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Society

Could a self-monitoring system for criminals replace prisons one day?

Future Chronicles is our regular speculative look at inventions yet to come. In this latest installment, we journey to 2050, when technology had been developed so that criminals could be monitored at home. It led to a drop in crime, writes Rowan Hooper

Comment

An illustration of a scroll being unfurled by two hands, surrounded by Roman columns and wisps of smoke, with a Roman figure in a toga at the centre

Humans

We’re finally reading the secrets of Herculaneum’s lost library

Features

Technology

Chatbots work best when you speak to them with formal language

News

2AGP4K2 FBI Laboratory analysis of Castor Beans used to manufacture the highly poisonous agent Ricin. Ricin (/'ra?s?n/ RY-sin), a lectin (a carbohydrate-binding protein) produced in the seeds of the castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, is a highly potent toxin. A dose of purified ricin powder the size of a few grains of table salt can kill an adult human. The median lethal dose (LD50) of ricin is around 22 micrograms per kilogram of body weight if the exposure is from injection or inhalation (2 milligrams for an average adult).

Technology

Should we worry AI will create deadly bioweapons? Not yet, but one day

Analysis

Los Angeles - CIRCA 1985: Author William Gibson poses for a portrait circa 1985 in Oakland, California (Photo by Aaron Rapoport/Corbis/Getty Images)

Technology

Is Neuromancer's cyberpunk dystopia still thrilling in 2025?

Culture

Cyclists and commuters make their ways home in evening sunshine at the junction of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill in the City of London, aka the Square Mile - the capital's financial district, on 4th April 2023, in London, England. (Photo by Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images)

Technology

I'm a cyclist. Will the arrival of robotaxis make my journeys safer?

Comment

Technology

NASA and IBM built an AI to predict solar flares before they hit Earth

News

Someone with paralysis using the brain-computer interface. The text above is the cued sentence and the text below is what is being decoded in real-time as she imagines speaking the sentence

Mind

Mind-reading AI can turn even imagined speech into spoken words

News

How AI poisoning is fighting bots that hoover data without permission

Technology

How AI poisoning is fighting bots that hoover data without permission

Features

Chemistry

Super-sticky hydrogel is 10 times stronger than other glues underwater

Researchers analysed thousands of natural protein sequences and got assistance from AI in order to design a new hydrogel adhesive that can stay sticky underwater or even within a living body

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Technology

'Universal' detector spots AI deepfake videos with record accuracy

News

Technology

How invisibility cloaks could make us disappear – at least from AI

Comment

Technology

Why Trump's order targeting 'woke' AI may be impossible to follow

Analysis

Humans

AI helps reconstruct damaged Latin inscriptions from the Roman Empire

News