Like DNA hard drives, the approach could lock the world's data down for the long haul—if researchers can make it practical.

Our bodies are constantly breaking down. Over time, their built-in repair mechanisms also fail. Knee cartilage grinds away. Hip joints no longer support weight. Treatments for breast cancer and other ...

How consciousness arises in the brain is no clearer after two big theories go head-to-head, but the competition's design could push the field forward. “Theories are like toothbrushes,” it’s sometimes ...

For nearly 18 years, Tim Friede injected himself with doses of venom from the world’s deadliest snakes. A snake enthusiast, Friede was regularly at risk of snakebites and always kept vials of ...

The brain’s rules seem simple: Fire together, wire together. When groups of neurons activate, they become interconnected. This networking is how we learn, reason, form memories, and adapt to our world ...

Let a mouse nose around a house, and it will rapidly find food and form a strategy to return to it without getting caught. Given the same task, an AI would require millions of training examples and ...

My nephew couldn’t stop playing Minecraft when he was seven years old. One of the most popular games ever, Minecraft is an open world in which players build terrain and craft various items and tools.

A paralyzed woman can again communicate with the outside world thanks to a wafer-thin disk capturing speech signals in her brain. An AI translates these electrical buzzes into text and, using ...

Our cells are like the ultimate soft robots. Made mostly of a liquid interior wrapped inside a fatty shell, they split, stretch, roam, and squeeze into every nook and cranny of the body. Actual robots ...

A giggling toddler in a pink dress and matching headphones lies down on her back in front of a gigantic whirling machine. A pillowy headrest cushions her head. She seems unfazed as she’s slowly ...

Our hands are works of art. A rigid skeleton provides structure. Muscles adjust to different weights. Our skin, embedded with touch, pressure, and temperature sensors, provides immediate feedback on ...

Space stations break down. Satellites get damaged. Repairing them requires launching replacement components on rockets. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is now exploring an ...