Aedan O'Brien

Last week, we reported on a mysterious new website, ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com, that shows you a new human face, generated by an AI, every time you hit the refresh button. It’s a growing trend: more copycat websites like ThisAirbnbDoesNotExist.comand ThisWaifuDoesNotExist.net have also cropped up in its wake.   And now, ThisCatDoesNotExist.com takes the trend to its logical

Earth might have a dizzying array of life forms, but our biology ultimately remains a solitary data point – we simply don’t have a reference for life based on DNA different from our own. Now, scientists have taken matters into their hands to push the boundaries on what life could be like.   Research funded

A group of computer scientists once backed by Elon Musk has caused some alarm by developing an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) they say is too dangerous to release to the public.   OpenAI, a research non-profit based in San Francisco, says its “chameleon-like” language prediction system, called GPT–2, will only ever see a limited release

Researchers in China have developed a new way to remove bacteria from water that they say is both highly efficient and environmentally sound. By shining ultraviolet light onto a two-dimensional sheet of a compound called graphitic carbon nitride, the team’s prototype can purify 10 litres (2.6 liquid gallons) of water in just one hour, killing virtually

At first glance, the two rows of portraits at the top of this article just look like a bunch of average-looking people. The catch is, none of them exist. All of these faces are fakes, put together by artificial intelligence.   To be more precise, these faces are created by a generative adversarial network (GAN)

China’s Academy of Space Technology is working on an orbital power plant that would capture solar energy in space and beam it back to Earth.  The plant would be able to harness solar power even when it’s cloudy back on Earth, since its photovoltaic array would be floating high above any terrestrial weather.   With plans

Sleep is pretty great. In humans, evidence suggests it has a whole range of benefits, including this one: it keeps the brain healthy by letting neurons prune unnecessary synaptic connections we make during the day.   This process, called synaptic homeostasis, prevents the brain from being overrun by useless memories. It’s possible that it helps to

In a sensational test of technological independence, Russia is making plans to cut off its internet from the rest of the world, with a giant ‘unplugging’ experiment that will affect over 100 million Russian internet users.   The action – which the nation has boasted of doing for years – would be a temporary test,

Alarming video captured by a Twitter user in Philadelphia highlights a rare but little-known danger of electroshock Taser-style weapons. In the footage, posted on Saturday, a man is seen struggling with security guards on the street, before being fired upon with a Taser-style device. Almost instantly, the man is alight, screaming in agony as his

3D printers work by laboriously printing objects layer by layer. For larger objects, that process can take hours or even days. But now scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have found a shortcut: a printer that can fabricate objects in one shot using light – and which could, potentially, revolutionize rapid manufacturing technology.  

Artificial intelligence can play chess, drive a car and diagnose medical issues. Examples include Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo, Tesla’s self-driving vehicles, and IBM’s Watson. This type of artificial intelligence is referred to as Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) – non-human systems that can perform a specific task. We encounter this type on a daily basis, and its

In the first experiment of its kind, scientists have been able to translate brain signals directly into intelligible speech. It may sound like wild science fiction at first, but this feat could actually help some people with speech issues.   And yes, we could also get some futuristic computer interfaces out of this. Key to

Apple disabled its Group FaceTime feature in iPhones after multiple reports that users could initiate a FaceTime call and begin listening in on a recipient’s audio without them picking up the call or knowing they were being monitored.   The bug occurred after a user initiated a FaceTime video call with another iPhone or device

We can probably all agree that charging cables are just the worst, and that we’d love to have fewer of them in our lives. Now, a new invention might give us just that: engineers have developed a flexible device that harvests energy from Wi-Fi signals.   And not just harvest. It can then convert it

He Jiankui, the Chinese researcher who drew wide criticism when it emerged that he gene-edited several human babies, told an influential adviser about the work many months before it became public.   Though Nobel Prize winner and University of Massachusetts professor Craig Mello admonished He that the work was unethical, according to emails obtained by

Arthur Ashkin, the world’s oldest Nobel Prize winner, favours comfort over style. When I met him in his New Jersey home, he was sporting a fleece-lined zip-up, corduroy pants, and fuzz-lined Crocs.   The outfit makes sense for someone who spends a lot of time tinkering with new inventions in the basement. Ashkin, who’s 96

The notion that fake news exists in its own universe turns out to be doubly true: One universe is the realm outside truth. The other is its own seedy pocket of social media. In a new study published Thursday in the journal Science, political scientists surveyed the inhabitants of this Internet pocket around the time

The fact we’re living in a world where surveillance is becoming more common is unlikely to be a surprise to you. But even when you’re out of sight, you might not be safely hidden: researchers have developed a computer program that lets cameras see around corners.   The technique is called computational periscopy, and it