Scientists at King's College London say they've successfully grown a human tooth in a lab for the first time.
As detailed in a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39532305/">paper</a> published in the journal ACS Macro Letters, the team said it uncovered a potential way to regrow teeth in humans as a natural alternative to conventional dental fillings and implants, research they say could "revolutionize dental care."
The researchers claim they've developed a new type of material that enables cells to communicate with one another, essentially allowing one cell to "tell" another to differentiate itself into a new tooth cell.
In other words, it mimics the way teeth grow naturally, an ability we lose as we grow older.
"We developed this material in collaboration with Imperial College to replicate the environment around the cells in the body, known as the matrix," explained author and King’s College London PhD student Xuechen Zhang in a <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/lab-grown-teeth-might-become-an-alternative-to-fillings-following-research-breakthrough">statement</a>. "This meant that when we introduced the cultured cells, they were able to send signals to each other to start the tooth formation process."
"Previous attempts had failed, as all the signals were sent in one go," he added. "This new material releases signals slowly over time, replicating what happens in the body."
However, porting the discovery from the lab, and transforming it into a viable treatment will require years of research.
"We have different ideas to put the teeth inside the mouth," Xuechen said."We could transplant the young tooth cells at the location of the missing tooth and let them grow inside mouth. Alternatively, we could create the whole tooth in the lab before placing it in the patient’s mouth."
While we're still some ways away from applying the findings to human subjects, in theory the approach could have some significant advantages over conventional treatments like fillings and implants.
"Fillings aren’t the best solution for repairing teeth," said Xuechen. "Over time, they will weaken tooth structure, have a limited lifespan, and can lead to further decay or sensitivity."
"Implants require invasive surgery and good combination of implants and alveolar bone," he added. "Both solutions are artificial and don’t fully restore natural tooth function, potentially leading to long-term complications."
The new approach, in contrast, could offer a better long-term solution.
"Lab-grown teeth would naturally regenerate, integrating into the jaw as real teeth," Xuechen explained. "They would be stronger, longer lasting, and free from rejection risks, offering a more durable and biologically compatible solution than fillings or implants."
While nobody knows whether lab-grown teeth will become a viable dental treatment, experts remain optimistic.
"This new technology of regrowing teeth is very exciting and could be a game-changer for dentists," King's College clinical lecturer in prosthodontics Saoirse O'Toole, who was not involved in the study, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj9ejj3jzrwo">told the BBC</a>. "Will it come in my lifetime of practice? Possibly. In my children's dental lifetimes? Maybe. But in my children's children's lifetimes, hopefully."
More on lab teeth: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/replacement-teeth-dental-implants">Scientists Grow Living "Replacement Teeth" for Dental Implants</a>

Lab Teeth

Developments

The tech "could be a game-changer for dentists."

Scientists Successfully Grow Human Tooth in Lab, With Aim of Implanting in Humans

People who support authoritarianism on either side of the political divide have, according to a new study, something weird going on with their brains.
Published <a href="https://www.ibroneuroscience.org/article/S0306-4522(25)00304-5/fulltext">in the journal Neuroscience</a>, new research out of Spain's University of Zaragoza found, upon scanning the brains of 100 young adults, that those who hold authoritarian beliefs had major differences in brain areas associated with social reasoning and emotional regulation from subjects whose politics hewed more to the center.
The University of Zaragoza team recruited 100 young Spaniards — 63 women and 37 men, none of whom had any history of psychiatric disorders — between the ages of 18 and 30. Along with having their brains scanned via m<span class="c5aZPb" tabindex="0" role="button" data-enable-toggle-animation="true" data-extra-container-classes="ZLo7Eb" data-hover-hide-delay="1000" data-hover-open-delay="500" data-send-open-event="true" data-theme="0" data-width="250" data-ved="2ahUKEwjOirqU2umMAxUPM1kFHVhGMEQQmpgGegQIIBAD">agnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the participants were asked questions that help identify both right-wing and left-wing authoritarianism and measure how anxious, impulsive, and emotional they were.
As the researchers defined them, right-wing authoritarians are people who ascribe to conservative ideologies and so-called "traditional values" who advocate for "punitive measures for social control," while left-wing authoritarians are interested in "violently overthrow[ing] and [penalizing] the current structures of authority and power in society."
Though participants whose beliefs align more with authoritarianism on either side of the aisle differed significantly from their less-authoritarian peers, there were also some stark differences between the brain scans of left-wing and right-wing authoritarians in the study.
In an <a href="https://www.psypost.org/authoritarian-attitudes-linked-to-altered-brain-anatomy-neuroscientists-reveal/">interview with PsyPost</a>, lead study author Jesús Adrián-Ventura said that he and his team found that right-wing authoritarianism was associated with lower grey matter volume in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex — a "region involved in understanding others' thoughts and perspectives," as the assistant Zaragoza psychology professor put it.
The left-wing authoritarians of the bunch — we don't know exactly how many, as the results weren't broken down in the paper — had less cortical (or outer brain layer) thickness in the right anterior insula, which is "associated with emotional empathy and behavioral inhibition." Cortical thickness in that brain region has been the subject of ample research, from a 2005 study that found <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1361002/">people who meditate regularly</a> have greater thickness in the right anterior insula to a 2018 study that linked it to <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5992674/">greater moral disgust</a>.
The author, who is also part of an <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/pseudo-lab/home?authuser=0">interdisciplinary research group called </a><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/pseudo-lab/home?authuser=0">PseudoLab</a> that studies political extremism, added that the psychological questionnaires subjects completed also suggested that "both left-wing and right-wing authoritarians act impulsively in emotionally negative situations, while the former tend to be more anxious."
As the paper notes, this is likely the first study of its kind to look into differences between right- and left-wing authoritarianism rather than just grouping them all together. Still, it's a fascinating look into the brains of people who hold extremist beliefs — especially as their ilk <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr/our-work/carr-commentary/democracy-shadow-global-rise-authoritarian-populism">seize power worldwide</a>.
More on authoritarianism: <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-mao-comparisons-china">Chinese People Keep Comparing Trump's Authoritarianism to Mao and Xi Jinping</a>

A Scanner Darkly

These results are pretty telling. 

Scientists Scanned the Brains of Authoritarians and Found Something Weird

A UK startup called Open Bionics has just unveiled the world's first wireless bionic arm, called Hero — and it's so advanced that the hand can fully detach and amble about on its own, like the Addams Family's Thing.  
19-year-old influencer Tilly Lockey, a double-amputee who's been using Open Bionics' arms for the past nine years and has been a poster child for the company's efforts, recently showed off this incredibly sci-fi capability after being one of the first to receive the new device.
"I can move it around even when it's not attached to the arm," Lockey said in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8ghHfomZYU">interview with Reuters</a>. "It can just go on its own missions — which is kinda crazy."
Lockey lost both her hands to meningitis as a toddler. Effortlessly, she pulls off the still writhing bionic hand, then places it on her bed to send it inching towards her phone.  
"The hand can crawl away like it's got a mind of its own," Lockey said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
A world-first from <a href="https://twitter.com/openbionics?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@openbionics</a>. 🦾 <a href="https://t.co/BjyFp05Meu">pic.twitter.com/BjyFp05Meu</a>
&mdash; Sammy Payne 🧚‍♀️ (@SighSam) <a href="https://twitter.com/SighSam/status/1910631576083312959?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Lockey is wearing two Hero PRO prototypes, which like all of Open Bionics's prosthetics are fully 3D-printed. Unlike <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2025/03/429561/how-paralyzed-man-moved-robotic-arm-his-thoughts">some alternatives out there</a>, the Hero arms don't rely on a chip implant, which requires invasive surgery and can lead to medical complications. Instead, it uses wireless electromyography (EMG) electrodes that the company calls "MyoPods" that are placed on top of the amputated limbs, sensing specific muscle signals.
In other words, it's fully muscle-operated. As Lockey explains, it primarily works off of two signals: a squeeze motion with her arm that closes the hand, and a flex motion that opens it. More advanced movements like hand gestures are performed through something like a "menu system," she said.
After working closely with Open Bionics for nearly a decade now, one thing that's surprised her the most with the new arms is how strong they are. "I'm not used to being that strong yet," Lockey told Reuters. "When I first put them on... I was, like, crushing everything."
The level of progress overall has startled her, she said. Open Bionics has been working on the prototype for four years.
"I now have 360-degree rotation in my wrists, I can flex them too. There literally isn't a single other arm that can do this," Lockey said <a href="https://openbionics.com/open-bionics-sets-new-benchmark-with-launch-of-hero-rgd-and-hero-pro/">in a statement</a>. "No other arm is wireless and waterproof, and it's faster than everything else and it's still the lightest bionic hand available. I don't know how they've done it."
More on: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/paralyzed-man-exoskeleton-too-old">Paralyzed Man Unable to Walk After Maker of His Powered Exoskeleton Tells Him It's Now Obsolete</a>

Handservant

Robotics/Prosthetics

"I can move it around even when it's not attached to the arm."

New Bionic Hand Can Detach From User, Crawl Around and Do Missions on Its Own

A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdaJYuqoUjY&amp;t=34s">flashy new advertisement</a> by multinational engineering company ABB shows off what could one day be the future of American auto racing body, NASCAR: a sleek, all-electric racecar.
While NASCAR, which is considered one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in the world, is broadly speaking associated with tailgating rural culture — and seminal pieces of cinema like "Tallageda Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," starring Will Ferrell — the vehicle presages a future in which electric motors could replace the iconic, steady drone of brawny gas engines ripping around an oval track.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Electrifying Miami - ABB Formula E vs ABB EV NASCAR" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vdaJYuqoUjY?start=34&feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The ABB NASCAR EV prototype, a collaboration between the body's OEM partners Ford, Chevrolet, and Toyota, was <a href="https://new.abb.com/news/detail/117334/abb-nascar-ev-prototype">first shown off</a> at the Chicago Street Course last year.
"If you look out across the landscape, one thing that’s for certain is that change is accelerating all around us," said NASCAR senior vice president and chief racing development officer John Probst in a <a href="https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2024/07/10/inside-nascar-first-foray-electrification-ev-vehicle/">statement</a> at the time.
"The push for electric vehicles is continuing to grow, and when we started this project one and a half years ago, that growth was rapid," NASCAR senior engineer of vehicle systems CJ Tobin <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/nascar-ev">told IEEE Spectrum in August</a>. "We wanted to showcase our ability to put an electric stock car on the track in collaboration with our OEM partners."
Besides pushing the boundaries when it comes to speed, the association is also looking to cut emissions.
"Sustainability means a lot of different things," said NASCAR's head of sustainability Riley Nelson <a href="https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2024/07/10/inside-nascar-first-foray-electrification-ev-vehicle/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CSustainability%20means%20a%20lot%20of,is%20what%20our%20role%20is.">last summer</a>. "And for our team right now, it’s environmental sustainability."
The prototype features a 78-kilowatt-hour, liquid-cooled battery and a powertrain that produces up to 1,000 kilowatts of peak power. Regenerative braking allows it to race longer road courses as well.
In the latest advertisement, ABB also showed off the latest generation of its single-seater racecar, developed for its Formula E World Championship, which has been around for <a href="https://formulae.fandom.com/wiki/2014/15_Formula_E_Season">over a decade</a>. The specialized vehicles are among the <a href="https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motorsport-formula-e/new-third-generation-formula-e-car-fastest-ever-electric-racer">fastest electric racecars ever built</a>, and are designed to reach speeds of over 200 mph.
It's not just ABB that's looking to develop all-electric contenders for NASCAR. Earlier this year, Ford <a href="https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a63611612/ford-mustang-mach-e-nascar-pikes-peak-contender/">revealed a new electric NASCAR prototype</a>, based on its road-legal Mustang Mach-E.
While it could make for an exciting new development in the motorsport, NASCAR isn't quite ready to fully commit to electric drivetrains — at least for the foreseeable future.
"There are no plans to use [ABB's] electric vehicle in competition at this time," a NASCAR spokesperson told IEEE Spectrum last summer. "The internal combustion engine plays an important role in NASCAR and there are no plans to move away from that."
More on racecars: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-teach-rats-driving-revving-engine">Scientists Teach Rats to Drive Tiny Cars, Discover That They Love Revving the Engine</a>

NASCAR E

Is this really the future of NASCAR?

NASCAR Now Showing Off Fully Electric Racecar

Artificial intelligence might be creeping its way into every facet of our lives — but that doesn't mean it's making us smarter.
Quite the reverse. A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/19/dont-ask-what-ai-can-do-for-us-ask-what-it-is-doing-to-us-are-chatgpt-and-co-harming-human-intelligence">new analysis</a> of recent research by The Guardian looked at a potential irony: whether we're giving up more than we gain by shoehorning AI into our day-to-day work, offloading so many intellectual tasks that it erodes our own cognitive abilities.
The analysis points to a number of studies that suggest a link between cognitive decline and AI tools, especially in critical thinking. One <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11020077/#:~:text=The%20use%20of%20AI%20systems%20for%20memory%2Drelated,decline%20in%20an%20individual's%20own%20memory%20capacity.&amp;text=The%20long%2Dterm%20reliance%20on%20the%20AI%20companion,and%20the%20ability%20to%20independently%20initiate%20tasks.">research article</a>, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology — and itself run through ChatGPT to make "corrections," according to a disclaimer that we couldn't help but notice — suggests that regular use of AI may cause our actual cognitive chops and memory capacity to atrophy.
Another <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387701784_AI_Tools_in_Society_Impacts_on_Cognitive_Offloading_and_the_Future_of_Critical_Thinking">study</a>, by Michael Gerlich of the Swiss Business School in the journal Societies, points to a link between "frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities," highlighting what Gerlich calls the "cognitive costs of AI tool reliance."
The researcher uses an example of AI in healthcare, where automated systems make a hospital more efficient at the cost of full-time professionals whose job is "to engage in independent critical analysis" — to make human decisions, in other words.
None of that is as far-fetched as it sounds. A <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5292433/">broad body</a> of <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ads1560">research</a> has found that brain power is a "use it or lose it" asset, so it makes sense that turning to ChatGPT for everyday challenges like writing tricky emails, doing research, or solving problems would have negative results.
As humans offload increasingly complex problems onto various AI models, we also become prone to treating AI like a "magic box," a catch-all capable of doing all our hard thinking for us. This attitude is heavily pushed by the AI industry, which uses a blend of <a href="https://medium.com/@neriasebastien/do-ai-buzzwords-like-agent-agi-asi-and-reasoning-actually-mean-anything-c76b2950b7d9">buzzy technical terms and marketing hype</a> to sell us on ideas like "deep learning," "reasoning," and "artificial general intelligence."
Case in point, another <a href="https://futurism.com/gen-z-thinks-conscious-ai">recent study</a> found that a quarter of Gen Zers believe AI is "already conscious." By scraping thousands of publicly available datapoints in seconds, AI chatbots can spit out seemingly thoughtful prose, which certainly gives the appearance of human-like sentience. But it's that exact attitude that experts warn is leading us down a dark path.
"To be critical of AI is difficult — you have to be disciplined," says Gerlich. "It is very challenging not to offload your critical thinking to these machines."
The Guardian's analysis also cautions against painting with too broad a brush and blaming AI, exclusively, for the <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/human-intelligence-declining-trends">decline in basic measures of intelligence</a>. That phenomenon has plagued Western nations <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1570677X09000057?via%3Dihub">since the 1980s</a>, coinciding with the rise of neoliberal economic policies that led governments in the US and UK to <a href="https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/thatcher-the-state-school-snatcher">roll back funding for public schools</a>, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1757743820932603">disempower teachers</a>, and <a href="https://retroreport.org/transcript/how-the-federal-school-lunch-program-became-a-spicy-political-debate/">end childhood food programs</a>.
Still, it's hard to deny stories from teachers that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/14/opinion/ai-schools-teachers-students.html">AI cheating</a> is nearing <a href="https://www.edweek.org/technology/opinion-the-ai-cheating-crisis-education-needs-its-anti-doping-movement/2024/02">crisis levels</a>. AI might not have started the trend, but it may well be pushing it to grim new extremes.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/columbia-student-ai-cheating-startup">Columbia Student Kicked Out for Creating AI to Cheat, Raises Millions to Turn It Into a Startup</a>

Brain Rot

"It is very challenging not to offload your critical thinking to these machines."

Experts Concerned That AI Is Making Us Stupider

In the latest sweeping move against government spending, the Trump administration has decided it's time for kids fend for themselves.
Leaked emails from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/climate/epa-cuts-forever-chemicals-grants.html">published by the </a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/climate/epa-cuts-forever-chemicals-grants.html">New York Times</a> reveal an intention to cancel thousands of grants for environmental research. Among the research areas affected: hazards affecting rural kids. This includes exposure to noxious pesticides, wildfire smoke, and forever chemicals <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/12/pfas-forever-chemicals-societal-cost-new-report">released by industrial polluters</a>.
Forever chemicals, also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are a broad classification for <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pfas/pfas-explained">thousands of chemicals</a> that take a very long time to break down. PFAS are widely used in consumer and industrial products, and are found all throughout the world — from <a href="https://www.nist.gov/feature-stories/finding-forever-chemicals-wherever-theyre-hiding">the bottom of the ocean</a> to the <a href="https://www.uri.edu/news/2024/01/forever-chemicals-are-flowing-between-the-arctic-and-atlantic-oceans-study-finds/">icy waters of the Arctic</a>.
Troublingly, it's estimated that <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/forever-chemicals-blood-test/">97 percent of Americans</a> have some level of forever chemicals in their blood. Many PFAS are carcinogenic in nature, and have been linked to numerous types of <a href="https://dceg.cancer.gov/research/what-we-study/pfas">cancer</a>, including <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38092046/">childhood leukemia</a>.
People in rural and low-income areas are particularly susceptible to forever chemicals, which leach out from <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp13954">pesticides used in agriculture</a>, as <a href="https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/09/dow-3m-and-others-likely-exploit-loophole-avoid-reporting-forever">byproducts of industrial production</a>, and in <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/pollution-a-quarter-of-rural-and-private-water-systems-likely-contain-forever-chemicals/">small-town water systems</a> that have long been overlooked by state and federal EPA testing.
Many of these communities likewise face limited access to <a href="https://www.gao.gov/blog/why-health-care-harder-access-rural-america">quality health care</a>, making rural environmental research all the more critical for uncovering — and ideally, helping prevent — the effects of corporate waste. Unfortunately, the federal government under Trump is being rapidly stripped of its ability to wage that battle.
Recently, <a href="https://www.levernews.com/the-governments-chemical-disaster-tracking-tool-just-went-dark/">The Lever reported</a> that the EPA's public tool for tracking chemical disasters and high-risk chemical facilities had been taken offline. That's set to have a major impact on communities throughout the US, as massive chemical accidents are all but guaranteed to occur. Between January 2021 and October 2023, for example, the US petrochemical industry logged 825 <a href="https://comingcleaninc.org/assets/media/images/Chemical%20Disaster%20Prevention/Key%20Findings%202021-2023%20FINAL.pdf">hazardous chemical incidents</a>, officially impacting at least 291 communities and likely many more from chemical runoff and downwind exposure.
That move follows after two major chemical industry lobbyists <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5233501-chemical-industry-pollution-exemptions-trump-biden/">implored Trump</a> to give them broad exemptions on the amount of toxins they're allowed to spew into the environment.
Taken together, the moves paint a pretty obvious picture: it's a good time to be in the toxic chemical business — and a bad time for the rest of us.
More on toxic chemicals: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/vape-tamagotchi-interview">We Talked to the Inventors of the "Tamagotchi" Vape That Dies If You Stop Puffing</a>

Be Best

That's pretty cold!

Trump Admin Cancels Programs to Protect Children From Toxic Chemicals

<h2>Wrong Dot Com</h2>
Despite lofty claims from artificial intelligence soothsayers, the world's top chatbots are still strikingly bad at giving financial advice.
AI researchers Gary Smith, Valentina Liberman, and Isaac Warshaw of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence <a href="https://economics-files.pomona.edu/GarySmith/FullLLMAnswers.pdf">posed a series of 12 finance questions</a> to four leading large language models (LLMs) — OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o, DeepSeek-V2, Elon Musk's Grok 3 Beta, and Google's Gemini 2 — to test out their financial prowess.
As the experts <a href="https://mindmatters.ai/2025/04/llms-still-cannot-be-trusted-for-financial-advice/">explained in a new study from Mind Matters</a>, each chatbot proved to be "consistently verbose but often incorrect."
That finding was, notably, almost identical to Smith's <a href="https://www.financialplanningassociation.org/learning/publications/journal/MAY24-llms-cant-be-trusted-financial-advice-OPEN">assessment last year for the Journal of Financial Planning</a> in which, upon posing 11 finance questions to ChatGPT 3.5, Microsoft’s Bing with ChatGPT’s GPT-4, and Google’s Bard chatbot, the LLMs spat out responses that were "consistently grammatically correct and seemingly authoritative but riddled with arithmetic and critical-thinking mistakes."
Using a simple scale where a score of "0" included completely incorrect financial analyses, a "0.5" denoted a correct financial analysis with mathematical errors, and a "1" that was correct on both the math and the financial analysis, no chatbot earned higher than a five out of 12 points maximum. ChatGPT led the pack with a 5.0, followed by DeepSeek's 4.0, Grok's 3.0, and Gemini's abysmal 1.5.
<h2>Spend Thrift</h2>
Some of the chatbot responses were so bad that they defied the Walter Bradley experts' expectations. When Grok, for example, was asked to add up a single month's worth of expenses for a Caribbean rental property whose rent was $3,700 and whose utilities ran $200 per month, the chatbot claimed that those numbers together added up to $4,900.
Along with spitting out a bunch of strange typographical errors, the chatbots also failed, per the study, to generate any intelligent analyses for the relatively basic financial questions the researchers posed. Even the chatbots' most compelling answers seemed to be gleaned from various online sources, and those only came when being asked to explain relatively simple concepts like how Roth IRAs work.
Throughout it all, the chatbots were dangerously glib. The researchers noted that all of the LLMs they tested present a "reassuring illusion of human-like intelligence, along with a breezy conversational style enhanced by friendly exclamation points" that could come off to the average user as confidence and correctness.
"It is still the case that the real danger is not that computers are smarter than us," they concluded, "but that we think computers are smarter than us and consequently trust them to make decisions they should not be trusted to make."
More on dumb AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-researchers-coding-fail">OpenAI Researchers Find That Even the Best AI Is "Unable To Solve the Majority" of Coding Problems</a>

Accounting Error

Watch out.

Top Chatbots Are Giving Horrible Financial Advice

Like how the Earth keeps the Moon bound on a gravitational tether, our nearest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy (M31), is surrounded by a bunch of tiny satellite galaxies.
But there's something incredibly strange about how these mini realms are arranged, according to a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02480-3">new study</a> published in the journal Nature Astronomy: almost all the satellite galaxies appear on one side of its host, and are pointing right at us — the Milky Way — instead of being randomly distributed.
In other words, it's extremely lopsided. Based on simulations, the odds of this happening are just 0.3 percent, the authors calculate, challenging our assumptions of galactic formation.
"M31 is the only system that we know of that demonstrates such an extreme degree of asymmetry," lead author Kosuke Jamie Kanehisa at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam in Germany <a href="https://www.space.com/the-universe/galaxies/our-galactic-neighbor-andromeda-has-a-bunch-of-satellite-galaxies-and-theyre-weirdly-pointing-at-us">told Space.com</a>.
Our current understanding of cosmology holds that large galaxies form from smaller galaxies that merge together over time. Orchestrating this from the shadows are "<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/something-strange-galaxy-milky-way">haloes</a>" — essentially clusters — of <a href="https://futurism.com/force-universe-changing">dark matter</a>, the invisible substance thought to account for 85 percent of all mass in the universe, whose gravitational influence helps pull the galaxies together. Since this process is chaotic, some of the dwarf galaxies get left out and are relegated to orbit outside the host galaxy in an arrangement that should be pretty random.
Yet it seems that's not the case with Andromeda. All but one of Andromeda's 37 satellite galaxies sit within 107 degrees of the line pointing at the Milky Way. Stranger still, half of these galaxies orbit within the same plane, like how the planets of our Solar System orbit the Sun.
Evidencing how improbable this is, the astronomers used standard cosmological simulations, which recreate how galaxies form over time, and compared the simulated analogs to observations of Andromeda. Less than 0.3 percent of galaxies similar to Andromeda in the simulations showed comparable asymmetry, the astronomers found, and only one came close to being as extreme.
One explanation is that there could be a great number of dwarf galaxies around Andromeda that we can't see yet, giving us an incomplete picture of the satellites' distribution. The data we have on the satellites we can see may not be accurate, too.
Or perhaps, Kanehisa speculates, there's something unique about Andromeda's evolutionary history. 
"The fact that we see M31's satellites in this unstable configuration today — which is strange, to say the least — may point towards many having fallen in recently," Kanehisa told Space.com, "possibly related to the major merger thought to have been experienced by Andromeda around two to three billion years ago."
But the most provocative implication is that the standard cosmological model as we know it needs refining. We have very limited data on satellite galaxies throughout the cosmos, since they are incredibly far away and are outshone by the light of their hosts. Maybe, then, the configuration of Andromeda's dwarf galaxies isn't anomalous at all. 
"We can't yet be sure that similar extreme systems don't exist out there, or that such systems would be negligibly rare," Kanehisa told Space.com.
It's too early to draw any hard conclusions, but one thing's for certain: we need more observations and data on not just Andromeda's satellites, but on the satellites of much more distant galaxies as well.
More on space: <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-finds-planets-potential-life">An AI Identifies Where All Those Planets That Could Host Life Are Hiding</a>

Bad Manners

Extremely strange.

Astronomers Confused to Discover That a Bunch of Nearby Galaxies Are Pointing Directly at Us

When it comes to trailblazing skeevy new business models, no one does it quite like Uber. The company hasn't just modernized management — it's <a href="https://futurism.com/uber-rideshare-drivers-deactivation">automated it</a>, all while using <a href="https://www.culawreview.org/current-events-2/employee-or-independent-contractor-a-legal-analysis-of-ubers-worker-misclassification">legal loopholes</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/02/technology/uber-drivers-psychological-tricks.html">psychological tricks</a> to create an entire new class of <a href="https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/the-uberisation-of-work-the-real-subsumption-of-getting-by/">hyper-exploited workers</a>.
It's also breaking new ground in consumer violations as well, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In a <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/uber-ftc-v-timeline-item-2025-04-21">lawsuit filed on Monday</a>, the FTC accused the rideshare corporation of charging "consumers for its Uber One subscription service without their consent," while making it difficult for users to escape their monthly payments. (The FTC also claims that the company failed to live up to the kind of savings Uber One promises its subscribers.)
A main issue is Uber's allegedly deceptive use of pop-ups to snare unwitting subscribers — pop-ups which look confusingly similar to those used to order rides. This makes it difficult to know what, exactly, users are signing up for, especially as Uber quickly whisks them back to their ride without ever asking for billing information to start the subscription.
"Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel," said FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson in a <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/04/ftc-takes-action-against-uber-deceptive-billing-cancellation-practices">press release</a>. "Today, we’re alleging that Uber not only deceived consumers about their subscriptions, but also made it unreasonably difficult for customers to cancel."
The FTC also did some hard digging into the ease of cancelling a subscription — or lack thereof.
"For any consumer wishing to cancel Uber One, [Uber] requires them to take at least 12 different actions and navigate a maze of at least 7 screens, if they guess the right paths to use, despite there being no mention of cancellation until the fourth screen," the lawsuit reads.
And if a subscriber is within two days of their next monthly charge, cancelling becomes a herculean task, taking as many as "32 actions" and navigating "as many as 23 screens."
"Even after that, they have to contact customer service," the statement continues.
For its part, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/21/feds-accuse-uber-of-charging-customers-for-subscriptions-without-consent/">Uber said</a> that "we are disappointed that the FTC chose to move forward with this action," adding that "cancellations can now be done anytime in-app and take most people 20 seconds or less."
"It is disappointing to see the FTC stray from the rigor and fairness that has long defined the agency at its best," Christine Wilson, Uber's outside counsel clapped back in a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/21/business/ftc-uber-deceptive-uber-one-charges/index.html">feisty statement</a>. Notably, Wilson was the <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/commissioners-staff/christine-s-wilson">former commissioner</a> for the FTC under Donald Trump's first term.
She joins former FTC chair Tim Muris at Uber's courtroom table, a conflict of interest which the <a href="https://x.com/TTP_updates/status/1914431220244500579">Tech Transparency Project</a> says "would be shocking, if it wasn't so common." A <a href="https://www.citizen.org/news/a-whopping-75-of-ftc-officials-have-revolving-door-conflicts-with-tech-corporations-and-other-industries/">2019 report</a> by Public Citizen notes that an eye-watering 75 percent of FTC officials go on to represent Silicon Valley giants in "revolving door conflicts."
If successful, the FTC's lawsuit will likely force Uber to redesign this aspect of its software. The rideshare behemoth could also be compelled to pay out damages to affected <a href="https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2025/Uber-Announces-Results-for-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2024/default.aspx">Uber One subscribers</a>, who currently number at over 30 million.
More on Uber: <a href="https://futurism.com/driver-flies-uber-headquarters">After Uber's App Cost Him His Job, a Disgruntled Driver Flew to San Francisco and Showed Up at Its Headquarters</a>

Push The Button

You might want to check your credit card statement.

Uber Is Being Accused of Something Incredibly Sleazy

From Flamin' Hot Cheetos and Fruit Loops to Gatorade and Mountain Dew's Baja Blast flavor, bizarrely-hued junk food favorites will soon lose their color thanks to a new artificial food dye ban.
As <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5372637/food-dyes-ban-fda-rfk-kennedy">NPR reports</a>, Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Robert F. Kennedy announced earlier this week that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is under his purview, will be phasing out the use of six popular food colorants that contain petroleum over concerns that they may cause or exacerbate health issues.
"We are going to get rid of the dyes," Kennedy said during a press conference announcing the ban, and "we're going to get rid of every ingredient and additive in food that we can legally address."
In that same press briefing, FDA commissioner Marty Makary claimed that the artificial dyes are harmful to children and constitute a "toxic soup of synthetic chemicals" — but industry experts insist that there's not much evidence to support that theory.
"Color additives have been rigorously reviewed by global health authorities... with no safety concerns," the International Association of Color Manufacturers, a food dye industry group, <a href="https://iacmcolor.org/iacm-statement-on-fda-hhs-april-22-press-conference/">said in a statement</a>. "Despite common misconceptions, [colorants] are one of the most highly regulated food additives, with a strong safety profile."
When defending the move, Markay cited a 2007 study <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)61306-3/abstract">published by the Lancet</a> medical journal that found a link between increased hyperactivity in children who had soft drinks containing the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-387-92271-3_38">common preservative sodium benzoate</a>, which is not directly derived from petroleum — and, in fact, is not a dye at all.
Still, that citation is telling because it alludes to one of Kennedy's favorite bogeymen: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-adderall-labor-camps">attention deficit hyperactivity disorder</a>, or ADHD.
Back in 2021, the state of California released a report, with <a href="https://publichealth.berkeley.edu/news-media/research-highlights/new-report-shows-artificial-food-coloring-causes-hyperactivity-in-some-kids">evidence from researchers</a> at the University of California, Berkeley and UC Davis, declaring definitively that synthetic food dyes can induce or worsen hyperactivity in children than natural dyes.
With a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/red-dye-no-3-fda-ban-food-artificial-color-rcna183095">growing body of evidence</a> showing a causal relationship between artificial colorants and ADHD symptoms in some children, we won't exactly be sad to see them go — but as with everything related to the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/26/health/rfk-supplement-vitamins-kff-partner/index.html">toxic wellness nut</a> that leads American healthcare, we're taking this with many grains of non-synthetic sea salt.
More on RFK: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-surprised-cut-grant-youth-diabetes-research">RFK Jr. Surprised to Learn He'd Cut a Grant For Youth Diabetes Research</a>