The Authors Guild — one of the largest associations of writers in the US — has launched a new project that allows authors to certify that their book was written by a human, and not generated by artificial intelligence. The Guild says its “Human Authored” certification aims to make it Read more…
The chemical building blocks of life have been found, among many other complex chemical compounds, in the grainy dust of an asteroid called Bennu, an analysis reveals. Samples of the space rock, which were scooped up by a Nasa spacecraft and brought to Earth, contain a rich array of minerals Read more…
Astronomers have discovered a newly identified asteroid that has a 1-in-83 chance of striking Earth on December 22, 2032, though the most likely scenario is a close miss. Designated as 2024 YR4, the asteroid measures in at 196 feet wide and is currently 27 million miles away. The near-Earth object Read more…
Chinese scientists have created mice with genetic material from two males that survived to adulthood, marking a potential breakthrough in reproductive biology, according to research published in Cell Stem Cell. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences used CRISPR gene editing to target 20 genes involved in embryonic development, producing Read more…
Genetic diversity in animals and plants has declined globally over the past three decades, an analysis of more than 600 species has found. The research, published in the journal Nature, found declines in two-thirds of the populations studied, but noted that urgent conservation efforts could halt or even reverse genetic Read more…
Bolstered by Silicon Valley investment, scientists are making such rapid progress that lab-grown human eggs and sperm could be a reality within a decade, a meeting of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority board heard last week (PDF). In-vitro gametes (IVGs), eggs or sperm that are created in the lab Read more…
A team of biologists have found that it takes microplastics consumed by mice just a few hours to reach their brains. Wondering if the plastic in their brains was causing any impairment, the researchers tested several of the mice and found that many of them experienced memory loss, reductions in Read more…