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.
Most of the mass of the universe is invisible and undetectable and is known only by its effects....
The evidence for a 4-billion-years-old Earth was a serious contradiction of the widely held Biblical view
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?
01/07/25 Why climate scientists are very concerned about the global heat trend, how they analyze it, and what must be done. Mathew Barlow & Jeffrey Basara
09/26/23 Clouds protect the planet and play an essential role in climate dynamics. How will the rapidly heating planet affect that relationship? Daniel Cziczo
02/09/24 GBH Forum Network webinar (noon ET) The extreme level of atmospheric CO2 is well beyond a “capture and storage/sequestration” solution, yet the hype persists that some clever extraction innovation will resolve the problem. Charles Harvey
12/14/21 The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is the most advanced probe of the relationship between dark energy and the expansion of the universe. A unique project in astronomy. Arjun Dey
12/20/16 A guide to fundamentals of astrophyics at a time of many exciting --and sometimes puzzling-- discoveries. Priyamvada Natarajan
08/30/18 Boston-area artists Susan Heideman and Michelle Lougee discuss their fascinating exhibit, "The Life of Forms."
12/14/20 Ecological systems are the archetypal complex systems. And regardless of scale and diversity --from microbial systems to rain forests—they share common patterns and dynamics. James O'Dwyer
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.
10/22/13 Clouds and the particles they contain are essential information for climate science. Here's how scientists gather and decipher that information............... Daniel Cziczo
05/17/11 Why are viruses so successful, and can we manage the bad ones? John Connor
12/10/20 How neuroscientists probe the neural mechanisms behind disorders such as Parkinson's disease and other motor dysfunctions.. Jill Crittenden.
12/20/11 Desalination offers a solution to the water shortage problem... John Lienhard V
11/25/19 How the world-class Sustainable Design Lab at MIT combines architecture, engineering, physics --and creative genius-- to design the optimal urban environment. Christoph Reinhart
An interdisciplinary perspective on the biogeochemical relationships of ocean cycles
A prominent meteorology scientist whose research is focused on the complex, integrated processes across weather, climate, water, and ecosystems with specific attention directed toward precipitation extremes and associated impacts.