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....
The idea of neutrinos was originally dismissed as "too remote from reality"
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 discovery of organisms thriving in extreme temperatures and conditions deep undersea, deep in the Earth, deep in the ice suggests that life, once it emerges, is extraordinarily resilient..
01/14/21 Mathematics is the foundation of everything in Nature: structures, dynamics, processes. Understanding that foundation changes our perception of Nature. Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan
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
07/16/19 The destabilization of Earth's complex carbon cycle is associated with past mass extinctions. This mathematical model predicts a coming sixth mass extinction. Daniel Rothman
08/15/19 Dark matter is believed to comprise five-sixths of the matter in the universe, but cannot be "seen." Now, technical innovations offer closer observation and maybe new physics. Tracy Slatyer
11/22/10 Einstein completely changed our understanding of the universe. Here's how. Tereasa Brainerd
04/29/15 At the Summons Lab at MIT, scientists probe soil and rock samples from both ancient Earth and --using remote instruments-- Mars for bio-molecules. Roger Summons
12/14/10 The cell's self-defense repair kit against hereditary, environmental, and other threats. Sushil Alimchandani
03/11/25 Due mainly to climate change and wasteful agricultural practices, the supply of freshwater is rapidly diminishing across the globe. Governments must quickly develop advanced conservation and sustainability policies. Jay Famiglietti
12/17/14 An international expert explains how coastal ecosystems function and how they are adjusting to current stresses. Brian Helmuth
05/24/12 Genomic medicine will revolutionize health care, but it also introduces a challenge for data management. John Quackenbush
09/08/20 A distinguished physician-researcher explains the many threats to children's health all over the world, and how millions of young lives are saved by the W.H.O. Davidson Hamer, 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
Founder-Director of the Ashton-Graybiel Spatial Orientation Lab at Brandeis University, a major center for research on human adaptation to living in space.
