On May 20, 2026, OpenAI made an announcement that shook the mathematical world. An internal AI model — one not available to the public — had come up with a counterexample to the “unit distance” ...

Toyota has cooked up a new patent that hints at a smarter way to bolt EV batteries in place – one that could help future trucks and SUVs shrug off rough roads without breaking a sweat. If you’ve ever ...

Frontline employees shape the customer experience, spot operational friction first, and determine whether new tools improve work or simply create more of it. Their motivation, judgment, and skill are ...

Scientists say they have solved in detail what may be the most famous lawn-care-related problem in all of physics. The so-called Feynman sprinkler problem is named after one of the best-known ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

Physicists have debated which way a submerged sprinkler sucking in water would spin. Careful experiments provide an answer. By Kenneth Chang Scientists say they have solved in detail what may be the ...

Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, ...

In a new study, bumble bees solve a completely novel object-manipulation task. What makes this behavior especially remarkable is that the bees had never been trained. The findings challenge the ...

Contrary to their name, bumblebees are no bumbling oafs. A new study published in Science on Thursday found that these bees utilized tools to solve complex problems to win a sugary treat, even if they ...

Bumblebees faced with a challenge know how to play ball. Buff-tailed bumblebees can figure out on their own how to use a ball as a ladder to nab sugar from an out-of-reach fake flower, researchers ...

Despite having tiny brains, bumblebees have demonstrated a remarkable ability to socially learn how to use tools, solve simple puzzles, and cooperate to achieve a goal. It seems they can also solve ...

OpenAI claims its new reasoning model has produced an original mathematical proof disproving a famous unsolved conjecture in geometry, which was first posed by Paul Erdős in 1946. If this sounds ...