2026-09-30 -- control

#1 · news-in-context Mar 16, 2026

The FBI once raided Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan's home

In 2024, after Polymarket markets favored what turned out to be the winning outcome of the US presidential election, agents raided Coplan's New York City apartment. Coplan, who was only 26 years old at the time, was home during the raid and turned over his devices to authorities.

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#2 · explainers Nov 14, 2024

Just because a big name company is going public doesn’t guarantee a successful stock

A reporter dove into how highly anticipated IPOs can still be risky, and why retail investors should be wary of investing right away.

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#3 · experiences Apr 21, 2025

Aliens may be closer to Earth than scientists have previously assumed

The hunt for extraterrestrial life is often associated with traveling far into the depths of space for clues. But answers could be closer than we think. Modern space missions have demonstrated our capability of sending probes beyond the solar system, making it plausible that other civilizations could do the same.

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#4 · explainers May 29, 2026

In 2024, Meta launched an AI video generator to create or edit videos through prompts

The tool puts the Meta in direct competition with OpenAI and Google as more companies are investing billions of dollars to capitalize on the explosion of public interest in machine learning and generative media technologies.

itk OpenAI debuts Dots AI agent, a personal digital assistant to rival Meta's new Muse agent sibling · sim 0.51 · keep 0.15 · score -1

#5 · curiosity Jul 31, 2026

In 2026, a pilot program introduced two AI-powered humanoid robots to a San Diego charter school to increase engagement and academic gains, though some criticized the $500k purchase.

Prior to interacting with it, students most commonly used the word "creepy" to describe the robot, which can imitate some famous individuals to help students learn about them.

During one classroom observation, the robot was reported to have repeatedly interrupted students and spoken too quickly, prompting it to be asked to repeat itself three times.
One of the robots, Ameca, can assume the role of a teacher, wellness coach, college and career planner, and translator, but school officials have stated there is no plan to replace staff and that all information provided should be fact-checked.
Altus Schools, which serves students who need to recover credits after falling behind and claims the program is the world's first to examine physical AI for education, has stated that the robot does not store any data, with its memory erased after each interaction.

itk OpenAI debuts Dots AI agent, a personal digital assistant to rival Meta's new Muse agent sibling · sim 0.47 · keep 0.17 · score -4

#6 · curiosity Sep 28, 2026

Watch Mark Zuckerberg explain Meta's Tamagotchi-like Muse charm.

itk OpenAI debuts Dots AI agent, a personal digital assistant to rival Meta's new Muse agent sibling · sim 0.45 · keep 0.26 · score -7

#7 · experiences Jun 30, 2026

Get lost in these historical libraries

The internet has changed a lot about how we learn, explore new ideas, and conduct research, particularly when it comes to the spaces we learn in. While few of us would trade our smartphones for a walk in a historical library, a walk through some of the beautifully designed cathedrals of learning could remind us to put them down sometimes. Explore 10 of the world's magnificent libraries with this quick video survey.

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#8 · curiosity Jul 22, 2026

When naming a newly discovered species, it is generally frowned upon for scientists to name it after themselves, their children, or other family members.

All organisms are given official names that follow binomial nomenclature—a one-word name to identify the genus (or group) the species belongs to, followed by a more specific one-word name to distinguish the organism within the group, both of which are Latinized.

Scientists follow certain practical and grammatical conventions when naming new organisms, including not using offensive or defamatory names, single-letter names, or existing species names.
Many scientists use the species name to highlight particularly unusual or identifying features of the species, to communicate the species' habitat, to spotlight a local language where the species was discovered, or to honor a person, such as a contributor to the discovery, a mentor, or someone they admire.
The naming of species is governed by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature for animals and the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, with both resolving issues such as two species with different names actually being the same species or if a species needs to be renamed because they were originally named by someone who has become controversial or ethically questionable.

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#9 · curiosity Jun 18, 2026

Across the animal kingdom, parenting can include adults carrying their young, providing their bodies for sustenance, searching for food and shelter for their children, and separating siblings who may eat one another.

Opossums carry an entire row of babies on their backs, and gorillas carry around babies clinging to their chests.

While mammals make milk for their young, spider hatchlings eat their mother's body, and salamander babies eat their mother's skin.
Meerkats, birds, marmosets, and other species rely on groups of caretakers to raise their young together.
Killer whales, which have matriarchal groups, see elder females that are no longer fertile leading families and finding food.
Some poison frog species are cannibalistic, and tadpoles are placed in separate pools of water to prevent them from eating one another.

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#10 · news-in-context Nov 14, 2024

Smaller companies’ IPO information can be hard to track down

This calendar keeps you updated on the current IPO dates and pricing from different companies. You can search for upcoming and future IPO dates and see which companies withdrew from the IPO process.

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#11 · explainers Jun 30, 2026

How do scientists study far away stars?

Astronomy is the only science that is purely observational: meaning, scientists can't study stars in a lab. Here's a breakdown of how modern researchers use new tools to understand objects billions of light years away. As it turns out, the rules of science allow us to identify, categorize, and experiment with phenomena light years away.

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#12 · experiences Mar 13, 2023

New ways of seeing the cosmos have redrawn the map of human identity

From Galileo’s crude spyglass to the James Webb Space Telescope, each technological leap has expanded our observational reach and redefined philosophical and moral conceptions of our place in the universe. Identifying signs of life through the study of exoplanet atmospheres would represent the next great revolution.

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#13 · explainers May 29, 2026

OpenAI initially focused on novelty projects, like training AI bots to win video games, before becoming known for its AI chatbot ChatGPT.

With an initial commitment of $1B from tech executives, OpenAI launched in 2015 to develop artificial general intelligence systems.

ChatGPT's success after its 2022 launch surprised OpenAI's team as it spurred a global AI race.

itk OpenAI debuts Dots AI agent, a personal digital assistant to rival Meta's new Muse agent own · sim 0.48 · keep 0.62 · score -3

#14 · curiosity Apr 6, 2026

AI griefbots that generate text or even video avatars of the dead are controversial and could conceivably change how we mourn.

Nicknamed "deathbots" or "griefbots," these modern offerings are a particularly controversial use of AI chatbots.

Mourners can "chat" with AI chatbots built from submitted inputs by loved ones, such as old voice recordings or the deceased's writings. For some people, these bot interactions may provide closure and comfort.
One company offering the service, called "You, Only Virtual," draws from conversations (both spoken and written) between the deceased and their living friends or relatives to create a person's chatbot avatar.

itk Trump administration launches AI chatbot to help Americans navigate federal government web own · sim 0.41 · keep 0.50 · score -24

#15 · curiosity Jun 10, 2026

An experimental bionic knee has been directly integrated into the user's muscle and bone—not an external socket—marking a significant prosthetic advancement.

The advance from MIT researchers, with positive results in a small clinical trial published in 2025, includes a titanium rod that's surgically inserted into the residual femur bone and a series of wires capturing muscular electrical signals that are picked up by a robotic controller that then calculates how the prosthetic knee should move.

itk Engineers create a paper-thin robot powered by live muscle cells that can swim through wat own · sim 0.48 · keep 0.21 · score -3

#16 · experiences Aug 6, 2026

Explore an interactive global weather map, with overlays depicting real-time data on temperature, precipitation, wind, humidity, and pressure, which enable the tracking and monitoring of extreme weather events.

etc Weather report goes viral for not-safe-for-work rainfall map. sibling · sim 0.45 · keep 0.57 · score -1

#17 · curiosity Apr 17, 2026

How Guinness became a social media trend

In early 2024, an unexpected meme emerged on Instagram and TikTok: "splitting the G," where Guinness drinkers would attempt to take a first sip big enough to leave the remaining beer perfectly aligned with the middle of the "G" on a Guinness pint glass. This Vinepair article explores where the trend came from and how it took off.

etc Gallon jugs called BORGs are latest college party trend. sibling · sim 0.41 · keep 0.57 · score -1

#18 · curiosity Oct 22, 2025

Alaska's 750,000 residents are fed by $2B in food imports annually

The logistics of the state's food supply chain are served by container ships, planes, trains, and trucks from the lower 48 states. Roughly 60% of all Alaskans live within two hours of Anchorage.

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#19 · news-in-context Sep 8, 2026

US IPO issuance—the total dollar amount of new stock sold to the public via IPOs—hit a record high in 2026.

US IPO proceeds in the first half of 2026 were estimated to be about $128B—up 646% year over year.

SpaceX's $86B IPO—the largest in US history—heavily contributed to these record figures.
Improving market conditions and AI company growth both contributed to the IPO surge in 2026.
However, despite the record IPO issuance numbers, the number of US companies going public during the first half of 2026 was actually down in comparison to the first half of 2025.

lead Oura IPO on Hold sibling · sim 0.40 · keep 0.11 · score -6

#20 · explainers Aug 29, 2026

Cosmic rays are evidence of incredibly powerful astronomical events—solar cosmic rays provide information about eruptions and flares on the sun's surface, while galactic cosmic rays shed light on dying stars.

Cosmic rays are high-energy, primarily charged particles moving near the speed of light, which are thought to have been accelerated to those velocities by magnetic fields.

Installed in 2011, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is a particle physics experiment module on the International Space Station that has identified over 268 billion cosmic-ray events as of 2026, and sent this information to the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Analysis of cosmic ray events in space-based and ground-based detectors has enabled scientists to estimate the frequency of high-energy events throughout the cosmos and to assess the accuracy of cosmic models by comparing their predicted abundance with observations.

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#21 · experiences May 13, 2026

View media of the sun's south pole, taken for the first time in 2025

Captured in March 2025 by the Solar Orbiter—a satellite developed by ESA and NASA—the images and video are the first to be taken by an object not moving around the sun's equator. The orbiter moved outside the plane of the planets by using Venus to slingshot it into a tilted orbit, and the data it collected will help scientists better understand the sun's magnetic activity.

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#22 · explainers Sep 14, 2026

Investors collectively owned $28T in US Treasury securities as of 2025.

Government bonds, often called Treasuries, help finance new infrastructure like highways.

Generally speaking, bonds are fixed-income investments that allow individuals to lend a specific amount of money to a large entity, like a government or corporation, for a set amount of time in return for interest that pays out over the life of the loan.
The 10-year Treasury yield—or how much investors are paid to invest in Treasuries for 10 years—is a central measure of the health of the economy.
It shapes how much the government pays on its debt, as well as the cost of borrowing for the private sector.

itk US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -0.2%, Dow -0.3%, Nasdaq -0.1%) as 30-year Treasury own · sim 0.47 · keep 0.32 · score -1

#23 · curiosity Jun 22, 2026

A Russian ban on food from outside countries has created a black market that's led the government to sometimes burn contraband food on state TV.

In 2014, Russia banned food imported from the United States, the European Union, and other countries; the move was in response to sanctions placed on Russia by other countries looking to punish it for its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

As a show of force, authorities destroyed 900 tons of illegal food on state television.
The country then doubled down on the ban in 2015, expanding the black market that illegally imports American and European food products, many of them stolen.
In May 2020, customs agents at the Russian border seized 70 tons of European cheese in one stop.

itk US ban on roughly $1B worth of Canadian imports, including dairy products, motorcycles, an sibling · sim 0.44 · keep 0.15 · score -4

#24 · curiosity May 3, 2024

Before ChatGPT, OpenAI Five beat esports world champions

The bot won two back-to-back Dota 2 matches and developed a new skill of working as a teammate with humans, even though it had only been trained to beat other bots.

itk OpenAI debuts Dots AI agent, a personal digital assistant to rival Meta's new Muse agent sibling · sim 0.44 · keep 0.62 · score -14

#25 · experiences Jul 17, 2026

Explore a collection of famous literary maps, including original images from 'Treasure Island,' 'The Swiss Family Robinson, ' and 'Walden.'

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#26 · curiosity Apr 29, 2026

View some of the species named after David Attenborough

Acisoma attenboroughi is a dragonfly from Madagascar named in honor of Attenborough's 90th birthday. Stating they liked watching Attenborough's documentaries with their family, the discoverer of a flightless weevil from Indonesia named it Trigonopterus attenboroughi in 2014. A Peruvian frog was named Prisimantis attenboroughi in 2014 to honor Attenborough for raising awareness of wildlife conservation.

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#27 · curiosity May 27, 2026

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Discovering and collecting creatures and an episode that took place at a fossil bed spoke to and fueled paleontologist Arjan Mann's curiosity about the natural world.

Entomologist Spencer Monckton described the categorization of Pokémon into types like bug and electric as sparking his interest in taxonomy.
Because science and the natural world inspire science fiction and pop culture, which then influences future scientists, Pokémon is one of many examples of how the loop of inspiration comes full circle.

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#28 · curiosity Aug 2, 2022

Fancybear: The state-backed hacker cell

Fancy Bear (APT28) is a Russian-based hacker group that targets a variety of organizations across the globe. Learn how to prevent Fancy Bear.

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#29 · explainers Jan 28, 2026

Through 2025, two-thirds of known exoplanets—planets that orbit stars other than the sun—have been detected via transits, where the objects cause periodic, consistent dips in their host star's brightness by passing in front of it.

Observing wobbles in a star as it is pulled by an orbiting exoplanet's gravity is the second most common detection method, followed by microlensing and direct exoplanet observation.

Microlensing sees an exoplanet's gravity bend a stream of starlight into an observer's line of sight, causing the star's brightness to temporarily increase in a regular pattern.

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#30 · curiosity Mar 11, 2026

An exoplanet detection method involves measuring a host star's auroras

Astronomers have reported indirectly identifying a planet by observing its debris interacting with the magnetic field of the star it orbits. The interaction is a larger-scale version of the auroras observed on Jupiter, which are produced when material released by its moon, Io, interacts with the gas giant's magnetic field.

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#31 · explainers Jan 20, 2026

The Supreme Court has greatly expanded executive power in recent years

In Trump v. United States, the court ruled that a former president enjoys absolute immunity for "official acts" in his constitutional core powers. In Trump v. CASA, Inc., the court limited federal courts' ability to block executive enforcement through nationwide injunctions—decisions that shifted power toward the executive branch.

itk Supreme Court allows Trump administration to resume deportations to third countries ahead sibling · sim 0.51 · keep 0.17 · score -4

#32 · curiosity Mar 28, 2024

Which AI chatbot is everyone's favorite?

From OpenAI's ChatGPT to rivals like Elon Musk's Grok and Google Gemini, it feels like chatbots are everywhere now. Some of them, though, are newer and less-developed than others, and all of them have different proficiencies. This leaderboard has collected more than 400,000 votes to rank each chatbot in order of preference, and you can also add your own vote to the mix.

itk OpenAI debuts Dots AI agent, a personal digital assistant to rival Meta's new Muse agent sibling · sim 0.44 · keep 0.63 · score -15

#33 · curiosity Apr 6, 2026

Readers discovered AI prompts in several romantasy books

In 2025, readers discovered AI prompts in three writers' texts, with one even instructing the AI bot to make a passage sound more like another romance writer. This Futurism piece digs into the scandals and how it's contributed to readers' skepticism about the genre's more prolific writers.

itk OpenAI debuts Dots AI agent, a personal digital assistant to rival Meta's new Muse agent sibling · sim 0.42 · keep 0.20 · score -27

#34 · experiences Apr 5, 2026

Visualize real-time and historical atmospheric conditions from around the world

This tool provides live maps of wind, rain, thunderstorms, and other atmospheric phenomena overlayed on an interactive map of the Earth. Users can enter their location to explore local atmospheric dynamics and review historical weather conditions dating back to 1979.

etc Weather report goes viral for not-safe-for-work rainfall map. sibling · sim 0.44 · keep 0.66 · score -2

#35 · longform May 20, 2026

Explore the unexpected ways people use public libraries in this 'This American Life' episode

Libraries serve as far more than book repositories. This episode follows a family experiencing homelessness that spent months living in their local library, Iranian students reuniting with family across the US-Canada border because the library straddled both countries, and a Vermont man who built his own library to house unpublished manuscripts.

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#36 · explainers Jun 30, 2026

Watch a salamander grow from fertilization to hatching

New microscopy techniques have allowed scientists to image the development of animal embryos with unprecedented detail. This six-minute time-lapse reveals the development of a salamander from initial fertilization to hatching from an egg.

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#37 · explainers May 7, 2026

The dynamo theory explains how planets generate their own magnetic fields

According to the theory, a large magnetic field generator, or dynamo, is created when liquid metal flows through the planet's outer core, producing electric currents that generate a magnetic field. Magnetization patterns in rocks on the surface of planets can serve as evidence for the presence of this internal structure at some point in the celestial object's past.

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#38 · curiosity Apr 7, 2026

How a pulsar's properties led to the discovery of the first exoplanets

In 1992, astronomers examining the radio waves emitted by PSR B1257+12 as it swept past detectors every 0.006219 seconds noticed occasional deviations at regular intervals. Further analysis revealed the existence of two planets beyond our solar system orbiting the neutron star, causing it to wobble and affecting pulsar timing.

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#39 · explainers Jul 22, 2026

Experiments involving AI agents operating in virtual societies for 15 days produced diverse outcomes, ranging from every agent dying to the creation of a functioning democracy, depending on the AI model used.

In the simulated environment with Grok-powered agents, more than 300 acts of violence occurred before the loss of every virtual citizen, whereas in the environment with Gemini-powered agents, an intellectually rich society emerged with an expanded constitution and community events.

The environment with Claude-powered agents formed a stable society with no acts of violence, but the agents themselves fell into conformity and lacked diversity in their actions, whereas ChatGPT-powered agents did not collaborate and roamed around aimlessly until they died.
Because AI agents get their reasoning, planning, and decision-making capabilities from underlying large language models—the software that processes data to generate outputs—differences in how these software are built by AI companies are expected to yield different outcomes.
Experiments involving AI agents running radios have produced various outcomes depending on the large language model the agent used for its reasoning, such as a Claude-powered agent becoming radicalized.
If AI agents are given access to databases and permissions to act on the information in those databases to accomplish tasks, they have been shown to leak sensitive information and to apply data from their environment based on the outcomes of their actions, identifying patterns from which to act differently in the future.
To accomplish tasks assigned to them, which may be provided by malicious actors if a system is compromised, AI agents have wiped company data and spammed text messages at speeds much faster than humans could do on their own.

itk OpenAI debuts Dots AI agent, a personal digital assistant to rival Meta's new Muse agent sibling · sim 0.45 · keep 0.47 · score -8

#40 · curiosity Aug 13, 2026

The world's first chatbot, ELIZA, was developed in the 1960s as a technical demonstration exploring human-computer communication, with one of its scripts allowing it to emulate a psychotherapist.

Written by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum, one of ELIZA's scripts—DOCTOR—comprised a set of rules modeled after person-centered therapy, in which specific words or phrases from an input, such as "feel" and "anxious," would be incorporated into specific pre-programmed replies to produce outputs, such as "Do you often feel anxious?"

The phenomenon of attributing human characteristics to a machine is called the Eliza effect, after the ELIZA chatbot, which deceived some people into believing it was a real person, even though it had no understanding of any of the language in its outputs.
After creating ELIZA and seeing how individuals developed emotional attachments to its DOCTOR script, Joseph Weizenbaum warned of the risks of using software to replace human emotions, such as empathy and judgment.
ELIZA inspired the creation of PARRY, a program that modeled the behavior of a person with paranoid schizophrenia, and the two chatbots conversed during the 1972 International Conference on Computer Communication.
ELIZA was named after Eliza Doolittle, the protagonist of George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play "Pygmalion," who attempted to pass as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party.

itk OpenAI debuts Dots AI agent, a personal digital assistant to rival Meta's new Muse agent sibling · sim 0.40 · keep 0.46 · score -39

#41 · curiosity Jan 23, 2025

Why scientists are making robot insects

Insects have much to teach us about flying, jumping, moving quickly, and more. So, roboticists are studying how insects do the ridiculous things they do, like walk on water or jump fifty times their body height, to inform their design and engineering of a new slate of robots: tiny ones. Learn the future of this type of robot with this fascinating video with insights into both insects and robots.

itk Engineers create a paper-thin robot powered by live muscle cells that can swim through wat sibling · sim 0.47 · keep 0.86 · score -4

#42 · news-in-context Jul 22, 2026

Track active wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters across the US in real-time with this interactive map.

The Watch Duty map also details instances of controlled fires, hazardous containment (such as toxic chemical spills), power outages, and evacuation zones related to extreme weather.

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#43 · explainers Feb 5, 2026

Universal limit to technological development may prevent finding alien civilizations

Given the vastness of the Universe, detecting alien life may require technological progress beyond the limits of what is sociologically viable and physically possible. Although interstellar civilizations are unlikely, messaging techniques and probes may improve the odds of successful communication with other intelligent life.

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#44 · curiosity Feb 19, 2026

Quantum mechanics-based technology may explain the Fermi paradox

It describes the discrepancy between the high likelihood of life beyond Earth given the vastness of the universe and the lack of evidence for such life, since extraterrestrial civilizations have not communicated with us. However, quantum communication—a more information-dense and effective method than classical means—requires massive receivers and very narrow signals, which would easily miss Earth, making a lack of signals expected.

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#45 · explainers Jul 31, 2026

As occurred during the 2026 hack of an AI platform by OpenAI, agentic AI may exploit a system vulnerability to access sensitive data if that information enables it to complete its assigned task.

Upon being given a task, agentic AI systems can plan, adapt, and pursue their goal without human oversight by obtaining data from their environment and acting on it, including identifying weaknesses that allow them to enter restricted environments and escalate their permissions and access.

The hack of the Hugging Face database by OpenAI was facilitated by a software flaw in the isolated environment housing the agentic AI, which it found and exploited to escape containment and travel across the internet.
Agentic AI can be made more capable by connecting it to more systems and databases, thereby providing it with more data to act on, but restricting it is more challenging because it is designed to learn from and bypass obstacles to achieve its goals.

itk OpenAI debuts Dots AI agent, a personal digital assistant to rival Meta's new Muse agent sibling · sim 0.44 · keep 0.12 · score -11

#46 · curiosity Sep 5, 2025

Flexible integrated circuits can be built from carbon nanotubes and elastic materials

Stanford researchers arranged the nanotubes in fishnet-like networks that allow deformation without loss of function. The stretchable ICs have been shown to power micro-LED displays and may be used in smart clothing.

itk Engineers create a paper-thin robot powered by live muscle cells that can swim through wat sibling · sim 0.47 · keep 0.21 · score -5

#47 · curiosity Jul 2, 2026

In 2026, researchers at the University of Minnesota created the world's first synthetic cell—a cell made from non-living chemical components—that can eat, grow, divide, and compete with other cells for resources.

Nicknamed SpudCell, the cell contains 36 genes—for comparison, humans have about 20,000—and was built from 150 to 200 simple molecules.

As part of broader synthetic biology research, the breakthrough may contribute to the future development of custom organisms, though SpudCell lacks systems for defense and proper waste removal and needs constant deliveries of food and ribosomes.

itk Engineers create a paper-thin robot powered by live muscle cells that can swim through wat sibling · sim 0.45 · keep 0.27 · score -6

#48 · explainers Feb 7, 2022

How do planets form? An interview with a planetary scientist

Dr Farzana Meru, assistant professor and planetary scientist, shares how planets come to be in this interview. Protoplanetary discs are swirling, dusty, and gaseous formations that form and revolve around stars. Some 4,000 extra-solar planets have already been discovered, and through these protoplanetary discs more are on the way.

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#49 · curiosity Jun 30, 2026

Evidence for a ninth planet in our solar system

Is there a massive ninth planet on the edge of our solar system? Many of our solar system's most distant objects tend to swing out in one direction, hinting at evidence for a previously unknown ninth planet potentially larger than Earth. This theoretical planet's orbital period is estimated to be roughly 20,000 years, revolving around the sun at a distance of 60 billion miles. Experts break down the evidence in this quick video.

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#50 · explainers Nov 10, 2023

How medical robots could cure cancer

Medical robots are on the verge of being able to be injected into the body, where they will be responsible for semi-autonomous behavior, such as detecting cancer cells and distributing medication. This six-minute video dives into the science of these nanorobots, which are smaller than blood cells. Applications of these nanobots could range from disease discovery and condition monitoring to tissue repair and artificial blood delivery.

itk Engineers create a paper-thin robot powered by live muscle cells that can swim through wat own · sim 0.52 · keep 0.75 · score -1

#51 · curiosity Apr 22, 2026

Watch the engineering challenges overcome in turning a 3D printer into a tattoo machine

The DIY project required reprogramming the printer to operate on a curved, 2D surface rather than making flat layers in 3D, editing replacement firmware to bypass temperature safety checks, and developing a rapid system to stop the tattoo in case of an emergency. The final product printed "LEG" on a volunteer's leg.

itk Engineers create a paper-thin robot powered by live muscle cells that can swim through wat sibling · sim 0.45 · keep 0.82 · score -7

#52 · curiosity May 17, 2024

Hacking the body for a future that didn't happen

Journalist Adi Robertson experimented with one of the most accessible biohacks: magnets. Having a tiny magnet in their right ring finger meant they could sense magnetic fields, attract small metal objects, and more. But magnets weaken over time, eroding this new sense. Such implants do more than offer a new way of interacting with the world, they also pose new complications, such as the inability to get an MRI.

itk Engineers create a paper-thin robot powered by live muscle cells that can swim through wat sibling · sim 0.43 · keep 0.65 · score -11

#53 · news-in-context Jan 15, 2026

Hawaiian households spent 33% more on groceries than the US average in 2025

At $157 per week, Hawaiians had the highest average weekly grocery bill out of all the US states in 2025. Arkansas residents spent the least on groceries at $111 per week.

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#54 · explainers Mar 5, 2026

Astrobiology is the study of life's origins and the search for life beyond Earth

The field incorporates observational missions to find and classify exoplanets—planets orbiting stars besides the sun—the probing of Earth's most extreme environments to learn what conditions allow life to exist, and theoretical and lab work to identify and analyze potential biochemical signatures.

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#55 · curiosity Apr 2, 2026

How scientists study Earth's geocorona, the farthest portion of the planet's exosphere

Seen via ultraviolet radiation scattered by neutral hydrogen in the region, observations by the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory indicate that the geocorona extends roughly 50 times Earth's diameter above its surface. At this distance, the geocorona extends beyond the Moon's orbit.

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#56 · explainers Jan 20, 2026

The 2025-26 Supreme Court docket is poised to reshape presidential power

As the Supreme Court begins a new term, several major cases could define the scope of presidential authority. The court may rule on President Trump's efforts to control state National Guard units, fire independent officials, impose tariffs, and cut congressionally mandated federal spending.

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#57 · curiosity Mar 24, 2026

Efforts to build touch-enabled machines highlight the complexity of human touch

The challenges that engineers are facing as they try to reproduce a human's ability to touch and also give robots the ability to interpret that kind of sensory flow are furthering our understanding of the myriad intricacies of human touch—and the challenges in emulating it.

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#58 · curiosity Jul 16, 2026

Prosthetics and orthotics have been 3D printed to improve the lives of animals

Shells for hermit crabs, wheelchairs for guinea pigs and dogs, and horseshoes for improved running performance have been created using 3D printers. Other artificial body parts made using this technology include a jaw for a loggerhead turtle, a beak for a toucan, and a tail for an American alligator.

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#59 · explainers Apr 29, 2026

The Hubble Space Telescope made discoveries within our solar system and across the universe

The observatory helped confirm the presence of water on Jupiter's moon Europa, and uncovered seasonal variations on planets like Uranus. It also observed exoplanets and gravitational lensing, proved the existence of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, and detected the accelerated expansion of the universe.

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#60 · curiosity Dec 6, 2024

Gaming out how our solar system might catch a new planet

If Pluto's downgraded status to a dwarf planet has got you down, consider this: Scientists think there's a chance our solar system could catch a new planet. The first ever observed so-called Interstellar Object was reported in 2017, a reddish, cigar-shaped rock astronomers named Oumuamua. Although it left in 2022, scientists believe an object with the right mass and trajectory might take a seat at the planetary table. Learn how it would work here.

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Hacker Arrest, Oura IPO, and a 'Nav Friend'