Silicon Valley’s top AI models are terrible at rebus wordplay puzzles
Rebus puzzles provide wordplay challenges involving both images and text, and they can confound Silicon Valley’s most powerful AI models ⌘ Read more

AI made from living human brain cells performs speech recognition
A biocomputing system consisting of living brain cells learned to recognise the voice of one individual from hundreds of sound clips ⌘ Read more

Game-playing DeepMind AI can beat top humans at chess, Go and poker
An artificial intelligence capable of beating humans at a variety of games is an important step towards a more general intelligence, says Google DeepMind ⌘ Read more

How AI avatars of the deceased could transform the way we grieve
Companies are now offering chatbots that appear to come from beyond the veil. But psychologists say this “grief tech” may interfere with the patterns of brain activity through which we adapt to loss ⌘ Read more

DeepMind AI can beat the best weather forecasts - but there is a catch
By using artificial intelligence to spot patterns in weather data, Google DeepMind says it can beat existing weather forecasts up to 99.7 per cent of the time, but data issues mean the approach is limited for now ⌘ Read more

Terminator model has living skin made from fungus
By fusing fungi and robots, researchers hope to create a sustainable and biodegradable skin capable of sensing a variety of stimuli, as demonstrated by a model of the Terminator ⌘ Read more

GPT-4 wins chatbot lawyer contest – but is still not as good as humans
Several AI chatbots were tested to see how well they could perform legal reasoning and tasks used by human lawyers in everyday practice – GPT-4 performed the best, but still wasn’t great ⌘ Read more

Tricks for making AI chatbots break rules are freely available online
Certain prompts can encourage chatbots such as ChatGPT to ignore the rules that prevent illicit use, and they have been widely shared on social platforms ⌘ Read more

Google AI predicts floods four days early in South America and Africa
An artificial intelligence from Google can predict floods even in regions with little data on water flow, and its predictions four days in advance are as accurate as conventional systems manage for the same day ⌘ Read more

Montana lawsuit: Young people win landmark climate change case
In a first-of-its-kind ruling, a court in Montana in the US sided with a group of young activists who said the state had violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” ⌘ Read more

Could pumping CO2 under Canada’s coast cause earthquakes?
Injecting CO2 underground might increase pressure along geological faults and cause earthquakes, but a report concludes the risk is minimal for a proposed CO2 storage site near Vancouver Island ⌘ Read more

Is it possible to drill a hole straight through a planet?
Could we bore a hole through the centre of Earth? What would it be like to fling yourself through it? The Dead Planets Society podcast digs deep into the potential hazards ⌘ Read more

Strange, spiny beetle discovered in Japan
A new-to-science species of beetle is marked by a distinct yellow band on its shoulders, long hair-like scales all over its body and legs, and the unique shape of its torso ⌘ Read more

What are ‘synthetic embryos’ and why are scientists making them?
The first human embryo-like structures have been created from stem cells, in a move that could help scientists study the causes of early miscarriages ⌘ Read more

Plan to restore England’s chalk streams may take decades
Chalk streams, a type of nutrient-rich river found mostly in England, are under threat from pollution and over-exploitation. Fines paid by water firms will be used to restore these rivers, but it may take decades ⌘ Read more

Cosmic rays help navigate underground in first real-world test
Particles produced by cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere, called muons, have been proposed as an alternative to GPS navigation that would work underground - and now it has been tested for real ⌘ Read more

Exposing C-section babies to vaginal fluid boosts their development
Transferring a mother’s vaginal fluid to a baby born by Caesarean section was linked to their development being more advanced at 6 months ⌘ Read more

How to see five planets align in the sky this weekend
In the early morning on 17 June you will be able to see Mercury, Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune and Saturn all appear in the sky together - here’s how you can spot them, wherever you are in the world ⌘ Read more

Shell can’t say it backs net zero while still betting on fossil fuels
Like its rival BP, Shell claims it is committed to reaching net zero by 2050 despite planning to increase its output this decade, but experts say this doesn’t add up ⌘ Read more

IBM quantum computer beat a supercomputer in a head-to-head test
Researchers at IBM pitted their 127-qubit Eagle quantum computer against a conventional supercomputer in a challenge to perform a complex calculation – and the quantum computer won ⌘ Read more

How ultrasound therapy could treat everything from ageing to cancer
Ultrasound is most familiar to us as a non-invasive imaging technology used during pregnancy – now it is in clinical trials as a powerful new tool for treating all sorts of medical conditions ⌘ Read more

Fastest star in the galaxy clocked at 2285 kilometres per second
Astronomers have spotted white dwarfs moving faster than any free-moving star seen before – so fast they must have been launched by supernovae ⌘ Read more

Are big cats like black panthers and leopards really roaming the UK?
Despite numerous people claiming to have seen big cats in the UK, there is no hard evidence they exist ⌘ Read more

Male harbour seals may learn vocalisations years before they need them
Male harbour seals use vocalisations to woo females and they appear to learn these songs years before they need them ⌘ Read more

Extinct lizard was a bizarrely supersized version of modern skinks
Tiliqua frangens, a giant, armoured skink that lived over 40,000 years ago, is the latest bizarre megafauna species to be discovered in Australia ⌘ Read more

Flies die sooner if they see dead flies
Genetic experiments have identified a small group of neurons in the brain of fruit flies that respond to the sight of fly corpses and trigger accelerated ageing ⌘ Read more

Fossils in Laos cave imply modern humans were in Asia 86,000 years ago
Human skull and shinbone fragments found in a cave in northern Laos suggest modern humans may have been in South-East Asia between 68,000 and 86,000 years ago, considerably further back than the previous estimates of around 50,000 years ⌘ Read more

What the huge young galaxies seen by JWST tell us about the universe
A few months ago, the James Webb Space Telescope spotted six early galaxies that were so large they threatened to break our best theory of how the cosmos evolved. Did they? ⌘ Read more

Dehorning may affect how rhinos interact and establish territory
Black rhinos are commonly dehorned to prevent poaching, but monitoring data suggests the practice may have an impact on their social interactions ⌘ Read more

Air quality: How does pollution affect your health?
Recent research is revealing how air pollution damages many parts of the body, who is most at risk and how heatwaves exacerbate the effects ⌘ Read more

Microbe map reveals how hundreds of insects got their diets
The microbes that insects harbour may have played a key role in shaping the diets and driving the diversification of inspect species ⌘ Read more

You can learn foreign words as you sleep but it won’t make you fluent
People who were played fake translations in their sleep could recall which category of words they belonged to when they woke up ⌘ Read more

North Atlantic Ocean has reached record-high surface temperatures
Clouds of dust blown from the Sahara desert generally have a cooling effect on the North Atlantic, but the winds that blow the dust are weaker than usual, possibly due to El Niño ⌘ Read more

Genetically engineered gut bacterium could protect bees from parasite
The fungal parasite Nosema is deadly to honeybee colonies and evolving resistance to fungicides, but engineered bacteria may help bees resist infection ⌘ Read more

Zebrafish produce sunscreen to protect their embryos from UV light
Zebrafish eggs contain a compound called gadusol that acts as a sunscreen to protect the developing embryos from the sun’s rays ⌘ Read more

The unique, vanishing languages that hold secrets about how we think
Language isolates, like Chimané from Bolivia, are unrelated to any other known tongue. Studying them is revealing how languages evolve and influence our perception of the world around us ⌘ Read more

Fast-growing galaxy seen by JWST offers window on the early universe
A galaxy seen 700 million years after the big bang appears surprisingly mature, suggesting some pockets of the early universe were more tranquil than expected ⌘ Read more

Life-extending parasite makes ants live at least three times longer
Ants infected by the parasite don’t work, are cared for by uninfected workers and live much longer than usual ⌘ Read more

Robot gardener grows plants as well as humans do but uses less water
A vegetable-growing trial has pitted expert human gardeners against an AI-powered robot – both produced comparable crops, but the robot used about 40 per cent less water ⌘ Read more

Alligators create hotspots for life by digging holes with their snouts
Alligator ponds have a greater diversity and abundance of plants and animals compared with the surrounding marsh, and offer aquatic refuge in dry months ⌘ Read more

Experimental treatment could work against prion diseases like CJD
Prion diseases are invariably fatal, but an experimental genetic treatment has dramatically extended the lifespans of infected mice ⌘ Read more

We know now what happens in our brain to make us scared of heights
Researchers have identified a brain circuit that causes mice to show signs of being afraid when high up, with a similar mechanism expected to also occur in people ⌘ Read more

Could your gut bacteria influence how intelligent you are?
People who are genetically predisposed to have higher levels of Fusicatenibacter bacteria scored better on verbal and mathematical tests, while those with more Oxalobacter scored lower ⌘ Read more

Couples collide with fewer people on walks than pairs of friends do
An analysis of over 800 hours of footage from busy pedestrian areas in Japan found that pairs of people that share stronger social bonds are less likely to physically bump into other people walking ⌘ Read more

Wiggly worms and quantum objects follow surprisingly similar equations
An equation developed to describe the motion of undulating animals and robots looks like the famous Schrödinger equation from quantum mechanics ⌘ Read more

Diabetes drug metformin may cut the risk of long covid by 41 per cent
Metformin, which is commonly used to control blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, was more effective than placebo at preventing lingering complications 10 months after a coronavirus infection ⌘ Read more

Losing a leg in youth changes how male harvestmen woo females
Harvestmen can shed legs when attacked by predators, but this survival tactic may have lifelong ramifications for the future sexual strategies of young males ⌘ Read more

Fire Weather review: Why Canada’s wildfires will only get worse
John Vaillant chronicles the most destructive fire in Canada’s history, and explores what lies ahead, in this timely book ⌘ Read more

Has anyone really seen evidence of aliens visiting Earth?
The hunt for extraterrestrial spacecraft has generally been scattered and disorganised, but now NASA is collecting all the data in one place to try to find out if any UFOs really are alien ships ⌘ Read more

Robotic dog spots invasive fire ant nests better than humans
Robotic dogs do better than humans at identifying nests of invasive fire ants. The robots could be useful in helping eradicate an invasive species that packs a venomous sting ⌘ Read more