Linguistics isn’t just about ancient languages, it’s shaping the future of AI and unlocking the secrets of animal communication. Researchers are now using AI to decode the sounds of whales, bees, and other species.
In 2024, a study of nearly 10,000 random consumers in 8 countries—including the United States, Canada, France, and the UK among others—asked about the impacts of artificial intelligence on their shopping habits. Read about five key findings from the survey in this article and compare them to how you would answer the same questions.
A fruit fly’s brain is only the size of a single poppy seed, but it contains a whopping 50 million connections between its neurons. With the assistance of AI, scientists have recently mapped these connections for the first time—the first time for any insect’s brain. It teaches us a lot about how a fruit fly’s brain works, but more importantly, this achievement has already begun to reveal lessons about how all brains work, including yours and mine.
Some achievements require consistent hard work.Some happen by blind luck. But some are a combination of the two. Read this fascinating story of a PhD student who stumbled across a picture on accident, but was skilled enough in his field of study to notice something in the picture that no one else had ever seen before—the ruins of an entire city.
Before insulin was first used in the 1920s (barely 100 years ago), a patient with Type 1 Diabetes was expected to live less than 2 years after being diagnosed. After insulin, diabetics began living longer and longer. Type 1 diabetics today can expect to live into their late 60s or early 70s—but doing so requires a lot of medicine, devices, and thoughtful care. However, a new treatment option is currently being tested that may make care easier and help patients live even longer.
If someone said you could change the world, would you believe it? If you had an idea that could save countless lives, would anyone listen? Watch this talk by Jack Andraka, a teen who discovered a revolutionary way to detect certain cancers. Discover what he did, how he did it, and what it took to get people to listen.
Virginia is known for its vibrant, breath-taking autumn views, but people with colorblindness were often left out from fully enjoying the scenery. That is, until one park ranger set out to make a change.
Johnny Lubin, one of the first in the world to try a new kind of medicine that uses a gene-editing tool called CRISPR to offer a potential cure for sickle cell disease.
Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons, is an icy environment with a saltwater ocean beneath its surface. NASA plans to learn more about this ocean by sending the Europa Clipper into Jupiter’s orbit.
It’s too early to know what the greatest scientific discoveries and achievements of 2024 will be, but now that we’ve had some time to reflect on last year, here is one site’s opinion on what the Top 10 most intriguing advancements of 2023 were. Which ones do you agree with? Are there any you think should have made the list?
