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Science Archive

Archives for December 2025

The ‘mad rush’ to install solar panels before tax credits run out

The solar industry is pivoting to survive Donald Trump’s attacks on clean energy.

Justine Calma
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Everyone asks Copilot for relationship advice in February, according to a new study.

The study (pdf) analyzed 37.5 million de-identified Copilot conversations to show patterns in how people interacted with AI, but are we that surprised there’s a spike in existential questions around 2AM?

The researchers suggested more variety in AI beyond the standard chatbot approach, with different skills and personalities for different devices, such as more personal AI models for mobile platforms.

A chart showing data from Microsoft AI’s 2025 study on Copilot usage patterns
Topics peopled asked Copilot about shifted throughout the year, according to the study.
Image: Microsoft AI
Justine Calma
Justine Calma
The US is hiding more information about climate change.

The Trump administration has taken down content about the human causes of global warming — greenhouse gases from fossil fuels — from the Environmental Protection Agency website, part of a larger purge of science-backed information on federal websites.

“It’s clearly a deliberate effort to misinform,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain tells the Washington Post.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Will the SpaceX S-1 finally drive me around the bend?

SpaceX is planning to go public at a valuation that would make it the biggest listing of all time, Bloomberg reports. “The Elon Musk-led company is targeting a valuation of about $1.5 trillion for the entire company” and while they’re saying they plan for next year, it’s a Musk company so you know what that means: “the timing could slip until 2027.” SpaceX expects $15 billion in 2025 revenue, and $22 billion to $24 billion in 2026, mostly due to Starlink.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
This London food map evens out Google’s algorithmic power.

Most Brits are used to using Google Maps for restaurant recommendations, but its opaque algorithm can reward chains and existing hits, making it hard for new independent spots to get traction. This map tries to fix that, highlighting restaurants underrated by the algorithm because they don’t get the footfall.

Screenshot of London food map showing Islington
Oi Vita is, in fairness, a pretty good pizzeria.
Image: Lauren Leek
Justine Calma
Justine Calma
AI reasoning models are even more energy intensive.

They used 30 times more electricity on average than other models according to research by the AI Energy Score project that included responses to 1,000 written prompts. “We should be smarter about the way that we use AI ... Choosing the right model for the right task is important,” Hugging Face research scientist Sasha Luccioni tells Bloomberg.

Starlink made ‘work from home’ possible from anywhere — now, I’m ready for a change

Competition is coming, but it might never catch up.

Thomas Ricker
Elissa Welle
Elissa Welle
RFK Jr.‘s vaccine committee says hepatitis B shot can wait.

On Friday, the handpicked CDC advisory group, containing several known vaccine critics, scrapped the three-decade-old recommendation to vaccinate all babies for hepatitis B at birth, instead delaying the recommended schedule to 2 months, if at all, for babies whose mothers test negative for the disease.

That’s a bad idea, according to medical groups and public health experts, and likely to lead to a rise in hepatitis B cases.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Kohler’s stopped claming its Dekoda toilet camera uses end-to-end encryption.

After Simon Fondrie-Teitler called out the Dekoda health tracker’s incorrect use of the term end-to-end encryption because Kohler does have access to the data it collects, the company has updated the toilet cam’s product pages to now say that user data is “encrypted in transit and at rest.”

Welcome to the wellness surveillance state

We’ll take your blood and urine, please.

Victoria Song