Free Will Is Only an Illusion if You Are, Too

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January 17, 2023

Consciousness

Free Will Is Only an Illusion if You Are, Too

New research findings, combined with philosophy, suggest free will is real but may not operate in the ways people expect

By Alessandra Buccella,Tomáš Dominik

Artificial Intelligence

What an Endless Conversation with Werner Herzog Can Teach Us about AI

An AI-generated conversation between Werner Herzog and Slavoj Žižek is definitely entertaining, but it also illustrates the crisis of misinformation beginning to befall us

By Giacomo Miceli

Public Health

Are Gas Stoves Bad for Our Health?

Evidence is building that fumes from gas stoves can aggravate lung ailments

By Claudia Wallis

Archaeology

Lasers Reveal Massive, 650-Square-Mile Maya Site Hidden Beneath Guatemalan Rainforest

A sprawling Maya site has been discovered beneath a Guatemalan rainforest

By Jennifer Nalewicki,LiveScience

Fossil Fuels

Why Capturing Methane Is So Difficult

Oil and gas facilities will soon be charged for releasing methane, but technologies to capture the potent greenhouse gas are still relatively new and untested

By Camille Bond,E&E News

Climate Change

Exxon's Own Models Predicted Global Warming--It Ignored Them

Scientists working for the oil giant Exxon in the 1970s and 1980s estimated temperature increases with remarkable accuracy. Those findings could now be used as evidence in climate litigation

By Chelsea Harvey,Lesley Clark,Benjamin Storrow,E&E News

Artificial Intelligence

Research Summaries Written by AI Fool Scientists

Scientists cannot always differentiate between research abstracts generated by the AI ChatGPT and those written by humans

By Holly Else,Nature magazine

Biotech

Gene Drives Could Fight Malaria and Other Global Killers but Might Have Unintended Consequences

A new technology could wipe out whole species. Is it a magic bullet or a genetic atom bomb?

By Matthew Cobb

Economics

A Sustainable Economy Depends on Sustainable Materials

Scientists and manufacturers are charting a path toward material sustainability

By Herb Brody
FROM THE STORE
FROM THE ARCHIVE

Why We Have Free Will

Neurons fire in your head before you become aware that you have made a decision. But this discovery does not mean you are a "biochemical puppet"

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Only a small subset of our everyday actions is important enough to worry about."

Alessandra Buccella, philosopher at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Brain and Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University, and Tomáš Dominik, psychologist at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Brain and Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University.

WHAT WE'RE READING

Why Archaeologists Are Fuming Over Netflix's Ancient Apocalypse Series

In an open letter, the Society for American Archaeology accused journalist Graham Hancock's docuseries of disparaging experts while promoting "racist, white supremacist ideologies."

By Sarah E. Bond | Hyperallergic | Jan. 4, 2023

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