OpenAI’s blog post claims that GPT-5 beats its previous models on several coding benchmarks, including SWE-Bench Verified (scoring 74.9 percent), SWE-Lancer (GPT-5-thinking scored 55 percent), and Aider Polyglot (scored 88 percent), which test the model’s ability to fix bugs, complete freelance-style coding tasks, and work across multiple programming languages. During the press briefing on Wednesday,…
“There’s now policy certainty that we didn’t have before,” she adds. “Last but not least, the private sector is not only interested in using space nuclear power, they’re even interested in providing space nuclear power.” Both startups and established aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin are researching the use of nuclear power in space.…
Cut marks on a foot bone from El Mirador cave in Spain IPHES-CERCA Butchered human remains found in a cave in northern Spain suggest that Neolithic people may have eaten their enemies after killing them in combat. Francesc Marginedas at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) in Tarragona, Spain, and his…
An illustration of a spaceship sailing close to a black hole liuzishan/Getty Images An interstellar probe sent to a black hole could complete its journey and send data back to Earth in less than a century – if we can find a black hole close enough. Cosimo Bambi at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, has developed…
Letting off steam at a laughter yoga session in Kolkata, India SOPA Images Limited/Alamy It seems that laughter therapy is no joke. Structured interventions that aim to tickle our funny bone, like laughter yoga or hospital clowns, really do appear to reduce anxiety and improve life satisfaction. Laughter, which is also common in non-human animals,…
23 hours ago Laura Gozzi BBC News Vitaliy Shevchenko BBC Monitoring Russia editor Watch: “It’s gonna be up to him”, says Trump on Putin meeting ceasefire deadline The war in Ukraine, sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, shows no sign of abating. In the east of Ukraine, Russia presses on in a grinding…
Cage fungus Alison Pouliot “I’ve been hanging around fungi for more than 30 years now, working more at the scientific end. But this time I wanted to really explore the aesthetics of fungi,” says photographer, writer and ecologist Alison Pouliot. “Many of them are aesthetically beautiful. But they are also bizarre, unusual and crazy. I…
For many neurodivergent people, the outdoors is a more manageable, simpler place to be Westend61/Getty Images Neurodivergent, By NatureJoe Harkness (Bloomsbury) We begin with moth genitalia. Joe Harkness was planning to write a book about “niche nature interests”: ecologists, naturalists and conservationists with obscure passions for woodlice, or taxidermy, or yes, the examination (for ID purposes)…
“It can be hard to have a sense of the enormity of the scales involved…” Science Photo Library/Alamy Most of us can relate to being worried about inflation: we are all concerned about the cost of living and what our political leaders are doing to address it. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that we…
An illustration of nerve cells affected by Alzheimer’s disease Science Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo People with Alzheimer’s disease have lower levels of lithium in their brains, and giving lithium to mice with symptoms of the condition reverses cognitive decline. Together, the findings suggest that lithium deficiency could be a driver of Alzheimer’s disease…