Well, that got us thinking: What if we made an entirely new list that was all about AI? We got excited about that idea—and before we knew it we had the beginnings... Read more »

“The interpretation of genetic data is not straightforward,” Chikhi says. “We always have to make assumptions. Nobody takes data and magically comes up with a solution.”  Embracing the uncertainty  Most of the... Read more »

The US and China are nearly tied In a long, heated race with immense geopolitical stakes, the US and China are almost neck and neck on AI model performance, according to Arena,... Read more »

—Sarah Scoles This article is from the next issue of our print magazine, packed with stories all about nature. Subscribe now to read the full thing when it lands on Wednesday, April... Read more »

A spacecraft has crash-landed on a hostile planet. The only survivors are three members of the exploration team and the ship’s AI mind.   Little exists on the planet except deserts of... Read more »

I knew on some level that desalination—pulling salt out of seawater to produce fresh water—was an increasingly important technology, especially in water-stressed regions including the Middle East. But just how much some countries... Read more »

For more on how this crucial water infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable during the war in Iran, check out my latest story. Here, though, let’s look at the state of desalination technology, by... Read more »

New York City has 286 municipal synthetic-­turf fields, with more under construction. In Inwood, the northernmost neighborhood in Manhattan, two fields were approved via Zoom meetings during the pandemic, and Massimo Strino,... Read more »

Think of AI training as a room full of people working calculators. For years, adding computational power meant adding more people with calculators to that room. Much of the time those workers... Read more »