The Sexist Pseudoscience at the Heart of Biology
For years, studying zoology made me feel like a sad misfit. Not because I loved spiders, enjoyed cutting up dead things I’d found by the side of the road, or…
A Google software engineer believes an AI has become sentient. If he’s right, how would we know?
Google’s LaMDA software (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) is a sophisticated AI chatbot that produces text in response to user input. According to software engineer Blake Lemoine, LaMDA has achieved…
How to Use Microsoft Word for Free
That said, they’re still great for quick edits and for viewing documents. If, for example, someone has sent you a Word document that you need to look at, and you…
How Lost Hikers Can Send an SOS to Space
Last July, two hikers were on a backpacking trip in California’s Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Just northeast of Granite Lake—a small body of water edged by deadfall and a rocky mountainside—one…
The World Has Too Much Stuff
After the famine, the flood. The past two years have been blighted by supply shortages—with just-in-time retailers struggling to ship their goods, electronics manufacturers staring down a shortage of computer…
Is It Possible to Beat a Virus That Moves Faster Than Science?
Thank you to everyone who wrote in last month to confirm that, indeed, only journalists care what happens to Twitter. As Elon Musk’s bizarre dance between buying the company and…
35 Father’s Day Gifts for the Dependable Dad in Your Life
It wouldn’t be Father’s Day if you weren’t panicking over what to get Dad. Let’s face it. Dads have a tendancy to buy themselves whatever they want, even three days…
Australia Has Finally Woken Up to Climate Change
One of Labor’s election promises on energy and emissions is to strengthen the existing cap-and-trade system for big carbon emitters, known as the Safeguard Mechanism. Under this, big polluters are…
Reality TV Has Become a Parody of Itself
In 2008, showbiz satire 30 Rock aired an episode called “MILF Island.” Poking fun at how tawdry reality television can be, it follows network honcho Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) as…
AMD stealthily releases another secret GPU… and we’re not impressed
Audio player loading… Usually, desktop GPU announcements are kind of a big deal. The big dogs AMD and Nvidia (and soon their new challenger Intel) typically want to get as…