Recent stories by Ars Contributors
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Op-ed: Why the great #TwitterMigration didn’t quite pan out
The flight from Musk's Twitter to the "free" fediverse never really took off.
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Electrifying volcano eruption set off the most extreme lightning detected
Lightning seen "at heights and rates not previously observed."
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We finally know how the mysterious Geminid meteor shower originated
A probe sent toward the Sun ran into the debris of an asteroid breakup.
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Liquid metal could turn everyday things like paper into smart objects
This futuristic new liquid-metal coating can make ordinary objects extraordinary.
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Who are the “Kia Boyz”? How TikTok fueled an epidemic of car thefts
Tens of thousands of Kias and Hyundais have been stolen for social media cred.
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Drones take to the waves: Saildrones are getting data where people can’t
They can monitor the Antarctic year round and sail straight into hurricanes.
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Even galaxies recycle
A quasar ejected the remains of stars, but another galaxy sucked them back in.
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Parker Solar Probe images the launch of the solar wind
This discovery is literally the hottest thing in a while.
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Neanderthal adhesives were made through a complex synthesis process
Birch bark was heated in underground chambers to create a tougher adhesive.
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Ultra low-cost smartphone attachment measures blood pressure at home
Clever use of physics uses pressure on the skin and optics to track blood flow.
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Alan Wake II preview: A waking nightmare
Are you afraid of the dark?
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Megaplume of water vapor erupting on Enceladus caught by Webb Telescope
Enceladus' rapid orbit and large geysers spread water widely near Saturn.
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Testing antibacterial surfaces on the International Space Station
Humans breathe out a lot of microbes that can make homes on surfaces inside the ISS.
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Sweet study finds how to keep gummy bears chewable longer
Internal (and edible) crosslinks keep the polymers of a gummy from hardening.
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Researchers get primate embryos to start organ development in culture dishes
The start of organ development can help us understand human developmental problems.
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AI writing assistants can cause biased thinking in their users
A biased "assistant" was able to influence the arguments made in essays.
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Colorless nanoparticles used to create lightweight, colorful paint
Nanoparticles manipulate light at specific wavelengths to create colors.
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Life on Earth might have gotten a boost from the Sun’s mega-tantrums
High-energy particles efficiently convert atmospheric chemicals to amino acids.
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Hypersensitive robot hand is eerily human in how it can feel things
Getting it to work required integrating multiple types of machine learning.
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When it comes to advanced math, ChatGPT is no star student
AI's ability to handle math depends on what exactly you ask it to do.
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Chinese Mars rover sends back images of recent water-shaped crusts
Within the last million years or so, melted snow might have dampened Mars' sands.
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“Sleep language” could enable communication during lucid dreams
Small muscle twitches could be the key to communicating during someone's REM sleep.
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Researchers craft a fully edible battery
It has a terrible capacity but shows we don't need to use toxic materials.
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An octopus’s stripes can act as a unique ID
Finding may help us track animals in the wild, perform genetic studies.
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How physicist Sameera Moussa went from a role model to a mystery
Research success, "Atoms for Peace" activism, and an early death.
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Hundreds of years after the first try, we can finally read a Ptolemy text
The original writing was hidden in part by a 19th-century attempt to read it.
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The mounting human and environmental costs of generative AI
Op-ed: Planetary impacts, escalating financial costs, and labor exploitation all factor.
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We’re one step closer to reading an octopus’s mind
A recording device and electrodes were implanted in the very flexible cephalopods.
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A remotely operated lab is taking shape 2.5 km under the sea
Oceanography, geology, and... particle physics? A new lab does it all without humans.
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Making faces: How to train an AI on your face to create silly portraits
Follow our step-by-step tutorial to paste your face onto anything your heart desires.
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Do better coders swear more, or does C just do that to good programmers?
For open source C code, curses mean quality, a recent bachelor’s thesis suggests.
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A grasshopper-like soft material can jump 200 times above its thickness
Inspired by grasshoppers, the new material stores energy then uses it all at once.
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Has the generative AI pricing collapse already started?
OpenAI could be in a position to loss-lead until its competitors wither away.
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Unexpected protein interactions needed to build flowers
A protein made for destruction turns to cooperation to build flowers.
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Don’t worry about AI breaking out of its box—worry about us breaking in
Opinion: The worst human impulses will find plenty of uses for generative AI.
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Argentina lost one-fifth of its Atlantic Forest in the last four decades
Deforestation in tropical South America extends beyond the Amazon basin.