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Major clues to the origins of our planet—and life itself—are locked inside some three billion-year-old volcanic rocks from Western Australia. These ancient rocks show that water was likely already shaping Earth’s interior and driving volcanic activity over three billion years ago. 

The findings published today in the journal Nature Communications suggest that Earth was already running a version of the water-recycling processes that shape our planet today, even though our home planet was a dramatically different place billions of years ago. Geologists found signs that roughly three billion years ago water traveled deep beneath the Earth’s surface, helping to create the magmas that formed volcanoes like the ones found in the Pacific’s explosive Ring of Fire today. 

Every single day, Earth’s water is continually recycled through a process called plate tectonics. Ocean water is carried down into the Earth’s middle layer, or mantle. The water is then pulled down at subduction zones. In these zones, one tectonic plate slides beneath another, feeding volcanoes that are powerful enough to build continents. However, billions of years ago, that internal water recycling process worked completely differenly—if at all.

“The early Earth was too hot for plates to behave that way [pulling water down to the mantle],” Dr. Eric Vandenburg, a study co-author and geochemist at Australia’s Adelaide University, said in a statement. “So until now it has been unclear whether surface water could have made that journey more than three billion years ago, and if so, how.”

In other words, it may have been too hot for Earth’s early plates to move water down to the mantle the way it does today. 

To learn more, the team studied rocks from Western Australia’s Pilbara Craton. The rocks were formed between 3.6 billion and 2.8 billion years ago and are some of Earth’s oldest. The iron-rich rocks began forming before there was oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere—or even life itself. The Pilbara remains one of the few places where geologists can study the young Earth.

This image shows part of the Hamersley Basin in Western Australia, which lies on the southern Pilbara Craton. A craton is the stable, geologically inactive core of an ancient continent. The Pilbara Craton has remained intact, surviving the affronts of plate tectonics and erosion since the Archean Eon (four billion to 2.5 billion years ago). Image: NASA.

The team analyzed the chemical fingerprints preserved within the Pilbara Craton rocks and reconstructed events that occurred 3.1 billion years ago. Surprisingly, they found evidence that large amounts of water had already made its way deep into the Earth’s interior. All of that water also influenced the formation of volcanic rocks. The team believes that while modern plate tectonics may not have existed on Earth yet, a different process may have been bringing water into the mantle.

So, how was water getting so deep into the Earth without plate tectonics? The team proposes it was because of a mechanism they call dripduction. During dripduction, dense water-rich sections of the Earth’s cool outer crust sporadically sag and then collapse into the hotter mantle below. As these pieces of crust collapsed, they brought water down with them. The water was then released into the Earth’s mantle, creating magmas that fed volcanic eruptions.  When magma interacts with water, the intense heat turns that water into steam. The steam then expands and erupts along with the magma. That magma then solidified into rocks that geologists still study today. 

“The Earth wasn’t operating exactly as it does now, but it appears some of the key processes were already in place,” Vandenburg said.

For geologists, understanding when water first started moving deep underground helps explain one of our planet’s most critical processes. Plate tectonics influence everything from volcanic eruptions and continental growth. Shifting plates may even produce some of the chemical elements that are necessary for life to exist at all. These findings provide clues about how the Earth’s continents formed, and how our planet evolved into what we know today.

According to the team, these new findings suggest that Earth’s interior and surface may have been connected much earlier than we thought. Earth appears to have been a surprisingly dynamic young planet that was already recycling one of its most crucial ingredients: water.

The post Ancient rocks suggest water has shaped earth for 3.1 billion years appeared first on Popular Science.

For Luigi the lobster, it was simply time to grow. Literally. The spineless American lobster (Homarus americanus) recently molted—when a crustacean sheds its outer shell—in front of visitors to the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn. Luigi is an unusual shade of orange that is only seen in one in 30 million American lobsters.  

“On the morning in question, keeper staff discovered a molt in Luigi’s habitat,” William Hana, the Director of Animal Programs at New York Aquarium, tells Popular Science. 

“Based on our experience, molts typically occur during the evening hours and may continue overnight. Following the molt, Luigi displayed the bright coloration characteristic of a newly formed shell.”

During molting, crustaceans take in excess water. The water then pushes against the shell, and splits it. The lobster then takes the rest of its body out like taking a foot out of a shoe, as it sheds its old outer shell. A shiny new softshell then emerges as the animal’s exoskeleton. 

That new shell is soft and paper-thin, so crustaceans are more vulnerable after molting. Since Luigi was housed alone at the time, he did not have to worry about predators or aggressive behavior from other animals. 

Young lobsters tend to molt multiple times per year because they are growing more rapidly. Once they reach adulthood, lobsters tend to molt annually. Molting rates can vary between lobsters under human care like Luigi and those in the wild. Since aquarium lobsters live in a protected habitat with consistent feedings, they are typically able to devote more energy to growing instead of foraging and avoiding predators. However, one food source is consistent no matter where a lobster lives.

“Lobsters frequently consume their shed exoskeleton after molting,” Hana says. “This behavior allows them to reclaim calcium and other essential minerals needed to harden their new, soft shell. For this reason, our staff typically leave the shed shell in the habitat for several days following a molt so the animal has the opportunity to feed on it.”

American lobsters are typically a dark-blue green or greenish-brown color, but Luigi’s rare orange hue makes him look a little more like a lobster you may encounter on a dinner plate. 

He gets his color from a genetic mutation caused by the lack of proteins that help bond the pigments in his shell. The chances of finding an orange lobster like Luigi in the wild are about one in 30 million. He can also be viewed near a rare blue lobster (one in 200 million). Happy growing, crustaceans!

The post Super rare orange lobster molts at New York Aquarium appeared first on Popular Science.

SpaceX has officially requested FCC approval to launch and operate a third-generation satellite constellation of 100,000 satellites, designed to power human connectivity and AI-fueled progress. SpaceX communication satellites will scale to a 100x increase in bandwidth. It will 50x cheaper $/Gbps when launched using starship. The buildout was accelerated by up to 2 years by ...

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Don’t expect a dramatic, AI-assisted sci-fi encounter if humanity ever definitively detects evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Scouring the stars for signs of aliens is less about waiting for giant unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) to fly into view, and more about pouring through mountains of complex data looking for delicate biosignatures. 

In recent years, many researchers—including some at NASA—have advocated incorporating machine learning and artificial intelligence in their search for organisms beyond Earth. Some of these approaches may show promise, but new research indicates much of today’s AI is even more easily duped by false positives than their human operators. 

“No matter what sequence of commands we started with, we were able to fool the AI 100 percent of the time,” Ankit Gupta, a Michigan State University (MSU) computer science engineer, said in a statement.

Gupta and colleague Christoph Adami recently ran an experiment to assess a specially designed AI program’s ability to identify hypothetical signs of biosignatures. To do this, they relied on a computer program developed at MSU called Avida, which simulates evolutionary processes with digital organisms. Avida treats replicating biological molecules like DNA as computer code, then uses these command strings to repeatedly copy themselves inside a “virtual Petri dish.” Importantly, each coding iteration is imperfect or contains fundamental changes—similar to how biological organisms reproduce.

Gupta and Adami then trained a neural network on tens of thousands of digital organisms inside Avida, some of which included the command to copy itself while others did not. After tasking their AI to classify the two organism types, the program achieved a nearly perfect accuracy rate. However, the AI quickly met its match once the researchers presented new examples it hadn’t previously encountered. In as few as 150 tiny shifts in organisms’ computer code, the AI began mistakenly identifying signs of life.

“AI has an Achilles’ heel. It can see a pattern and completely misclassify it,” Adami explained. “It’s a very serious vulnerability.”

Unlike here on Earth, it could be much harder to ensure a second set of (human) eyes on AI’s work aboard the next Mars rover or planetary probe. But similar AI false positives already affect far more than future space missions. Facial recognition software, self-driving cars, and medical scanners all rely on various machine learning programs to make their decisions. Putting too much faith in the technology’s reliability goes beyond misidentifying new lifeforms—it undermines existing life.

According to Adami, their findings aren’t an indictment of AI, but a reminder that people are still vital to any new field of scientific discovery.

“You need an independent way of checking [AI’s] work,” said Adami. “There needs to be a human in the loop.”

The post AI labels a lot of stuff as alien life appeared first on Popular Science.

Almost a decade ago, I finished my doctoral degree in archaeology with a thesis that investigated the hunting and gathering behavior of early Homo sapiens and our extinct relatives, the Neanderthals. 

To my non-archaeologist family members and friends, I was the Stone Age Expert, to whom all questions about anything Paleolithic should be directed. I developed some strong opinions about the viral “ancestral” or “Paleo” diet. I did my part to contribute to the rebranding of the Neanderthals’ image as a type of human and not a bunch of backwards, hairy brutes. To this day, my mom still emails me a link to any news article she finds on Neanderthals, Denisovans (another Paleolithic relative), or other ancient humans. 

When I explain my research interests to new acquaintances, I’m often asked questions like “what would you do if you met a Neanderthal?” or “do you think we’ll ever find a perfectly preserved frozen Neanderthal?” And, inevitably, “Could we clone a Neanderthal?” 

On the surface, that last question seems exciting. Considered more deeply, though, would we really want to bring back a species of human that hasn’t existed on Earth for tens of thousands of years? What gives us the right to decide? Would it be ethical to do so?

What even is “de-extinction?” 

In recent years, the idea of “de-extinction,” the re-engineering or cloning of extinct species, has gained a lot of media buzz. 

Colossal Biosciences, a biotechnology and genetic engineering firm, made headlines in 2024 claiming they had achieved the first de-extinction of the dire wolf. These are large, extinct canines (scientific name Aenocyon dirus) related to modern gray wolves (Canis lupus). 

Tens of thousands of years ago, dire wolves roamed grassland habitats in what is today North and South America. Visit the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles and you can see an entire exhibit wall lined with dire wolf skulls excavated from their sticky graves, their bones stained a glossy walnut from the tar. 

A case of 404 dire wolf skulls are on exhibit at The La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. It is thought that packs of dire wolves attempted to feed on animals trapped in the asphalt and became mired themselves. Image: Contributor / Getty Images / Mel Melcon

Dire wolves have been extinct for around 10,000 years, dying out around the same time as the mastodons, giant sloths, and other megafauna that once lived in the Americas. Colossal’s initial “de-extinction” claims received a lot of backlash from the scientific community. 

A project summary on the company website reads: “[Colossal Biosciences] produced three living dire wolves: Romulus and Remus, born October 1, 2024, and Khaleesi, born January 30, 2025, marking the first successful de-extinction of a large apex predator in scientific history.” A few lines further down the page, though, the summary states:

 “Colossal Biosciences brought back the dire wolves by making 20 targeted edits across 14 genes in the common gray wolf genome.” 

The gray wolf genome contains around 19,000 genes. Colossal Biosciences edited 14 of those genes, a minuscule 0.073 percent change in the whole package of wolf DNA. Compared to a standard gray wolf, Colossal’s experimental pups are a bit larger, and their coats are white instead of patterned gray. However, dire wolves are still a totally different species and genus from gray wolves. 

In other words, these groups last shared a common ancestor about 5.7 million years ago—far more distant than the relationship between wolves and dogs. Put another way, wolves and dire wolves are no more closely related than wolves and African jackals, or bison and gazelles. 

The two species are so genetically different from one another that they wouldn’t likely be able to have offspring together. Despite their bold claims, Colossal hasn’t done much more than to make a gray wolf dressed in a dire wolf overcoat.

How does cloning work? 

In 1996, a team of scientists at the University of Edinburgh took DNA from the nucleus of a cell from a sheep’s udder and implanted it in a different sheep’s egg cell. 

Normally, an egg or sperm cell contains only half of an animal’s chromosomes, i.e. half of their total genetic code. When the sperm fertilizes the egg, the two sets of half-chromosomes merge, creating a new, unique combination. A cell from any other part of the animal’s body, called a somatic cell, contains the full chromosomal complement. 

By swapping a somatic cell’s nucleus into an egg cell, the research team created an embryo that would develop exactly as a fertilized egg normally would but without any genetic contribution from a male parent. The resulting lamb, named Dolly, was an exact genetic copy of the sheep that the original udder-cell nucleus came from.

Dolly, the first-ever cloned mammal, shares a pen with twin sheep, Megan and Morag, the first mammals successfully cloned from differentiated cells. Image: Contributor / Getty Images / Mathieu Polak

After Dolly’s birth, cloning became a hugely exciting field of study, and it wasn’t long before people were asking questions like “if we can clone an existing animal, can we clone an extinct species?” 

Unfortunately, the answer is no, even with the leaps and bounds that genetic engineering has taken over the past decades. The issue is that to clone an extinct species requires a complete, intact DNA sample from that species, and that is something we don’t yet have. 

What would we actually need to create a true clone of a Neanderthal?

The Human Genome Project, an international effort to map out the individual genes on all 23 pairs of human chromosomes, formally kicked off in 1990. The project officially ended in 2003, but the final complete map of the human genome wasn’t finished until in 2022, with the Y chromosome completed in 2023.

DNA fragments from Neanderthal remains have also been pieced together and stitched into a genome map over the past couple of decades. DNA is a surprisingly stable, robust molecule for something that looks so thin and fragile, but DNA that sits in the ground for tens of thousands of years is still susceptible to damage from its environment. 

Barring any miraculous Encino Man-style discoveries of frozen Neanderthal remains, a complete genome would have to be engineered in a lab, not extracted from bone. 

Puzzling out the Neanderthal genome is a huge accomplishment, but knowing the locations of all of the genes is only part of the picture. It’s still not completely clear how many of those genes work with one another, and how environmental factors might affect them. 

To clone a Neanderthal by engineering the genome on a molecular level, scientists would need to recreate all the same kinds of complex relationships that allow our genes to tell every cell in our body what to do. 

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There are big ethical concerns

We Homo sapiens have been the only species of human on Earth for tens of thousands of years, and as a population, we’re quite used to the idea. But go back 60,000 years or so, and there were multiple members of the genus Homo living in different parts of the world. 

Neanderthals were one type of human. We know this because remnants of Neanderthal DNA still exist in our genome, meaning that our respective populations crossed paths and mingled gene pools in the past. Thus, the idea of cloning a Neanderthal raises the same kinds of ethical concerns that come along with the prospect of cloning humans today. 

Currently, the mortality rate for experimentally cloned animals is exceptionally high. Even when a cloned animal is born successfully, severe health problems often emerge. Would we allow a human infant to undergo these stresses for the sake of scientific curiosity?  

Human cloning also raises the issue of what happens when we challenge individuality. Would a cloned human always see themselves as a shadow of their cell donor? We can’t know for sure. This is why, whenever anyone asks me if I think we could clone a Neanderthal, I say no. For the time being, Paleolithic archaeologists will continue to ask and answer questions about the past by investigating the myriad materials that our early human relatives left behind. 

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

The post Could we ever clone Neanderthals? appeared first on Popular Science.

Texas, United States, 7th July 2026, TechnologyWire

Air quality is linked to a wide range of health issues including respiratory problems, cardiovascular complications, and cancer, and that list of concerns only continues to grow. According to researchers presenting this week at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), common pollutants may be fundamentally disrupting human sperm genetics—and these alterations may affect far more than male fertility.

One of the largest studies of its kind, the project took place from 2013 to2017 and included over 2,000 men in Salt Lake City, Utah. Volunteers provided researchers with semen samples initially after signing up, and then at two, four, and six month intervals. The researchers were particularly focused on examining changes to sperm DNA methylation. These chemical shifts regulate genetic activity without actually rewriting the DNA itself. Changes in methylation are already linked to genes utilized during chromosomal organization, cellular maintenance, and overall sperm development.

At the same time, the team also used regional data to estimate the men’s exposure to outdoor air pollutants during the roughly three-month window of sperm production known as spermatogenesis. These included common concerns like nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, fine particulates, and ozone. Although past studies already discovered evidence linking air pollution to semen quality, geneticists still do not fully understand how these adverse results occur at the molecular level.

The researchers flagged ozone and nitrogen dioxide as some of the most influential pollutants. The pair are frequently recorded at higher levels in urban areas like Salt Lake City due to natural gas combustion and traffic emissions.

“Our findings suggest that air pollution exposure during key stages of sperm development may be associated with changes in sperm DNA methylation, including in genes involved in spermatogenesis and early developmental processes,” Carrie Nobles, a study co-author and University of Massachusetts Amherst environmental health scientist, said in an accompanying statement.

Researchers pinpointed 39 DNA methylation changes associated with air pollution, especially in GNAS—an imprinted gene linked to poorer semen quality and fetal development. However, Nobles explained the GNAS implications are “particularly important.”

“Because imprinted genes can persist through early embryonic development, this raises important questions about whether fathers’ environmental exposures may influence not only fertility, but pregnancy and offspring health,” she said.

Since these are preliminary findings, Nobles stressed that it’s vital that researchers now work to replicate their results in future studies. She also explained that further investigations into measurable effects on men’s fertility and pregnancies are needed, as well as looking into other pollution sources.

“We know that couples exposed to air pollution often have difficulties becoming pregnant, and this may be one of the explanations amongst the myriad ways that pollution impacts our reproductive health,” former ESHRE chair Karen Sermon said of the study.

The post Air pollution may be changing sperm appeared first on Popular Science.

It’s one of military history’s most exciting chapters. In 218 BCE, Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the Alps with a squadron of 37 war elephants to invade Italy. 

While we can’t say which route he used to cross this rugged terrain, a new study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) offers some new clues. The new analysis shows which of Hannibal’s potential routes would have been less taxing on his 40,000 men, 7,000 horses and 37 war elephants. His best option likely would’ve been the Col de la Traversette, a pass with an altitude of 9,669 feet on the border between Italy and France. 

Why did Hannibal cross the alps?

Hannibal hailed from Carthage, a dominant ancient Phoenician city-state and empire in present-day Tunisia. During the Second Punic War, Carthage controlled North Africa’s coast and the Iberian peninsula (present-day Spain and Portugal). Rome sought to use its naval dominance to force its rival to surrender. 

To bring the war right to Rome’s doorstep, Hannibal led his army over the Alps from France into Italy. This was easier said than done, as it required traversing rugged terrain, snow, and ice, while surviving mountain passes that were controlled by local tribesmen who could attack them from above. However, going through the mountain range meant he could avoid Rome’s fearsome navy on the Mediterranean and its army garrisons on land. 

Only two primary sources of the event survive and were written 20 and 160 years after the event. And since no archaeological evidence is available, interpreting the events of the crossing is difficult. All modern theories depend on interpreting the three place names used by the writer Polybius (Island, Skaras, and Allobroges) and the wider range of tribe and place names written by Livy. Scholars then compare those locations with current geographical knowledge.

According to Livy’s account, Hannibal marched his army across the Alps in just 16 days. However, Hannibal’s entire military campaign took over roughly two months and ended up being very costly. Hannibal lost upwards of 20,000 men and Carthage ultimately lost the war.

Why he used elephants for the crossing is still unclear. He may have intended them to provide a tactical element of surprise during his first battles against the Romans. He also may have hoped that the wonder of seeing these elephants may help him help recruit the Celts of Northern Italy to his side.

Saving energy

In this new study, a team from the University of Oxford in the U.K., the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), and Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany evaluated the competing theories about which route over the mountains Hannibal took. Previously, historians believed that he may have taken the Col du Clapier, an 8,127 feet-high mountain pass between Savoy, France, and Piedmont, Italy. 

The team used route modelling and elevation data, to estimate the energy cost of each possible Alpine crossing. They used data collected on how much energy modern African elephants would use to make a crossing like this, based on their body mass and the terrain. 

Their results suggest that the Col de la Traversette would have been both the shortest and most energetically efficient route. When compared to the Travesette route, traveling via the Col de Montgenèvre would have required 11 percent more energy. Col du Clapier would have required 16 percent more, while Col du Mont Cenis needed 19 percent more energy. 

The team’s models also underscore what a physical challenge it was to move an army (and elephants) through the mountains. If they took the Traversette route, the men would have lost 19 percent of their body fat reserves, which may be one factor behind the high human mortality rate later in battle. Hannibal lost roughly 20,000 men by the end of the campaign. 

Surprisingly, the new analysis suggests that the war elephants would have fared better on the crossing. Elephants would have only lost four percent of their fat reserves, based on the team’s models. These high energy reserves likely explain why many, if not most, of the elephants survived.

“The question of Hannibal’s exact route has been debated for generations,” Dr. Emilio Berti, a study co-author and biologist at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, said in a statement. 

“The new analysis does not eliminate all ambiguity, but it does strengthen the case for the Traversette route by demonstrating that it would better accommodate the demands of moving a large army that included elephants through extremely difficult alpine terrain.”

The post Mystery of Hannibal’s infamous Alps crossing gets a major clue appeared first on Popular Science.

SpaceX will be able to shape its valuation with key execution on building out and monetizing AI data centers and executing on Starship and V3 satellite deployment.

During last year’s brief visit from the comet 3I/ATLAS, astronomers got an extremely rare glimpse into the cosmos beyond our solar system. As only the third known interstellar object to pass by Earth, the frigid, dusty rock has already provided researchers with new and unexpected data about deep space. But in addition to recently learning about the comet’s surprisingly alcohol-laden, ice volcano-covered composition, astronomers now say they have a better sense of its age. According to chemical traces detailed in a study published today in the journal Nature Astronomy, 3I/ATLAS is very, very old.

“3I/ATLAS is a really exciting opportunity to probe the composition of another planetary system, one that formed long before our Sun and solar system even existed,” Rosemary Dorsey, an astrophysicist at the University of Helsinki and study co-author, said in a statement.

3I/ATLAS was extremely bright upon its approach to Earth in July 2025, unlike the previously documented interstellar objects 1I/ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov. This allowed Dorsey and colleagues a never-before-seen chance to examine details like its isotopic ratios—varying amounts of different forms of the same element. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, they paid particular attention to the carbon and nitrogen isotopes inside cyanide molecules swirling within 3I/ATLAS’ gas cloud. These traces are very susceptible to conditions present during a comet’s formation period, but afterwards do not alter much while it spends eons traveling through space.

Unlike local comets, the interstellar tourist contains unusually high nitrogen and carbon isotopic ratios. Based on this and other examinations, the team believes the comet was born in an outer region surrounding an ancient, low-metallicity star. These stellar objects contain few elements heavier than helium, implying they originated during a much younger era of the universe before it became more chemically diverse. Combined with evidence from other recent studies, it now appears that 3I/ATLAS began its travels long before the sun existed. The comet may even be over twice our yellow star’s age, making it more than 9 billion years old.

“[Interstellar comets] are sort of fossils from a planetary formation process that happened very far away, but that we get the chance to study from much closer,” added University of Edinburgh astronomer and study co-author Cyrielle Opitom.

3I/ATLAS is rapidly becoming more difficult to observe as it continues its journey out of the solar system, but the vast amounts of data astronomers collected while they could will will keep them busy for years. At least, until our next interstellar visitor arrives.

The post Comet 3I/ATLAS is older than the sun appeared first on Popular Science.

Tesla had its best-ever Q2 vehicle deliveries and there will be strong FSD sales. FSD V14-lite is rolling out to Hardware 3 vehicles and there will be more FSD sales in China and Europe. This is expected to significantly boost subscription revenue and improve used car resale values. The +34% QoQ delivery has fixed‑cost absorption ...

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Toronto, Canada, 6th July 2026, CyberNewswire

The website InTheWeights.Com rates people on a 0-1000 scale re how well they are known now by LLMs. As I’ll elaborate on below, I seem to be rated crazy high by them, compared to most people I’ve ever known or respected. Why?

My guess: I tend to write on big ambitious topics, the topics on which I’ve written have become more popular over the years, especially in amateur online discussions, and I’ve tended to take clear distinctive positions on such topics, making it relatively cheap for LLMs to remember my name in association. Also, while humans tend to weigh sources heavily based on their prestige, LLM training so far has not emphasized this so much, making recent low status but lengthy online discussions of my ideas count more for LLMs than they do for humans.

Future LLM training may well change this, but much of my current boost may persist as LLM results on many topics are now becoming pretty high status, inducing human writers to now defer to them.

Now for that elaboration of my crazy high rating of 956. To see just how high that is I’ve gone down memory lane to list many folks I’ve been near, and to collect their weights ratings.

For each period and group in my life, I now list many of the more prestigious people I was associated with, sorted by increasing rating. I will put the symbol || on each side of the section of people who are within 10 of my rating, i.e., 946-966. The symbol [N] shows that the person won a Nobel prize.

’77-81 I was an undergrad at UCI, and associated with these faculty: 204 William Parker, 566 Gordon Shaw, 809 Riley Newman, 810 Virginia Trimble, 856 Rein Taagepera, || 954 Greg Benford. The department did have a Nobel winner, 970 Frederick Reines [N], but I never interacted with him.

’81-84 I was a grad student at U. Chicago Conceptual Foundations of Science program, associating with these faculty: 112 Howard Stein, 156 Robert Richards, 257 Daniel Garber, 741 William Wimsatt, 854 David Malament, 854 Sahotra Sarkar. Except that last guy was a student in my class.

’81-84 I was also a grad student at U. Chicago Physics. I associated with 735 David Schramm, 863 Robert Wald, 854 James Hartle, 858 Robert Geroch || 961 Lee Smolin, 962 Leo Kadanoff. The department did have two Nobel winners 959 Yoichiro Nambu [N], 986 S. Chandrasekhar [N], but I never met them.

’84-89 I worked at Lockheed AI Center, associating with: 37 Randy Kerber, 58 Steven Vere, 137 Ralph Barletta, 144 Matt Franklin, 617 Tim Bickmore. All of these besides Vere were as junior as I at the time.

’89-93 I worked at NASA Ames AI Research Branch, with: 120 Peter Cheeseman, 152 Peter Friedland, 316 Bob Kanefsky, 697 Pat Langley, 756 Wray Buntine.

’84-93 during the last two jobs, on the side I worked with the Xanadu team: 49 Roger Gregory, 117 Mark Miller, 160 Chris Peterson, 521 Phil Salin, 884 Ted Nelson, 890 Eric Drexler || || 985 Douglas Englebart. I only met Englebart a few times, but he credited me with encouraging him to asset himself more to the world.

’93-97 I was a grad student at Caltech Social Science, associating with these faculty: 91 Lance Davis, 121 John Ledyard, 366 David Porter, 543 Simon Wilkie, 595 Thomas Palfrey, 695 Joel Sobel, 695 Scott Page, 750 Richard McKelvey, 778 Peter Ordeshook, 838 Charles Plott.

’97-99 I was a postdoc at UC Berkeley RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Program, with these faculty and fellow postdocs: 209 Joseph Farrell, 359 Helen Levy, 362 Dan Dohan, 658 Richard Scheffler, 793 Dalton Conley, 853 Michael Greenstone.

‘99+ I’ve been a professor at George Mason University Economics Department, with these colleagues: 197 Daniel Houser, 292 Garett Jones, 302 Ryan Oprea, 307 John Nye, 320 David Levy, 454 James Buchanan [N], 644 Pete Boettke, 684 Mark Koyama, 808 Vincent Jeloso, 828 Tyler Cowen, 848 Walter Williams, 862 Donald Boudreaux, 890 Vernon Smith [N] || 951 Alex Tabarrok, 956 Bryan Caplan.

’05-24 I was an affiliate of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, associating with these folks: 618 Allan Dafoe, 730 William McAskill, 751 Carl Shulman, 799 Paul Christiano, 810 Toby Ord, 822 Katja Grace, 844 Anders Sandberg || 953 Julian Savulescu, 966 Nick Bostrom.

In the last few years, I’ve associated on the side with these UFO related folks: 273 Garry Nolan, 511 Ryan Graves, 665 Nick Pope || 955 Avi Loeb, 964 Michael Shermer.

Over all these years, I’ve also associated to varying degrees with these folks: 587 Charles Bennett, 635 Natasha Vita More, 703 Tim May, 739 David Denkenberger, 742 Esther Dyson, 795 Curtis Yarvin, 814 David Brin, 816 Steve Fuller, 817 Max More, 864 Julian Simon, 868 Agnes Callard, 878 Jaan Tallinn, 887 Joseph Henrich, 888 Hal Varian, 889 Peter Thiel || 958 Nick Szabo, 966 Scott Aaronson || 972 Bram Cohen, 972 Vernor Vinge, 977 Eliezer Yudkowsky, 977 Hal Finney, 977 Lex Fridman, 986 Vitalik Buterin, 992 Elon Musk.

As you can see, until we get to this last section of sometimes weak associations, I was never associated with anyone above the range 946-966. To check further, I collected lists of my heroes of various types, who are not included in the above lists.

Culture/Sociology Heroes: 494 Robert Boyd, 851 Randall Collins, 852 Peter Richerson, 905 Erving Goffman || || 977 Emile Durkheim.

Econ/Polisci Heroes: 598 Duncan Black, 782 Anthony Downs, 812 David Friedman, 875 Arnold Harberger, 887 William Vickrey [N], 892 Paul Milgrom [N], 895 Eric Maskin [N], 898 John Hash [N], 895 Roger Myerson [N], 905 Kenneth Arrow [N], 938 Drew Fudenberg || 962 Mancur Olson, 964 Gordon Tullock, 964 John Harsanyi [N], 966 Al Roth. [N] || 974 Robert Aumann [N], 977 Friedrich Hayek [N], 978 Milton Friedman [N], 983 John Von Neumann.

Physics Heroes: 142 David Wallace, 409 Brandon Carter, 601 John Bell, 727 Wojciech Zurek, 792 Bryce DeWitt, 887 Hendrik Casimir, 892 Hugh Everett, 908 Charles Lineweaver, 941 Edward Fredkin || 952 Rolf Landauer, 960 David Deutsch || 969 Peter Shor, 974 John Wheeler, 976 Kip Thorne, 987 Enrico Fermi, 996 Albert Einstein, 996 Stephen Hawking

My-era AI heroes: 818 Roger Shank, 879 Rodney Brooks, 894 Edward Feigenbaum || 957 John McCarthy, 958 Hans Moravec || 971 Herbert Simon [N], 970 Douglas Lenat, 974 Marvin Minsky.

UFO heroes: 489 John Mack, 781 Leslie Kean, 789 David Fravor, 870 Allen Hynek, 885 Jacques Vallée.

Science Fiction heroes: 790 Robert Forward, 927 Peter Watts || 953 Greg Egan || 967 William Gibson, 973 Neal Stephenson, 974 Andy Weir, 982 Robert Heinlein

Futurist heroes: 886 Herman Kahn, 934 Kevin Kelly || 965 Bill Joy || 973 Ray Kurzweil, 975 Alvin Toffler, 975 Freeman Dyson, 986 Vannevar Bush, 994 Tim Berners Lee.

I hope you can see how crazy high a level is my 956 among these luminaries. Many truly great people are rated well below that level.

Everyone knows SpaceX is making launching to space 100 to 1000 times lower cost with Starship. The volume will also go up by thousands of times. How can people and things get back at high volumes and low cost? SpaceX is solving that as well. SpaceX is making the return from space or from Starships ...

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AI data centers and compute represent a much bigger and faster-growing opportunity for Tesla than robotaxis. AI can generate $50–100 billion in annual revenue per gigawatt of power — dramatically outpacing typical robotaxi economics. Massive Untapped Grid Capacity The U.S. grid can unlock tens to ~100 GW of new AI data center load without building ...

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Every single day, we’re constantly looking at pixels. The tiny elements make up the displays on our phone screens and televisions, and allow us to capture images on digital cameras. Generally, a pixel works by either controlling light (think a computer) or analyzing it (like a camera sensor). Now, researchers writing in the journal Nature say they’ve created a pixel that can do both. 

Called a Fourier pixel, the new pixel tech is based on a fundamental principle of physics: interference. When light is scattered by a surface, the waves can overlap with each other, even if they originated from different points. When two or more light waves overlap, they reinforce each other. If the light waves are out of step, they cancel each other out. 

The new pixels use this phenomenon to control light with wave-shaped sculpted surfaces. The name Fourier pixel  comes from Fourier analysis—a mathematical process that the team used to break down and understand how the waves behaved. Each patterned area, or pixel, turns light into a surface wave that travels along the chip’s surface. Then, in a different place within the pixel, the surface wave is scattered back out as a light wave. These scattered lightwaves can be used to generate colored images. 

In other words, the researchers carved tiny patterns into a chip that allows them to control how light waves combine. These patterns allowed them to create pixels that both steer and analyze light. 

“Thanks to the fact that the relevant surface profiles of the pixels can be determined using Fourier analysis, we can combine the control and analysis of amplitude, phase and polarisation on a single pixel,” said Sander Vonk, a study co-author and postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, in a statement. He added that Fourier analysis is mathematically simple, and does not require complex models.  

The findings could have far-ranging technological applications in the future. “Our new pixels for control and analysis could, therefore, become a useful tool in many areas,” said David Norris, a study co-author and materials engineer at ETH Zurich. 

One day, we might even have pixels that both capture an image and process it without needing a computer.

But in the short term, the team has more practical goals. They want to create a matrix of Fourier pixels that could be used to make more complex camera display devices. Still, you might have a future laptop screen capable of taking your photo. 

The post Researchers in Switzerland invent a new type of pixel appeared first on Popular Science.

It’s difficult to overstate just how much the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has helped advance our understanding of the universe. Since its debut in 2008, the 16.7-mile-wide subatomic smasher buried underneath Switzerland proved the existence of the Higgs boson particle (aka the God particle), highlighted the perplexing nature of muons, and even measured antimatter. Apocalyptic conspiracy theories to the contrary, it expanded on key concepts in quantum physics, while charting a path forward for researchers around the world.

Still, all good things must come to an end. On June 29, CERN announced that the LHC had officially entered “Long Shutdown 3,” thus ceasing operations after 18 years of remarkable work. But in keeping with some of the most mindbending quantum physics concepts, the LHC is technically both dead and not dead at all. 

Instead of a total decommission, the collider is now on schedule to begin receiving upgrades that will transform it into an even more powerful version of itself. The Large Hadron Collider is dead—long live the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HiLumi LHC).

“The LHC has exceeded every expectation,” CERN Director for Accelerators and Technology Oliver Brüning said in a recent statement. “Today we say goodbye to the LHC as we have known it, while preparing to welcome its successor…which will extend this scientific adventure far into the future.”

The LHC went dormant to receive upgrades and recalibrations during two prior Long Shutdowns in 2013–2015 and 2015–2018. However, these upcoming additions are major enough to usher in an entirely new phase of the atom smasher’s existence. Over the next four years, CERN and its collaborators will renovate the entire LHC complex and its facilities. These will include consolidating the North Area’s Super Proton Synchrotron, deconstructing the CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso target area, as well as overhauling a section called the Experimental North Cavern 3 into a high-intensity fixed-target section. Researchers estimate that around 0.75 miles of magnets and other components will be removed and replaced entirely with new technology.

“The LS3 represents a huge and complex logistical and engineering undertaking,” said LS3 Coordination Team director Jean-Philippe Tock.

Unsurprisingly, starting up the new HiLumi LHC won’t be as simple as flipping a switch. A gradual reboot will begin in 2028 before becoming fully operational in 2030. As its name implies, the HiLumi LHC will generate a luminosity ten times greater than its predecessor, allowing it to gather data on the subatomic world in much greater detail while investigating subjects like the Higgs boson. From there, the potential for new discoveries is as vast as the universe itself.

The post Farewell, atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider appeared first on Popular Science.

There’s a particular kind of trance that takes hold when you gaze into a glowing, flickering campfire—the kind where you don’t even notice that your marshmallow has gone from toasty treat to active volcano to some kind of science experiment gone horribly wrong, all while you were looking right at it. 

Fire has mesmerized us for as long as we’ve known how to control it. It warms us, feeds us, and lights our homes. But something else is clearly going on: right alongside premium entertainment and live sports, streaming services like Netflix somehow find room in their lineup for hours of fireplace footage.

For humans, anyway, fire is more than just a practicality—it’s closer to a fixation.

Dr. Daniel M.T. Fessler, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has a theory about why. He maintains that kids who grow up building fires out of necessity actually lose interest in fire once they’ve mastered it. The fascination so many of us carry into adulthood, he argues, might just be unfinished business.

“Once people get good at building fire,” Fessler says, “they’re just not as interested in it anymore.”

Master it, and the magic disappears

Fessler’s original research on this dates back more than two decades, when he and his wife, an anthropologist, spent nearly three years conducting ethnographic research in Southwestern Sumatra, a large Indonesian island west of Java. They lived in a community where most households cooked over a wood fire, and only a few had transitioned to kerosene stoves. 

In these communities, Fessler observed, kids were around fire from the time they could walk, and often had more unsupervised free time than most American kids. Six-year-olds scooped embers from the family cooking fire so they could “bake” their mud pies—tiny imitations of the meals they watched the adults cook every day.

By age 10, Fessler says, kids in this community had complete mastery of fire, matching that of “any American outdoor guy.” And that was exactly when the fascination began to wane. 

Mentawai woman cooking in the kitchen of a traditional house in her village on Siberut island in western Sumatra, Indonesia. Children in these rural communities are often exposed to fire at a young age. Image: Getty Images / Nataliia Milko

Fessler sees this as an example of a concept evolutionary psychologists call “prepared learning,” the idea that evolution doesn’t always hardwire us with full instructions for things, but gives us a head start on learning the important stuff fast. In the case of fire, a natural fascination with fire drives the motivation to master it. Once kids master it, it no longer has the same powerful draw.

Conversely, kids whose curiosity about fire never finds a useful outlet may end up spending their adult lives staring into the firepit for hours on end. 

“The idea,” Fessler says, “is that if you don’t have the right developmental experiences, that motivation doesn’t shut off, because you never have enough input into the system for it to say, ‘Okay, we’ve done our job. We can step back now.’”

Not every piece of evidence fits neatly into Fessler’s theory, though. A 2015 study he co-authored tested college students in Anchorage, Alaska, a population with varying levels of fire exposure and mastery, and found something unexpected: People who’d grown up with more fire experience actually reported more enjoyment of it as adults, not less.

Fessler is careful not to overstate the case. “It’s possible that, even in our Anchorage sample, participants did not have sufficiently extensive daily experience with fire as a mundane tool during childhood,” he says. “Or, our hypothesis might just be wrong!”

More than a spark

Fessler’s theory isn’t the only research into the role of fire in the human story. Research led by Christopher Lynn, an anthropologist at the University of Alabama, has explored a related but separate question: Not why we’re drawn to fire, but what it actually does to us once we’re looking at it. 

In one study, he tracked blood pressure while volunteers watched fire under different conditions and found a measurable drop, particularly when the fire included its natural crackling sound. The effect grew stronger the longer people watched.

Lynn’s research also touches on dissociation—not in the clinical sense, but the same everyday kind of “zoning out” you’d experience getting lost in a good book or a movie. Fire, his research suggests, might trigger a mild version of that state, where attention narrows, and the mind quiets down.

The research points to something bigger than personal comfort, too. Evolutionarily, more easygoing people may have had a real advantage around the fire. Calmer group members tend to create less social conflict. They’re more cooperative, more willing to share food, more likely to watch each other’s backs. A fire that helped people relax might have rewarded those who were able to take advantage of that calm, not only in the moment, but in the alliances and solidarity it made possible. 

Fessler, for his part, is not surprised by any of this.

“It’s not surprising to me that we see these relaxation effects,” he says. “Part of it is probably due to the stimulus properties of fire itself, part of it is the emotional attraction to it, and part of it is clearly cultural.”

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Fessler admits he is a bit puzzled that fireplaces continue to be a selling point for modern homes, given their relative inefficiency, cost, and environmental impact.

“If you look at real estate listings, what do they describe? The number of bedrooms, the square footage, the number of bathrooms, whether it has a swimming pool and the number of fireplaces,” he says. “Which is completely absurd.”

Grown-ups may never shake the urge for a fireplace to stare into, irrational as it may seem. But there might be a smarter way to handle that same curiosity about fire in kids. 

Fessler points to fire safety programs in Germany that skip the usual “stay away” warnings American kids grow up hearing. Instead of telling children to avoid fire entirely, the programs teach them how to build and handle it safely. Fessler isn’t sure how the program’s designers arrived at this approach, but says it tracks with everything his research suggests.

“Instead of just saying ‘don’t,’” he says, “they’re saying, ‘here’s how you handle fire safely and responsibly.’”

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

The post Why humans find fire so mesmerizing appeared first on Popular Science.

China cut oil imports hard — and why it is not and may never rush back. China cut crude imports from 11.7 million b/d in February to just under 9 million by late May, and by May imports hit 7.8 million b/d — the lowest since 2018 — with state refinery run rates at 66.3%, ...

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Kilpatrick of Google Deepmoind is claiming what we historically thought of as “the model” is no longer just weights — it’s a sprawling system of tool calling, hosted search, code execution, containers, and an agent harness. The harness is the quintessential current example of scaffolding that the model will “eat” — within roughly 12 months, ...

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