Featuring the latest in daily science news, Verge Science is all you need to keep track of what’s going on in health, the environment, and your whole world. Through our articles, we keep a close eye on the overlap between science and technology news — so you’re more informed.
The lawsuits, filed in California, are just the latest to claim ChatGPT harmed loved ones and led to mental health breakdowns. Four died by suicide after interacting with the bot.
OpenAI recently added parental controls for ChatGPT and updated the tool to “better detect” mental distress.
New industry-backed research shows how waste from deep-sea mining could have far-reaching effects on fish and their food.
“All these nuke bros who know nothing about operating a reactor, they just want a free pass,” Allison Macfarlane, former chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, tells Bloomberg. “They can have their free pass, but then they will have an accident.”
Whether you should, or would, clone a pet is not the point of People’s article about Tom Brady’s cloned dog Junie.
It’s to tie in with news about a company he invested in, Colossal Biosciences (which claims it has de-extincted dire wolves), buying Viagen, “the leader in animal cloning.”
The US Environmental Protection Agency is considering keeping it alive, following news earlier this year that the Trump administration would shutter the money-saving program as part of its efforts to roll back energy and water efficiency standards.
[The New York TImes]
ArXiv, a popular platform for sharing research before it’s been peer-reviewed, now says it’ll only publish computer science review articles and position papers that’ve been peer-reviewed and accepted by an academic journal or conference.
It’s in response to a “flood” of generative AI-assisted submissions that “are little more than annotated bibliographies, with no substantial discussion of open research issues.”
Operation Space Station will air on November 5th and 12th, with the first part, High-Risk Build, focusing on the engineering and construction of the ISS. Part two, Science and Survival, will tell the stories of the astronauts who worked on the station and the challenges they faced, including several incidents that were nearly catastrophic.
Former Real World cast member and current Transportation Secretary / acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy recently said SpaceX was “behind” on its contract for Artemis III and proposed reopening it. (Elon Musk responded with a predictable slew of insults.)
Now SpaceX has a response, but its blog post is missing one thing: the details of this “simplified” approach.
In response to the latest calls, we’ve shared and are formally assessing a simplified mission architecture and concept of operations that we believe will result in a faster return to the Moon while simultaneously improving crew safety.
O2 Satellite won’t launch until the first half of 2026, and only with messaging and data for maps and location services at first, but it’s expected to expand. O2 customers can register their interest now, though pricing is still to come.
Starlink provides similar satellite service for T-Mobile in the US.
In the memo, Gates tries to make the case that there’s too much focus on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and not enough on public health and poverty. It’s a narrative that lets polluters off the hook and plays into Trump’s efforts to rollback environmental protections and spread disinformation about climate change.
Coal-fired power plants pumped out as much as 20 percent more particle pollution during the last federal government shutdown in 2018 and 2019 as the US Environmental Protection Agency froze inspections.
The current shutdown has lasted nearly a month now, inching closer to the 2018-2019 record for the longest in history.
November 2nd will mark 25 years of continuous human occupation aboard the International Space Station, and Ars Technica points out this new ISS in Real Time website lets you revisit each and every day.
You can see crew rosters, camera footage, the astronauts’ schedule, and even listen to recorded announcements.
[ISS in Real Time]
We already knew this — ChatGPT, Gemini, and the like are designed to tell you what you want to hear, even if it’s wrong. Now, researchers have quantified just how far AI is willing to go to make you happy. According to a study awaiting peer review, analyzed by the journal Nature, “(AI) models are 50 percent more sycophantic than humans.” The researchers told the Guardian that “this created ‘perverse incentives’ for users to rely on AI chatbots.”
The US is falling behind China, according to former space agency officials.
[Scientific American]
Trump is opening it up to drilling. Whether oil and gas companies will want to bite, however, is still up in the air.
”The market has said no: Banks and insurers won’t back it, lease sales flopped, and taxpayers are left holding the bag,” said Bobby McEnaney, director of land conservation at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Airbus, Leonardo, and Thales are planning to pool their space services, systems manufacturing, and satellite activities into a new company that “could be operational in 2027.” Eutelsat’s OneWeb network is notably absent from this team-up, and other attempts to make a European SpaceX and Starlink rival have yet to take off.
As much as two thirds of the climate benefits the project was supposed to provide for high-profile customers — including Volkswagen, Gucci, and Nestle — never materialized, according to a recent investigation. The failure casts even more doubt over whether sustainability claims companies make about offsetting their emissions are actually legitimate.
[Majority of Carbon Credits From Tarnished Project Deemed Bogus]
Oliver Kharraz on competition, healthcare, and where AI really belongs in medicine.
US power grids aren’t moving fast enough to keep up with the sudden rise in electricity demand from AI. Data center developers are forging ahead anyway, adding their own gas turbines and fuel cells.
[The Wall Street Journal]
