DAVID SUSSIN

We're always getting powerful reminders we know almost nothing about our universe. For example, dark matter makes up 85% of the universe's mass, yet we've never directly detected a single particle of it. Scientists have been studying space for over 200 years and its basic make-up remains a complete mystery. Add to that, we're constantly surprised by new moons and rogue planets, gravity behaving in surprising ways, and the biggest unanswered question of all: where did all this come from? Simply put, humans have no idea what is going on. We are just naive passengers on a random planet at the mercy of whatever happens next. And it turns out, that might be the most unsettling surprise yet. It was first seen last year by Astronomer Eloisa Poggio and her team at Italy's Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica. They were analyzing data from the European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope (pronounced GUY-uh). Poggio was studying young giant stars, and stars called Cepheid va...

 It's the stuff of gothic horror novels: growing a brain in a laboratory. The human brain is evolution's most complex creation--86 billion neurons wired together. Studying it has always been neuroscience's greatest challenge. Animal models provide insights, but mouse brains aren't human brains. And the only human brains available are dead ones, whose tissue reveals structure but not function. Living human subjects are, of course, off limits. Can't do invasive experiments on live human brains. If it was possible to grow a convincing brain in the lab, neuroscientists would make good use of the opportunity. Organized, three-dimensional structures that faithfully recreate the intricate architecture of the human cortex would be an invaluable window into the black box of brain development. A home-grown brain would offer scientists a testing ground for neurological drugs, and a path to understanding devastating conditions like autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's dis...

We've written quite a bit about the scariest trend in military hardware: autonomous weapons systems. What used to be science fiction has moved from the drawing board to the showroom floor. Defense contractors openly market AI-driven weapons that think, move, and strike with minimal human oversight. The fact they can fire missiles on their own has gone from a nightmare scenario to a selling point. The U.S. Navy has already deployed autonomous submarines like the 51-foot Orca capable of anti-submarine warfare, while AI-controlled F-16 fighter jets have conducted live dogfights at supersonic speeds, and fully unmanned warships like DARPA's Defiant now patrol the seas with no crew aboard whatsoever.  But at last week's Association of the U.S. Army symposium, the future of warfare was pushed even further into the autonomous realm -- and may have finally crossed a dangerous line. Of course, there's an obvious advantage if a military craft has no crew inside. If a mission can ...

The United Nations made reducing carbon emissions a global priority thirty years ago. In 1992, 154 nations at the first UN Earth Summit agreed: the key to curbing catastrophic global warming was reducing CO2 emissions. At the time carbon in the atmosphere was around 360 parts per million (ppm). Since then, things have not gone according to plan. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) just reported that in 2024 we hit 424 ppm. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has actually increased 18% since the UN made reducing it a priority. Even worse, 2024's increase from the previous year was the largest increase in CO2 ppm since modern measurements started in 1957. So it's not only growing, it's growing historically fast. We know the reasons. You're sick of hearing them. Burning coal, oil and gas, along with increased wildfires around the globe. The result? Global temperatures have, on average, risen 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, a skeptic might say this is something we can ...