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.
The kind of matter made of atoms accounts for a tiny fraction of the mass of the universe...
The unexpected and unlikely nature of the photon was hard to believe
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?
The long reign of bacteria, the eventual branching and diversification, symbiogenesis, the dramatic mass extinctions and resurgence of life...
05/14/24 WGBH Forum Network Webinar. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), specifically designed to measure the universe's expansion, has now produced the largest and most precise 3D map for the expansion analysis. And the first results of the survey are amazing. Paul Martini
06/18/24 WGBH Forum Network webinar. CERN’s Large Hadron Collider has made very significant discoveries (including the Higgs boson), but physicists now need to expand the probe. Tulika Bose
02/18/25 Is there life beyond Earth? So far, despite the discovery that there are billions of planets in our galaxy, and our increasingly sophisticated probes for life, we still don’t know. Life and the conditions for its emergence are both very complex phenomena. Mario Livio
03/13/13 How the Sun's magnetic storms can affect electric grids and electronic communications. Jeffrey Hughes
03/08/21 Gravitational waves produced by colliding neutron stars are providing unique information about the universe. Edo Berger
12/09/09 Genetic material in ancient fossils yields an amazing profile of extinct organisms. Chris Organ
10/14/14 How DNA is folded in the cell may shed light on cancer and other diseases. Jané Kondev
04/15/15 A leading expert and author on the issue of genetically modified foods explains the corporate resistance to labeling GM foods. Sheldon Krimsky
02/29/20 It took almost a century to determine if and how continents moved (continental drift). In the 1960s irrefutable evidence showed that tectonic plates caused regular shifts of the planet’s magnetic polarity, volcanoes and earthquakes -and the drift of continents.
04/08/25 Numerous types of cancer are increasing today and scientists are trying to identify the causes. That's why cancer research is one of the most important concerns of modern science. We learn how the research is done and also why federal funding for this work is essential. Gerald Denis
06/21/11 In this extraordinary era almost any limb, organ or tissue can be replaced. Shawn Kelly
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 excellent resource on cosmology for the general reader, co-authored by one of the greatest theoretical physicists of our time
An international leader in urban design, emphasis on healthy and sustainable environment