All posts tagged: learn

Mosquitoes can learn that DEET means dinner is served

Mosquitoes can learn that DEET means dinner is served

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Sunburn and mosquito bites go together in the summer like a hot dog and ketchup. To keep from becoming a mosquito buffet, most of us turn to bug sprays with DEET.  An acronym built from its scientific identification (diethyltoluamide), DEET was developed for the United States Army in 1946 and entered civilian use in 1957. It is generally considered safe when used as directed.  However, mosquitoes can learn to associate the repellant with food. They may even become attracted to it. The findings are detailed in a study published today in the Journal of Experimental Biology. “If someone applies DEET and the concentration fades over time, but a mosquito still manages to feed, the insect may begin associating that smell with a reward,” …

9 Harsh Life Truths People Born In The 70s & 80s Were Forced To Learn The Hard Way

9 Harsh Life Truths People Born In The 70s & 80s Were Forced To Learn The Hard Way

Published by Jenni Sidey

Unlike coddled younger generations just beginning to make their way as adults in the modern world, Gen X and older millennials had it at least somewhat rough. Not only were they, in many ways, parentified, as they were expected to care for themselves and their siblings early on, but they also had to teach themselves how to thrive. Many of the harsh life lessons people born in the 70s and 80s were forced to learn the hard way were solidified through trial and error, not by a calm parent teaching them along the way with grace and safety guardrails. Here are 9 harsh life truths people born in the 70s and 80s were forced to learn the hard way 1. You are in control of your own life Caleb Oquendo from Pexels via Canva Many Gen Xers and older millennials born during this time period knew better than anyone that they were on their own. That’s why they are referred to as the “Latchkey generation,” because there was no one around to take care of them …

With Ebola, we need to learn from past failures | Ebola

With Ebola, we need to learn from past failures | Ebola

Published by Sam Flores

Devi Sridhar is right that this Ebola outbreak needs urgent attention (Ebola in the DRC needs the world’s attention now – if your neighbour’s house is on fire, you don’t wait and watch, 19 May). Present an engineer with a problem needing a build or fix and you will often hear: “You can have it good, fast or cheap – pick two.” In global outbreak responses, we learn too late every time that we must pick “fast” first. Having worked on the west African Ebola outbreak in 2014-16 and on smaller Ebola responses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2018-2020, I have seen the same failure pattern repeat. We think too long before going in, despite knowing what is needed, and we overestimate the complexity of what must be accomplished. The fixes are clear. First, lightweight rapid-response teams of clinicians, logisticians and, where appropriate, researchers should be salaried, equipped and ready to deploy in days, not weeks. Think of coastguard rescue, not military campaigns. Second, local capacity must be mobilised immediately. Community health …

Roundtables: Can AI Learn to Understand the World?

Roundtables: Can AI Learn to Understand the World?

Published by skeptic

Listen to the session or watch below AI companies want to build systems that understand the external world and overcome the limitations of LLMs. Recent developments have brought world models to the forefront of the AI discussion. Watch a conversation with editor in chief Mat Honan, senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven, and AI reporter Grace Huckins exploring how AI might enter the physical world. Speakers: Mat Honan, Editor in Chief, Will Douglas Heaven, AI Senior Editor, and Grace Huckins, AI Reporter Recorded on May 21, 2026 Related Stories: How Pokémon Go is giving delivery robots an inch-perfect view of the world 10 Things That Matter in AI Right Now: World Models Yann LeCun has a bold new vision for the future of AI Source link

What AI taxis and robots can learn from bees

What AI taxis and robots can learn from bees

Published by skeptic

Even advanced technology can struggle when the real world becomes unpredictable. In April 2026, a Waymo robotaxi in San Antonio, Texas, drove into a flooded lane during severe weather, prompting the company to recall about 3,800 vehicles for a software fix. No one was injured, but the incident exposed a deeper challenge: intelligence is not just about processing data. It is about knowing where to look, what to notice, when to act and how to use previous experience when conditions change. AI researchers are now looking at bees and other insects to help them design machines and robots that can make better decisions. My research explores how bees learn, from identifying simple visual patterns to mastering high-level concepts, and how they adapt their behaviour when conditions change. By combining behavioural experiments, neural recording (for example, measuring signals from the brain) and neuromorphic computing (an approach to computing inspired by the animal brain), my goal is to uncover the biological code that allows tiny brains to navigate a complex world and make efficient decisions. I have …

If You Never Received Your Hogwarts Acceptance Letter You Can Learn Magic At Harvard Instead

If You Never Received Your Hogwarts Acceptance Letter You Can Learn Magic At Harvard Instead

Published by Jenni Sidey

I think my Hogwarts letter got lost in the mail when I was 11. And, although a whole army of owls showed up with extra letters for Harry Potter when his Uncle Vernon destroyed his original copy, that never happened for me. Magic may sound a bit sketchy to rational thinkers, but there’s something wonderful about believing the impossible could actually happen. About one-third of Americans believe that the power of magic is a real thing. Now, one of the most legendary universities in the country is offering an alternative to Hogwarts, so it’s time to pull out your wands. A class called ‘Omens, Oracles, and Prophecies’ is available to take online through Harvard University. Unfortunately, it probably won’t give you quite as well-rounded of a magical education as you would receive from Hogwarts. The course is entirely virtual and only lasts a week, so there’s no enchanted castle ambience included. However, you can sign up for the class anytime that you feel interested in doing so, and it’s completely free, unless you want to …

We Have a Lot to Learn from Plants

We Have a Lot to Learn from Plants

Published by Jenni Sidey

When you send an unsolicited book of essays to a small nonprofit publisher, you’re probably not expecting it to become one of the biggest word-of-mouth sensations of the 21st century so far. But that’s the story behind today’s Zero to Well-Read subject, and no one was more surprised by this turn of events than its author. Jeff and Rebecca trace the Braiding Sweetgrass phenomenon and reflect on the ways Robin Wall Kimmerer blends Indigenous philosophy and practice with scientific knowledge to imagine new ways of living together and responding to environmental crises. In today’s companion newsletter, I’ve got some quick background facts on Kimmerer, where you might catch her in person, a look at her recently launched nature initiative, plus tips for getting involved. I’m peppering some of my favorite Jeff and Rebecca-isms throughout instead of rounding them all up at the top—you know, to keep you on your toes, and wrapping up with readalikes and some links where her extensive plant knowledge, deep reverence for the natural world, and storytelling prowess are all on …

The enterprise risk nobody is modeling: AI is replacing the very experts it needs to learn from

The enterprise risk nobody is modeling: AI is replacing the very experts it needs to learn from

Published by skeptic

For AI systems to keep improving in knowledge work, they need either a reliable mechanism for autonomous self-improvement or human evaluators capable of catching errors and generating high-quality feedback. The industry has invested enormously in the first. It’s giving almost no thought to what’s happening to the second. I’d argue that we need to treat the human evaluation problem with just as much rigor and investment as we put into building the model capabilities themselves. New grad hiring at major tech companies has dropped by half since 2019. Document review, first-pass research, data cleaning, code review: Models handle these now. The economists tracking this call it displacement. The companies doing it call it efficiency. Neither are focusing on the future problem. Why self-improvement has limits in knowledge work The obvious pushback is reinforcement learning (RL). AlphaZero learned Go, chess, and Shogi at superhuman levels without human data and generated novel strategies in the process. Move 37 in the 2016 match against Lee Sedol, a move professionals said they would never have played, didn’t come from …

American Women, Please Learn From What I Went Through

American Women, Please Learn From What I Went Through

Published by Daniella Wilson

Last fall, in the sunroom where we eat our meals, my 11-year-old son and I sat at the dining table—he on one side, I on the other. Because of my low immunity, I sat apart from him, by an open window. Six months before this, a doctor had phoned me with the news: suspicious for malignancy. For quite some time, my body had been sending signs—fatigue, bloating, light bleeding—but I had dismissed them for various reasons. I’d been raised to diminish my needs; my doctors didn’t seem concerned; I’m a mother working two jobs and didn’t have time to be sick. The official diagnosis came shortly thereafter, during surgery: ovarian cancer. Dinner was quiet. I was usually the one who started the chitchat about school, swim team, and chemo side effects. But that evening, I was consumed by visions of other tumors, growing undetected in other bodies. “The silent killer” is ovarian cancer’s nickname. My cancer was so silent that two gynecologists hadn’t considered it as a possible diagnosis, and at least one radiologist had …