Science

Artificial intelligence is here, but we are still guessing what its future holds. Hollywood has been imagining the impact AI might have on our lives for decades, but how accurate are these portrayals? AI researcher Beth Singler is assistant professor in digital religion(s) at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and a lifelong sci-fi fan. Thinking about “what you think about machines that might think”, she explores cultural depictions of technology, including AI, and how they might shape our fears and expectations. In this latest iteration of our sci-fi series, Singler dives into some of the best and worst examples of AI in film and TV. Take 1986’s Short Circuit: did it really get AI right? Surprisingly, yes, in some ways...

The shadow of a laser beam appears as a horizontal line against the blue backgroundAbrahao et al. (2024) Light normally makes other objects cast shadows – but with a little help from a ruby, a beam of laser light can cast a shadow of its own. When two laser beams interact, they don’t clash together like lightsabers in Star Wars, says Raphael Abrahao at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. In real life, they will simply pass through each other. Abrahao and his colleagues, however, found a way for one laser beam to block another – and make its shadow appear. The crucial ingredient was a ruby cube. The researchers hit this cube with a beam of green laser light while illuminating it with a blue laser from the side. As the green light passed through the ruby ato...

Jada Johnson During her childhood in Atlanta, Georgia, Jada Johnson fell in love with nature. She’d spend countless hours exploring the outdoors with her siblings near the pond and forested areas by her home. But growing up in a predominantly Black and Brown community, she also witnessed environmental injustices firsthand, though she did not have the language to describe them at the time. It was not until she attended Brown University, where she pursued environmental studies with a focus on environment and inequality, that she began to understand the systemic issues she had observed. Her academic journey—enriched by experiences abroad in Costa Rica and on organic farms in Hawaii—deepened her commitment to environmental justice and sustainable practices. Now as a student in Colum...

Oil and water are difficult to separate without leaving some impuritiesAbaca Press/Alamy Mixtures of oil and water can be efficiently separated by pumping them into thin channels between semipermeable membranes, paving the way to cheaper and cleaner ways to deal with industrial waste. Experimental prototypes managed to recover both oil and water with a purity greater than 99.9 per cent. Various methods already exist to split such mixtures into component parts, including spinning them in a centrifuge, mechanically skimming oil from the surface and splitting them with chemicals, electrical charges or semipermeable membranes, which allow some substances through, but not others. Membranes are the simplest method, but are currently imperfect, leaving behind a stubborn mix o...

A new material can bend lightUniversity of Glasgow Scientists have discovered a technique whereby light can be bent around corners, inspired by the way clouds scatter sunlight. This type of light-bending could lead to advances in medical imaging, electronics cooling and even nuclear reactor design. Daniele Faccio at the University of Glasgow, UK, and his colleagues say they are shocked this type of light scattering wasn’t noticed before. It works on the same basis as clouds, snow and other white materials that absorb light: once photons hit the surface of such a material, they are scattered in all directions, barely penetrating at all and getting reflected out the way they came. For instance, when sunlight hits a tall cumulonimbus cloud, it bounces off the top, making ...