Adam Becker is a science journalist and astrophysicist. He has written for The New York Times, BBC, NPR, Scientific American, New Scientist, Quanta, Undark, Aeon, and others. He also recorded a video series with the BBC, and has appeared on numerous radio shows and podcasts, including Ologies, The Story Collider, and KQED Forum.
What’s the big idea?
A question I often get when I train editorial teams on the use of AI is, “Is using AI cheating?”
Although it’s a yes or no question, it’s obviously not a yes or no answer. The short answer is sometimes, but the key to figuring out the long answer is using the tools with an open mind. If you’re a professional in a field like journalism, you’ll generally be able to tell when it’s speeding up drudgery and when your judgment and expertise are m
Exciting news for anyone who’s already burned through the entirety of Netflix: There’s a new online movie rental platform coming to town.
Letterboxd, the movie-tracking app and the preferred social media of your most insufferable film-loving friend, announced this week that the Letterboxd Video Store is on the way.
If brands want to reach the shoppers of the future, they’ll need to meet them where they already are: playing video games.
For this youngest generation, the coolest places to hang out aren’t the local mall or park but inside virtual worlds. While millennials had Sega Mega Drive and Mario Kart, and Gen Z grew up on The Sims and Angry Birds, Gen Alpha—born between 2010 and 2024 and still younger than 17—is coming of age in a world even more seamlessly integ
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), under acting director Russell Vought, canceled proposed new rules this week that would have protected Americans’ sensitive private data—including financial data, credit history, and Social Security numbers—from being collected by data brokers without consent and sold to advertisers and other third parties.
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Trump’s Middle East tour is all about AI diplomacy
The U.S. enjoys its superpower status mainly because of two things:
National parks posting thirst traps on TikTok was not on anyone’s 2025 bingo card.
Recently, a Yellowstone National Park fan account has gone viral for pairing clips of adult entertainers and shirtless celebrities with sweeping shots of the park’s natural beauty.
Students are still setting fire to their Chromebooks for TikTok—and now they’re facing the consequences.
Fast Company first reported on the #ChromebookChallenge trend last week, following a series of school evacuations caused by students igniting laptop fires. The fires are started by inserting items such as pencils, paper clips, and pushpins in
At its annual Google I/O developer conference in Mountain View next week, Google will try to rally developers around one of its next big bets: Android XR. Later this year, Samsung is set to release the first VR headset powered by the spatial computing operating system, and Google is aiming to attract as many developers as possible to build apps for the devic
It’s not just the “gesture” of a $400 million luxury plane that President Donald Trump says he’s smart to accept from Qatar. Or that he effectively auctioned off the first destination on his first major foreign trip,