Mathematicians give credit for insights gleaned through discussion but AI tools are not set up to do this. Credit: Hill Street Studios/Getty OpenAI’s announcement that it used an artificial-intelligence model to solve a major puzzle in fluid dynamics — the Navier–Stokes problem — is likely to change how mathematics is done forever. The claim, made
Borrelle, S. B. et al. Predicted growth in plastic waste exceeds efforts to mitigate plastic pollution. Science 369, 1515–1518 (2020). Article ADS CAS PubMed Google Scholar Stubbins, A., Law, K. L., Munoz, S. E., Bianchi, T. S. & Zhu, L. Plastics in the Earth system. Science 373, 51–55 (2021). Article ADS CAS PubMed Google Scholar
Take a closer look at this great black-backed gull (Larus marinus) and you’ll soon notice something that does not belong there. The female bird has a bamboo skewer lodged in her cloaca, the rear openings birds use to excrete and reproduce. The bird was found with a piece of trash stuck in her cloaca. Image:
While the calendar indicated that astronomical summer was winding down, a swath of the south-central United States was sweltering under a heat dome in mid-September 2026. This map shows air temperatures in the contiguous U.S. on September 15, 2026, at 4 p.m. Central Time (21:00 Universal Time), modeled at 2 meters (6.5 feet) above the
Explanation: This treasure chest is full of stars. The featured image was obtained with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and shows a dust pillar in the Carina Nebula inside our Galaxy, roughly 7500 light-years away. It is formed by interstellar gas and dust, and shaped by powerful stellar winds and radiation from neighboring stars like
The bald eagle nest in Big Bear Valley is seeing a flurry of activity lately. Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV) cameras have captured Shadow and Kaydee tending to the nest with stick deliveries and even spotted a few ‘beaky kisses’ exchanged in recent weeks. Late summer is typically a quieter time on the nest