Wuhan Institute of Virology – Thomas Peter/Reuters A former New York Times journalist has attacked a group of leading scientists for “clearly” misleading him about the Covid lab leak theory in the early days of the pandemic. Donald McNeil Jr. said he was skeptical of the hypothesis that the virus was engineered in a laboratory… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. (CNN) — Imagine a dolphin. Now imagine something twice the size of a human. About 16 million years ago, a giant dolphin roamed the depths of the water space. But unlike most modern dolphins, its… Read More »
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Nestor Cortes stepped behind the plate in a batting cage and watched an 8-foot-tall, 1,200-pound robot throw fastballs, cutters and sweepers just like spinners from the fingertips of his left hand. . “It was like seeing myself pitching. It was crazy,” the New York Yankees All-Star left-hander said. Technology has come… Read More »
Canadian comedian Mae Martin hosts Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary, airing this Thursday on The Nature of Things. (Kensington Communications – image credit) The natural world is full of gender diversity: Hyenas have pseudopenises they use for sex and urination, many fish and plant species change gender throughout their lives, and lionesses have been known… Read More »
Emptiness is commonly experienced, but until now there was no way to measure it. tadamichi/Shutterstock The Psychological Gap Scale, created in 2022 by clinical and social psychologists as well as statisticians, is a survey consisting of 19 items. It asks people questions such as whether they feel emotionally numb, whether they are active, whether they… Read More »
A Cabinet minister has described China as a “security threat” as the government faces demands for the country to be officially labeled a “threat”. The government now describes China as an “epoch-defining challenge” but has faced pressure from MPs in the House of Commons to formally upgrade its assessment of Beijing. The volume of these… Read More »
London must “wake up” to the scale and seriousness of the threat from China of espionage, intellectual property theft and interference operations, a leading MP has warned. Former Cabinet minister Theresa Villiers, who sits on Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, stressed that China was “productively” targeting the capital to gain economic, political or military advantage.… Read More »
A Cabinet minister has said the Government does not want to “start trade problems” with China after calling for a cyber attack on the Electoral Commission. The government has been accused of being too weak to respond to attacks by Chinese state-based actors on the UK imposing sanctions on two individuals and a company. Speaking… Read More »
Dr Frans de Waal at a primate research center in Atlanta, Georgia, 2007 – JACK KEARSE Frans de Waal, who has died of cancer aged 75, was a distinguished Dutch-American primatologist whose research not only transformed our understanding of the animal world but also raised important questions about the human condition. According to other post-Darwinian… Read More »
Aidan Gomez can take some credit for the ‘T’ at the end of ChatGPT. He was part of a group of Google engineers who first introduced a new artificial intelligence model called Transformer. This helped lay the foundation for today’s generative AI boom, which ChatGPT maker OpenAI and others are building on. Gomez, one of… Read More »