42 results

• ExplainedWhy do AI data centers use so much electricity?AI computing concentrates thousands of power-hungry chips in facilities that run continuously. The electricity demand comes from computation, memory, networking, cooling and the simple fact that useful AI services have to answer requests all day.
• TechGoogle just signed for 3.6 gigawatts of power. AI is turning tech companies into energy companies.Google’s new Constellation Energy agreement covers 3,590 MW of power, including 890 MW of added nuclear capacity. The deal shows how AI competition is moving from chips and models into electricity, grids and long-term energy contracts.
• TechBig Tech does not want to buy every AI chip from the same shelf.Nvidia remains the center of the AI-computing boom, but cloud companies are also designing custom silicon for specific workloads. Marvell’s rising forecasts show how valuable that second market is becoming.
• ExplainedOne AI search can secretly become ten searches. That is query fan-out.AI search systems can break one complicated question into several related searches, retrieve evidence for each and then synthesize the result. Google calls this query fan-out, and it changes how content can be discovered.
• ExplainedWhat is AI search? It is not just Google with a chatbot on top.AI search combines retrieval, ranking and language models to produce an answer instead of only a list of links. The useful way to understand it is to follow what happens between your question, the sources and the final response.
• ExplainedAI used to answer. Now it can act. That changes the risk.The FTC has opened an investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI companies over possible consumer risks. The important shift is not simply that models are becoming smarter. It is that some systems can now take actions on a user’s behalf.
• ExplainedAI Overviews and AI Mode look similar. They are not the same thing.Google now blends AI answers into Search in more than one way. AI Overviews are selective summaries inside classic results. AI Mode is a deeper, conversational search experience built for follow-ups, comparisons and multi-step questions.
• TechWant to be cited by AI Search? Start by publishing something worth citing.There is no guaranteed switch that makes a page appear in AI answers. Google’s own guidance points to a less glamorous strategy: original information, crawlable pages, clear structure, strong images, real sourcing and normal SEO fundamentals.
• PeopleAI can make creators faster. It still cannot give them taste.A 2026 Adobe survey found creative AI has become part of everyday creator workflows. But the more production gets automated, the more valuable the human parts become: judgment, restraint, voice and knowing what is worth making.
• CultureGreta Garbo died in 1990. An AI version of her is now selling ball bearings.A new SKF advertisement recreates the famously private Hollywood star with generative AI. The technology is impressive. The stranger question is what happens to a person’s image when death is no longer the end of their commercial presence.
• CuriousYou do not have a lizard brain.The phrase is everywhere: the rational human brain supposedly sits on top of an ancient reptile brain that controls fear and instinct. It is memorable, intuitive and scientifically misleading.
• ExplainedWhat is optogenetics? Think of it as a remote control for selected neurons.Optogenetics combines genes and light to control selected cells, especially neurons, with unusual precision. It lets researchers test what specific brain circuits actually do rather than only watching them become active.
• ExplainedWhat is chirality? Start with your hands, then shrink the idea to a molecule.Chiral molecules come in mirror-image forms that cannot be perfectly superimposed, much like left and right hands. That simple geometric property helps explain why smells, enzymes and medicines can respond differently to molecules with the same formula.
• MoneyRich people can get richer while luxury brands still sell less.Citi credit-card data showed U.S. luxury purchases down 6% year over year in September, even as top-end wealth remained resilient. The reason is that wealth, confidence, value perception and willingness to spend are not the same thing.
• TechAEO and GEO sound like new disciplines. Google says the foundation is still SEO.Answer Engine Optimization and Generative Engine Optimization are popular labels for AI-search visibility. Google’s own guidance says there is no separate set of technical hacks: useful, crawlable, original content and normal SEO remain the foundation.
• ExplainedTrillions of particles pass through you. Almost none notice you are there.Neutrinos are tiny, electrically neutral particles that interact so weakly with matter that they can pass through planets. That strange property makes them difficult to detect and unusually valuable for understanding the Sun, stars and extreme cosmic events.
• ExplainedWhat does the 1.5°C climate limit actually mean?The 1.5°C target is not a temperature any single day or country must stay below. It refers to long-term global average warming above the pre-industrial climate. Crossing it temporarily and staying above it permanently are different problems.
• ExplainedHow can a medicine change what supermarkets sell?GLP-1 medicines reduce appetite and food intake for many users. At population scale, that can alter portion sizes, snacking frequency and the types of foods companies choose to develop, even though the medicines are not food products themselves.
• CultureFashion still says autumn. The weather increasingly does not.Paris Fashion Week reached 28°C as retailers were trying to sell coats and knitwear. Longer, hotter summers are creating a basic mismatch between the traditional fashion calendar and the weather customers actually experience.
• MoneyBond yields are high. Tech stocks are still breaking records. That is not as contradictory as it looks.Higher long-term interest rates usually make distant future profits less valuable. Yet AI-linked technology shares have kept climbing. The reason is that markets price several forces at once: rates, earnings, growth expectations and risk.
• PeopleA question about algae ended up giving scientists a light switch for the brain.Peter Hegemann, Georg Nagel and Karl Deisseroth won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that made optogenetics possible: using light-sensitive proteins to control selected nerve cells.
• MoneyA few narrow stretches of water can still move the price of almost everything.Energy companies are reconsidering a just-in-time export system after disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb. The lesson is bigger than oil: global supply chains can be efficient and still be fragile.
• CuriousMars has a blue sunrise and cliffs scientists have waited years to reach.NASA’s Curiosity rover has photographed wind-carved cliffs called yardangs in unusually vivid morning light. The image is beautiful, but the geology is the more interesting story: these rocks may preserve a missing chapter in Mount Sharp’s history.
• MoneyWhy is cheap long-haul flying so hard to make profitable?Norse Atlantic is flying with reduced capacity as jet-fuel prices squeeze its economics. The problem is broader than one airline: long-haul flying combines expensive aircraft, volatile fuel, thin margins and fewer ways to recover when something goes wrong.
• CuriousTwo molecules can look like mirror images and behave like different drugs.Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work that made it possible to favor one molecular mirror image over another. That matters because biology can treat two nearly identical molecules very differently.
• TechGoogle may have to put ChatGPT and Perplexity beside Search. The fight is really about the default.UK regulators have proposed putting AI assistants on Android and Chrome search-choice screens, while publisher disputes are putting pressure on how Google uses and pays for content. The bigger shift is distribution: the next search war may be decided before anyone types a query.
• TechSearch used to send you somewhere. Now it wants to answer you first.Google Search was built around a simple bargain: ask a question, get a list of places that might contain the answer. AI is changing that bargain. Increasingly, the answer arrives before you visit anywhere.
• ExplainedCarbon dioxide gets the attention. Faster climate wins may come from the pollutants beside it.Methane, black carbon, ground-level ozone, nitrous oxide and high-warming refrigerants can have an outsized effect on near-term warming. Cutting them does not replace CO₂ reductions, but it can slow warming faster.
• ExplainedCountries keep emergency oil underground for moments exactly like this.The IEA is discussing another coordinated release of oil and diesel stocks as energy markets face supply disruptions. Strategic reserves exist to buy time during severe shortages, not to make fuel permanently cheap.
• CultureHollywood just put Batman, Harry Potter, Star Trek, HBO, CNN and CBS under one roof.Paramount completed its $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, creating Skydance, a media giant spanning two film studios, HBO, CBS, CNN, streaming services, sports and some of entertainment's biggest franchises.
• CuriousTwo thousand ordinary people are helping restore a 240-million-year-old predator.A nearly six-metre Mastodonsaurus skeleton is being restored in a glass-walled laboratory in Warsaw with help from more than 2,000 trained volunteers. The project turns fossil preparation into public science without pretending the work is easy.
• MoneyA bond yield just hit a 24-year high. Why should anyone outside Wall Street care?The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield briefly touched 5.34%, its highest level since 2002. That number lives in the bond market, but its effects reach mortgages, business loans, government budgets and the price investors put on almost everything else.
• PeopleUnemployment can be low while the job market still feels terrible.The U.S. is approaching the 2026 midterms with unemployment around levels economists call full employment, yet hiring is slower, job switching is weaker and many workers feel insecure. The unemployment rate only measures one part of labor-market health.
• TechInstagram wants to tell creators what to post. What happens when everyone takes the advice?Instagram’s Edits app can now analyze performance and suggest ideas, hooks, captions, audio and scripts. It sounds like creator support. It also gives the platform a new role: coach for the content that feeds its own algorithm.
• CuriousA cubic kilometre of Antarctic ice helped win a Nobel Prize.Francis Halzen won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for turning Antarctic ice into a detector for high-energy neutrinos. The remarkable part is not only the particle. It is that a place most people see as empty became a new kind of telescope.
• CuriousA planet may have been born from the ashes of its own dead star.Astronomers say a planet candidate around white dwarf HS 0209+0832 appears to have formed from material expelled when its star died. If confirmed, it would be the first known example of a planet forming around a white dwarf.
• CultureThe Emmys are leaving broadcast TV. That says more about television than the awards themselves.The Emmy Awards will move exclusively to Prime Video from 2027 under a six-year deal, ending the long-running rotation among ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. The ceremony is following the audience it was created to celebrate.
• MoneyInflation can fall. The cost-of-living crisis can keep going.When inflation slows, prices usually do not return to where they started. New IMF research says repeated food and energy shocks can also change what households expect about future inflation and push more people into poverty.
• MoneyWeight-loss drugs are becoming a snack-company problem.PepsiCo is already fighting inflation, weak snack volumes and investor pressure. GLP-1 drugs add a more structural question: what happens to a food business built around frequent snacking when some customers feel less hungry?
• PeopleArgentina did not just say goodbye to a footballer. It closed a national argument.Lionel Messi ended his Argentina career after 208 appearances, 126 goals, two Copa América titles and a World Cup. The remarkable part of the farewell is how completely the relationship changed from criticism and comparison to Diego Maradona into national reverence.
• MoneyBrazil voted on Sunday. Markets voted on Monday.Flávio Bolsonaro led Brazil’s first-round presidential vote 47% to 45% over Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The next trading session, Brazilian stocks surged. The useful question is not which candidate markets ‘like’. It is which policy probabilities investors suddenly changed.
• NowBrazil is choosing a president. It is also choosing how it deals with the world.Nearly 159 million Brazilians are eligible to vote in a polarized presidential election between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro. The contest is domestic, but the consequences reach Washington, Beijing and the future of Latin America’s largest economy.