Best of 2025

Charles C. Mann is a science journalist and the author of the bestsellers 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005) and 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), as well as The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018).

What happens when quantum computers can finally crack encryption and break into the world’s best-kept secrets? It’s called Q-Day—the worst holiday maybe ever.

As space rock 2024 YR4 became more likely to hit Earth than anything of its size had ever been before, scientists all over the world mobilized to protect the planet.

How one animal's oddity inspired Sewall Wright to take on one of Darwin's big ideas

What if building on the water could be safer and sturdier than building on flood-prone land? Koen Olthuis, of the architectural firm Waterstudio, believes that in a time of rising sea levels buoyant construction is the future. Kyle Chayka reports from the Netherlands.

LAS VEGAS — There is something unstable at the most basic level about any space with too much capitalism happening in it. The air is all wrong, there’s simultaneously too much in it and not enough of it. Everyone I spoke to about the Consumer Electronics Show before I went to it earlier this month…

The technology’s ability to read and summarize text is already making it a useful tool for scholarship. How will it change the stories we tell about the past?

The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

The disruption is real. It's also predictable.

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Inside the surprisingly meaningful, unexpectedly heartbreaking, and deeply confusing reality of AI relationships.

Yale SOM leadership expert Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and co-author Stephen Henriques write that the tangle of AI deals among tech giants could be signs of dangerous overinvestment in the developing technology. They outline three ways the bubble could pop.

If only they were robotic! Instead, chatbots have developed a distinctive — and grating — voice.

AI isn’t just impacting how we write — it’s changing how we speak and interact with others. And there’s only more to come.

Despite fewer clicks, copyright fights, and sometimes iffy answers, AI could unlock new ways to summon all the world’s knowledge.

Birth rates are crashing around the world. Should we be worried? Gideon Lewis-Kraus reports.

Are we doomed to die out? We find ourselves at the only point in the history of the species when the rate of population...

Lurking in every space weather forecaster’s mind is the hypothetical big one, a solar storm so huge it could bring our networked, planetary civilization to its knees.

How the world’s largest encyclopedia became the factual foundation of the web, but now it’s under attack from the right wing, tech billionaires, and AI.

Kyle Chayka on his digital journey with the Internet, including AOL Instant Messenger, online communities and forums, and social-media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok.