Popular Science

I'm increasingly frustrated that people who are anti-AI aren't being taken seriously, and taking a page out of my thoughts on why the anti-trans backlash got as far as it did I'm starting to think the anti-AI side isn't extreme enough.

Despite the bloviating and sabotage attempts, Moderna’s updated COVID vaccine has been approved by the FDA. Despite the fact that it theoretically requires one preexisting condition, the list of conditions is enormously broad also if you …

The world’s oceans hit 21.10 degrees Celsius last Saturday, breaking a record set in 2024. And it's only going to get worse.

SpaceX just launched the 14th Starship test flight, and it's now successfully in orbit for the first time. This is an amazing achievement, and I absolutely detest how Musk has ruined this sort of thing both for me and for humanity.

New Horizons is now *three days away* from shutting off its two heliophysics instruments, simply because NASA has not provided the $2M in funding it had promised to the mission last year or this year. There is no science basis for shuttin…

Initial analyses of satellite images and seismic data by @watershedlab.bsky.social & @kristencook.bsky.social suggest that the collapse of a high glacier caused the flash flood disaster in Nepal www.newscientist.com/article/2586...

Last year the world added 600 terawatt-hours of solar photovoltaic generation, enough to power Canada for a year. And this May solar outpaced coal’s monthly power share in the U.S. for the first time ever. Solar power is booming. Here a…

This is about Shiga toxin producing E.coli in sprouts. Shiga toxins are bad news and in worst case can lead to kidney failure. Also ood safety experts will tell you that sprouts are among the riskiest foods for bacterial contamination. So…

Saw this gorgeous cumulonimbus cloud punching its way up into the sky yesterday. When I looked at a radar map I saw it was about 100 km away.

Apparently someone used AI to steal Adobe’s entire platform of software programs and offer them, a complete 1:1 mirror, completely free. And then someone else decided to do this with the ENTIRE PS5 library. And turning AI against the c…

Oh this is interesting! Climate scientist @leahstokes.bsky.social shows that candidates who talk about climate change *get a bump in preference from voters*. "Common knowledge" is that climate is a losing issue, but this survey shows the o…

Don't forget that the Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight! It's one of the best of the year, with maybe 50 per hour visible. I wrote all about how to watch it for the 2023 shower; the basics still all apply. www.scientificamerican.com/art…