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Is the sky really blue? It depends on what language you speak
What color is the sky? What about the ocean? Or the grass? These may seem like simple questions with easy answers. The sky is blue. So is the ocean. Grass is green. Bananas are yellow. If you speak...
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Engineers borrow a tree’s cellulose to toughen new materials
What happens when you smash a plastic bottle? It squishes. What about a glass bottle? It breaks. In engineering lingo, that means plastic is tough and glass is strong. Most manufactured materials can...
View ArticleVirtual critters evolve bodies that help them learn
A virtual creature swings four tentacle-like arms, pushing itself forward. It creeps up a hill then rushes down the other side. It looks like “an octopus walking on land,” says Agrim Gupta. This...
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This leaping robot can out-jump anything — animal or machine
What’s the size of a soccer ball but can jump a distance spanning from the Statue of Liberty’s feet to her eye-level? A new record-setting robot. It soars three times higher than any other jumping...
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Welcome to the metaverse
A teen with spiky white hair races his car past an enormous Tyrannosaurus rex. Later, he dances to some catchy music — while spinning and floating in midair. These scenes from the 2018 hit movie Ready...
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How wriggling, blood-eating parasitic worms alter the body
A few years ago, Alex Loukas let 40 hookworms burrow into his skin and live inside his body. “I’ve still got them,” he says. Hookworms are parasites. The type Loukas has is named Necator americanus....
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These fabrics change color as they stretch
What if your clothing shifted shades from red to green to blue as you moved and stretched? A new fabric could make this possible. “I want to have a leotard that changes color as I’m running around,”...
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A shape-shifting robotic tooth-cleaner might one day brush for you
Someday, you may no longer need to brush and floss your teeth by hand. Instead, a swarm of billions of nanoparticles could automatically do all that work for you. The nanoparticles are very tiny,...
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Will the internet soon reach the one-third of people without it?
Welcome to Ivujivik (Ih-VOO-yih-vik). No roads lead here. The only way in or out is via an airplane or boat. Thomassie Mangiok calls this northernmost town in Quebec, Canada, home. It’s also where he...
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Insect-inspired drones work together to 3-D print structures
Drones already fly and spy. Now, they can build too. For the first time, free-flying robots have 3-D printed structures. A pair of drones working together made a tower taller than a person. Engineers...
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Can a robot ever become your friend?
Would you hang out with R2-D2 if you got the chance? Seems like it could be pretty fun. In the Star Wars movies, droids appear to form meaningful friendships with people. In real life, however, robots...
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Think twice before using ChatGPT for help with homework
“We need to talk,” Brett Vogelsinger said. A student had just asked for feedback on an essay. One paragraph stood out. Vogelsinger, a 9th-grade English teacher in Doylestown, Pa., realized that the...
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Sleep helps AI models learn new things without forgetting old ones
Your body needs sleep to rest. But your brain isn’t resting when you are. It’s doing many things as you slumber, including sorting through recent experiences. This boosts your ability to learn and...
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A single chip like this could transmit a world’s worth of data
Researchers have just set a new record for data transmission. Using one small computer chip, they moved 1.84 petabits of data per second. That equals 122 million Netflix movies streaming at the same...
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Creating less new stuff could greatly help Earth’s climate
This is another in our series of stories identifying new technologies and actions that can slow climate change, reduce its impacts or help communities cope with a rapidly changing world. Cows wandered...
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Here’s how to increase clean energy without harming wildlife
This is another in our series of stories identifying new technologies and actions that can slow climate change, reduce its impacts or help communities cope with a rapidly changing world. An American...
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What is my pet saying? Scientists are working to find out
Woof! Woof! Your dog stands by a window, barking like wild. You look outside but see nothing. Purrr… Your cat loves cuddles sometimes but runs away at other times. Wouldn’t it be great, Con...
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How artificial intelligence could help us talk to animals
A sperm whale surfaces, exhaling a cloud of misty air. Its calf comes in close to drink milk. When the baby has had its fill, mom flicks her tail. Then, together the pair dive down deep. Gašper Beguš...
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Crops are being engineered to thrive in our changing climate
Listen to this story: Have feedback on the audio version of this story? Let us know! This is another in our series of stories identifying new technologies and actions that can slow climate change,...
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Talking through a tube can trick AI into mistaking one voice for another
Grab a paper towel tube and talk through it. Sounds weird, huh? Your wacky tube voice probably wouldn’t fool your family or friends into thinking you were someone else. But it could trick a computer,...
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