11 results

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.