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....
A poison that was initially considered a solution to disease-bearing insects and harmless to humans and animals became lethal
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 fine line between animate and inanimate, and between quasi-life and 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
03/17/15 Was there ever life on Mars? How do scientists search for and analyze possible clues? Roger Summons
09/15/15 How stars and their planetary systems form, and what the New Horizons mission to Pluto will reveal about the "fossil record" of our own solar system. Scott J. Kenyon
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
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
10/28/13 A major ethicist and author talks about the geoengineering issue and his new book on that topic, Earthmasters
08/30/22 The U.S. healthcare system ranks last among 11 high-income countries. We spend more than other nations on medical care, but the service is seriously inadequate. What can be done? Melissa Gariddo
10/26/10 A major breakthrough in the restoration of vision. Shawn Kelly
09/20/22 Despite the hype, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is not a solution to the CO2 problem. Charles Harvey
11/10/15 What we can do to speed up the transition to renewable energy, despite Big Oil's well funded resistance. Jeff Deyette
An indispensable resource about corporate deception tactics --from tobacco to climate change
A astrophysicist who investigates the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system