Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other...
AI-generated code could be a disaster for the software supply chain. Here’s why.
AI-generated computer code is rife with references to non-existent third-party libraries, creating a golden opportunity for supply-chain attacks that poison legitimate programs with malicious packages that can steal data, plant...
Monty Python and the Holy Grail turns 50
Ars staffers reflect upon the things they love most about this masterpiece of absurdist comedy. Credit: EMI Films/Python (Monty) Pictures Credit: EMI Films/Python (Monty) Pictures Monty Python and the Holy...
Seasonal COVID shots may no longer be possible under Trump admin
Under President Trump, the Food and Drug Administration may no longer approve seasonal COVID-19 vaccines updated for the virus variants circulating that year, according to recent statements by Trump administration...
Spain is about to face the challenge of a “black start”
Local conditions While the grids in Spain and Portugal are connected to each other, they have limited connections to elsewhere. The only sources of external power to the grid come...
ChatGPT goes shopping with new product-browsing feature
On Thursday, OpenAI announced the addition of shopping features to ChatGPT Search. The new feature allows users to search for products and purchase them through merchant websites after being redirected...
Backblaze responds to claims of “sham accounting,” customer backups at risk
Backblaze went public in November 2021 and raised $100 million. Morpheus noted that since then, “Backblaze has reported losses every quarter, its outstanding share count has grown by 80 percent,...
Trump’s hasty Take It Down Act has “gaping flaws” that threaten encryption
Legal challenges will likely immediately follow law’s passage, experts said. Everyone expects that the Take It Down Act—which requires platforms to remove both real and artificial intelligence-generated non-consensual intimate imagery...
What’s it like to be 70 years old in space? “All those little aches and pains heal up.”
Not many people celebrate their birthday by burning a fiery arc through the atmosphere, pulling 4.4gs in freefall back to planet Earth, thudding into the ground, and emptying their stomach...
50 years later, Vietnam’s environment still bears the scars of war
Large amounts of Agent Orange had been stored at the Da Nang airport during the war and contaminated the soil with dioxin. The cleanup project, including heating contaminated soil to...
GPT-4o Is An Absurd Sycophant
GPT-4o tells you what it thinks you want to hear. The results of this were rather ugly. You get extreme sycophancy. Absurd praise. Mystical experiences. (Also some other interesting choices,...
iOS and Android juice jacking defenses have been trivial to bypass for years
SON OF JUICE JACKING ARISES New ChoiceJacking attack allows malicious chargers to steal data from phones. Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images About a...
In HBO’s The Last of Us, revenge is a dish best served democratically
New episodes of season 2 of The Last of Us are premiering on HBO every Sunday night, and Ars’ Kyle Orland (who’s played the games) and Andrew Cunningham (who hasn’t) will be...
Revisiting iZombie, 10 years later
We loved the show’s wicked humor, great characters, and mix of cases-of-the-week with longer narrative arcs. Zombies never really go out of style, but they were an especially hot commodity...
“You wouldn’t steal a car” anti-piracy campaign may have used pirated fonts
Aquilina, who was speaking generally and not on the specifics of the anti-piracy campaign and its font use, said that using a font from a free source, with an “effectively...
Is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion still fun for a first-time player in 2025?
How does a fresh coat of paint help this 19-year-old RPG against modern competition? Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down… Credit: Bethesda Game Studios Don’t look down,...
Weapons of war are launching from Cape Canaveral for the first time since 1988
Unlike a recent hypersonic missile test, officials didn’t immediately confirm Friday’s flight was a success. File photo of a previous launch of the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon from Cape Canaveral...
With over 900 US measles cases so far this year, things are looking bleak
As of Friday, April 25, the US has confirmed over 900 measles cases since the start of the year. The cases are across 29 states, but most are in or...
Mike Lindell’s lawyers used AI to write brief—judge finds nearly 30 mistakes
A lawyer representing MyPillow and its CEO Mike Lindell in a defamation case admitted using artificial intelligence in a brief that has nearly 30 defective citations, including misquotes and citations...
Worries About AI Are Usually Complements Not Substitutes
A common claim is that concern about [X] ‘distracts’ from concern about [Y]. This is often used as an attack to cause people to discard [X] concerns, on pain of...
