Science & Technology

On an Ethiopian plateau, a bull called Achille formed an unusual relationship with a male donkey named Patroclo. They were observed spending time together, licking and rubbing against one another, and repeatedly having penetrative sex. The animals’ names nod to Achilles and Patroclus, the Greek mythological figures whose bond has been debated for thousands of...

Last week, OpenAI began rolling out ChatGPT for Teens, a new user experience crafted to help young people “learn, think critically, deepen understanding, and use AI with confidence.” Maybe most importantly, OpenAI vowed that it would place any users its system “estimates” to be under 18 into the system “automatically.” For nearly a year, parents have...

You open a free app to do one simple thing. Before you even start, a full-screen message asks whether you want to try the paid version. The “Start free trial” button is large, bright and hard to miss. The option to keep using the free version is smaller, buried at the bottom. The same prompt...

With the launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission on April 1, 2026, human beings have finally returned to the Moon for the first time in 50 years – since the age of Apollo. When Apollo 11 first landed on the lunar surface, the astronauts portrayed their accomplishment as the realization of a science fictional dream....

Four years ago, I started a class at Temple University titled, “Social Perspectives of Digital Pornography: The Other Sex Ed,” centered on porn literacy, or what young people learn – or don’t learn – from digital porn. I wanted to create a space to examine these issues, not from the assumption that pornography is entirely...

Legend had it that ravens followed wolves to fresh kills. A tracking study reveals a much more interesting scavenging strategy. Do ravens follow wolves to feed on their kills? For decades, biologists assumed they did. Ravens are often seen flying with wolves, following their tracks, or gathering quickly at fresh carcasses A twist in the tale: New...

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing our society and economy. A new study shows that the majority of people believe that artificial intelligence is displacing more human labour than it is creating new opportunities. Scientists at the University of Vienna and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) demonstrated a causal link: the stronger this perception, the more dissatisfied people...

oliday rituals and gatherings offer something precious: the promise of connecting to something greater than ourselves, whether friends, family, or the divine. But in the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligence—having already disrupted industries, relationships, and our understanding of reality—seems poised to reach even further into these sacred spaces. People are increasingly using AI to replace talking with other...

As a teenager in the 1980s, I was shown a BBC drama in school called Threads that depicted the impact of a nuclear strike on a city in northern England. Threads is a brutal vision of a terrifying reality that I imagine haunted many people in the years before the end of the cold war....