AIs get worse at answering simple questions as they get bigger
Using more training data and computational power is meant to make AIs more reliable, but tests suggest large language models actually get less reliable as they grow
World’s oldest cheese found on 3500-year-old Chinese mummies
DNA and protein analysis has identified a white substance smeared on mummies in China as a kind of kefir cheese, made from cow and goat milk
Smart TVs take snapshots of what you watch multiple times per second
Smart TVs from Samsung and LG take screenshots of what you are watching even when you are using them to display images from a connected laptop or video game console
Pain relief from the placebo effect may not actually involve dopamine
Dopamine was long thought to play a part in the placebo effect for pain relief, but a new study is questioning its true role
Axolotls seem to pause their biological clocks and stop ageing
In most vertebrates, a pattern of chemical marks on the genome is a reliable indicator of age, but in axolotls this clock seems to stop after the first four years of life
Are superconducting power lines the key to a cleaner grid?
High-temperature superconducting cables that could transform the power grid may be increasingly viable, thanks to a side effect of fusion energy research and new ways to cool the wires
AI discovers hundreds of ancient Nazca drawings in Peruvian desert
Archaeologists have used AI to discover hundreds of large-scale drawings depicting figures like llamas, decapitated human heads and killer whales armed with knives
Children with cancer may benefit from having a cat or dog ‘pen pal’
Interacting with animals seems to provide emotional support to young people with a serious illness, even when the contact is via letters and not face to face
Octopuses and fish hunt as a team to catch more prey
An octopus will work with several different species of fish to find and catch prey - and punch those that aren't helping
Forests became less diverse when ancient people started herding pigs
Ancient DNA extracted from layers of sediment in a Czech forest shows how a drop in biodiversity coincided with a shift to pig herding about 4000 years ago