The world’s oldest known library, the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, in what is today Iraq, was created in the seventh century B.C.E. to store clay tablets used for recordkeeping. Its librarians preserved 30,000 of them—including the 4,000-year-old Epic of Gilgamesh....
Can One Chatbot Catch Another’s Lies?A new approach uses language models to interrogate other language models and sniff out liesBy Max Springer If you ask an artificial intelligence system such as ChatGPT where the Eiffel Tower is, chances are the...
Stars Hint at an Unusual Black Hole Lurking in Our GalaxyImages taken by the Hubble Space Telescope point to an elusive intermediate-size black hole in the star cluster Omega CentauriBy Davide Castelvecchi & Nature magazineAstronomers can use the movements of...
How Game Designers Secretly Run Your LifeGames have captivated people since ancient times. Now they run our livesBy Kelly Clancy Boris Zhitkov/Getty ImagesIn an ancient Hindu hymn, a game of dice was compared to an addictive drug. Three thousand years...
Find the Perfect Game to Play with This Interactive QuizFrom board games to solo puzzles to fantastical escapes to tricks for running faster, find a game for every moodBy Diana Kwon Klaus Vedfelt/Getty ImagesAre you a seasoned video gamer or...
Board games might involve a race to a finish line, as in Sorry! or that ubiquitous first board game for kids, Candyland. Or they might entail a strategic battle for dominance, as in chess or checkers. Some have simple rules...
The point of no return was when I started the fire in the university parking lot.I ripped a pile of reports out of a confused bureaucrat’s hands and ran as fast as I could. Once I was outside, I grabbed...
Games Rule the World—And Always HaveWhy we’re fascinated by solving mind-bending puzzles, pitching faster fastballs, embodying new characters, playing ancient games, and much moreBy Jen Schwartz Scientific American, August 2024For something that often gets dismissed as trivial, games are a...
COVID Rates Are Rising Again. Why Does It Spread So Well in the Summer?A combination of human behavior and immunity, the environment, and SARS-CoV-2 itself explains why the virus surges during both hotter and colder monthsBy Tanya LewisCOVID cases have...
Europe Announces New Mission to Infamous Asteroid ApophisESA’s Ramses spacecraft will scout out Apophis before and after the asteroid’s super-close flyby of Earth in 2029By Meghan BartelsArtist's impression of ESA's Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety. Asteroid Apophis is ready...
