23 results

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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?
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.