The Case for Free-Range Lab Mice
A growing body of research suggests that the unnatural lives of laboratory animals can undermine science.
February 18, 2023
ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web
OpenAI’s chatbot offers paraphrases, whereas Google offers quotes. Which do we prefer?
February 9, 2023
Whispers of A.I.’s Modular Future
ChatGPT is in the spotlight, but it’s Whisper—OpenAI’s open-source speech-transcription program—that shows us where machine learning is going.
February 1, 2023
What the Green Comet Tells Us About the Past—and the Future
Comets are inspiring marvels in the night sky. They may also hold the secrets of habitable planets.
January 31, 2023
The Fossil Flowers That Rewrote the History of Life
Some of the world’s first flowers burned in wildfires more than a hundred million years ago. Else Marie Friis rediscovered them.
January 2, 2023
Eight Times Science Exceeded Expectations in 2022
From asteroids to A.I., this was a year of scientific superlatives.
December 28, 2022
A Mini Moon Rover from the Toy Company That Created Transformers
Japan’s space agency, JAXA, hired Takara Tomy to design a rolling lunar robot called SORA-Q. It’s now en route to the moon.
December 21, 2022
The Science of Christmas Trees
A ninety-year-old Vermont farmer tells all.
December 6, 2022
How a Marine Biologist Remixed Whalesong
Sara Niksic, a lover of whales and electronic music, has merged her passions.
November 29, 2022
The Endless Quest for a Better Mousetrap
Inventors have been refining them for centuries. What are they trying to achieve?
November 24, 2022