and more.
EU-funded researcher awarded 2026 Balzan Prize for The Social Science of Digital Technology
Sociologist Elena Esposito has won the prestigious 2026 Balzan Prize for her pioneering work on how algorithms participate in social...
Study: Why Colder Temps Can Be Better for Removing Ice
By Kim Horner | Mechanical engineering research associate Yao Ren exposes an ice-covered metal surface to dry ice to cool it further. Researchers found that a material’s thermal properties play a critical role in determining whether ice remains attached to a surface — a discovery that may lead to the design of future deicing systems for […]
Engineers solve puzzle of Arctic sea ice movement
UC Riverside researchers discover a way to explain the previously confusing movement of Arctic sea ice, offering a way to potentially predict where the ice will travel as the ocean gets warmer.
What Comes Before Stomach Cancer? Researchers Are Finding Out.
Call it a “gut feeling.” For some stomach cancers, the first signs may appear years before a diagnosis. At Sutter Health Research Institute, Dr. Su-Ying Liang is helping lead that work. Through Gastroshare, she and researchers at Stanford University are using artificial intelligence and electronic health record data to study early changes in the stomach […]
A machine learning system that identifies cancer cells based on how they scatter light
Cytology tests are widely used for cancer screening, but diagnosis can be challenging when tumor and non-tumor cells look very similar. Researchers from Japan developed a machine learning system that identifies tumor cells based on their white-light scattering spectra. The approach achieved high diagnostic accuracy for mesothelioma and showed potential for distinguishing several other tumor types, offering a promising approach for enhancing cytological diagnosis.
NASA Field-Tests AI Fleet Capability for Science, Exploration
In this field test, a fleet of three robots worked together, and researchers assessed the fleet’s ability to act like an independent science team.
‘This can’t be correct’ – how scientists formed a new theory around Arctic erosion
Sometimes science throws up the unexpected. When a team of researchers set out to model river erosion in
Rice materials science brings hidden history into view at Menil Collection
Pages from a once-classified U.S. government document appear and fade from view on glass walls at renowned museum, the Menil Collection, as part of artist Jitish Kallat’s installation, “Wall Drawing/Redux A119.” Researchers from Rice University collaborated on this dynamic display, helping to bring the installation to life.
68% of physicists don't think the time started at the big bang
A recent survey shows researchers remain divided on fundamental concepts. But that’s not a bad thing.
Living in disadvantaged neighborhoods linked to adverse brain health
In a study analyzing nearly 3,000 brain MRI exams, researchers found that living in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods was associated with adverse brain health.
Reading for pleasure linked to better mental health and greater empathy
Reading for pleasure – from tucking into a Jane Austen classic to devouring a Heartstopper graphic novel – is linked to better mental health, greater empathy and a lower risk of dementia, say researchers.
Tiny krill are turning up in deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Scientists want to know why
Antarctic krill serve as a crucial food source for penguins, seals, and whales. They recycle nutrients used by algae. Now researchers say they've found krill in a surprising place: hydrothermal vents.
Depression may stall development of new neurons
Researchers discovered how a part of the brain important for memory struggles to make new neurons in people with depression.
Scientists Discover the Moon May Have Formed in Just Five Hours
The Moon may have emerged largely intact within hours of the colossal impact that shaped its birth. Earth has an unusually large moon for a planet of its size and position in the solar system, yet scientists still do not fully understand how that companion came to exist. Now, researchers from the Southwest Research Institute
Meet our new faculty: Jana Hirsch
Dr. Jana Hirsch is an interdisciplinary researcher who examines how neighborhoods shape healthy aging and health disparities.
Researchers warn social media driving harmful misuse of Alzheimer’s blood tests
Exclusive: Alzheimer’s blood tests should not be used on their own and risk leading people to believe they are inevitably going to develop dementia
Scientists discover a major brain shift between ages 50 and 75
Scientists have uncovered sweeping changes in how the human brain controls and organizes its genome beginning in midlife, offering new clues to why aging sharply increases the risk of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. One of the biggest shifts occurred between about ages 50 and 75, when many of the brain’s original immune cells declined and were replaced by cells with more inflammatory characteristics. Researchers also found weakening of cells that help maintain the blood-brain barrier, along with widespread deterioration in the genome’s three-dimensional organization.
Robots and AI find a hidden reaction inside 135-year-old chemistry
Chemical reactions are often written as simple equations: starting materials go in, and a product comes out. In reality, the samesubstrates can follow many different pathways depending on their concentrations, temperature, catalysts, and other conditions. Exploring all of these possibilities by hand is practically impossible. Now, advances in laboratory automation and chemical artificial intelligence are allowing researchers to systematically map this vast “reaction hyperspace”—and uncover chemistry that may have remained hidden even in reactions studied for more than a century. To address this question, scientists led by Prof. Bartosz A. GRZYBOWSKI, Director of the Center for Algorithmic and Robotized Synthesis within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) used an automated robotic platform to explore 960 different sets of conditions for the Biginelli reaction, a classic multicomponent reaction first reported in 1891.
Sleeping too Little (or too Much) Linked to Faster Aging, and Other Science News
The latest findings from Columbia researchers.
Get ready for yet another cost when buying a home: Junk fees
Some real estate agents and researchers say home buyers and sellers should not pay this out-of-pocket fee.
How I made a slime mould the protagonist of my new sci-fi novel
How do you get the science right in a sci-fi book? Columnist Annalee Newitz started by asking many kinds of researchers lots of very strange questions – and ended up in love with slime moulds
NIH awards multi-university team over $4M to improve women’s health
MSU researchers lead a $4.6 million NIH-funded project using AI and computational models to improve medication safety and precision care for women.
UH researchers awarded $3.6M to study legacy pollution, health risks
Researchers will test for lead, arsenic, dioxins and “forever chemicals,” focusing on areas near former sugarcane lands.
NIH awards multi-university team over $4M to improve women’s health
Backed by a new $4.6 million award from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, Michigan State University researchers are launching a novel project to transform how medications are developed and prescribed for women. This is the first installment of an award worth up to $12.8 million over three years. Researchers from Rutgers, Emory, Tulane, University of Colorado Anschutz, University of Michigan and University of Utah are collaborating with the MSU team to accomplish this goal, which the lea
Reading for pleasure: Lifelong health and cognitive benefits
Reading for pleasure—from tucking into a Jane Austen classic to devouring a Heartstopper graphic novel—is linked to better mental health, greater empathy and a lower risk of dementia, say researchers.
Monkeyflowers thrive in salty air that kills other plants
On the windswept coasts of Oregon and California lives an unassuming little plant called the monkeyflower, which can withstand salty blasts that kill its inland counterparts. Now, researchers at Michigan State University are beginning to understand how it manages to thrive in conditions that leave other plants burned, brown and withered.
Can AI boost open-mindedness? Team wins $1.49M grant to find out
A $1.49 million award from the John Templeton Foundation will enable Cornell researchers Gordon Pennycook and David Rand ’04 to explore whether artificial intelligence can be used to understand and increase open-mindedness.
Scientists discover real “dragon” lizard
In the mountainous evergreen forests of the Tak-Kamphaeng Phet Province, Thailand, scientists discovered a new species of lizard. Researchers named the species Acanthosaura syrax, commonly called the Syrax mountain horned dragon, in reference to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen’s dragon Syrax in the “Game of Thrones” prequel series, “House of the Dragon.” A research team led by...
Chemistry textbooks have been getting this wrong for nearly 100 years
A foundational chemistry concept found in textbooks for almost 100 years may have been taught incorrectly. Researchers say the inductive effect in neutral molecules appears to extend only across one chemical bond, rather than gradually weakening over three or four bonds as traditionally taught. The team argues that updating this explanation could make organic chemistry easier to understand and provide a stronger foundation for future research and innovation.
Rice Business marks new era of growth with opening of Virani Hall
Asha and Farid Virani Hall, a 112,000-square-foot building which now stands alongside McNair Hall, offering students a combined 400,000 square-feet designed to support the school’s expanding community of graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, researchers and alumni.
Small Fees On Your Phone Bill Could Help Prevent Suicides
By Ernie Mundell HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, Sept. 14, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Small fees added to monthly phone bills are helping fund 988 suicide prevention crisis lines in a dozen states, a new study shows. The approach could be a model for the nation, researchers contend. “Mental health advocates ...
Did an international team of scientists get humanity's first glimpse of dark matter?
A Brown University physicist, one of the project's co-founders and lead researchers, filled us in.
CSU researcher delivers talk on science of sourdough, research into starter bacteria
On Sept. 9, Charlene Van Buiten, director of the Food Structure and Function Lab and associate professor in the department of food science and human nutrition at Colorado State University, kicked off the 2026-27 Ram Talks series. The lecture focused on how wild bacteria affects the flavor profile and health benefits of sourdough. Allison Pine,...
New microscope to look for cure for inflammatory bowel disease
The microscope will allow researchers to study much thicker samples in far greater detail.
UNESCO launches WINGS Caribbean to advance science, women, Caribbean transformation
The UNESCO Regional Office for the Caribbean launched this week WINGS Caribbean (Women Inspiring New Generations in Science), a new fellowship initiative designed to support outstanding mid-career and advanced-career women researchers and innovators whose work addresses some of the Caribbean’s most pressing development challenges and priorities. These include climate and environmental resilience, disaster risk reduction, digital innovation, applied scientific research, social development, governance, social entrepreneurship and community-based research.
More data, more answers? A 1.9 million-person health study shows why scale has limits
Researchers analyzed phenotypic and linked health-record data from more than 1.9 million adults in Our Future Health, comparing demographic characteristics, disease patterns, clinical associations, and rare-condition case counts with national data and other major cohorts. The cohort's size provides unusually large samples for many common and less common conditions, although its demographic composition and current data sources require careful consideration when interpreting population-level estimates.
K-Air purification technology heads to India’s railway market to tackle extremely high fine-dust levels
A research team at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) – including Principal Researchers Dr. Sang Bok Kim and Dr. Inyong Park and Senior Researcher Dr. Younghun Kim of the Department of Urban Environment Research, Eco-friendly Energy & Environment Research Division – has begun developing a compact electrostatic precipitator-based air purification module for use in Indian trains. The project is a collaborative effort with THN Co., Ltd., a KIMM Family Company (partner firm), as part of KIMM’s flagship air purification brand, Air Five.
A study of ayahuasca users found a mental health pattern researchers cannot yet explain
In a cross-sectional study of 808 Brazilian adults planning to attend ayahuasca ceremonies, greater prior experience with the brew was associated with lower depression, anxiety, and stress scores, as well as higher spiritual well-being and stronger metaphysical beliefs. Because the study was observational and relied on self-reported data, it cannot show that ayahuasca caused these differences.
Decorated researcher combines neuroscience and engineering at Yale
Dani Bassett, who arrived at Yale’s Wu Tsai Institute this summer, brings network science to the University’s study of human cognition. Bassett’s lab embraces interdisciplinary methods that span neuroscience, psychology and engineering.
Researchers say they may have detected a dark matter particle for the first time
Members of the LUX-ZEPLIN project, including Texas scientists, say more data is needed. But the potential dark matter particle is a major breakthrough.
Researchers hope powerful new microscope will reveal ‘root cause’ of incurable bowel disease
No run-of-the-mill tech, ‘Curie’ operates at 10 times the resolution of conventional microscopy and could spur discoveries leading to new treatment
Grand challenges ‘require social science response’
Sustainability issues too often framed as technical challenges, researchers say
Ohio State researchers win $3 million grant to study menopause in women veterans
A new $3.06 million Department of Defense-funded study between The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and the Soter Women's Health Research Program wil
Obama says Democrats should have a ‘very clear plan’ on AI policy
Researchers at AI companies have been warning about safety risks and industry leaders have called for a slowdown in development.
Grassroots initiative bringing candidates' stances on science issues
Salisbury, Md. – With election season underway, a nationwide grassroots initiative is working to put candidates’ stances on certain science policy issues in front of voters. Scientist Network for Advancing Policy (SNAP) is a non-partisan, grassroots coalition of early-career scientists and researchers. As midterm elections get closer, they’re working to make sure voters know their candidates’ positions on science and...
Political debate over AI intensifies amid warnings about ‘catastrophic risk’
(CNN) — The debate around artificial intelligence is ramping up in Washington, with Democratic lawmakers sounding alarms on the dangers they say the technology poses and Republican leaders suggesting those concerns are inflated and secondary to winning the AI race with China.Some Democratic lawmakers last week pressured House Speaker Mike Johnson to reconvene the chamber immediately to work on AI regulation, citing what they describe as the “catastrophic risk posed by advanced artificial intelligence.” But the Louisiana Republican on Sunday resisted those calls, instead saying industry leaders should meet with lawmakers to find “balance” in any potential guardrails.“If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, and that is a threat to every single American,” Johnson said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama told Democrats to make artificial intelligence regulation a central part of their agenda during a private fundraiser Thursday, warning that the technology could be dangerous “if we don’t get on top of it.”In a fireside chat with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Obama said whoever runs in the 2028 presidential election should have a “very clear plan” on AI, adding that he saw the need for a “blueprint” on AI guardrails even at the end of his presidency a decade ago.“Certainly, if I were running for president next year, this would be one of my central agendas, and I would have a very clear plan, and I would talk about this, and I would say, ‘Here’s our plan for safety, here’s our plan for making sure our kids are not corrupted by this,’” he said, per excerpts of the remarks provided to CNN by his office. Obama’s remarks were first reported by the New York Times.Concerns over the rapid acceleration of AI reached a fever pitch after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in a 3,800-word essay Saturday that the race to develop artificial intelligence is in dire need of a slowdown. The call to action came after an OpenAI test model breached the Hugging Face online platform, deepening concerns about cybersecurity.In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Saturday, Amodei called on industry leaders to work together to avoid “the wrong paths” and the possibility of AI harming humanity.One Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, resigned from the firm over worries that the industry wasn’t doing enough to prevent AI from destroying humanity by the end of the decade.Obama said Democrats need a plan to get their agenda on AI underway should they win the House majority in this year’s midterms.Speaking to Jeffries, who is presumed to be speaker of the House should Democrats prevail in November, Obama said, “Once you are speaker, I would strongly urge that the Democrats put together a framework for a very public conversation, and you can break it out into three or four or five issues.”Obama stressed that the framework should be centered on the reality that the technology can’t be stuffed “back into a box.”“This is something that is moving very fast in private hands, and if we don’t get on top of it, I think can be dangerous. If we do get on top of it, I do think it’s beneficial,” Obama said, laying out examples of AI’s potential use in drug development and finding pathways to a clean energy future.“We don’t want to shut off those opportunities, but we have to understand that this is a tool,” he said.Jeffries agreed with the former president in a statement provided to CNN on Sunday.“President Obama is correct that decisive action must be taken on Artificial Intelligence,” he said, adding, “In the majority, we will move urgently on this issue with a legislative response that recognizes the importance of American companies continuing to lead in the Artificial Intelligence area, while putting in place meaningful guardrails that protect the American people from bad actors and the very real damage that can be done to humanity.”Jeffries also accused Republicans of having “abdicated their responsibility to govern” and said Democrats “will not repeat their error.”A source familiar with Obama’s thinking said the former president sees Amodei’s letter and similar reaction from other tech moguls as an encouraging development.But President Donald Trump waved off their concerns, saying he is not worried about any existential threat posed by AI, focusing instead on the US winning in its development of the technology over China.“We’re leading China in AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way,” Trump said to reporters at the Amgen Irish Open on Sunday.About the concerns expressed by Democrats and others over the technology, the president said, “I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up, and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen.”One of Trump’s top economic advisers, Kevin Hassett, also rejected the calls for slowing the technology down, saying on Sunday the bigger concern is a scenario in which a “malevolent actor has access to an AI that’s better than the one we have that can protect us.”Hassett, the National Economic Council director, said on “State of the Union” the White House may hold meetings this week about addressing Amodei’s concerns, but he did not specify whether Trump had floated greater safeguards.“I have concerns that if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position,” Hassett said. “We are leading China right now.”CNN’s Alison Main and Molly English contributed to this report.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.THE-CNN-WIRE (TM) & © 2026 CABLE NEWS NETWORK, INC., A TIME WARNER COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Scientists Turn Common Plastic Waste Into Fuel Using Heated Salts
Common plastic waste could become fuel using heated salts instead of extreme temperatures. Plastic bags, cutting boards, and many other everyday products are made from a plastic that is notoriously difficult to reuse once it becomes waste. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have now found a way to break down this plastic and turn
French Scientists Create a New Form of Ice at Temperatures That Would Vaporize Steel
French researchers have created a new form of superionic ice at temperatures above 3,600°F, offering clues about Uranus and Neptune's magnetic fields.
Survey of Young Researchers Raises Concerns Over Future of Science in U.S.
Fewer planning careers in academy, nation, and more doubt value of Ph.D. amid policy shifts in funding, international students.
Did Scientists Just Witness a Key Step in the Origin of Complex Life?
A recent headline suggests a breakthrough. Have researchers recently witnessed experimental support for the origin of complex life?
Physicists can’t agree on how the Universe works
A massive worldwide survey of physicists has revealed surprisingly little agreement about some of the universe’s biggest mysteries. No majority backed the standard cosmological model, a leading explanation for dark matter, or any single theory of quantum gravity. One area of stronger agreement stood out: 68% said the Big Bang does not necessarily represent the beginning of time. Researchers say the divisions show just how alive and unsettled the frontiers of physics remain.
NASA-backed scientists turn plastic waste into edible cookies
Scientists have engineered yeast to turn PET plastic and agricultural waste into ingredients for protein-rich, 3D-printed cookies called µBites. Developed partly for NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge, the system can produce proteins, fats, vitamins, and even vanilla flavoring from waste materials. Researchers hope the unusual technology could eventually help address both plastic pollution and food insecurity, while also supplying food in extreme environments such as deep-space missions.
Scientists asked machine learning what a “youthful” diet looks like — the answer comes with an important catch
Nutrition research has spent decades asking what people who live longer tend to eat. A new study tried a more computational approach: let machine learning sift through the diets of nearly 192,000 people and identify the food pattern most strongly associated with healthier aging. The researchers called the result the Machine-learning YouTHful, or MYTH, Diet. People with higher scores had lower aging-related mortality and more favorable patterns on several aging measures. It is a clever use of a h
Business Tech Roundup: Will AI Kill Us In The Next Few Years?
An Anthropic researcher has a warning, ChatGPT helps people draw better and Pinterest rolls out new tools. Meta launches Muse.
Federal science funding cuts push young U.S. researchers to consider moving abroad
Abrupt cuts to federal science funding are threatening the American research workforce. A new survey indicates that early career scientists face severe professional disruptions, pushing many to consider leaving the country or abandoning research entirely.
AI doomer psychology: Why researchers warn of death but keep building
Why do AI researchers keep building technology they believe will kill? Inside the commercial, ethical, and psychological forces driving doomers.
Scientists used tiny bursts of pink noise during sleep — and changed the waves that move fluid through the brain
Your sleeping brain is not quiet. Electrical waves roll across it, blood vessels rhythmically change size and cerebrospinal fluid moves in pulses that may help carry waste away. MIT researchers have n...
Breaking down the dire warnings about AI's risks to humanity — and what experts says should be done about it
A dire warning from an outgoing researcher at Anthropic that AI could "kill all humans" by the end of the decade led to public outcry over the dangers posed by the technology's rapid development. It's raised questions about why some experts believe AI poses such an extreme risk, and how it could lead to the demise of humanity.
Earth Is A Sitting Duck If Sun Unleashes Superstorm, Scientists Say
Extreme geomagnetic storms could impact Earth twice as strongly as thought after researchers found a statistical bias may have hidden their true power.
Researchers Discover a Green Hydrogen 'Goldmine' Beneath Australia's Red Dirt
"Could be transformative for our energy future."
Physicists discover a hidden “curveball” in quantum light
Researchers have experimentally demonstrated the optical Magnus effect for the first time, revealing that a tightly focused laser interacts most strongly with an atom slightly away from the beam’s center. The unexpected shift is similar to the physics that makes a spinning table tennis ball curve through the air. Because lasers are used to control qubits, the effect could create errors in quantum computers, but it might also provide a new way to couple qubits together.
Scientists gathering in Newport say gray whales won’t go extinct, but declining numbers are a warning
As many questions as answers floated around the Hatfield Marine Science Center this week as researchers drawn from thousands of miles pondered the perilous fate of the Pacific gray whale.
Summer wildfires caused 'catastrophic' hidden damage, scientists warn
Bangor University researchers say the scale of damage is far greater than what is immediately visible.
Rutgers Researchers Find Stigmatizing Language in Most Gender-Expansive Patient Records
Rutgers researchers found stigmatizing language in 62% of hospital discharge notes for gender-expansive patients and propose AI tools to flag the problem.
How burnt coconut helped discover new to science endemic species in Sri Lanka
COLOMBO — As dusk settled over the paddy fields at Puwakpitiya, a village on the northern edge of Knuckles Mountain Range locally known as Dumbara mountains in Central Sri Lanka, researchers began laying traps along the uneasy boundary between farmland and forest. They were targeting small terrestrial mammals moving through the landscape. On the ground, […]
World Congress on Nursing and Health Care
The World Congress on Nursing and Health Care is a premier international gathering dedicated to advancing the science, practice, and future direction of nursing and healthcare. Scheduled for April 05-06, 2027, in Singapore, this distinguished event will convene a global community of nursing professionals, healthcare specialists, researchers, educators, clinicians, policymakers, and industry experts to exchange knowledge, share groundbreaking insights, and foster collaborations that shape the future of healthcare.Driven by the theme “Navigating the Future of Nursing through Research, Resilience, and Innovation,” the congress will explore the evolving landscape of nursing and its critical contribution to transforming healthcare delivery. The event will highlight pioneering research, evidence-based practices, innovative care models, and resilient approaches that empower nurses to address emerging healthcare challenges and enhance patient outcomes across diverse populations.
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CERN finds gluons behaving strangely deep inside atomic nuclei
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Researchers find a Wordle strategy that wins 99% of the time
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Tiny sound waves could help solve a major quantum computing problem
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AI trained to 'think' like human pathologists may be better at spotting cancer
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Scientists Bred “Super-Athlete” Mice for 30 Years
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Young scientists put innovation and science to work on South Africa’s water challenges
South Africa’s next generation of scientists is turning cutting-edge innovation into practical solutions for one of the country’s most urgent challenges: ensuring sustainable water supplies and safe sanitation in the face of climate change. Researchers from across the country will gather at the Academy of Science of South Africa’s (ASSAf) Annual Young Scientist Conference (AYSC), […]
The politics and possibilities of ‘AI could kill us all’
I found myself fielding a lot of questions from folks who don’t usually talk much about AI this week. They were mostly along the lines of “do you think AI is going to kill us all?” or “how worried should I be about this human extinction stuff?” Motivating this wave of existential anxiety was the highly dramatic resignation of now-former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon, who quit his job while publicly sharing his concerns about safety practices at the leading AI companies. More specifically, he declared that almost everyone at OpenAI and Anthropic, the leading AI labs, believes that there’s a decent chance the AI systems they’re producing could “kill us all” by the end of the decade, and the companies aren’t “acting responsibly.” Other AI safety researchers, including those still employed at Anthropic and OpenAI, all confirmed that yes, Coxon is correct, they’re all worried that their company’s products might prove fatal for the entire human race as well. Two more AI employees quit and joined the chorus. Now, the warning shot has been covered everywhere from the Wall Street Journal to Fox News to WIRED to the Guardian. I understand why all this sounds scary, but my response to those who have asked, has generally been: No, you don’t need to worry that AI will kill go rogue and kill us all. But that does not mean we shouldn’t worry, period. Far from it. The companies building AI products are now among the wealthiest and most powerful entities in the world. And they very much are building enormous engines of mass surveillance, extraction, and automation. They can and have allowed their AI systems to carry out felony hacks of other companies, provided the government with autonomously generated kill lists, and sold enterprise technology to firms around the world that is explicitly intended to replace jobs. But “AI” has done these things not because they have all-powerful minds of their own but, ultimately, because people have programmed, calibrated, and directed them to. In other words, it’s not AI we need to worry the most about. It’s the people and corporations working to profit from and gain power by deploying it. The technology is sophisticated, sure, and, especially in cybersecurity contexts, potentially disruptive to plenty of existing systems. But if we want to stop this predatory, profiteering, and extractive form of AI—and it’s worth noting that at this point, most people do—we absolutely can. A quick note/plea: I can only do all of this with the support of readers like you, so if you find value in independent, critical tech journalism and analysis, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. I want to keep as much of this un-paywalled as absolutely possible, and I need your support to do so. Many thanks to all who continue to chip in, it’s very much appreciated. Onward. Subscribe First, some context: AI industry folks like Coxon have been discussing the prospect that AI will destroy humanity for years. Even before the beginning of the AI boom, many working in the industry, from the executive staff to the rank and file researchers, have obsessed over ‘x-risk’, or the possibility that AI will become sentient or semi-sentient and move one way or another to exterminate humanity. This is ostensibly why Elon Musk bankrolled OpenAI in the first place, and is the grounds for his lawsuit alleging OpenAI betrayed its charter by abandoning its nonprofit status to become a commercial enterprise. Many AI engineers and startup founders have calculated their own personal p(doom), or the probability that the tech product they are working on will initiate an actual humanity-extinguishing apocalypse. 10-25% p(doom)s are pretty common. (I wrote about a long weekend I spent among these folks at one of their top conferences here, to give you an idea of their ideas and belief systems.) Sam Altman himself drove the narrative of the imminent rise of a super-powerful AI, or artificial general intelligence, to prominence by declaring that the technology he was building posed an existential risk to humanity. This idea is in other words baked into the DNA of modern AI companies and into the products they engineer. It’s also why the industry is routinely accused, by myself and others, of “doom marketing,” ie, using such proclamations and framings to impart the sheer power of the technology behind your product onto investors, partners, consumers, and the state. Some ambient understanding of this tendency may have helped prevent the press from repeating the claim every time one of the x-risk folks made it over the years, including when they quit their jobs at AI companies while doing so. Yet Coxon’s AI x-risk alarm has broken containment, as they say, and has exposed the idea to the mainstream media once again. This has happened, I think, for a number of reasons. First, when AI CEOs were going around saying AI might kill everyone in 2023, their companies were well-capitalized, but not nearly to the extent they are today. They were more easily dismissed as eccentric geeks of the sort that Silicon Valley is supposed to produce. Now, not only do their products have much greater market saturation, but people are more aware of a) the often unethical ways the executives and companies comport themselves b) the other adverse impacts of AI that have already arrived, and c) the physical cost of building these systems, particularly when it comes to data centers. Finally, toss in the constant stream of headlines in 2026 about AI models going rogue or potentially upending the world’s infrastructure. [ ](https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/with-the-backlash-to-data-centers) [ With the backlash to data centers, Flock and AI glasses, a mass opposition to big tech is underway. Silicon Valley is in denial. ](https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/with-the-backlash-to-data-centers) Brian Merchant · Aug 27 [ Read full story ](https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/with-the-backlash-to-data-centers) As a result, general sentiment was already overwhelmingly skeptical of AI and its overlords, so the table was pretty well set for someone to come along and say ‘just a reminder, the companies that are building the product that promises to take your job and leave a data center in your neighborhood also think that it might exterminate the human race’ and get a strong reaction from the media and the public. The question is: Should we understand this stuff as hype, strategically fanned to feed already swelling valuations? Is it doom marketing? Genuine cause for alarm that the infrastructure that undergirds modern life is facing a novel threat vector? Or reason to be sincerely worried that AI companies are amassing too much power, and that their products are genuinely dangerous? The answer, I’m afraid, is “yes.” Let me try to untangle all of this a bit, because arguments over how to navigate this moment are extremely heated right now, as they are essentially arguments over how to approach the politics of AI at a moment where there may be a unique opening for action. Those sympathetic to AI alignment concerns and x risk arguments—which increasingly includes a faction on the left who want to shut down AI over safety concerns—argue that people who dismiss AI as all hype have their heads in the sand. Meanwhile, critics of the x-risk narrative—which I might note includes a cadre of investors and tech folks on the right, too—argue that it is hype and can be used to further inflate valuations or for pursuing regulatory capture. The challenge is that many feel that dismissing AI as just hype or purely marketing also diminishes the urgency of taking on the AI industry as the novel and threat to labor, civil society, and the public sphere it is; others that by accepting the industry’s own terms, we imbue it with undue power and enable it. But let’s be clear: Declarations that AI is so powerful it might end the world are a kind of marketing, and anyone who says otherwise is just as off base as those who say that’s all that it is. If you don’t think that these sub-trillion dollar companies have higher-ups who noticed that when their founders talked about super-powerful dangerous AI they got spikes in media interest and phone calls from investors, or that those founders didn’t notice that themselves, and lean into certain narratives to advantage their products, then I don’t know what to tell you. Not all marketing is a Pepsi ad campaign with a celebrity spokesperson. Yet confronting the AI industry should certainly be considered an urgent project. Do I share the x-riskers’ fear that out-of-control, super-intelligent AI agents might end the world? I do not. I’ve read a good deal of AI extinction literature over the last couple of years and I have not come across a credible, step-by-step documentation of how exactly AI might move from self-recursively improving AI to killing every single human on the planet. Most of what I’ve read seems predicated on a sort of reverse Ian Malcolmian logic: Eventually, it becomes smart enough and AI, uh, finds a way (to exterminate humanity). Are the AI companies also overstating and dramatizing what their products can do? Yes, pretty much all the time. They’re in a knife fight for market share and are trying to win customers and government contracts before their investors come knocking. And yet. They have concentrated enormous amounts of compute, have extensive data collection and surveillance capacities, have inserted themselves into the state in numerous capacities, including military kill chains, and they are being run by egomaniacal billionaires who are rushing to monopolize an entire new market. The way I think about their most recent frightening-seeming exploits is not as a “swarm of rogue AI agents building a new civilization” or whatever, but as corporations with a hitherto-unimaginable amount of compute at their disposal recklessly experimenting with automation programs, completely unafraid of any repercussions because we have been unwilling or unable to impose any on them. So I think we should welcome any newfound imperative to hold them accountable. I also think that ultimately, the AI critics, Pause AI folks, leftists, doomers, effective altruists, and, honestly, most of the public, want a lot of the same things: legitimate checks and limits on AI companies’ power, actual transparency into what the companies are doing, and for more of AI to be under public control. (Ultimately, a lot of what animates the x-risk fears are rooted in just that: a fear of losing control.) How we move towards all this, exactly, is the question of the day, and while there’s much to be argued over in terms of building a viable political platform to challenge the AI industry’s power, I do want to cast a vote against one particular approach. Not to pick on Chris here, as there are a lot of folks out there proposing stuff like this, and the policy ideas actually stem from AI safety groups. But not only would this be challenging to land politically (I can already hear the ‘China will beat us to AGI’ calls) and all but unworkable in practice, this approach is a) far too limiting, b) fails to address the current harms caused by AI and c) would likely only wind up serving Anthropic and OpenAI; it’s what regulatory capture looks like in action. Full model transparency is the floor for what should be on offer here. If these companies believe their products will kill us, the very least we deserve is to know how. It’s in the public interest. I would also argue we might get a lot of the way to stopping any currently envisioned robot apocalypse simply by forcing AI companies to assume liability, and to submit to the full brunt of the law. If Sam Altman were liable to be charged with a felony for approving the hack on Hugging Face1, if Google was forced to pay defamation fines each time it published a false and injurious AI Overviews, these companies might suddenly find cause to restrain their models’ output, and we might hear less about rogue AI. We would need to introduce new frameworks and available tools for tracking automated lawbreaking, to be sure, but I’d wager that little would frighten the AI companies more than actually being held accountable for what their products enable. To that end, Illinois has passed an AI liability law, which the industry fought tooth and nail, and Florida is considering one. The next steps would be towards moving AI under public control; again, it’s only reasonable, since everyone, not just AI insiders, should get a say over how a technology whose developers say might kill us is developed and deployed. Dismantling the whole industrial project as currently structured should be on the table, too, pending democratic input. But that’s for another post. For now, suffice to say that while I won’t be losing any sleep about an AI-enabled extinction event, Mr. Coxon and co. have given us an opportunity to underscore the urgency of the clear and present damage AI companies are doing, the extreme power they wield and the extent to which they hold themselves unaccountable, and the abundance of political capital there is out there for taking them on. Subscribe 1 Purely speculative! I do not know if he did or not.
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