Category: 7. SciTech

New research suggests that playing music in the background could help people with ADHD concentrate, especially when it’s fast-paced and engaging. Rather than being a distraction, background music might serve as a subtle mental anchor, offering benefits that support attention during…

Food allergies are on the rise. In the UK, the number of people affected doubled between 2008 and 2018. Globally, it’s estimated some 220 million people experience allergic reactions to certain foods.

For most, this means a few mild symptoms, like an itchy rash or stomach pain. But around a…

For non-runners who don’t appreciate the appeal of a two-hour slog at 6am, know that running (and other forms of cardio) sometimes produces a powerful chemical hit that justifies comparisons with actual narcotics.

The body produces two feel-good substances typically associated with a…

A little over 5 million years ago, water from the Atlantic Ocean found a way through the present-day Strait of Gibraltar. According to this…

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.

Large language models work well because they’re so large. The latest models from OpenAI, Meta, and DeepSeek use hundreds of billions of “parameters”—the adjustable knobs that determine connections among data and get tweaked…

The bitter bracket fungus, Amaropostia stiptica, is probably not available at your local farmer’s market, and if you didn’t get the hint from its name, it’s because it tastes really, really terrible.

In fact, this bracket fungus is so bitter that a team of gustatory physiologists and…

Find it difficult to do several things at once? First, the good news is you’re not alone – most people are terrible at task-switching. Secondly (and in even more good news), psychologists have been studying it for decades to figure out why.

In an ideal world, we’d focus on one task at a…

A new theoretical study suggests that the mysterious force driving the accelerated expansion of the universe—known as dark energy—may actually be rooted in a deeply quantum structure of space-time. This new preprint study could finally provide us with long-sought-after evidence…

Bacteria is amazing. We’ve found bacteria we’ve never seen on the ISS, and even bacteria that can eat forever chemicals. But what do you get when you combine a Raspberry Pi, 12 motorized arms, and some microbial inspiration? A bacteria-inspired robot named ZodiAq that swims using…

You’ve probably seen the videos as you scroll through your social media feed: It starts with a cat minding their own business, calmly eating kibble or wet food. Behind the feline, however, sits a…