Science touches so many aspects of modern life that it's hard to keep up. Through our programs and this website, Science for the Public provides up-to-date information about scientific innovations, discoveries, and issues that are shaping modern knowledge.
Section #1 explains the AI basics: GenAI, AGI, ASI; GPT; how AI is "trained"; AI errors, AI "consciousness"; and AI hype
Section #2 explains the multiple impacts of AI: AI databases; copyright; jobs; cognition
Section 3 discusses important AI threats: AI deceptions; political AI; military AI; and AI disobedience
Section 4 describes the warnings of many AI leaders and experts: that the potential damage of AI is very real, and that governmental controls are absolutely necessary.
Huge regions of apparent nothingness throughout the universe are full of surprises....
One of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time still meets resistance today
Mounting evidence suggests a link between chemicals in consumer products and breast cancer.
What's so important about an atmosphere? Find out here.
Many of the most important advances in scientific understanding were initially rejected or ignored.
In an era of global science, other nations are increasing their science budgets. Why aren't we?
Partly in order to understand its amazing complexity, and partly in order to advance medical therapies. So, how do you create a viable cell?
07/18/23 The actual nutritional value of our food depends on the quality of soil in which it is grown. Healthy soil, healthy people, healthy planet. David R. Montgomery & Anne Biklé
09/17/24 How migratory creatures navigate so accurately to their seasonal destinations, sometimes thousands of miles away, is still often a mystery. What do scientists know, and what are they still trying to discover? Charles Walcott
03/19/24 A prominent biologist explains the crucial importance of biodiversity for life on Earth, and how the sixth mass extinction fractures that stability. Michael Reed.
02/15/18 New insights about dark matter, primordial black holes, and gravitational waves. Julian B. Muñoz
12/11/18 The 2018 update on the work at the Large Hadron Collider. Markus Klute
05/06/24 WGBH Forum Network webinar. All sorts of animals engage in imaginative types of play. Is this behavior just creature-entertainment, or is it important for development and bonding? David Toomey
03/08/16 Reconstructing the relationship between biological evolution and geology, climate, environment. Andrew Knoll
02/24/15 What causes the massive plankton blooms that are necessary for stabilizing Earth's CO2 balance, and how does the process work? Amala Mahadevan
09/12/17 Clouds are an essential component of the dynamics of climate change. Here's how that works. Daniel Cziczo
07/05/22 Scientists struggled for decades to get an EPA ban on Chlorpyrifos, a widely used pesticide known to impair brain development. As autism, ADHD and other developmental conditions increased, vested interests blocked efforts to regulate Chlorpyrifos and other agricultural toxins. Philip Landrigan
05/30/23 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has aptly described the opioid crisis as the “worst drug overdose epidemic in [US] history.” How did that happen? Andrew Kolodny, M.D.
11/01/11 An award-winning MIT lab engineers practical necessities for impoverished nations. Amy Smith
07/19/21 A carbon capture innovation that can produce useful, products, including non-polluting transportation fuels. Sami Khan
An indispensable resource about corporate deception tactics --from tobacco to climate change
A biologist who specializes in birds and studies numerous conservation problems, especially the characteristics of species that put them most at risk from habitat loss and climate change