Primakov / Shutterstock China’s drive to expand its influence through soft power mechanisms like censorship is coming into sharper focus, especially under Xi Jinping’s leadership. Recently, the social media app TikTok has become a prominent symbol of this global strategy. The platform consistently denies that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance,Continue Reading
Rafapress / Shutterstock Google has launched Gemini, a new artificial intelligence (AI) system that can seemingly understand and talk intelligently about almost any kind of prompt –- pictures, text, speech, music, computer code and much more. This type of AI system is known as a multimodal model. It’s a stepContinue Reading
As online shopping increases over the festive period, so does the risk of cyber-scams. Chay Tee/Shutterstock The festive season is a time for joy, family and festive cheer. However, it’s also a prime target for cybercriminals. As online shopping ramps up, so does the risk of falling prey to cyber-attacks.Continue Reading
Great tits are familiar visitors to gardens. allanw/Shutterstock Every day, throughout the world, people put huge quantities of food out at feeding stations for birds and other wild animals. Although we know that connecting with nature benefits human health and wellbeing, scientists still know relatively little about the consequences ofContinue Reading
In an era where businesses and households depend on the internet for everything from marketing to banking and shopping, the lack of adequate digital access can be a significant hurdle. And our recent research shows that many homes and businesses in the UK are being left stranded in the digitalContinue Reading
Nasa Is there life beyond Earth? The question has turned out to be one of the hardest to answer in science. Despite the seemingly boundless expanse of the universe, which implies there’s potential for abundant life, the vast distances between stars render the search akin to locating a needle inContinue Reading
OpenAI, developer of ChatGPT and a leading innovator in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), was recently thrown into turmoil when its chief-executive and figurehead, Sam Altman, was fired. As it was revealed that he would be joining Microsoft’s advanced AI research team, more than 730 OpenAI employees threatened toContinue Reading
Steel production in an electric arc furnace. Norenko Andrey/Shutterstock In a move to embrace sustainable steelmaking, British Steel has unveiled a £1.25 billion plan to replace two blast furnaces at its Scunthorpe plant with electric arc furnaces. This follows the UK government’s commitment in September to invest up to £500Continue Reading
Pablo Carlos Budassi/wikipedia, CC BY-SA One of the biggest mysteries in cosmology is the rate at which the universe is expanding. This can be predicted using the standard model of cosmology, also known as Lambda-cold dark matter (ΛCDM). This model is based on detailed observations of the light left overContinue Reading
In March 2020, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, presented to the nation a graph showing “the shape of an epidemic”. The red line depicting the number of predicted COVID cases rose to a steep peak before falling again. Vallance explained that delaying and reducing the height ofContinue Reading
