Category: Technology

Vincent van Gogh sliced off his ear with a knife during a psychotic episode. Ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky developed schizophrenia and spent the last 30 years of his life in hospital. Virginia Woolf lived with bipolar disorder, eventually taking her own life as she felt another deep depression beginning. Many famous creative artists have lived […]

Optimus is a general-purpose robotic humanoid under development by Tesla. Raman Shaunia/Shutterstock When Elon Musk talks about robotics, he rarely hides the ambition behind the dream. Tesla’s Optimus is pitched as an all-purpose humanoid robot that can do the heavy lifting on factory floors and free us from drudgery at home. Tesla is targeting a […]

In Chemify's laboratories, AI-proposed molecules are compiled into chemical code which robots execute and test in real time. Chris James/Chemify, CC BY-NC-SA Chemistry deals with that most fundamental subject: matter. New drugs, materials and batteries all depend on our ability to make new molecules. But discovery of new substances is slow, expensive and fragile. Each […]

Informal settlement in South Africa. By Matt-80 – Own work, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY “Turn right after the first big tree; my house is the one with the yellow door.” In parts of South Africa, where settlements have grown without formal urban planning due to rapid urbanisation, that could well be a […]

In a move that signals the dawn of “Physical AI,” NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang officially launched the Alpamayo AI platform at CES 2026 on January 5, 2026. Designed to bring “deep-reasoning” capabilities to autonomous vehicles (AVs), Alpamayo shifts the industry from reactive, rule-based systems to intelligent agents that can think, justify, and act in real-world […]

Wild rock doves such as these are endangered, following interbreeding with feral 'city pigeons'. Mike Pennington/Wikimedia , CC BY-NC-SA Domestic pigeons have surprising cultural significance. They inspired Charles Darwin in his thinking about evolution, delivered wartime messages to save lives, and have symbolic meaning around the world. The domestic pigeon is among the best understood […]

Metamaterials – artificially made materials with properties that aren’t found in the natural world – are poised to transform daily life. Their unique properties are enhancing products from sporting goods to consumer electronics and beyond. As a sports engineer and the person leading on health applications within the UKRI-funded UK Metamaterials Network, I have unique […]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t just made up of data, chips and code – it’s also the product of the metaphors and narratives we use to talk about it. The way we represent this technology determines how the public imagination understands it and, by extension, how people design it, use it, and its impact on society […]

The growing industry of 'grieftech' enables people to interact with dead relatives. Deepbrain AI When Roro (not her real name) lost her mother to cancer, the grief felt bottomless. In her mid-20s and working as a content creator in China, she was haunted by the unfinished nature of their relationship. Their bond had always been […]

Jorm Sangsorn/Shutterstock Humans like plants. We like seeing them change the colour of their leaves throughout the year. They connect us to nature even if we live in a big city. But most people don’t think that much about the lives of plants, and least of all, about their sex life. Because plants don’t move […]