2+ hour, 40+ min ago   (432+ words) Elon Musk's rocket and satellite company SpaceX is acquiring his AI startup xAI, the centibillionaire announced on Monday. In a blog post, Musk said the acquisition was warranted because global electricity demand for AI cannot be met with "terrestrial solutions,…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago   (632+ words) The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. The reason we can gracefully glide on an ice-skating rink or clumsily slip on an icy sidewalk is that the surface of ice is coated by a thin watery layer....

1+ week, 4+ day ago   (551+ words) Elon Musk, the richest man on earth, is very good at making money. His track record of predicting the future is less stellar. Still, when one's companies have their hands in so many industries'autos and robotics (Tesla), space travel and…...

2+ week, 14+ hour ago   (1139+ words) There's no denying the allure of alien artifacts. Science fiction is awash in the material remnants of extraterrestrial civilizations, which surface in everything from the classic books of Arthur C. Clarke to game franchises like Mass Effect and Outer Wilds. The…...

2+ week, 20+ hour ago   (496+ words) The images give us a close-up view of how material is ejected away from the star during the explosion," explains Gail Schaefer, CHARA Array director. Catching these transient events requires flexibility to adapt our night-time schedule as new targets of…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago   (1097+ words) The senator wanted a promise. A solemn vow. For the last six years'or maybe the last decade or quarter century, depending on how you count it'the United States and China had been locked in a space race, a contest to…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago   (562+ words) What a weird time to be Elon Musk. This year opened with the businessman turned political operator throwing what appeared, to Nazis at least, to be a Sieg heil. Read more Expired/Tired/WIRED 2025 stories here. In May, Musk blew…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (635+ words) OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's new brain-computer interface startup, Merge Labs, is being spun out of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Forest Neurotech, according to a source with direct knowledge of the plans. It will focus on using ultrasound to read brain…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (1388+ words) It was almost 100 years ago that Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered Pluto. That was the last planet found until 1992, when humans found another one. But this new planet wasn't in our solar system'it was orbiting another star. We call this an extrasolar…...

1+ mon, 3+ week ago   (315+ words) The duration of a total solar eclipse always varies. In April 2024, the eclipse that crossed North America lasted 4 minutes and 28 seconds. By contrast, the one that will reach Spain in August 2026 will only last 1 minute and 43 seconds. In less than…...