Science of the Future
Fountain of youth? Understanding underlying aging mechanisms could expedite hunt for longevity treatments
How we age: Insights into the underlying mechanisms of aging are revolutionizing the hunt for longevity treatments ...
Greenwashing or greening agriculture? Food companies developing efforts to prevent carbon in soil from leaking into the atmosphere
Jason Johnson, Stonyfield Organic’s farmer relationship manager, fires up the AgriCORE soil sampling tool in a pasture with sweeping views ...
Social justice environmental activists move to block gene editing to control invasive species and promote biodiversity. Here’s why they’re misguided
Hawaii has emerged as ground zero for efforts to raise the awareness of the dangers of invasive species. Just last ...
Viewpoint: ‘Public fixation on human extinction from AI could distract from AI’s more immediate harms’
A public fixation on extinction from AI could empower industry insiders and distract from AI’s more immediate harms ...
Can we ‘vacuum carbon dioxide from the atmosphere’ to fight global warming?
In August, the Biden Administration granted $1.2 billion in federal funding to kickstart a project intended to vacuum carbon dioxide up ...
Viewpoint: AI is evolving too fast for existing regulatory frameworks to keep pace. Here’s a possible solution
AI is evolving too fast for existing regulatory frameworks to keep pace. Intellectual property law may hold a solution ...
Sequestering carbon on a gigaton scale: How gene editing can address climate change by reducing atmospheric emissions
Hardly a day goes by without another piece praising the potential for gene editing to help solve climate change. Nevertheless, the possible contributions of biology and biotechnology have been conspicuously ...
Viewpoint: Artificial wombs remain ‘nothing more than a developmentally naïve pipe dream’
Artificial womb technology (AWT) sparked a media sensation back in 2017 and, since then, has drawn much debate ...
Growing crops without bees? Mini greenhouse pollination drones might do the trick
Miniature drones are being used to pollinate indoor crops as part of research looking at alternatives to honey bee pollination. ...
Convergence of AI and synthetic biology: Developing industrial goods and better medicines
The synergy of artificial intelligence (AI) and genetic engineering is ushering in a new era in biotechnology, with the potential ...
Can OpenAI prevent vaccine conspiracy theories from bubbling up in ChatGPT conversations?
The chatbot has some guardrails in place to curb disinformation, but it’ll be a game of constant catch-up ...
Tiny pollinating drones come to rescue of overworked bees
About two-thirds of the crops that feed the world rely on pollination by bees and other insects. Without them, we’d ...
Viewpoint: Dr. AI? Artificial intelligence on a path to diagnose conditions and prescribe treatments directly to a patient without a physician
The inevitable question isn’t so much if but when these artificial intelligence devices can step into the shoes of doctors ...
ChatGPT has just had a major update. What can it do now?
OpenAI just released an updated version of its text-generating artificial intelligence program. Here’s how GPT-4 improves on its predecessor ...
Viewpoint: When it comes to the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we need to separate valid concerns from unfounded fears
Questioning how humans want to relate to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the coming decades need not be muddled together with ...
Here’s why ChaptGPT and other AI models may not always improve over time
AI Deterioration: More training and more data can have unintended consequences for machine-learning models such as GPT-4 ...
Viewpoint: ‘Advances in brain-computer interfaces and prosthetics could improve quality of life for millions, but they carry risks that touch upon eugenics’
Advances in brain-computer interfaces and prosthetics could improve the quality of life for millions, but they carry risks that even ...
Reducing pollution, treating cancer, boosting gut health? How genetically-modified microbes can transform our world
Microbes are ancient—they were evolving on the planet for millions of years before humans came along. So it’s no surprise ...
Lab-grown human eggs: Startup aims to transform stem cells into eggs, helping infertile people have babies at any age
Conception is trying to accelerate, and eventually commercialize, a field of biomedical research known as in vitro gametogenesis (IVG) ...
Synthetic alcohol: Booze with all the buzz — but without the hangover?
What if you could indulge in your favorite cocktails with no hangover or other ill effects? ...
Fighting ‘sextortion’: Artificial intelligence helps prevent fake sexually explicit images used to blackmail victims
Innocent beach pictures or men's bare-chested gym pictures can be twisted into sexually explicit, AI-generated "deepfakes" that are weaponized against ...
Viewpoint: ‘Instead of science and technology leading to post-humanism, perhaps it will lead to a slightly more human condition’
What it means to be human, then, is not a constant, but continually constituted, altered and re-constituted ...
When does our atmosphere end and space begin? The answer is — up in the air
Outer space is fundamentally different from what we experience down here, isn't it? But is there a boundary? ...
Future food: Carbon-neutral chicken, 3-D printed cake and 8 other foods likely to be on your plates soon
Here are 10 products coming soon to your plates that are set to redefine our gastronomic experiences. Plant scientists at ...
Another AI task: Addressing global hunger and food security
Producing what we need to eat puts an enormous burden on both the climate and the environment. Yet, at the same time, ...
Viewpoint: How ‘predictive AI’ is changing healthcare for the better
The quality of predictive AI can be measured, generative AI models produce different answers ...
American middle school math scores are the lowest they’ve been in 50 years. AI can help
Results from this year’s National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) from the U.S. Department of Education show a continued, steep ...