I was standing in line for a tourist attraction in Tokyo when a small robot began addressing the crowd. The robot resembled Rosey from The Jetsons and was meant to amuse people while they waited. It babbled for a while, and then its eyes turned into two pink hearts. “I love everyone,” it announced. “Oh, really?” I responded sarcastically. I couldn’t help myself. “Everyone? That’s disingenuous.” The Tokyo robot was one of many robots and other forms of artificial intelligence (A ...read more

On Aug. 3, 2019, only hours after a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, which left 23 people dead, a familiar talking point reared its head: video games were to blame. The question of whether video games incite real-world violence among kids and teens has been sparking controversy — and headlines — for decades. But despite more than 20 years of investigation, researchers have failed to prove a causal link between playing violent video games and committing acts of violence. What's more, a longit ...read more

One of the great scientific projects of our time is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence or SETI — the hunt for evidence of technologically advanced civilizations elsewhere in the galaxy. The current manifestation of this endeavor is the Breakthrough Listen Initiative, which uses radio telescopes to look for signals that cannot have a terrestrial origin. The big challenge in this effort is combing through massive data sets — hundreds of hours of data at multiple frequencies. Research ...read more

What’s the most impressive fossil you ever saw? For most people — those who aren’t paleontologists — the answer would probably veer towards the A-list of ancient creatures: dinosaurs, pterosaurs and other long-extinct megafauna whose size and majesty have made them the showpieces of museums and the inspiration of film franchises for decades. But what if someone told you that you’ve been overlooking the real rock stars of the fossil record for all these years? What if there was a type o ...read more

Midway through the Roman empire, an unnamed court official who answered to Emperor Tiberius stepped on a fish and changed the course of medical history. The electric torpedo fish, common to the Mediterranean, shocked the administrator, who noticed afterward that the gout pain in his leg had greatly subsided. Word reached Roman physician Scribonius Largus, who then famously recommended the shocks, when applied to the head, to treat headaches. A new study explores a modern-day form of the torpedo- ...read more

Whether you're a jet setter or a nervous flier, if you sit and think about it hard enough, the fact that we have built machines that soar into the sky for thousands of miles with hundreds of people aboard is baffling. Even though it's common to have flight jitters — flying is one of the safest modes of transportation. Wrapping our heads around flying can actually be a bit challenging; however, Professor Doug Drury, head of aviation at CQUniversity in Australia, is here to help answer our ques ...read more

Black holes are absolutely silent, as they are creatures of pure gravity. But while black holes produce no sound of their own, they can generate sound waves in their environment. A Simple Black Hole Black holes are surprisingly simple objects. In the general theory of relativity, which is the framework we use to understand all things gravity, you only need three numbers to completely and totally describe a black hole: its mass, its spin and its charge. Seriously, that’s it. If you encounter an ...read more

Everyone — myself included — wants their cat to live forever. But it’s important to remember that as the years pile up, so does the likelihood of your feline friend developing age-related health issues. Among the most perplexing of these issues is cat dementia, also called feline cognitive dysfunction. Can Cats Get Dementia? Gary Landsberg, a veterinary behaviorist based in Ontario, has seen his fair share of it over the past few decades. He describes it as a progressive neurodegenerative ...read more

It is no secret that exercise can do wonders for our health. Exercise is good for losing weight, preventing illnesses, improving heart health and boosting well-being. Also, let’s be honest – if you are a workout buff, you know how good exercising feels. There is plenty of research to support these claims. Still, the benefits of exercising go beyond the physiological effects. Not surprisingly, it also impacts our neurobiology. As a machine working around the clock, the brain bears the brunt ...read more

With nothing more than an internet connection, you can improve your sleep, reduce anxiety, and … supposedly "enter the fourth dimension" (according to this video). Such are the bold promises of binaural beats, a kind of auditory illusion or digital drug that, some advocates say, can produce psychoactive effects resembling everything from ayahuasca to cocaine. While watching the above video, one commenter reported visiting a world “with trees that had crystals and seashells for leaves.” To ...read more