Tech

Physics

Precise tee placement can improve golf driving, teen finds

A homemade golf-ball-driving machine helped this middle-school engineer improve his own game.

Health & Medicine

Butt breathing might help people struggling to get enough oxygen

This strange investigation into whether humans can use the gut for breathing has surprisingly heartwarming origins: helping the scientist’s dad.

Animals

Lions have a second roar that scientists have only just discovered

This insight from machine-learning analyses of recordings of calls in the wild might help detect where lions are declining.

Tech

A mosquito’s mouth can ‘print’ lines thinner than a human hair

Scientists turned a mosquito’s straw-like mouthpart into a 3-D printing nozzle that creates ultra-thin lines.

Brain

Scientists Say: Hallucination

Humans are not the only ones who can hallucinate. When a chatbot confidently generates a plausible but incorrect response, this error is called a hallucination.

Artificial Intelligence

Chatbots may make learning feel easy — but it’s shallow

People who use search engines gain deeper knowledge and care more about what they learn than those who rely on AI chatbots, a new study finds.

Materials Science

‘Stenciling’ tiny gold particles gives them new properties

Decorating nanoparticles with other chemicals could give them useful properties for medicines, textiles and more.

Science & Society

Linking science to dance, culture and more expands who can take part

Through movement, sound, culture and community, some researchers are expanding the ways we learn, think about and communicate science and engineering.

Artificial Intelligence

AI can now write working genetic instruction books from scratch

Two AI models designed these genomes for viruses that kill E. coli bacteria. They’re the first functioning full sets of DNA ever designed by machines.

Tech

Origami folds let paper support 9,000 times its weight, teen finds

Miles Wu, 14, tested the strength of different ‘Miura-Ori’ origami folds and showed they might be useful in the design of pop-up emergency shelters.

Science & Society

This game designer shares neurodivergent experiences through gaming 

Inspired by her own experiences, Susannah Emery designs games that raise awareness about neurodivergence and social issues.

Physics

Here’s how to levitate something without magic

Levitation may seem like fantasy. But all it takes is a little physics — and sound waves, magnetism or electricity.