Science + Technology – The Conversation – new research, AI, space, psychology and more

Microscopy image of a cluster of dark blue blobs with long strands extending around them, surrounded by smaller blue dots

What are biomarkers? A biologist explains how doctors measure your health – and how combining cells from different people can find new markers

Michael F. Wells, University of California, Los Angeles

Illustration of a DNA double helix composed of pills, falling apart at one end

You likely have genes that affect how well your medications work – testing for them could improve treatment

Philip Empey, University of Pittsburgh

Hand wearing nitrile glove holding a test tube of blood

New blood test claims to detect 50-plus cancers before symptoms – but there’s no evidence it can reduce your risk of dying from cancer

Andrew Wolf, University of Virginia

A person wearing a protective glove holds a ball of molten glass and uses a torch to heat it up.

I’m an artist who works with glass – here’s how the physics and chemistry of glassblowing work

Suzanne Peck, Rochester Institute of Technology

Why do farts smell so bad? A microbiologist explains the odors brewing in your gut

Brenda A. Wilson, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

A person in black pants and puffy jacket standing in Icelandic landscape with a geothermal steam cloud appearing to come out of his butt.

‘I heard a barnacle’ – how paying attention to nature’s background noise can reveal animal secrets

Phil Starks, Tufts University

Clusters of barnacles attached to a rock wall

A man stands in front of a screen showing blue, green, yellow and pink fuzzy blob-like cartoon characters

AI agents with friendly faces and adorable bodies can distract you from serious risks

Ankolika De, Vanderbilt University and Jessica Maddox, University of Georgia

Why do blind people and musicians hear pitch better? New research suggests they have less internal noise

Woon Ju Park, Georgia Institute of Technology

Blind person sitting on park bench holding cane

The hidden ways insects support animal life – from habitat to health – go way beyond being food

Eliza Grames, Binghamton University, State University of New York; Chris Elphick, University of Connecticut, and Rob Cooke, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Wide blue head of an insect with a thin black body faces toward the camera

Flesh-eating screwworm is spreading in the US, threatening livestock and wildlife – hunters can be the first line of defense

Jacob Dykes, Mississippi State University and Eric Michel, Mississippi State University

Two hunters examine a recently shot deer

NASA’s Swift telescope has burned up, months after a robot sent to save it failed – here’s why it’s so hard to boost a satellite

Wanjiku Chebet Kanjumba, University of Florida

An illustration of the Swift Observatory in space. It looks like a metal box with two solar panels jutting off either side.

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Space

An animation showing a bright spot in the center with smaller dots exploding outwards in circular rings.

NASA’s Swift Observatory has burned up in the atmosphere – the indispensable telescope helped astronomers track fast-moving events in space

Mary Ogborn, Penn State

How space weather powers auroras in the sky and threatens power grids on the ground

Sanjay Kumar, University of Michigan and Mark Moldwin, University of Michigan

Figuring out where cosmic neutrinos come from is tricky - radio telescopes could help find where these ‘ghost particles’ originate

Yjan Gordon, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

A line of radio telescope dishes pointed upwards toward the sky.

Falcon 9 ushered in the modern space economy – retiring it could leave the industry vulnerable

Mojtaba Akhavan-Tafti, University of Michigan

A rocket launching with a plume of smoke and flame lifting it off the ground.

NASA’s Mars orbiter fleet is getting old – here’s how that could affect future exploration

Margaret Landis, Arizona State University

Digital life

a man in a business suit appears on a video screen on the wall of a courtroom

Meta’s $25B fine left out accountability for harm from the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal

Emma L. Briant, University of Notre Dame

How to prepare your online life for your death

Jenny Tang, Carnegie Mellon University and Xiaoyuan (Owen) Wu, Carnegie Mellon University

an elderly woman looks at a piece of paper in her hand as she sits in front of a laptop

Driverless 18-wheelers are on a few highways, but widespread use is a long way down the road

Shannon Roberts, UMass Amherst

a tractor-trailer truck in motion with no one in the cab

How should AI be regulated? Follow the harm

Sylvia Lu, American University

a man in a business suit sits at a desk with several chairs behind him

PHP is in the foundation of 70% of websites – here’s what it is and why a flaw in the software is a major hacking threat

Doug Jacobson, Iowa State University

a pyramid of wooden building blocks, one on top of two on top of three on top of four, with the middle of the three colored red

More articles about artificial intelligence

New research

We discovered an organism that lives at blistering temperatures – but what allows it to take the heat?

Kristen Skruber, Gonzaga University

A hot springs pond with steam coming off its surface

Earwax is both slippery and sticky – this weird combo might lead to safer insect repellents

David Hu, Georgia Institute of Technology

Viruses obey the laws of physics – studying how can help researchers understand why they infect people differently and lead to better treatments

Tori Russell, Rochester Institute of Technology; Karin Wuertz-Kozak, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Maureen Ferran, Rochester Institute of Technology

Microscopy image of seven red circles perched along a green slope

Ancestors all around – millions of dead people linger in Americans’ memories

Emily Smith-Greenaway, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Ashton Verdery, Penn State

black and white photos in a spread out pile

Hooked on tuna: People have been harvesting these ocean predators for 44,000 years

Emma Elliott Smith, Smithsonian Institution; University of New Mexico and Torben Rick, Smithsonian Institution

Silvery fish swimming through aqua water with other fish in background

Ancient people relied on genetic variation already present in wild plants to domesticate crops like rice and corn

Ornob Alam, New York University

I teach doctors how to interpret test results – and the labels ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ often hide what matters most

Amiran Baduashvili, University of Colorado Anschutz

Clinician leaning over patient lying in hospital bed, stethoscope on chest

Your cells keep a record of every workout you’ve ever done – and those gains persist even after a break from exercise

Diego Hernandez-Saavedra, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Yi-Heng (Hank) Huang, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Person lying half on a treadmill, half on the ground

Brain and mind

Horror films exploit how human vision works to deliver movies’ best scares

Arryn Robbins, University of Richmond

view of a movie theater audience looking toward the screen

Optogenetics wins the Nobel – one neuroscience breakthrough in a line of technological innovations helping scientists map and control the brain

Kimberlee D'Ardenne, Arizona State University

Illustration of brain with several threads of light passing through it

AI behaves more like a brain than a database – cognitive science’s role in its origin story helps explain why

Michael Hout, New Mexico State University and Arryn Robbins, University of Richmond

Yellow brain graphic floats above a tablet with various circuits in the background

Dozens of men failed to stop an alleged gang rape at Cornell – here’s the misperception that keeps bystanders from intervening and how to short-circuit it

Catherine A. Sanderson, Amherst College

Young men's arms with plastic cups on bar

Curious Kids

Real kids ask real questions and real experts answer them

A spiral galaxy, which has a bright, oval-shaped center with long spiral arms.

Why do galaxies rotate?

Edwin Alexani, Rochester Institute of Technology and Michael Zemcov, Rochester Institute of Technology

Why do people still get polio in some countries and not in others?

Katrine L. Wallace, University of Illinois Chicago

Smiling woman holds her toddler as a man squeezes droplets into the toddler's mouth

Kids ask the questions. Scholars answer them.

Be sure to include your name, age and where you live. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Send in your question!

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Why haven’t farm animals evolved against humans? A biologist explains why there won’t be a chicken uprising anytime soon

Alida de Flamingh, University of Tennessee

Rooster staring directly into a camera, other chickens milling in the bacground

How much rain can a hurricane make, and does the storm size matter?

Zachary Handlos, Georgia Institute of Technology

Two men stand in thigh-deep water in the rain next to a truck, one is holding a dog under his rain jacket.