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Full duration and full thrust 33-engine static fire with Super Heavy V3. This means the updated deluge system is working properly. Most current launch trackers (Next Spaceflight, Spaceflight Now) now list NET May 15, 2026 (around 5:30 p.m. CDT window), with the May 12 date having slipped a bit as expected after recent prep. Full ...

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Nvidia Vera Rubin platform with the Rubin GPU and Vera CPU is a full-stack systems with CPO. It is the next-gen successor to Blackwell. The Vera CPUs are for agentic workloads. There is Groq LPU integration for inference disaggregation. there is projected $1T in combined Blackwell/Rubin orders through 2027. It will have 10x better inference ...

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Bioluminescence is everywhere in nature, but it puts on its biggest light shows underwater. In the deepest regions of the oceans, as much as 90 percent of all living creatures may possess at least some ability to shimmer thanks to cellular chemical reactions. However, the ethereal displays aren’t limited to these deep, dark waters. The cold blue glow from bioluminescent algae like Pyrocystis lunula is occasionally visible atop waves for other organisms to see.

Still, spotting these glimmers is difficult for the naked eye. P. lunula only shines for a few milliseconds at a time when agitated. However, those lights could hypothetically remain illuminated for much longer if certain chemical switches are flipped on in the algae. The possibilities would be vast—suddenly, harmless organisms could replace environmentally toxic chemicals used to produce artificial glows, and even cut back on electricity usage for lights.

“This project was a moonshot idea,” University of Colorado Boulder civil engineer Wil Srubar said in a recent profile. “I was curious if we could create a world in which we don’t use electricity but rather use biology to produce light.”

Drawing on previous research, Srubar and his colleagues assessed P. lunula’s bioluminescent response to basic and acidic compounds. They tested one acidic compound with a pH of 4 (similar to tomato juice) and a more basic compound with a pH of 10 (similar to hand soap).

Their results, published in the journal Science Advances, suggest algae could be part of a brighter, more sustainable future. In both cases, P. lunula began to shine. Acidic exposure made the algae glow brightly for up to 25 minutes, while the basic compound produced a shorter, more diffused light.

“It was a very exciting moment when we found the right chemical stimulant that allowed the light to stay on for a long time,” said engineer and study co-author Giulia Brachi. “This is the first time we have figured out how to sustain luminescence.”

The team took things even further from there. The engineers embedded the algae into various shaped objects made with naturally sourced, 3D-printed hydrogel. Because the acid and base solutions aren’t lethal to P. lunula, the organisms survived for weeks while constantly glowing. After four weeks, the acid-treated examples still retained 75 percent of their brightness.

According to the team, there are a range of uses for P. lunula. Autonomous robots and even space exploration equipment could produce battery-free light illuminated by the algae. If the algae responds to other chemicals, then it may show promise as a tool to test water quality or toxicity. What’s more, the photosynthetic algae doesn’t produce any carbon—it devours it.

“We’re storing carbon while we’re producing light, whereas conventionally, we emit carbon to light up spaces,” said Srubar. “This discovery really paves the way for engineering other living light materials and devices.”

The post Glowing algae could power the lamps of the future appeared first on Popular Science.

A hiker who paused to examine an old, uprooted tree found something much rarer than roots during a recent walk in the hills of Norway. According to a team of archaeologists from the University of Stavanger, the man’s morning stroll unexpectedly revealed a 1,500-year-old sword scabbard crafted from gold. Its owner likely wasn’t a lowly soldier, either. Based on the artistic skill and material, the embellishment’s original weapon probably belonged to a prominent leader or chieftain who ruled during the 6th century.

The remarkable find remained buried for centuries in the Norwegian district of Austrått, not far from the country’s southwest coast. The small adornment measures about 2.4 inches wide and less than one inch tall, while weighing around 1.15 ounces. Although tiny, the accessory signified immense authority and power. It’s also an incredibly rare artifact.Only 17 other similar pieces are known throughout northern Europe.

“The odds of finding something like this are minimal,” University of Stavanger archaeologist Håkon Reiersen said in a statement, translated from Norwegian.

Drawing of the decor in the main field of the fitting from Austrått. The animal figure is drawn with violet color. The ribbon that has been thrown into the figure has been given a pink color. Credit: Ellen Hagen / Archaeological Museum / University of Stavanger

Even after generations underground, the scabbard retains much of its original design. Although somewhat difficult to discern now, researchers identified clear regional artistic stylings that match those seen during the Migration Period (300s–600s CE), an era known for its widespread shifting power dynamics across Europe and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. These decorations include animal and potential human-animal hybrid illustrations arranged symmetrically across the piece. There are even still remnants of filigree embellishments, and evidence of finely beaded gold wiring that helped create an overall shimmering effect.

Reiersen and his team believe the artifact belonged to a major leader or chief in Hove, a region along Norway’s western coast. This man probably oversaw many warrior followers, and relied on items like impressive weaponry to highlight his influence and power. But while similar relics exist, the Hove discovery is distinct for its clear evidence of heavy usage and wear. Many decorative swords of the era were purely ceremonial or intended only for display. In this case, it appears its owner actually wielded the weapon in battle. Or at the very least regularly carried it around with him in public.

The location of the find also tells its own story. After examining the site, archaeologists determined that the scabbard wasn’t accidentally deposited or discarded, but carefully placed inside a crack in the bedrock. This strongly suggests the ultimate fate of the gold accessory was a religious offering to the gods. Even this act would have been its own signifier of power and wealth. The 6th century was particularly difficult for communities living in the area, who faced many economic, agricultural, and cultural trials. Giving up such a rich adornment would have been a leader’s way of both reiterating his power while pleading for divine aid. Taken altogether, the discovery represents an extraordinary moment for archaeologists that will help them better understand the region’s social dynamics during the Migration Period.

“We just have to say a big thank you to a very attentive hiker for the fact that we now have a new puzzle piece linked to the power center at Hove,” added archaeologist and University of Stavanger museum director Kristin Armstrong-Oma.

The post Hiker stumbles on 6th century gold sword scabbard under fallen tree appeared first on Popular Science.

Curiosity got itself stuck between a rock and hard place last month, but NASA says there’s no reason to fret about the intrepid Mars rover. On April 25, mission engineers were remotely piloting its robotic arm’s rotary-percussive drill into a Martian rock nicknamed Atacama. It’s a relatively routine task for Curiosity, which takes the samples and then pulverizes them into a powder for future onboard chemical analysis.

But Atacama is no small stone. The hefty, 1.5-foot-wide geologic formation is about six inches thick and weighs about 28.6 pounds. So NASA engineers were understandably a bit worried when Curiosity attempted to retract its arm—and subsequently lifted the entire rock off the ground.

“Drilling has fractured or separated the upper layers of rocks in the past, but a rock has never remained attached to the drill sleeve,” the agency explained in a recent rundown.

While amusing to envision, the situation was no laughing matter for NASA’s engineers. The rover’s drill would be of little more use with a giant rock indefinitely attached to it. But even if controllers could detach Atacama from the rover, the force might damage the tool or the arm itself. Without those capabilities, Curiosity’s ongoing mission would be in serious jeopardy.

Mission specialists first tried the drilling version of “turning it off and on again,” by vibrating the tool. However, Atacama remained stubbornly stuck on Curiosity…for another four days. NASA then tried a new approach by reorienting the robotic arm and instructing the drill to vibrate one more time. Atacama managed to shake off a bit of sand that time, but little else.

Two more stressful days passed before NASA gave it a third try. Engineers tilted the drill slightly further, then rotated and vibrated the tool while also spinning its drill bit. The Curiosity team anticipated it may take multiple attempts to pull off the feat.But in this case, Atacama finally gave way almost immediately. The nearly weeklong ordeal culminated with the giant rock fracturing as it landed on the Martian ground.

So far, NASA hasn’t reported any lingering damage to the vehicle, meaning the rover is likely ready to continue exploring the Red Planet. As for Atacama, it seems the Martian rock learned a valuable lesson: Don’t mess with Curiosity.

The post For 6 days, NASA’s Mars rover battled a rock appeared first on Popular Science.

Flying cows, SUVs soaring through the air like toys, quaint towns that are virtually wiped off the map. Hollywood certainly makes the very real world of chasing tornadoes appear exciting on the big screen. And yet the reality of storm chasing is actually slower, less competitive, more methodical, and not nearly as deadly as Twister or Twisters make it appear.

“My whole setup for a single chase is longer than most tornado movies are,” meteorologist and storm chaser Cyrena Arnold tells Popular Science.

Every spring and summer, thousands of meteorologists like Arnold, alongside hobbyists and weather tourists alike, chase tornadoes. Roughly 5,000 people from around the world travel to the Great Plains to chase storms every year. On the ground, it’s a mixture of exhilaration, solid planning, teamwork, and some difficult math. It’s also the chance to make a major real-life impact.

“Being able to see something and call it into the National Weather Service and have them issue a warning based upon it is probably the coolest thing ever. Because you may have just saved lives.”

On May 24, 2023, storm chaser Cyrena Arnold encountered one of the angriest storms she had ever experienced in Tucumcari, New Mexico. The teal colors come from the large hail falling inside the storm, and inflow winds were 50 to 70+ mph. It produced multiple tornadoes and wreaked havoc in the area. Image: Cyrena Arnold What is storm chasing?

While the answer may seem obvious, the true definition of storm chasing has evolved over the years, as more hobbyists are going out in search of tornadoes—hobbyists not all that different from Glen Powell’s Tyler Owens in Twisters. 

For some, the whole point may be “trying to get as close to touching it as humanly possible without dying,” says Arnold. Others want to see the power of nature up close and snap photographs of its raw beauty. 

From a scientific standpoint, storm chasers can collect important data on storms, including wind speed, direction, and precipitation. They can also help weather forecasters get on-the-ground data that even the most advanced radar might not see. 

A meteorologist looking at a radar can understand that there might be a tornado in one spot or a severe thunderstorm with rotating clouds ready to spawn a tornado somewhere else. But radar coverage still isn’t perfect, nor does it tell the whole story of what’s happening on the ground. Enter storm chasers. They’re the folks, on the ground, relaying exactly what they see.  

“Storm spotters [another term for chasers] are actually a very critical part of that warning piece. We can be the eyes and ears on the ground for the National Weather Service, whether you’re a meteorologist or not,” says Arnold, who has over 20 years of storm chasing experience.

To stay safe while chasing storms, meteorologists like Arnold always need an exit plan. This storm with rotating wall clouds rolled through Clovis, New Mexico, in May of 2023. Image: Cyrena Arnold The real art of storm chasing

There is a lot of camaraderie among storm chasers and it is not as competitive as the movies make it seem. This is important, as safe storm chasing always involves sharing data and teamwork. Rival teams stealing each other’s research as depicted in Twister is more for the movie drama. 

It is impossible to drive, navigate, and watch the forecast all at once. Arnold is her team’s driver, partly because she is a self-proclaimed gear head, but she also gets car sick and would have trouble looking at forecast models and GPS while the car is moving.

Once a team figures out when they are going to go out based on what forecasting models are saying, they will continue to track changes and listen to local forecasts constantly. The goal is to pinpoint exactly where the team ought to be, in order to spot a tornado. And that is no easy task, akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

“Maybe I know things are going to blow up in east Kansas, but east Kansas is a really big place,” Arnold explains. “So I need to know where I should be, down to what town I want to be [in].”

This evening storm in Elida, New Mexico, on May 26, 2023, was stationary for almost three hours and included over two inch diameter hail and pouring rain, resulting in a lot of damage and flooding in the area. Image: Cyrena Arnold

Chasers will also look at signals coming from the atmosphere, like cloud formations, that can indicate where a storm might emerge. Tornadoes typically form in cumulonimbus clouds. These massive, dense, towering clouds are associated with severe weather, including hail, heavy rain, thunder, lightning, and tornadoes

“I am looking to be downstream of storms, just slightly where they initiate,” Arnold explains. This way, she can watch how the entire storm progresses, not just the tornado. 

“Where [tornadoes] initiate you get these towering cumulus clouds that start to grow and form,” she says. 

Chasers must also do the “boring” yet necessary steps in advance of the storm—charge cameras and batteries, gas up the car, eat a good meal, and consider what’s on your feet when looking at the sky.

“I know this sounds like a really weird one, but you don’t go storm chasing in flip flops,” Arnold says.

Arnold is her team’s driver and stays in communication with other teams on the road via radio. Image: Cyrena Arnold The perfect storm

One of the biggest misconceptions about storm chasing is that you will see a tornado every time you go out on a chase. 

“Your ratio is about one to 10. So, for every 10 storms you chase, you’ll probably find one,” Arnold explains. Since all tornadoes originate from severe thunderstorms, sometimes chasers will end up collecting data on these powerful thunderstorms. While not quite as dramatic, this can still help meteorologists improve their forecasts, as thunderstorms can lead to dangerous flooding and winds even if they don’t spawn a single tornado. Still, following a tornado is still the prize of the day.  

That said, if all of the variables align and you are in the right place at the right time, it’s time to watch. For some, that means analyzing the meteorological data coming in. Others are snapping photos and keeping the team safe from any flying debris. 

As the storm progresses, chasers will also look to see where it’s moving or if other storms are popping up nearby. Arnold says they’ll continue to move a few miles here and there in “very small changes, like a chessboard.”

With all of that debris and rain, it’s also crucial for navigators to get a sense of how road networks are affected. 

“In places like the middle of nowhere Kansas, roads turn to the slickest, gooiest, nastiest mud you’ve ever seen and you will get stuck,” says Arnold. “So, understanding how the road conditions are changed is important for our exit strategies.”

A storm slowly travels south toward Clovis, New Mexico. Inflow winds were incredibly strong and Arnold saw the storm produce a brief tornado shortly after this photo was taken. Image: Cyrena Arnold.

If a storm shifts direction, understanding the road conditions is critical for that exit plan. While storm paths can be unpredictable, the majority move from west to east due to the jetstream. This powerful “air river” moves storm systems from west to east across land and oceans due to how the Earth rotates around the sun. 

Most of the time, simply driving south is an easy escape route if a team needs to get out of the way fast. Unlike hurricanes, which span vast areas, tornado paths are more narrow and it is easier to get out of its way. 

Storm chasing is not nearly as deadly as the movies make it out to be. While the exact number is debated, only a handful of people have died while storm chasing. In 2013, storm chaser and meteorologist Tim Samaras, his storm chaser partner Carl Young, and son Paul Samaras were killed near El Reno, Oklahoma. First responders found Tim Samaras inside of his car with his seat belt still on, while Paul Samaras and Young were pulled from the car by a tornado.

No flying cows, but hail the size of DVDs

During one particularly strong storm outbreak in southwest Texas in May 2024, Cyrena and her storm chasing crew experienced a whole new category of hail during an EF3 tornado. The Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale measures a tornado’s wind speed and its related damage. An EF3 tornado, like this one Cyrena and her team were chasing, have winds between 136 and 165 miles per hour.

“We were between Midland and Odessa, and they put the largest hail warning they’ve ever had on a storm ever for DVD sized hail,” Arnold recalls. “It was the first time they had ever used that comparison and not something like ping pong, golf ball, or quarter.” 

There was plenty of warning that this massive hail was coming and the team was able to get out of harm’s way. Arnold and other meteorologists tell stories like these on the podcast she runs with a team of meteorologists called The Stormfront Freaks 

Still, even in the face of danger, storm chasing is a valuable public safety resource. It also gives weather geeks and hobbyists a front-row seat to the wonders of nature.

“You get out there and you feel so small. You feel so insignificant and seeing what Mother Nature is capable of is just incredible,” says Arnold. 

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

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The post The real storm chasers of the Great Plains appeared first on Popular Science.

Famed British naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough turns 100 years old on May 8, and a team of researchers has prepared a special present: an entire new genus of wasp named in his honor. 

Meet Attenboroughnculus tau, a tiny parasitic wasp discovered in Chile. The specimen is 0.14 inches long and has a T-shaped marking on its abdomen that inspired the species name, “tau.” The insect was collected from Chile’s Valdivia Province in 1983, and it took over four decades for someone to officially recognize it as something new.  

Attenboroughnculus tau is one of the over 50 species named in honor of the famed naturalist. Image: © Trustees of the Natural History Museum.

“We hope to inspire global scientists to take another look in their collections to see if there is something small that could contribute to our collective understanding and therefore the future of our natural world,” Jennifer Pullar, science communications manager at London’s Natural History Museum, says in a statement. 

It was volunteer Augustijn De Ketelaere, a graduate student at Ghent University in Belgium, who noticed the insect’s unexpected traits while the team was examining the museum’s ichneumonid collections. Attenboroughnculus tau has a unique combination of anatomical features that make it different from already established genera: a strongly curved abdominal segment, toothlike structures on the ovipositor (which they use to lay eggs), and distinctive wing and leg morphology.

Attenboroughnculus tau is less than one inch long. Image: © Trustees of the Natural History Museum.

If you think Attenborough will be offended by the unsavory nature of the bug named in his honor, think again. Parasitoid wasps have appeared in his documentaries, such as the BBC nature documentary series The Trials of Life, in which he dubbed them the “bodysnatcher wasp.”

“David Attenborough has featured Chile’s diverse, extreme landscapes in several documentaries, emphasising the unique environmental challenges and ecological resilience of species within the country,” De Ketelaere, Pullar, and lead author Gavin Broad—principle curator of insects at the museum—write in a recent Journal of Natural History study. “He has used his work to reveal the intimate, unseen or overlooked within nature. This resonates in the discovery of this species in an unsorted drawer within the collections of the Natural History Museum, London.” 

This isn’t the first time Attenborough is honored by taxonomists. In fact, the man has over 50 species named after him, including the carnivorous plant Nepenthes attenboroughii. 

Happy Birthday Sir David Attenborough! 

The post Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday present is… a parasitic wasp appeared first on Popular Science.

A remarkable collection of ancient stone tools proves that human creativity can thrive in challenging times. The complexity of the stone tools found amidst the bones of butchered animals in central China demonstrate an elevated level of intelligence and creativity. Early humans forged the tools during an ice age 146,000 years ago, not during the relative ease of a warm period. According to a study published today in the Journal of Human Evolution, this challenges the idea that the early humans  could not innovate. 

“People often imagine creativity as something that flourishes in good times,” Yuchao Zhao, a study co-author and the assistant curator of East Asian archaeology at the Field Museum in Chicago, said in a statement. “Finding out that these stone tools were made during a harsh ice age tells a different story. Hard times can force us to adapt.”

A distant human cousin

The stone tools were found at the Lingjing archaeological site in central China. An early human species called Homo juluensis, a cousin of our own species, occupied the area. While they went extinct about 50,000 years ago, Homo juluensis had a very large brain size and traits seen in both eastern Asian archaic humans and Neanderthals in Europe.

Until recently, archaeologists believed that ancient humans in East Asia during the late Middle Pleistocene (300,000-120,000 years ago) did not make many significant technological advances, compared to the early humans living in Europe and Africa. However, the Lingjing stone tools tell a different story.

The disc-shaped stone cores at Lingjing were part of a detailed, carefully organized tool-making process. Homo juluensis built them by striking small stones against larger stone cores. Some of the cores were wired evenly on both sides. Other cores were more carefully built. One side was primarily a surface to strike from. The other side was shaped to produce sharp flakes.

According to the team, these asymmetrical cores are especially important. They indicate that prehistoric humans were not just knocking off pieces of a stone at random. Instead, they were managing the core as a three-dimensional object, where surfaces have different roles, while keeping the right angles for producing useful flakes.

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“This was not casual flake production, but a technology that required planning, precision, and a deep understanding of stone properties and fracture mechanics,” said Zhao. “The underlying logic of this system—and the cognitive abilities it reflects—shows important similarities to Middle Paleolithic technologies often associated with Neanderthals in Europe and with human ancestors in Africa, suggesting that advanced technological thinking was not limited to western Eurasia.”

The stone artifacts left behind by the Homo juluensis’ living at Lingjing suggest that they were capable of complex thought and creativity. However, this story  further complicates a shift in the timeline of how long ago these tools were made.

Aging bones

Homo juluensis at Lingjing would butcher animals like deer, with their bones found alongside the stone tools. A rib from a deer-like animal found at Lingjing contained several glittering calcite crystals—an important particle for dating objects. Calcite crystals have trace amounts of uranium, which degrades into another element called thorium over time. Scientists can then tell the age of the crystal by measuring the ratio of uranium to thorium present inside of a calcite crystal.

“The calcite crystals inside the bone acted like a natural clock, allowing us to refine the age of the site,” says Zhao.

Crystals growing inside a bone found at the Lingjing archaeological site; these crystals were used to date the site, and the tools found there, to an ice age 146,000 years ago. Image: Photo by Zhanyang Li.

Based on this new analysis, the team believes that these tools date back about 20,000 years older than scientists once believed. While 20,000 years doesn’t sound like  a huge amount of time in the grand scheme of things, it’s an important difference. They were likely made during a harsh and cold ice age instead of a warm period. With this new timeline, these tools were likely adaptations for surviving hard times.  

“Altogether, this research reveals a much richer story of innovation, intelligence, and human evolution in East Asia,” says Zhao.

The post An extinct human species made surprisingly creative butchery tools appeared first on Popular Science.

Psilocybin is the psychoactive compound that puts the “magic” in magic mushrooms. Ingest enough of a fungus like Psilocybe cubensis, and users are liable to experience sensory hallucinations, euphoria, and even altered perceptions of time. Mounting research also suggests that smaller, microdosed amounts may offer promising alternative therapeutic options for treating PTSD, depression, and even alcoholism.

But what happens when you give fish the same psychoactive ingredient? It may sound like an odd, even pointless experiment, but biological neuroscientists think the results could inform future medical and psychiatric treatments. Their evidence laid out in a study published today in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience suggests small levels of psilocybin ease anxiety or aggression. Or, at the very least, it calms down a notoriously mean species of fish.

The mean fish in question is the mangrove rivulus (Kryptolebias marmoratus). It is a remarkable creature found along the coast of Florida all the way to Brazil.The 1.5 to three inch amphibious fish has evolved to not only thrive in brackish waters, but survive on land for as long as two months. They’re also extremely aggressive and territorial, making them suitable for certain social and behavioral studies. And because the mangrove rivulus self-fertilizes and produces genetically identical embryos, they offer researchers conveniently uniform models.

To test how psilocybin affects the traditionally confrontational fish, a team from Nova Scotia’s Acadia University and the University of British Columbia bred three genetically distinct lines of laboratory rivulus. One group was exposed to the psychoactive compound, another essentially served as a target for their aggression, and a third was employed separately to assess psilocybin absorption and bodily concentration.

Researchers first observed the standard interactions between two fish separated by a mesh barrier in a tank. These frequently include high-energy “swimming bursts” to intimidate each other without making physical contact, as well as less energy intensive, head-on displays of hostility. On the following day, the team placed one of the rivulus into a water tank that included dissolved psilocybin for 20 minutes. Finally, they transported the now-dosed fish back into the tank with its original foe and watched their reunion.

The team’s findings offer the first direct evidence that psilocybin can selectively reduce the escalating aggression in the fish, without dampening their social interactions. Rivulus with psilocybin in their system significantly reduced their tendency to perform swimming bursts, but still participated in easier head-on displays. Basically, the fish calmed down a bit—but they also got very lazy.

“Psilocybin’s calming effect appears to selectively reduce energetically costly, escalated behaviors while lower‑energy social display behaviors remained largely unchanged,” study co-author and biologist Dayna Forsyth said in a statement. “This suggests that this compound can selectively dampen escalated social conflict rather than shutting down behavior altogether.”

That’s great for the mangrove rivulus, but what about humans? While the experiment focused on a single dose of psilocybin under short time constraints, the team’s findings may kickstart further explorations of the psychoactive compound’s uses in therapeutic treatments. In particular, knowing what social behaviors are affected by psilocybin versus the behaviors that remain unchanged can help researchers hone the scope of their future work.

“These are questions that are difficult or impossible to answer directly in humans,” added University of British Columbia biologist and study c-oauthor Suzie Curie.

The post Magic mushrooms make mean fish lazier and more chill appeared first on Popular Science.

Tesla now has at least 38 unsupervised robotaxi. Austin is up to 27 unsupervised, which is over half of the 53 robotaxi. The count from robotaxitracker is likely only 70% or less of the actual based upon how many Waymo vehicles have been confirmed out of 200 expected vehicles. Tesla FSD 14.3.2 is rolling out ...

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Concrete is everywhere, and that’s a problem. Manufacturing the essential material accounts for around eight percent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions, making it one of the single biggest contributors to the climate crisis. Researchers are investigating all types of creative solutions to the issue, often by replacing ingredients with more eco-friendly alternatives.

Recent propositions include adding coffee grounds, bacteria, and even recycled diapers into the mix.But engineers at Purdue University in Indiana think the answer can already be found in the natural world. According to a study recently published in the journal Chemistry of Materials, one solution may be swapping out the cement for shellfish.

“Oysters generate a natural cement. They use this material for attaching to each other when building reef structures,” chemist and study co-author Jonathan Wilker explained in a recent university profile.

Wilker has spent years examining the biological properties of oyster cement in hopes of recreating the sturdy adhesive for other applications. They have since learned that the bivalves bind together by producing the inorganic compound calcium carbonate—basically chalk. While calcium carbonate isn’t usually adhesive by itself, oysters also produce a small amount of stickier organic materials like phosphorylated proteins. This allows the shellfish to fuse together, even when saturated in water.

After breaking down the chemical composition of oyster cement, Wilker’s team recreated it in a laboratory. They then collected a bunch of limestone bathroom tiles, since their calcium carbonate is virtually identical to oyster shells. From there, they glued stacks of tiles together using their artificial, biomimetic cement. In nearly every stress test, the tiles broke before the bond itself.

Confident in their faux-oyster cement’s abilities, Wilker and colleagues finally tried combining a polymer from their creation into commercially available concrete mix. In lab tests, their oyster-inspired concrete was 10 times stronger while doubling its compressive strength. On top of all that, it also took less time to cure.

Wilker’s team plans to continue testing their patent-pending recipe. He notes that it’s not simply stronger. It’s even more eco-friendly when compared to most adhesives on the market.

“Most of the adhesives that you see at the hardware store are made of organic compounds, derived from petroleum,” he said. “There is so much more that we can learn from nature.

The post Want stronger concrete? Just add oysters. appeared first on Popular Science.

Everything is bigger in Texas, and that includes its controlled detonations. Texas A&M University recently revealed what they say is the world’s largest controlled explosion lab, where researchers can fill a nearly 500-foot metal tube with gas and ignite it in the name of science. They are calling it The Detonation Research Test Facility (DRTF). By precisely measuring what it takes to turn a simple flame into a massive, deadly detonation, researchers hope to make discoveries that could better prepare engineers to prevent gas leaks, and potentially inform ways to build explosion-resistant infrastructure. And all of that will require lots and lots of yeehaw inducing bangs.

Located in Southeast Central Texas, the detonation tunnel is about six feet in diameter and stretches nearly the length of two football fields. Its metal exterior consists of three-quarter-inch steel walls and is covered in earth to muffle the sound—or try to, at least. Inside, the tube holds various sensors that can measure the explosion as it intensifies. By containing all the power within the facility, researchers can study explosions strong enough to level entire buildings. The shockwaves that form in the tunnel can apparently reach speeds of Mach 5—or roughly 3,800 miles per hour.

“The facility enables us to observe, measure and understand one of nature’s most extreme forces in ways that haven’t been scaled before, or even been possible until now,” Texas A&M Engineering professor Dr. Elaine Oran said in a statement. 

Measuring a detonation, from flame to boom 

The idea for the massive detonation tunnel began as an inquiry from the coal mining industry. Industry leaders sought to scientifically determine whether natural gas trapped in a coal mine could explode and detonate. The short answer is yes. It quickly became clear, however, that a facility capable of measuring that would prove useful for a number of other explosion-related questions as well.

To measure an explosion, researchers start by sending an electrical current through a long wire leading into the chamber. Eventually, the current leads to a spark, which creates a flame, not unlike a gunslinger  in a Western striking a match and watching a flame trickle its way to a stick of dynamite. 

Texas A&M University’s Detonation Research Test Facility is a nearly 500-foot detonation tube more than 6 feet in diameter, built with three-quarter-inch-thick steel walls and paired with a 90-meter earth-covered muffler. Image: Texas A&M University College of Engineering.

When the flame enters the chamber, it begins a violent journey. The chamber is lined with what researchers refer to as an “obstacle course” of metal beams that generate turbulence. As the flame travels, more surface area is created, which in turn causes it to burn faster and stronger.

Eventually, all of that power creates a shockwave in front of the flame. Once the shockwave is strong enough, it pushes forward and creates a second, much larger explosion. That second, earth-shaking boom is the detonation.

Video footage of the process occurring in real time is dramatic, to say the least. Everything is quiet except for a voice in the control room counting down three, two, one. That’s followed by what sounds like a muffled gunshot as the flame enters the tube’s first segment. Visually, the tunnel’s thick metal exterior quivers and soil shakes off it as each succeeding segment ignites. That all leads up to the detonation, which is a significantly larger  boom that shakes the entire facility and sends earth soaring into the air. Seconds later, amid smoky air, the soil can be heard raining back down, like an artillery scene from a war film.

And even though the facility is designed to withstand massive explosion level forces safety, it still leads some to check their heart rates. 

“There’s a lot of nervousness, [and] jitters,” Texas A&M Aerospace engineering student Zachary Wideman said in a video. “Because something on this scale with this type of energy, you can’t help but be nervous.”  

Though the facility’s controlled explosions will likely prove most useful for industrial safety initially, engineers involved believe its scientific findings could have broader appeal. The shockwaves it creates could prove important for future testing of hypersonic plane and space shuttle propulsion. On the more conceptual side, scientists interested in the history of the cosmos could use the tube’s controlled explosions to help build models of supernovas, which undergo a similar physical process, albeit on a much, much larger scale.

The post The world’s largest explosion lab is ready for big booms. And yes, it’s in Texas. appeared first on Popular Science.

XAI gets to about breakeven by renting half of their AI Data center and Anthropic can serve its models and more money and can get to a better IPO. Both get to IPO before OpenAI. Both stronger against OpenAI. OpenAI IPO is hurt. Anthropic is already at pre-IPO valuation of $1.2 trillion. SpaceX XAI will ...

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What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to Popular Science’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Spotify, YouTube, Apple, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals our editors can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

FACT: This musical motif is works like an emotional cheat code 

By Jess Boddy

So I played a lot of Hollow Knight: Silksong last year. And if you’ve played or even watched some of that game, you’ll recognize the core motif that’s embedded in the game’s entire soundtrack. In fact, it might even sound familiar if you’ve never played Silksong at all. That’s because that motif is actually an 800-year-old Latin chant called the “Dies irae.”

After it made the rounds in the Catholic church as a part of funeral requiems, it jumped to secular music and eventually movies. Most memorably, the opening of The Shining copies the exact melody of this ancient church song. But composers also sneak it into less obviously menacing movie scores like Star Wars, The Lion King, Shrek, and hundreds more. (Another more recent example is Frozen 2.)

Of course, it’s also trickled into video games like Silksong—and Elden Ring, The Witcher 3, and many others. I was curious why this often four-note motif is so prevalent, so I interviewed a musicology professor at the Berklee College of Music. He helped me break down why this motif sounds so sad, both contextually, psychologically, and sonically. Listen to the full episode to hear the motif and see for yourself just how sad it is! (And keep an eye out for my upcoming YouTube video essay on the topic, too!)

FACT: A roller coaster ‘thoosie’ on the latest advances in amusement park tech

By Grant O’Brien

This week’s episode features special guest Grant O’Brien, who you’ve probably seen on the streaming network Dropout. 

The last time Grant joined us on Weirdest Thing, we broke format to quiz him on weird historical gossip:

This time, we let Grant go wild on his favorite nerdy hyperfixation: roller coasters. Check out this week’s episode to learn about the hottest new technological features in coaster design—and why he has a few notes for the folks who designed Falcon’s Flight.

FACT: This disabled bird is the alpha male of his flock 

By Rachel Feltman

Here’s a riddle for you: What do you call a bird with a busted beak? An alpha male, apparently.

This is the story of a kea—which is a species of alpine parrot from New Zealand—named Bruce. Bruce made the media rounds a few years ago because of his unique methods for adapting to a lack of top beak. After losing this seemingly necessary chunk of himself, researchers found, he found new ways to incorporate tools into his grooming and eating routine. Bruce was thriving! What a wholesome tale.

A new study sheds light on some arguably less adorable, but to my mind no less inspiring, behaviors from Bruce. To make a long story short, this disabled parrot uses his half-beak to stab his adversaries. And it works really, really well. In fact, the researchers studying Bruce say he serves as the alpha male of his flock (or “circus,” to use the correct term for a group of cheeky kea) by just about every metric they could measure. Far from being shunted aside due to his undeniable handicap, Bruce has basically invented a method of fighting that’s so foreign to his peers that they can’t figure out how to beat him. 

You can read more about Bruce’s innovative fisticuffs here. 

The post Movies use this one musical trick to make you feel miserable  appeared first on Popular Science.

Today, extensive tooth repair or replacement often requires the installation of a dental bridge made from durable resin and metal. That said, the procedure is nothing new. Archaeological examples of dental bridges date back thousands of years across cultures around the world. Recently, researchers discovered the oldest variant ever found in Scotland, but it’s anything but inconspicuous. According to a study recently published in the British Dental Journal, the medieval dental bridge excavated in Aberdeen was crafted using 20-carat gold.

Simplified bridges made from silver or gold wire called dental ligatures date back to at least 2,500 BCE in ancient Egypt. In some cases, funerary preparers installed them in the recently deceased to make their bodies appear more “complete” for the afterlife. However, it took until the Middle Ages before more complicated dentistry spread throughout Europe. Even then, primary texts suggest tooth maintenance likely wasn’t performed by doctors or surgeons.

“During the Middle Ages, teeth were often treated by barbers, or dentatores, who were individuals that specialized in teeth.”University of Aberdeen archaeologists wrote in their study.

Few dental ligature artifacts exist from England prior to the 17th century, and none of them were found in Scotland before the team’s analysis. That is until 2006. A team digging on the grounds of East Kirk of St. Nicholas Kirk in Aberdeen (“kirk” is Scottish for “church”) uncovered a trove of skeletal remains including the skull in this study.. The team recently reexamined 100 of the roughly 900 individuals in the collection—only one of which featured a dental ligature.

35x magnification of the knotted end of the ligature. Credit: Dittmar, et al.

X-ray spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and radiocarbon dating filled in many gaps about the person’s identity. Based on their findings, the researchers believe the remains belonged to a middle-aged man who died in Aberdeen sometime between 1460 and 1670. Dental evidence also revealed his bridge had been installed long before his death.

The 20-carat gold alloy ligature’s existence and composition suggests that the man was not only wealthy, but well connected in his community. Although they can’t definitively know if he received care in Aberdeen, records show around 22 goldsmiths worked in the area during that era. These artisans were likely skilled enough to craft and securely knot the wiring.

The reasons for receiving the implant were probably “multifaceted,” according to the study’s authors. Physical appearance during the Late Medieval and Early Modern eras was often culturally tied to one’s character.

“The appearance of a person and their perceived health was linked to one’s sins,” they explained. “As such, the social importance of an individual’s smile encouraged those who were able to afford such treatments to seek them out.”

Apart from being the first dental discovery of its kind in Scotland, the artifact underscores just how long humans have balanced the complex interplay between wealth, beauty standards, and personal health.

The post A medieval Scot rocked a 20-carat gold dental bridge appeared first on Popular Science.

Four words: sled dog puppy cam. The Puppy Cam at Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska is back for the season, and viewers can now watch five future canine rangers in action. Named after various national parks, sled dogs Sequoia, Mammoth, Rainier, Teton, and Mesa were born on March 30. Another pup named Acadia will soon join the team from a partner kennel. Viewers can watch them grow, play, learn, and bond with their human ranger counterparts.

Denali’s sled dogs are actual working rangers, carrying on a tradition of helping protect the park’s wilderness that goes back 104 years. They haul supplies and patrol two million acres of land in one of the most wild places in the United States. Denali Sled Dog Kennels is also one of the oldest sled dog kennels in the country. 

The puppies are freight-style Alaskan huskies. Freight-style huskies have long legs to help them break a trail through the snow, compact paws that resist ice build-up between the toes, in addition to sturdy coats and puffy tails to keep them warm when temperatures plummet well below zero. As far as personality, it’s important that canine rangers are tenacious, have an “unbridled love to pull and run as part of a team,” and good social skills. The kennels receive thousands of admirers every summer, so it’s important that they are not afraid of us humans. 

The mother—or dam—of this new litter is named Spark. She was born in 2023 and is already a Denali Kennels canine ranger. The father–or sire—named Trapper is from Sage Mountain Kennel in Fairbanks, Alaska. Later in May, the Sage Mountain kennel will select two of the puppies from this litter who will stay in Denali for a few more weeks and then return them to Fairbanks to join their teams. Denali will also acquire one puppy from a litter that was born at Middle Earth Mushing Kennels in Fairbanks on April 3.

“Arranged breeding and splitting litters with partners strengthens the health of the kennel’s lineage, as well as the health of all freight-style Alaskan huskies,” Denali National Park and Preserve rangers wrote in a statement.

If the Puppy Cam isn’t enough, visitors to the park can experience the kennels on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Beginning on May 15, the kennels will be open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a free sled dog program at 2 p.m.

The post Denali’s adorable Sled Dog Puppy Cam is back for 2026 appeared first on Popular Science.

Red means stop. Red means danger. Red means passion. The color conjures up a whole range of emotions and associations. It inspired an entire Taylor Swift album. And yet if someone asked you to describe what red actually looks like, without pointing at something red, you’d hit a wall almost immediately. 

So why is it that a color so evocative and distinctive as red (or any color, for that matter) still manages to elude our attempts to nail it down with words? 

If you just now said, “It’s because color doesn’t exist,” well played!  If you’re like me and your face just turned an indescribable shade of red, welcome to the club. 

“There is no color in the world,” says American neuroscientist Christof Koch. “There are photons of a particular wavelength emitted by the sun that strike an object, and then get reflected into the eye of the viewer. The electrical activity that’s generated there then travels up into the cortex of the brain, and gets processed into something we call color.”

In other words, red isn’t something out there in the world waiting to be objectively and uniformly experienced. It’s something your brain makes up. So does color even actually exist? Neuroscientists think maybe not. At least not in the way we think it does. 

Does color even exist? Short answer: Not really.

Koch, a Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, discusses the subjective experience of color using a famous thought experiment called Mary’s Room. Introduced in the 1980s by the philosopher Frank Jackson, the experiment involves a hypothetical neuroscientist, Mary, who lives in a black-and-white room. Mary knows everything there is to know about color: the wavelengths, the photoreceptors, the way color is processed within the visual cortex. She has read every paper and has conducted every experiment. But Mary has never actually seen color.

One day, Mary leaves the black-and-white room. And for the first time in her life, she sees a red tomato.  

The question Jackson posed is deceptively simple: When Mary sees the red tomato, does she learn something new?

Jackson’s answer was yes. Despite knowing everything science could conceivably tell her about color, Mary is confronted by something that no textbook could convey—the actual experience of seeing red. 

“The feeling, the phenomenal quality, whatever you call it—the experience is subjective,” Koch says. “People have invented a dozen words or more to describe it. It remains inexplicable.”

That “it,” Koch says, is the experience itself—the felt sensation of seeing red that no amount of scientific language has ever quite managed to pin down.

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Philosophers call that experience a quale (pronounced KWAH-LAY) the felt, first-person experience of something: the redness of red, the sharpness of pain, the taste of coffee. Unlike the wavelength of red, which can be measured precisely, a quale can’t be objectively measured. It’s entirely an inside job.

Koch says the Mary’s Room thought experiment argues against materialism—the philosophical view that everything in the universe, including human experience, can be explained by physics. If materialism is right, there’s nothing science can’t eventually account for. Mary’s Room suggests otherwise: There are some things that science simply can’t explain.

Everyone see colors differently, but not that differently

For the most part, we go about our days equipped with this surprisingly loose consensus on our shared reality. If your blue isn’t quite the same as my blue, it’s close enough not to cause trouble most of the time. But every once in a while, something happens that reminds us how differently our brains can construct the same reality. 

In 2015, a photograph of a striped dress went viral for a reason that had nothing to do with fashion. The dress appeared blue and black to many, but millions of people looking at the same image saw white and gold, and couldn’t fathom how anyone could see it differently. In what now seems like a quaint public rift, the internet divided around the hotly debated reality of blue/black versus white/gold.

“It’s as though they were looking at the same screen,” says Koch. But “half the population saw one movie and the other half saw a different movie.” 

The explanation, says Koch, has to do with how the brain handles ambiguous lighting. Every time you look at an image, your brain makes an automatic, unconscious calculation about the overall brightness of it. This calculation is based on your habits and life experience. 

Research by NYU neuroscientist Pascal Wallisch, drawing on more than 13,000 participants, found that early risers were significantly more likely to see the dress as white and gold, while night owls tended to see blue and black

Because early risers spend more waking hours in natural daylight, their brains are calibrated to filter out blue light, leaving white and gold. Night owls, accustomed to warmer artificial light, filter that out instead and land on blue and black. 

“You get up early in the morning and see a lot of sunlight, or you get up very late and are primarily up at night with artificial light,” Koch says. “So depending on that implicit assumption, your brain gives rise to these two different percepts: white and gold, or blue and black.” It’s not a conscious, deliberate decision you take to view the dress one way or the other. 

Does this dress look blue and black or white and gold? Your answer might have to do with whether you’re an early riser or night owl. Video: What Colour Is This Dress? (SOLVED with SCIENCE), AsapSCIENCE

For Koch, the dress is a window into something fundamental about human perception.

“There is input from the world, but then your particular brain might make a set of assumptions, and my brain might make a different set of assumptions,” he adds. “We obviously agree most of the time, though, or else we wouldn’t have evolved.”

And for the most part, we do agree. A species that couldn’t agree on some basic shared realities wouldn’t have gotten very far. So don’t worry: Your understanding of red is probably pretty similar to my understanding of red.

We all have unique, built-in filters that change how we see the world

The dress, it turns out, is just the beginning. Koch cites the concept of the “perception box.” Writer and researcher Elizabeth R. Koch (no relation) coined the term in 2021 to describe the hidden forces that shape how we see the world. 

According to this theory, we each have our own unique perception box. Think of two people standing in front of the same abstract painting. One sees something beautiful and moving: The other sees a mess. Same painting, completely different experience. That’s your perception box at work. It’s shaped by your genes, your upbringing, and every experience you’ve ever had. 

“We all live in slightly different perception boxes,” he says. “The walls are invisible, and they can expand or shrink, driven by our genes, our neural wiring, our experience.”

Those walls, Koch says, determine far more than which colors we see. They shape how we interpret relationships, how we process emotions, and even how we react to the evening news. Two people can look at the same event and come away with completely different realities, not because one of them is lying, but because their perception boxes are simply built differently.

When it comes to the color red, you can measure its wavelength. You can map exactly what happens in the brain when the eye encounters it. But the actual experience of redness—that felt, interior, indescribable thing—lives inside your perception box, and nowhere else.

“This applies to any conscious experience,” he says. “It applies to pain, say, due to an infected tooth, or the distress you experience when someone leaves you. It’s true for taste, for boredom, for mystical experience, and for psychedelic experience. It has the same ineffable quality.”

Which brings us back to red. You’ve always known it when you’ve seen it. But that color you see? It’s yours and yours alone.

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

The post Color doesn’t exist—at least not how you think appeared first on Popular Science.

If you’re one of the roughly 1.6 million people who took a cruise in Alaska last year, chances are you sailed through the Tracy Arm fjord. The picturesque, narrow fjord is a popular sightseeing area and is part of the Tongass National Forest, about 40 to 50 miles south of the capital city of Juneau.

In the early hours of August 10, 2025, an enormous landslide triggered a massive tsunami down the fjord. The tsunami was 1,578-feet-tall, or one-and-a-half times the height of the Eiffel Tower. Fortunately, no one was caught in the wave since it hit around 5:30 a.m. local time. If the tsunami hit later that day, about 20 cruise ships and numerous recreational boaters and kayakers could have been impacted by the giant wave.

In a study published today in the journal Science, researchers studied this “near miss” event, finding that the continued effects of climate change were likely the cause. 

The team studied several eyewitness stories from that day. In one account, a group of kayakers reported waking around 5:45 a.m. to water flowing past their campsite and carrying away a kayak and much of their gear. Another observer aboard a cruise ship near the mouth of the fjord saw currents and white water with no wave, while another eyewitness described a six-foot wave along the beach.

The team of researchers also studied satellite data with NASA’s new Surface Water Ocean Topography satellite before and after the event, in addition to seismic data and numerical modelling to understand exactly what happened that August morning.

Field photos from reconnaissance trip for 2025 Tracy Arm landslide on August 13, 2025. Image: U.S. Geological Survey

“Until now, we simply didn’t have a way to observe these waves directly, but our study has demonstrated that using data from the new Surface Water Ocean Topography satellite can reveal the full sea-surface structure of these events, even if no one witnesses them directly,” Dr. Thomas Monahan, a study co-author and engineer at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. 

Monahan and the other study authors also found that there was not much warning before the landslide hit. 

“Normally with these gigantic rock avalanches, they often give some sort of warning signs in the weeks, months, years prior, when the slope is slowly moving down the mountain. It’s sagging and then it catastrophically gives way in a rock avalanche,” said Dr. Dan Shugar, a geomorphologist at the University of Calgary in Canada. “In this case, that didn’t happen.”

Instead, there was some minor seismic noise that was so slight it went completely undetected

“This one was truly a surprise,” Shugar added, noting that this presents some challenges for disaster reduction in high-risk areas.

Importantly, they found that the glacial retreat in the Alaska fjord led to the tsunami. From 1985 to 2020, glacier-covered areas in Alaska decreased by 13 percent. As temperatures continue to rise, glaciers will melt more and begin to retreat or shrink. These frosty mountainsides then can become unstable if the ice that has been in place for centuries melts away.

As cold regions continue to warm, glacier retreat increases the risk of hazards like this landslide, the study argues. Landslide-generated tsunamis like this can produce extreme, localized water inundation that is even bigger than those caused by the tsunamis generated by earthquakes. The size of the waves and narrowness of the fjords can be a recipe for disaster. 

However, carefully monitoring glaciers could help catch these kinds of tsunamis before they happen. This is especially important as climate change continues to affect these regions. The Tracy Arm fjord alone sees upwards of 500,000 visitors per year, so catching tsunamis early is crucial for public safety

“Ultimately what we hope is that coastal municipalities, the cruise ship industry, and other stakeholders take these threats seriously,” said Shugar.

At least six cruise lines, including Carnival Cruise Line, have altered their itineraries in Alaska for 2026 due to the hazards that remain in the Tracy Arm fjord. Additionally, the United States Geological Survey warns that steep, mountainous landslide areas are “inherently unstable.”  The Tracy Arm fjord tsunami will likely continue to change the landscape for years to come.

The post A 1,578-foot tsunami struck a popular Alaskan cruise destination. Now we know why. appeared first on Popular Science.

Convincing, uncannily humanoid robots are no longer the stuff of Star Wars. Sure, you may not have a protocol droid at your ready like the iconic (if neurotic) C-3PO,but you can certainly construct a computer model that imitates Luke Skywalker’s mechanical pal. Combine that with a voice generator and the ability to parse text inputs, and you have a conversational bot ready to accompany you on your next Kessel Run.

Need proof? Sam Potozkin, a Chapman University business analyst and robot enthusiast in Orange County, California, spent dozens of hours designing and assembling his own C-3PO conversation buddy. It may only be limited to one form of communication, but the results are undeniably accurate.

As Interesting Engineering explained, Potozkin first 3D-printed a hollow, plastic model of the robot’s head. From there, he committed himself to hours of sanding to eliminate any obvious seams and rough textures. This was followed by multiple layers of shiny spray paint topped off with the droid’s recognizable gold sheen. Potozkin’s construction culminated with a glossy coating that both protected his creation and gave it that extra bit of realism.

To be truly successful, the faux-3PO’s underlying program needed to convert audio to text, analyze the resultant script, generate a personality-accurate response, and then translate the answer into audio once again. All that work may sound like a tall order,but Potozkin built his entire AI workflow using a Raspberry Pi 5 without external assistance like remote servers.

However, the most impressive aspect to Potozkin’s project may be how C-3PO “talks.” Although the droid needs a microphone to analyze human vocal input, its own voice isn’t channeled through a speaker. Instead, a mechanical exciter vibrates the plastic head itself while additional, overlaid robotic effects bring the whole experience to life.

It’s wild stuff—and it may only be the beginning. Potozkin made all of his computer code and 3D files available for free on GitHub, including instructional documentation. It might take a while before C-3PO’s head gets attached to a functional, bipedal body, but he’s ready to pass the time in idle conversation until then.

In The Workshop, Popular Science highlights the ingenious, delightful, and often surprising projects people build in their spare time. If you or someone you know is working on a hobbyist project that fits the bill, we’d love to hear about it—fill out this form to tell us more.

The post Man 3D prints a chatty C-3PO head powered by AI appeared first on Popular Science.

Pope Leo XIV receives gifts from visitors from all over the world every year, but a newly identified insect may be the first papal tribute of its kind. In the journal Nota Lepidopterologica, entomologists describe a striking moth species recently discovered on the rocky Mediterranean island of Crete. With its royal color scheme and ecological significance, the winged insect lives up to its scientific name—Pyralis papaleonei, or the Pope Leo moth.

“The Pontiff is a strong advocate of climate and environmental protection, and we hope that his voice may serve as an example for humanity,” the study’s authors wrote.

P. papaleonei is the latest in a series of taxonomic revisions within the Peralis regalis species group. Although common across Europe, their widespread presence has proven a liability for entomologists. Recent re-evaluations have uncovered multiple unique subspecies among these often overlooked moths. P. papaleoni represents the newest addition to the family, after researchers from Austria’s Tyrolean State Museum, the Finnish Museum of Natural History, and the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology analyzed numerous specimens from the White Mountains located in the western region of the Greek island of Crete.

With a roughly 0.75 inch wingspan, the Pope Leo moth is a moderately sized insect within its group. Its particularly distinctive features include purple forewings accented by multiple white bands and deep orange spots. Molecular analysis showed about a six percent genetic divergence from the next closest relative—more than enough to earn it a new species classification.

For now, researchers know little else about the Pope Leo moth’s lifecycle and biology, although they seem most active around the month of June and appear endemic to Crete. That said, a single specimen observed in October suggests either a prolonged flight season or possible multiple generations over the course of a few months.

About 700 moth species are discovered every year, although most are located in tropical habitats. This makes the Pope Leo moth’s identification particularly noteworthy, but also serves as a vital reminder of the planet’s precarious ecological health.

“We are facing a global biodiversity crisis, yet only a fraction of the world’s species has been scientifically documented,” explained Peter Heumer, the former head of Tyrolean State Museums’ natural science collections and a study co-author. “Effective conservation of biodiversity requires that species are first recognized, described, and named.”

Heumer’s comments echo the Pope Leo moth’s namesake. While speaking at a global church summit on climate change last year, the pope urged a societal transition, “from collecting data to caring, and from environmental discourse to an ecological conversion that transforms both personal and communal lifestyles.”

The post New moth species named for Pope Leo appeared first on Popular Science.