Imagine scrolling through TikTok and seeing famous YouTuber MrBeast pop up. He says he’s giving away brand-new iPhones. “Click the link below to claim yours now!” Do you click? Maybe. It sure looks and sounds like MrBeast. But it’s actually a deepfake — a phony clip created by artificial intelligence, or AI. Last October, this…
Allergy sufferers may one day be able to erase the source of their sniffles, itchy skin and swelling. A newfound subtype of immune cells seems to underlie long-lasting allergies. The finding could lead to new ways to diagnose, treat or even cure allergies. Memory B cells are important for long-lasting protection against infectious diseases. The…
Gumdrop with an earring. That’s what pops to mind when I look at photos of a creature Sebastian Hess found in a mossy pond in Germany. It’s kind of plump and has only one cell. It’s also violent. This shape-shifting, amoeba-like cell prowls for algal cells to attack. It curls a long strand called a…
If you’ve ever cooked with someone, you know it requires coordination. One person chops this. The other mixes that. Sometimes, you might hand each other ingredients or tools when you’d like something done. But how might a robot handle this type of teamwork? A recent study offers some clues. Artificial intelligence, or AI, watched people…
Many of us don’t get as much sleep as we should. We might stay up late talking to friends or scrolling through our phones. We pull all-nighters to finish important projects. And sometimes we have to wake up too early for school or work. But in a perfect world, humans would lay down for an…
The sun is the closest star to Earth. That gives all Earthlings, especially astronomers, a front-row seat to its activities. One of the most striking features of the sun’s activity is what astronomers call the solar cycle. This is an epic rise and fall in the sun’s level of activity that repeats every 11 years…
Corona (noun, “Koh-ROH-nuh”) The corona is the outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere. The sun’s visible surface is called its photosphere. Just above that lies a thin layer of the solar atmosphere called the chromosphere. And surrounding that is the corona — a wispy haze of charged gas, or plasma. The sun’s messy magnetic field…
Objective: Find out if plants can reduce the amount of soil that is eroded from a hill due to rainfall Areas of science: Environmental engineering, geology, plant biology, environmental science Difficulty: Medium intermediate Time required: 2–4 weeks Prerequisites: None Material availability: Readily available Cost: $20–$50 Safety: No issues Credits: Ben Finio, PhD, Science Buddies (this…
In the sun-drenched mountains of southern Spain, one type of thistle seems to have built-in air conditioning. The flowers of this plant — Carlina corymbose — stay cooler than the hot air around them. Ecologist Carlos Herrera reports they are, on average, about 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler. But during the hottest part…
I have a confession. Every time I sat down to work on this article, I got distracted. The dogs wanted attention, so I petted them. My phone would ding when a text came in, so I got up to check. I was tired, so I took a nap. And I might have gotten sucked into…
When times get tough, tiny tardigrades have a special way to ride it out. They go into a dormant state. But it hasn’t been clear how these critters turn that superpower on and off. Now, researchers have an answer: A molecular sensor tells tardigrades it’s time to toughen up. Tardigrades are microscopic, eight-legged animals. Also…
Neutrinos are extra hard to spot. These subatomic particles have almost no mass, making them especially difficult to find and study. If only neutrino detectors could grow on trees, thought Steven Prohira. Or — could they? In fact, he now proposes, forests might indeed be used one day to spot ultra-high-energy neutrinos. Trees could act…
