Writer Ceri Levy and legendary artist Ralph Steadman go gonzo with animals on the brink. ...read more

It's still too early to give a definite thumbs up or thumbs down to promises of future driverless cars reducing private car ownership by acting as robot chauffeurs. But evidence from today's ride-hailing services suggests that Uber, Lyft and Waymo may only worsen traffic congestion by crowding roads with robot taxis in the near future. The latest study from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council Research in Boston found that about 42 percent of ride-hailing pa ...read more

This month marks the 45th anniversary of Pioneer 10's passage through the asteroid belt. It was a key rite of passage in humanity's journey from this blue planet into the deep reaches of outer space. Unlike the crowded swarms of science-fiction movies, the real asteroid belt is overwhelmingly empty space. Still, nobody knew exactly what to expect. Would Pioneer 10 be pelted with dust-speck micrometeoroids? Was the asteroid belt a serious barrier to exploration? As it turned out, the dust ...read more

Earlier this week, BuzzFeed published a detailed investigation of a prominent food psychologist who massaged and manipulated data to produce media-friendly results. You've probably heard of some of Cornell University professor Brian Wansink's studies. There was the one with the "bottomless" soup bowl that refilled itself while subjects ate, to study portion control; the one about characters on cereal boxes making eye contact with kids from grocery-store shelves; and so on. Se ...read more

The world's largest airplane is taking to the runway. The massive Stratolaunch aircraft developed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen conducted a taxi test over the weekend in Mojave, California where the aircraft reached a speed of 46 miles per hour. With a wingspan of 385 feet, and powered by six Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines, the ungainly craft is meant to give rockets a ride to the stratosphere, where they will launch into orbit. Gearing Up For Flight The test follows earlie ...read more

It’s rough when a pet passes away. For those that can't bear to be apart, they can clone their beloved animal. That’s what Barbra Streisand did — not once, but twice. She recently revealed to Variety that two of her three Coton de Tulear dogs are cloned.  “They have different personalities,” Streisand told Variety. “I’m waiting for them to get older so I can see if they have her brown eyes and her seriousness.” Cells were taken from the ...read more

Back in the 1980s, S.O.S. calls after midnight were common in the field of infectious disease. And as soon as my pager started to trill, I turned on my bedside lamp and dialed—often within thirty seconds. One night, I connected to an intern I’ll call Paddy. The background din quickly spelled “E.R.” “Sorry to disturb you, Dr. P, but a woman woke with a rat on her face. Then the rat bit her lip.” First, I expelled a disgusted “yecchh,” then I asked ...read more

In many ways, the human brain is still the best computer around. For one, it’s highly efficient. Our largest supercomputers require millions of watts, enough to power a small town, but the human brain uses approximately the same energy as a 20-watt bulb. While teenagers may seem to take forever to learn what their parents regard as basic life skills, humans and other animals are also capable of learning very quickly. Most of all, the brain is truly great at sorting through torrents of data ...read more

We've featured a number of articles about the sexual proclivities of spiders: from oral sex to genital mutilation, arachnids have a wide-ranging sex life. Here's another example -- female brown widow spiders often eat their male partners after mating. That's pretty wild, and it gets even more intense: these scientists found that male spiders prefer to mate with older females, even though these females are less fertile and more likely to eat the men after the deed is done. The ...read more

By now, it's pretty clear that psilocybin, the active compound in "magic mushrooms" has a potent effect on human beings. But psychedelic visions obviously weren't the evolutionary force that caused some fungi to make the compound — it's an unforeseen side effect. With a new genetic analysis, researchers think they've identified why magic mushrooms started producing "magic" in the first place. The culprit, they say, is insects. Psychedelic Genetics By sequencing the genomes of three s ...read more