October 2026

In most cases, hotspot-driven volcanism is relatively sedate, with lava flowing down mountainsides slowly enough that people can walk out of its way. But in a number of locations—Mount Etna, Hawaii, Iceland—lava gets expelled in dramatic fountains that can reach several hundred meters in height. Right now, we’re not sure what powers them. However, thanks […]

NASA on Friday released a much-anticipated “request” to the US commercial space industry to develop private space stations that, as early as 2030, will succeed the International Space Station as a place for astronauts to live in low-Earth orbit. In a cover letter accompanying the 360-page “request for proposals,” NASA stated its plan: “This will

The Museo de Historia de la Computación in Spain has unveiled a 1:1 scale visual replica of the famous Cray-1 supercomputer from 1976. Instead of sourcing expensive, cutting-edge tech to run the system, the creative team powered the project with 30 2012-era Mac Minis. Developed over 18 months, the project serves as a 50th-anniversary tribute

Ukrainian drone strikes have knocked out two of five data centers belonging to the Russian tech giant Yandex. The damage has left Yandex, known as “Russia’s Google” because it operates the country’s most popular search engine, struggling to maintain its AI chatbot and other online services. The Ukrainian drones struck Yandex data centers in the

The Stone Age owes its name to tools that survived to our time. The material early humans worked with most, though, was probably wood because it is so much easier to process. Unfortunately, we know very little about Paleolithic woodwork because wood rots relatively quickly. But at Abric Romaní, a rock shelter in Capellades, west

Enterprise AI orchestration must account for agents working across the data, applications and infrastructure businesses already use. As organizations move beyond experiments, running those systems consistently brings questions of access, oversight and operational control into sharper focus. Those deployment challenges will help shape the discussion at IBM TechXchange 2026, taking place Oct. 26–29 in Atlanta.

An Anthropic AI model submitted a bogus tip about an unsolved murder to the Philadelphia police, in a blunder the department called “unacceptable.” The unspecified model, not unlike an unscrupulous prankster, submitted the fake info about the cold case through PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com on July 18. Anthropic, however, didn’t find out about it until September 28 —

Outrage has erupted among health experts over news that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still eager to fund a widely condemned vaccine trial that would expose newborns in Guinea-Bissau to hepatitis B, putting them at high risk of a lifelong infection, which can lead to liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, and premature death.

Anyone who has even tangentially associated with computer programming knows that modern AI coding assistants and agents can be incredibly efficient at generating huge amounts of functional code. But coders making use of those tools also know better than to trust the accuracy of that code, meaning substantial effort needs to be spent reviewing any

Company, which grown rapidly in recent years, has been under scrutiny as privacy concerns grow Flock Safety plans to let go of about 18% of its employees, people with direct ⁠knowledge of the plans said on Thursday, as the maker of AI-powered surveillance cameras and license-plate readers faces mounting opposition to its products from communities