AI may soon be the default way to solve theoretical problems in economics, high-energy physics, and other fields, MIT researchers tell WIRED.

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here.

For the past 100 days or so, my mornings have had a new rhythm. When I wake up, the first thing I have to do is feed my digital twin. It consumes my metabolic data, and its first "meal" of the day is my body composition data, sent straight from a smart scale.

Once that's logged in the app, I scoot over to the kitchen to fill an Owala with lemon water to take my medications with. That, too, gets logged in the app. On Mondays, I'll …

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Old-school physics-based weather forecasting and even new AI models typically become less reliable beyond two weeks, a problem Microsoft claims to have solved using machine learning.

Researchers with the company say they've found a new, cost-effective way to make more accurate weather forecasts two to six weeks in advance - allowing farmers and emergency responders to plan ahead with greater certainty. The findings were published today in the journal Nature, and the tool is now open-source software.

Microsoft joins Google, Nvidia, and other companies developing AI tools for weather forecasting. Instead of creating a new standalone weather …

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Ukrainian officials claim the Elon Musk-owned Starlink put new limits on its service in the area without warning, disrupting the country's drone operations and missions, according to reports from Reuters and the Financial Times. The move comes just days after Musk wrote on X that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "has gone too far," in response to President Donald Trump's disapproval of Ukraine targeting Russian oil refineries.

"It is clear that this action is not coincidental and is related to the current political situation," Ukrainian defense tech advisor Serhii Beskrestnov writes on Telegram.

Earlier this week, Russia launched a …

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Seven of 16 planetary vital signs are in their most extreme state ever recorded, and El Niño is here to make matters even worse.

For a car that's supposed to be one of the fastest ever made, the new Tesla Roadster certainly took its sweet-ass time getting here.

It's been nearly a decade since Elon Musk made the surprise announcement about plans to build a next-gen Roadster. Now, the Tesla Roadster is finally expected to make its production-ready debut at an event in Waco, Texas - and the timing couldn't be worse.

The new Roadster is set to arrive in an EV market beset by high energy prices, political turmoil, and consumer uncertainty. The tax-credit-fueled exuberance of the post-covid years has since given way to slower sales and fewer options. Automakers are scalin …

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A mysterious super PAC that doubles as a pro-solar-energy outfit is funding some of the most knives-out attack ads of the midterms season.

Researchers took lessons from nocturnal animals to help rescue drones overcome a key challenge: flying in the dark.

The deeply uncomfortable film forces audiences to confront what types of stories we tell ourselves about who has economic and political power.

No longer will Americans have to go without delicious and inexpensive industrial dyes in their foodstuffs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reportedly to allow additives to be added to food without safety review so long as they aren't proven to be carcinogenic and introduced at levels below 0.5 parts per billion. — Read the rest

The post New FDA loophole would allow toxic chemicals into food appeared first on Boing Boing.

After four weeks of using the cream, participants lowered the biological age of their skin by about two years on average.

Solar geoengineering could buy humanity time against climate change—or trigger a dangerous new arms race. A first-of-its-kind simulation offered a glimpse of what happens when geopolitics takes the wheel.

If you thought you'd seen all there is to see from the Artemis II mission, you're wrong. This week NASA posted over 800GB worth of science data, images, and videos on the Artemis II: Sights & Sounds of Science site. The archive includes over 11,000 photos and videos, over 8.5 hours of audio, and crew-annotated images, such as the one marking where they saw impact flashes on the dark side of the Moon. Together, they offer an unprecedented view inside a historic space mission.

One of the more exciting reveals was footage of the Artemis II team telling the ground team back in Houston about its observation of impact flashes. Impact flashes have …

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Here’s what we know about the record-setting El Niño on a record-hot planet, and the most important questions scientists are trying to answer.

Redwoods adapted to a cool, foggy climate. Now a new study shows they slow down photosynthesis when their environment warms.

The new image isn’t just stunning—it may also provide clues about how this star survived its own explosion.

The data drop includes photographs, audio, video, and astronauts’ notes that will be used to study the moon and prepare for future human missions.

The three-body problem remains unsolved—we can't generally predict the motion of three bodies for all starting conditions using regular maths—but there are many solutions showing periodic orbits given specific conditions. Three Body Orbits is a beautiful "atlas" animating 3,942 of them. — Read the rest

The post An atlas of periodic solutions to the three-body problem appeared first on Boing Boing.

Castelion—a next-generation defense tech company—is building a facility in Rio Rancho Estates that documents show could pose a major fire and chemical hazard to neighboring communities.

SpaceX has acquired a portfolio of low-band spectrum licenses - a move the company says "will pave the way" for its Starlink Mobile service to become a "major" US carrier. When the Federal Communications Commission signs off on the deal, SpaceX says it will deploy its new architecture that combines its satellite-to-mobile constellation with a terrestrial mobile network, directly competing with T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon.

The licenses include up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band, which SpaceX says will allow Starlink Mobile's signal to penetrate through walls and buildings. SpaceX previously acquired 2GHz spectrum from …

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