What We're Reading

There are ghosts in our galaxy’s past. Now astronomers have found a way to detect them.

Accurate predictions of Earth’s warming require computers that are too expensive for any one country or institution. Instead a "CERN for climate modeling" is needed, writes Sabine Hossenfelder, a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies.

Deep learning has a terrible carbon footprint: Researchers performed a life-cycle assessment for training several common large AI models and found that the process can emit the equivalent of 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide.

Young scientists describe scientific concepts, images and research that inspire them to make environmentally friendly decisions and model sustainable behavior for others, in both their personal and professional lives.

Physicist Sean Carroll describes how the discoveries of the late Murray Gell-Mann illuminated the most puzzling aspects of nature and changed science forever.

The algorithm, trained on 42,000 patient CT scans, outperformed six radiologists in determining whether patients had cancer. It detected 5 percent more cancers and cut false positives by 11 percent from reviewing a single scan.

Astronomers have suspected for some time that the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds collided in the recent past. The Gaia space telescope provides striking new evidence for a head-on collision.

John Urschel, a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics and a former professional football player with the Baltimore Ravens, recalls how his love for logic and problem-solving never received the kind of motivational support his football coaches gave him.

Technology could one day be used to help people who can’t talk to communicate.

Physicist Christopher Monroe, CEO of quantum computing startup IonQ, notes that the field will see many incremental advances but warns that too much hype risks disillusionment that may slow the progress.