There may soon be a new kind of artificial intelligence in town, one that uses a novel approach to thinking that could save massive amounts of computing power and money.

The AI that most people use every day, like ChatGPT, Claude or Google Gemini, relies on large language models that can work through difficult problems step by step. While this may ultimately give us the answers we are searching for, the process can increase response times and use a lot of computing power.

When the ESA Earth observation mission FLEX launches into space on September 15, 2026, as scheduled, it will carry high-precision optical components from Jena, Germany. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF have developed and manufactured a silicon-based doubleslit assembly as well as two high-precision mirrors for the spectrometer on board the satellite. The spectrometer is designed to detect the fluorescence of plants excited by sunlight from Earth’s orbit. The data is expected to provide new insights into the photosynthetic activity, health, and stress levels of vegetation.

The FLEX mission will address the question: How much...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday authorized the first wearable sensor that continuously tracks ketones—chemicals the body makes when it burns fat instead of sugar for fuel.

It is also the first device anywhere to monitor ketones and blood sugar at the same time, the FDA said.

When ketones climb too high, they can cause diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA. The American Diabetes Association warns that DKA can worsen within hours and lead to coma or death if it goes untreated.

Hospital admissions for DKA have risen 55% over the past decade, according to Abbott, which makes the device.

Early symptoms are often mistaken for a stomach bug or another common infection, which delays care. Most people also do not keep a blood ketone meter at home.

“Knowing that ...

Some of the strangest weather in the solar system doesn’t happen on Earth or even in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot—it happens in the interiors of ice giants like Neptune and Uranus. Specifically, scientists have long believed that, at certain pressures and temperatures, it literally rains diamonds inside these planets. For the first time, scientists have mimicked the process they believe creates this phenomenon.

A new paper by physicists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), published in Nature Physics, resolves the 20-year-old scientific mystery and shows how the same physics that makes it rain diamonds inside Neptune could also help us triple our fusion energy output.

Let’s talk about the actual experiment first...