• Revising the Cost of Climate Change

    Climate scientists have warned of calamitous consequences if global temperatures continue their rise. But macroeconomists have largely told a less alarming story, predicting modest reductions in productivity and spending as the world warms. Until now. New study of economic toll yields projections ‘six times larger than previous estimates’.

  • Yacht Crew’s Decisions Questioned as Investigation Continues

    Investigators continue to piece together the events which led to the sinking of the superyacht Bayesian on 19 August. They focus on two issues: whether the yacht’s keel was lowered to provide stability as the storm raged, and whether large quantities of water managed to flood the yacht and sink it. The crew’s decisions may have contributed to problems with both issues. The captain n and two crew members are being investigated for manslaughter by the Italian police.

  • Floating Piers and Sinking Hopes: China’s Logistics Challenge in Invading Taiwan

    Last month the United States disassembled and removed the floating pier it had assembled at a Gaza beach to take aid deliveries. It took almost a month to assemble, waves damaged it and almost destroyed it, and waves drove ashore boats that serviced it. And all that was nothing compared with the challenges that China’s armed forces would face in trying to deliver a mountain of personnel, equipment and supplies in an invasion of Taiwan.

  • UC Berkeley Making Several Changes to Combat Antisemitism This School Year

    The University of California Berkeley is expanding its antisemitism education in the 2024-25 school year as well as banning encampments and prohibiting masking to conceal one’s identity. University leaders say that Berkeley aims to ‘address the campus culture’.

  • Space Militarization Could Pose a Challenge to Global Security

    Typically, we would not be thinking of killer satellites, space nukes, and orbital debris fields that could lead to global collapse. But maybe we should. In May 2024, Russia launched a satellite that some observers believe is a weapon system that could allow the targeted destruction of other satellites in orbit.

  • China May Be Putting the Great Firewall into Orbit

    The first satellites for China’s ambitious G60 mega-constellation are in orbit in preparation for offering global satellite internet services—and we should worry about how this will help Beijing export its model of digital authoritarianism around the world.

  • How Smart Toys May e Spying on Kids: What Parents Need to Know

    Toniebox, Tiptoi, and Tamagotchi are smart toys, offering interactive play through software and internet access. However, many of these toys raise privacy concerns, and some even collect extensive behavioral data about children.

  • An Electric Grid that Thinks Ahead

    The reliability of the power rid depends on utility operators who have developed control systems and fail-safes to keep the power flowing. PNNL researchers point toward a smart grid that includes machine learning and artificial intelligence inputs, but with human expertise in the loop.

  • Artificial Intelligence at War

    The Gaza war has shown that the use of AI in tactical targeting can drive military strategy by encouraging decision-making bias. At the start of the conflict, an Israeli Defense Force AI system called Lavender apparently identified 37,000 people linked to Hamas. Its function quickly shifted from gathering long-term intelligence to rapidly identifying individual operatives to target.

  • To Win the AI Race, China Aims for a Controlled Intelligence Explosion

    China’s leader Xi Jinping has his eye on the transformative forces of artificial intelligence to revolutionize the country’s economy and society in the coming decades. But the disruptive, and potentially unforeseen, consequences of this technology may be more than the party-state can stomach.

  • Tracking Down the Asteroid That Sealed the Fate of the Dinosaurs

    Geoscientists have led an international study to determine the origin of the huge piece of rock that hit the Earth around 66 million years ago and permanently changed the climate. The asteroid probably came from the outer solar system.

  • What Is ‘Model Collapse’? An Expert Explains the Rumors About an Impending AI Doom

    Artificial intelligence (AI) prophets and newsmongers are forecasting the end of the generative AI hype, with talk of an impending catastrophic “model collapse”. But how realistic are these predictions? And what is model collapse anyway?

  • AI Poses No Existential Threat to Humanity, New Study Finds

    Large language models like ChatGPT cannot learn independently or acquire new skills, meaning they pose no existential threat to humanity.

  • Oversight Committee Presses Federal Agencies on Plan to Shrink China's Influence

    The Chinese government has carried out a broad effort to influence U.S. higher education through funding top universities and sponsoring Confucius Institutes at schools, though those have mostly been shut down over concerns about national security. The National Association of Scholars, though, says those institutions have been reopening with different branding.

  • Innovating Firefighting Technology with Smart Solutions to Enhance Urban Resilience

    The increase in high-rise and densely populated urban development has heightened the demand for safety and resilience solutions against emergencies, such as fires. Researchers have created advanced technological solutions to enhance firefighting and urban resilience.