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GPT-3, the software behind the world’s best non-human writer, is a giant step forward for machines. What about humanity? Bosses don’t often play down their products. Sam Altman, the CEO of artificial intelligence company OpenAI, did just that when people went gaga over his company’s latest software: the Generative Pretrained Transformer 3 (GPT-3). For some, GPT-3 represented a moment in...

Research could pave way for cheap supercapacitor storage of renewable energyThe humble house brick has been turned into a battery that can store electricity, raising the possibility that buildings could one day become literal powerhouses.The new technology exploits the porous nature of fired red bricks by filling the pores with tiny nanofibres of a conducting plastic that can store charge. The...

Azar plays down significance of Russian vaccine progressHealth secretary predicts ‘tens of millions of doses’ by year’s endThe US health secretary, Alex Azar, said on Tuesday morning that America hopes to have a coronavirus vaccine approved by December and tamped down Russia’s celebrations over unveiling its own vaccine after rapid development.“The point is not to be first,” Azar said....

I study the Arctic. The decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord is reprehensible – but we can’t give up hopeWhen you stand facing an exposed edge of permafrost, you can feel it from a distance.It emanates a cold that tugs on every one of your senses. Permanently bound by ice year after year, the frozen soil is packed with carcasses of woolly mammoths and ancient ferns. They’re...

Central to infectious disease control is tracking the spread of a pathogen through the population. In Cambridge, UK, researchers are looking at genetic mutations in samples from Covid-19 patients to rapidly investigate how and where hospital transmissions are occurring. Dr Estée Török tells Nicola Davis what this real-time pathological detective work can reveal about the origins of an outbreak...