CRISPR is a breakthrough technology with humble origins. Scientists first discovered the powerful gene editor in bacteria that were using it as a weapon against invading viruses called phages. Phages ...
It sounds like science fiction, but the system could help people with brain or spinal cord injuries regain lost abilities. In 2020, Keith Thomas dived into a pool and snapped his spine. The accident ...
At the age of 45, Casey Harrell lost his voice to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, the disorder eats away at muscle-controlling nerves in the brain and spinal ...
Despite their brief history, computers and AI have fundamentally changed what we see, what we know, and what we do. Little is as important for the world’s future and our own lives as how this history ...
It’s easy to take safe drinking water for granted. In most developed countries, access to safe water takes a simple flip of a kitchen tap or a run to the grocery store. But over two billion people ...
For most of artificial intelligence’s history, many researchers expected that building truly capable systems would need a long series of scientific breakthroughs: revolutionary algorithms, deep ...
Our bodies are constantly breaking down. Over time, their built-in repair mechanisms also fail. Knee cartilage grinds away. Hip joints no longer support weight. Treatments for breast cancer and other ...
Robotaxis have long promised cheaper trips and shorter wait times, but so far, providers have struggled to match traditional platforms. New pricing and timing data from San Francisco shows that ...
The robots, each the size of a single cell, casually turn circles in a bath of water. Suddenly, their sensors detect a change: Parts of the bath are heating up. The microrobots halt their twirls and ...
Generative AI is a data hog. The algorithms behind chatbots like ChatGPT learn to create human-like content by scraping terabytes of online articles, Reddit posts, TikTok captions, or YouTube comments ...
Vast swathes of the human genome remain a mystery to science. A new AI from Google DeepMind is helping researchers understand how these stretches of DNA impact the activity of other genes. While the ...
Our cells are like the ultimate soft robots. Made mostly of a liquid interior wrapped inside a fatty shell, they split, stretch, roam, and squeeze into every nook and cranny of the body. Actual robots ...