When someone sees something that isn’t there, people often refer to the experience as a hallucination. Hallucinations occur when your sensory perception does not correspond to external stimuli. Technologies that rely on artificial intelligence can have hallucinations, too. When an algorithmic system generates information that seems plausible but is actually inaccurate or misleading, computer scientists...
More than 305 million people require lifesaving humanitarian aid today. Most of them live in areas wracked by conflict, such as Sudan, Gaza, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. By many estimates, there is more need than ever for this assistance – and the need is growing. But humanitarian funding, which is primarily provided...
Researchers fuse the best of two popular methods to create an image generator that uses less energy and can run locally on a laptop or smartphone. The ability to generate high-quality images quickly is crucial for producing realistic simulated environments that can be used to train self-driving cars to avoid unpredictable hazards, making them safer...
People think that Harry Potter, Spiderman and Gandalf would vote the same way they do, whereas Darth Vader, Cruella de Vill and Joffrey Baratheon would vote for the rival party. New research from the University of Southampton, published today [17 March] in the journal Political Science Research & Method, shows how people in the UK and USA...
Kente is a prestigious royal cloth of Ghana’s Asante people, part of their historical and cultural heritage. But there’s a debate about where it originated: the Bonwire community or the Adanwomase community in the Ashanti Region. The Conversation Africa spoke to African art and culture researcher Dickson Adom about the origins of this world famous...
An outbreak of tuberculosis, or TB – a lung disease that is often accompanied by a hacking cough – began in January 2024 in Kansas City, Kansas, and two nearby counties and continues as of early March 2025. To date, 147 people have been reportedly diagnosed with TB in the outbreak, with 67 becoming ill....
As promised, the second Trump administration has quickly rolled out a slew of policies and executive orders that the president says are all aimed at “Making America Great Again.” This takes on different forms, including Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency quickly laying off thousands of workers at various federal agencies, and President Donald Trump...
During his three presidential campaigns, Donald Trump promised to run the federal government as though it were a business. True to his word, upon retaking office, Trump put tech billionaire Elon Musk at the head of a new group in the executive branch called the Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE, as Musk’s initiative is known,...
Praised by the ancient Greek giants Homer and Euripides for its superb quality nearly 3,000 years ago, Cyprus’ Commandaria is the world’s oldest recorded and named wine. Despite its rich heritage, the sweet wine has struggled to find its niche in the global market. Now a number of micro-wineries in this east Mediterranean island nation...
Joseph Shea, who sells athletic wear in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, wonders and worries about the food he eats. The chemical ingredients with mystifying names. The references on product labels to unspecified natural or artificial flavors. The junk food that fits his budget but feels addictive and makes him feel unwell. Shea, one of 1,310...
