Researchers collecting rock samples in Antarctica in the 1960sPolar Rock Repository Microbes living beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet may survive on methane generated by geothermal heat rising from deep below Earth’s surface. The discovery could have implications for assessing the potential for life to survive on icy worlds beyond Earth. “These could be hotspots for microbes that are adapted to live in these areas,” says Gavin Piccione at Brown University in Rhode Island. We already know that there is methane beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet. Other…

Americans don’t agree on much these days. Yet even at a time when consensus reality seems to be on the verge of collapse, there remains at least one quintessentially modern value we can all still get behind: creativity.  We teach it, measure it, envy it, cultivate it, and endlessly worry about its death. And why wouldn’t we? Most of us are taught from a young age that creativity is the key to everything from finding personal fulfillment to achieving career success to solving the world’s thorniest problems. Over the years, we’ve built creative industries, creative spaces, and creative cities and populated them with an entire class of people known simply as “creatives.” We read thousands of books and articles each year that teach us how to unleash, unlock, foster, boost, and hack our own personal creativity. Then we read even more to learn how to manage and protect this precious resource.  Given how much we obsess over it, the concept of creativity can feel like something that has always existed, a thing philosophers and artists have pondered and debated throughout the ages. While it’s a reasonable assumption, it’s one that turns out to be very wrong. As Samuel Franklin explains in his recent book, The Cult of Creativity, the first known written use of creativity didn’t actually occur until 1875, “making it an infant as far as words go.” What’s more, he writes, before about 1950, “there were approximately zero articles, books, essays, treatises, odes, classes, encyclopedia entries, or anything of the sort dealing explicitly with the subject of ‘creativity.’” This raises some obvious questions. How exactly did we go from never talking about creativity to always talking about it? What, if anything, distinguishes creativity from other, older words, like ingenuity, cleverness, imagination, and artistry? Maybe most important: How did everyone from kindergarten teachers to mayors, CEOs, designers, engineers, activists, and starving artists come to believe that creativity isn’t just good—personally, socially, economically—but the answer to all life’s problems? Thankfully, Franklin offers some potential answers in his book. A historian and design researcher at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, he argues that the concept of creativity as we now know it emerged during the post–World War II era in America as a kind of cultural salve—a way to ease the tensions and anxieties caused by increasing conformity, bureaucracy, and suburbanization. “Typically defined as a kind of trait or process vaguely associated with artists and geniuses but theoretically possessed by anyone and applicable to any field, [creativity] provided a way to unleash individualism within order,” he writes, “and revive the spirit of the lone inventor within the maze of the modern corporation.” Brainstorming, a new method for encouraging creative thinking, swept corporate America in the 1950s. A response to pressure for new products and new ways of marketing them, as well as a panic over conformity, it inspired passionate debate about whether true creativity should be an individual affair or could be systematized for corporate use.INSTITUTE OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY/THE MONACELLI PRESS I spoke to Franklin about why we continue to be so fascinated by creativity, how Silicon Valley became the supposed epicenter of it, and what role, if any, technologies like AI might have in reshaping our relationship with it.  I’m curious what your personal relationship to creativity was growing up. What made you want to write a book about it? Like a lot of kids, I grew up thinking that creativity was this inherently good thing. For me—and I imagine for a lot of other people who, like me, weren’t particularly athletic or good at math and science—being creative meant you at least had some future in this world, even if it wasn’t clear what that future would entail. By the time I got into college and beyond, the conventional wisdom among the TED Talk register of thinkers—people like Daniel Pink and Richard Florida—was that creativity was actually the most important trait to have for the future. Basically, the creative people were going to inherit the Earth, and society desperately needed them if we were going to solve all of these compounding problems in the world.  On the one hand, as someone who liked to think of himself as creative, it was hard not to be flattered by this. On the other hand, it all seemed overhyped to me. What was being sold as the triumph of the creative class wasn’t actually resulting in a more inclusive or creative world order. What’s more, some of the values embedded in what I call the cult of creativity seemed increasingly problematic—specifically, the focus on self-­realization, doing what you love, and following your passion. Don’t get me wrong—it’s a beautiful vision, and I saw it work out for some people. But I also started to feel like it was just a cover for what was, economically speaking, a pretty bad turn of events for many people.   Staff members at the University of California’s Institute of Personality Assessment and Research simulate a situational procedure involving group interaction, called the Bingo Test. Researchers of the 1950s hoped to learn how factors in people’s lives and environments shaped their creative aptitude.INSTITUTE OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY/THE MONACELLI PRESS Nowadays, it’s quite common to bash the “follow your passion,” “hustle culture” idea. But back when I started this project, the whole move-fast-and-break-things, disrupter, innovation-economy stuff was very much unquestioned. In a way, the idea for the book came from recognizing that creativity was playing this really interesting role in connecting two worlds: this world of innovation and entrepreneurship and this more soulful, bohemian side of our culture. I wanted to better understand the history of that relationship. When did you start thinking about creativity as a kind of cult—one that we’re all a part of?  Similar to something like the “cult of domesticity,” it was a way of describing a historical moment in which an idea or value system achieves a kind of broad, uncritical acceptance. I was finding that everyone was selling stuff based on the idea that it boosted your creativity, whether it was a new office layout, a new kind of urban design, or the “Try these five simple tricks” type of thing.  You start to realize that nobody is bothering to ask, “Hey, uh, why do we all need to be creative again? What even is this thing, creativity?” It had become this unimpeachable value that no one, regardless of what side of the political spectrum they fell on, would even think to question. That, to me, was really unusual, and I think it signaled that something interesting was happening. Your book highlights midcentury efforts by psychologists to turn creativity into a quantifiable mental trait and the “creative person” into an identifiable type. How did that play out?  The short answer is: not very well. To study anything, you of course need to agree on what it is you’re looking at. Ultimately, I think these groups of psychologists were frustrated in their attempts to come up with scientific criteria that defined a creative person. One technique was to go find people who were already eminent in fields that were deemed creative—writers like Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, architects like Louis Kahn and Eero Saarinen—and just give them a battery of cognitive and psychoanalytic tests and then write up the results. This was mostly done by an outfit called the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research (IPAR) at Berkeley. Frank Barron and Don MacKinnon were the two biggest researchers in that group. Another way psychologists went about it was to say, all right, that’s not going to be practical for coming up with a good scientific standard. We need numbers, and lots and lots of people to certify these creative criteria. This group of psychologists theorized that something called “divergent thinking” was a major component of creative accomplishment. You’ve heard of the brick test, where you’re asked to come up with many creative uses for a brick in a given amount of time? They basically gave a version of that test to Army officers, schoolchildren, rank-and-file engineers at General Electric, all kinds of people. It’s tests like those that ultimately became stand-ins for what it means to be “creative.” Are they still used?  When you see a headline about AI making people more creative, or actually being more creative than humans, the tests they are basing that assertion on are almost always some version of a divergent thinking test. It’s highly problematic for a number of reasons. Chief among them is the fact that these tests have never been shown to have predictive value—that’s to say, a third grader, a 21-year-old, or a 35-year-old who does really well on divergent thinking tests doesn’t seem to have any greater likelihood of being successful in creative pursuits. The whole point of developing these tests in the first place was to both identify and predict creative people. None of them have been shown to do that.  Reading your book, I was struck by how vague and, at times, contradictory the concept of “creativity” was from the beginning. You characterize that as “a feature, not a bug.” How so? Ask any creativity expert today what they mean by “creativity,” and they’ll tell you it’s the ability to generate something new and useful. That something could be an idea, a product, an academic paper—whatever. But the focus on novelty has remained an aspect of creativity from the beginning. It’s also what distinguishes it from other similar words, like imagination or cleverness. But you’re right: Creativity is a flexible enough concept to be used in all sorts of ways and to mean all sorts of things, many of them contradictory. I think I write in the book that the term may not be precise, but that it’s vague in precise and meaningful ways. It can be both playful and practical, artsy and technological, exceptional and pedestrian. That was and remains a big part of its appeal.  The question of “Can machines be ‘truly creative’?” is not that interesting, but the questions of “Can they be wise, honest, caring?” are more important if we’re going to be welcoming [AI] into our lives as advisors and assistants. Is that emphasis on novelty and utility a part of why Silicon Valley likes to think of itself as the new nexus for creativity? Absolutely. The two criteria go together. In techno-solutionist, hypercapitalist milieus like Silicon Valley, novelty isn’t any good if it’s not useful (or at least marketable), and utility isn’t any good (or marketable) unless it’s also novel. That’s why they’re often dismissive of boring-but-important things like craft, infrastructure, maintenance, and incremental improvement, and why they support art—which is traditionally defined by its resistance to utility—only insofar as it’s useful as inspiration for practical technologies. At the same time, Silicon Valley loves to wrap itself in “creativity” because of all the artsy and individualist connotations. It has very self-consciously tried to distance itself from the image of the buttoned-down engineer working for a large R&D lab of a brick-and-mortar manufacturing corporation and instead raise up the idea of a rebellious counterculture type tinkering in a garage making weightless products and experiences. That, I think, has saved it from a lot of public scrutiny. Up until recently, we’ve tended to think of creativity as a human trait, maybe with a few exceptions from the rest of the animal world. Is AI changing that? When people started defining creativity in the ’50s, the threat of computers automating white-collar work was already underway. They were basically saying, okay, rational and analytical thinking is no longer ours alone. What can we do that the computers can never do? And the assumption was that humans alone could be “truly creative.” For a long time, computers didn’t do much to really press the issue on what that actually meant. Now they’re pressing the issue. Can they do art and poetry? Yes. Can they generate novel products that also make sense or work? Sure. I think that’s by design. The kinds of LLMs that Silicon Valley companies have put forward are meant to appear “creative” in those conventional senses. Now, whether or not their products are meaningful or wise in a deeper sense, that’s another question. If we’re talking about art, I happen to think embodiment is an important element. Nerve endings, hormones, social instincts, morality, intellectual honesty—those are not things essential to “creativity” necessarily, but they are essential to putting things out into the world that are good, and maybe even beautiful in a certain antiquated sense. That’s why I think the question of “Can machines be ‘truly creative’?” is not that interesting, but the questions of “Can they be wise, honest, caring?” are more important if we’re going to be welcoming them into our lives as advisors and assistants.  This interview is based on two conversations and has been edited and condensed for clarity. Bryan Gardiner is a writer based in Oakland, California.

President Donald Trump wants to shake up the Federal Reserve, and he has sights set on the right person for the job.Trump is considering Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor, to replace Jerome Powell as the Chair of the Federal Reserve, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.Publicly, the president made it clear that he's not happy with Powell. In private, Trump has discussed ousting Powell before his Fed term is up in May 2026, the Journal reported.Trump blasted Powell in a Truth Social post on Thursday, saying the Fed chair is "always TOO LATE AND WRONG" before adding that "Powell's termination cannot come fast enough!" Also on Thursday, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he has the authority to get rid of Powell, despite Powell's position that such a move is against the law."If I want him out, he'll be out of there real fast, believe me," Trump said.Trump has already had meetings with Warsh at Mar-a-Lago about potentially selecting him to replace Powell before Powell's term is over, The Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.Warsh, 55, is a former Morgan Stanley banker who served as an economic advisor to President George W. Bush from 2002 to 2006 and a governor of the Federal Reserve Board from 2006 to 2011. Warsh helped rescue struggling banks following the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and helped shape the country's larger response to the crisis.Warsh also worked on Trump's second term transition team, and was previously one of the president's top picks for Treasury Secretary before he ultimately selected Scott Bessent. During his first term in office, Trump had also considered Warsh for Fed Chair in 2017 before choosing Powell.Warsh, a known financial hawk, has been critical of the US's expanding debt, saying in July that inflation is the fault of "irresponsible government spending and excessive money printing."Whether Warsh actually wants the job is not clear, and the financier did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.Warsh has, however, advised that Trump should not prematurely fire Powell and should let the Chair carry out his full term, The Journal reported.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The koala is a national icon of Australia. And in some parts of the country, these marsupials — known for their fluffy ears, adorable clingy babies, and diet of eucalyptus leaves — are endangered. In the last two decades, their population size in some areas has dropped by half.It may seem odd, then, that the government is shooting them out of trees. From helicopters. In a national park. Earlier this month, government authorities shot and likely killed several hundred koalas from helicopters in Budj Bim National Park, a protected area in the southern state of Victoria, as journalist Michael Dahlstrom reported. Some animal welfare advocates are alarmed. The government, meanwhile, says it’s for the benefit of the koalas. But ultimately the deaths of these animals points to much bigger problems, including climate change — which forces agencies that manage wildlife to make incredibly difficult choices. Why is the Australian government killing koalas? In March, a massive bushfire burned more than 5,400 acres in the park, injuring some of the koalas and destroying a large amount of eucalyptus leaves, their food. The government says the controversial program is intended to end the koalas’ suffering from burns and starvation.But some koala advocates say there’s more to the story. A kangaroo climbs a tree that was charred by the 2019–2020 bushfires in Australia. Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesThe animals are not only starving because of the fire but because logging and development has destroyed much of their habitat in Victoria. Advocates have also pointed out that there are commercial plantations of blue gum eucalyptus around Budj Bim National Park that koalas have come to rely on. When those plantations are harvested, the koalas living in them move into Budj Bim, putting pressure on what natural forests remain in the park. A fire only makes the situation worse — destroying food in a region with a dense population of koalas. “This incident is just another one in the long line of mismanagement of the species and its habitat,” Rolf Schlagloth, a koala researcher at CQUniversity Australia, told me over email. “We can’t eliminate bushfires altogether but more continuous, healthy forests can assist in reducing the risk and severity of fires. Koala habitat needs to be extensive and connected and the management of blue gum plantations needs to consider the koala as these trees are very attractive to them.”Schlagloth and other koala experts are also skeptical that shooting the animals from helicopters is the best approach. When animals are severely injured, euthanasia is often the humane response, they say, but it should be a last resort. And an aerial cull “appears to be a very indiscriminate method,” Schlagloth said. Australia also has a long history of managing its wild animals — both native and nonnative — by killing them. “Rescue should always be the first option if feasible,” Schlagloth said.Rescuing the koalas, or assessing their health up close, was not feasible, according to the Victoria government. “All other methods which have been considered are not appropriate given the inability to safely access large areas of impacted landscape by foot due to the remote location of animals often high in the canopy, the extremely rugged terrain, and in consideration of the safety risks of working in a fire affected area, with fire impacted trees,” James Todd, chief biodiversity officer at Victoria’s Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action (DEECA), said in a statement to Vox.DEECA is consulting with an experienced wildlife veterinarian and only koalas in extremely poor condition are euthanized, the agency told Vox. (The term “euthanize” is a bit of a stretch because it implies the animals were killed painlessly — something shooting from a helicopter cannot guarantee.) The “work” is ongoing, the spokesperson said, suggesting that more koalas may be killed. What it will take to help koalasIt’s easy to blame the Victoria government for these koala deaths — and maybe it does deserve some blame. Yet once the fire broke out, there were really no good options for helping the park’s animals without tackling more fundamental problems. Habitat loss is a big one, and so is climate change, which is one of the dynamics making wildfires more frequent and damaging in Australia. One study, published in 2023, found that roughly 40 percent of koala habitat is highly susceptible to fires, and that percentage will increase in the decades to come as the planet warms up.Vets treat a koala evacuated from a bushfire in Queanbeyan, Australia, in early 2020. John Moore/Getty ImagesIn late 2019 and early 2020, catastrophic fires ravaged eastern Australia, killing or displacing around 3 billion animals, including an estimated 60,000 koalas. Scientists say climate change made the conditions for those fires more likely.“National parks are the last bastion for our wildlife and increasing severity of bushfires and other extreme weather events puts Australia’s incredible native species like the koala at significant risk,” said Lisa Palma, CEO of Wildlife Victoria, a wildlife rescue organization. “It is time that climate change and habitat loss is taken seriously and there is collective effort from governments, private enterprise and the public to conserve our native species which exist nowhere else.”“There is hope,” Palma said. “But it requires collective effort.”See More:

Nintendo Switch 2 avoids price hike in US but accessory costs go up Adam Starkey Published April 18, 2025 3:49pm Updated April 18, 2025 3:49pm The Switch 2 is turning into a pricey purchase (Nintendo) Despite the tariffs, Nintendo has announced the price of the Switch 2 will stay the same in the US, although that could change in the future. Nintendo’s handling of the price around the Switch 2 has been a mess ever since the Direct earlier this month, but it seems like the company is aiming to claw back some goodwill. After US President Donald Trump announced a slew of higher tariffs against countries like China and Vietnam, Nintendo delayed pre-orders of the Switch 2 indefinitely in the US and Canada to ‘assess the potential impact’ amid ‘evolving market conditions’. Two weeks later, and after Trump paused tariff hikes everywhere except for China, Nintendo has announced the price of the Switch 2 will remain the same in the US – albeit with some caveats. In a post on its website, Nintendo confirmed pre-orders will begin in the US on April 24, 2025. The price for the base console and the Mario Kart World bundle will stay the same, at $449.99 and $499.99 respectively. The physical and digital versions of Mario Kart World ($79.99) and Donkey Kong Bananza ($69.99) will also stay the same. The announcement isn’t without some bad news though. Nintendo states Switch 2 accessories ‘will experience price adjustments from those announced on April 2, due to changes in market conditions’. Accessories like the Switch 2 Pro Controller ($84.99), Joy-Con 2 controllers ($94.99), and the Switch 2 camera ($54.99) are now all $5 more expensive. The Nintendo Switch 2 dock set, meanwhile, is $10 more at $119.99, while the Joy-Con 2 strap is $1 more at $13.99. Nintendo has also warned ‘other adjustments to the price of any Nintendo product are also possible in the future depending on market conditions’ – so it’s possible the Switch 2’s price, like the PlayStation 5 in certain markets recently, could go up at a later date. While this is probably the best case scenario in light of the tariffs, any price increase to any product surrounding the Switch 2 might be a tough pill to swallow – with many still up in arms about the price of Mario Kart World. Following the announcement, pre-order pages for the Switch 2 have popped up at US retailers like Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and Walmart. However, at the time of writing, none of these pages are currently active. As for Canada, Nintendo has maintained the price of the Switch 2 in that region too, at $629.99 Canadian for the base console and $699.99 for the Mario Kart World bundle. Pre-orders are set to begin there on the same day on April 24, 2025. More Trending The Canadian announcement also comes with pricing for Switch 2 games for the first time. Mario Kart World is set to cost $109.99 Canadian, while Donkey Kong Bananza will set you back $99.99. Pre-orders in the UK and Europe kicked off earlier this month, with many retailers having already sold out. The Switch 2 is set to launch worldwide on June 5, 2025. In theory, none of this should affect UK prices but the worry with any business affected by Trump’s tariffs is that companies will be looking to mitigate the price rises in the US, given it’s such a large market. One way to do this is to increase the prices everywhere by a smaller amount, even though it’s only the US with the tariffs. So far, there’s no sign of that with Nintendo but it’s going to be a constant danger in the future. Mario Kart World is going to cost you (Nintendo) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Check out the vibrant first photo from PUNCH, a NASA mission that is hitting the ground running with some neat shots of the Sun. PUNCH—short for the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere—launched into low-Earth orbit last month, and its just taken its first images in what will hopefully be a fruitful period of scientific discovery. PUNCH consists of four satellites orbiting each other in a constellation. The suitcase-sized instruments together comprise one, 8,000-mile-wide (12,900-kilometer-wide) space weather detector. PUNCH is charged with observing how the solar corona gives way to solar wind, the energetically charged particles from the Sun that cause auroras here on Earth. After spending a few weeks getting their gear sorted, all four satellites have now opened their imaging doors. “All four instruments are functioning as designed,” said Craig DeForest, the mission’s principal investigator, in a Southwest Research Institute release. “We’re excited to finish on-orbit commissioning and get these cameras working together.” PUNCH’s cameras—its coronagraph and imagers—are designed to observe the faintest edges of the solar corona and the solar wind, features on the periphery of our host star that are extremely difficult to spot given the Sun’s brightness. The solar wind streams out of the Sun at more than one million miles per hour (1.61 million kilometers per hour), and its features are less than 0.1% as bright as the Milky Way. In its imaging process, PUNCH has to remove the light of distant stars, light reflecting off interplanetary dust, and your standard digital noise. But that’s not all, folks. PUNCH’s rocket engines are the size of shot glasses and water-powered. The engines’ diminutive size is just enough to give PUNCH a kick of an inch per second (two centimeters per second), which is all the mission needs to keep the constellation in stable orbit. “PUNCH is the first space mission to rely on this type of engine, which carries safe, inert, non-toxic propellant,” DeForest said. “That safety and stability are worth it even though the thrusters are more complex than conventional hydrazine rockets.” This is merely the preamble to PUNCH’s big show. The spacecrafts are currently undergoing a 90-day commissioning period, and the science mission won’t begin until June. But the current steps are crucial for the team to ensure that PUNCH properly filters out all the light that would otherwise jeopardize its observation of the solar wind. The pleasantly soft glow in the top image—first light for the nascent spacecraft—is light glinting off the dust particles around the Sun. PUNCH will help researchers stay prepared for solar wind—and solar storms—that blow energetic particles at our planet. Those storms can interfere with electronics on Earth, including the power grid, making it critical that scientists are kept up to date on the latest dynamics from the surface of our star.

Zenith House / NOMO STUDIOSave this picture!© Adrià GoulaHouses•Menorca , Spain Architects: NOMO STUDIO Area Area of this architecture project Area:  295 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2024 Photographs Photographs:Adrià Goula Lead Architects: Alicia Casals, Karl Johan Nyqvist More SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. Located on the Menorcan coast, this single-story home extends across a landscape of pines and native vegetation. It engages in a topographical dialogue by adapting to the gentle slope of the terrain through subtle folds and stepped platforms. In the context of increasing extreme weather events, the design strategy minimizes earth movement, favoring the continuity of natural runoff and the resilience of the land.Save this picture!Save this picture!The formal organization is structured around the aggregation of eight tangent square modules, creating a permeable system of solids and voids that articulate patios and intimate gardens. The longitudinal circulation establishes a spatial sequence of shifting views, culminating in a landscape threshold that frames the maritime horizon. The roof typology alternates between horizontal planes and four-sided pitched roofs, integrating skylights that emphasize spatial hierarchy and intensify the perception of scale and the relationship between compression and expansion.Save this picture!Save this picture!With its high thermal mass and predominant opacity, the building envelope is punctuated by carefully calibrated openings that function as light and visual capture devices. These openings, combined with overhead skylights, ensure a homogeneous and nuanced illumination. With a total area of 300 m², the functional program includes five bedrooms, a social core featuring a living-dining area and a semi-open kitchen, and a porch that acts as a climatic interface and transitional filter. The connection with the surroundings defines the project's logic: all spaces open to the garden through thresholds that blend seamlessly with the continuous flooring, reinforcing a synergistic spatial experience between interior and exterior.Save this picture!The layout responds to a programmatic gradation of privacy, where circulation areas function as diffuse membranes between public and intimate spaces. The main entrance is conceived as a peripheral pathway leading to a shaded vestibular patio, where the four-sided pitched roof and interaction with vegetation create a transitional threshold before entering the foyer. Three strategic voids are integrated into the volumetric system: the entrance patio, a xerophytic garden adjacent to the master bedroom, and a service patio connected to the laundry area.Save this picture!Save this picture!The materiality highlights the synthesis between context and construction: an earthy color palette featuring pigmented mortar finishes in terracotta tones, off-white masonry, limestone floors in sandy hues, and joinery in okoume wood and travertine. The exposure of materials in their raw state enhances a sensory perception of textures and densities, evoking an atmosphere of tectonic refuge. Finally, a sheet of water extends toward the sea, merging into a contemplative space carved into the terrain, where the perception of the landscape is framed at an intimate scale, in harmony with the human experience.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less About this officeNOMO STUDIOOffice••• Published on April 18, 2025Cite: "Zenith House / NOMO STUDIO" 18 Apr 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1029076/zenith-house-nomo-studio&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Learn how to create a procedural houndstooth pattern shader in Blender 2.83. Finished houndstooth blend file - https://cgmasters.com/tutorials/Houndstooth_COMPLETE.zip Check out https://cgmasters.com for more courses and tutorials. Like the tutorial and want to leave a tip? PayPal - https://www.paypal.me/cgmasterscom

Can AI tools do more than streamline workflows—can they actually help us think better? That’s the driving question behind the Microsoft Research Tools for Thought initiative. At this year’s CHI conference, we’re presenting four new research papers and cohosting a workshop that dives deep into this intersection of AI and human cognition. This post provides an overview of our latest research, starting with a study on how AI is changing the way we think and work. We also introduce three prototype systems designed to support different cognitive tasks. Finally, through our Tools for Thought workshop, we’re inviting the CHI community to help define AI’s role in supporting human thinking. AI’s effects on thinking at work With a single prompt, AI can generate a wide range of outputs, from documents and meeting agendas to answers and automated workflows. But how are people’s thinking processes affected when they delegate these tasks to AI? One of our goals is to understand how knowledge workers use AI, how they perceive its value, and how it affects cognitive effort. Our study, “The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers,” surveyed 319 professionals using AI across a variety of occupations. Participants shared 936 real-world AI use cases and reflected on how it influenced their critical thinking and mental effort. We summarize these findings below. Defining and deploying critical thinking. Knowledge workers describe critical thinking as involving activities like setting clear goals, refining prompts, and verifying AI outputs against external sources and their own expertise. They rely on these practices to maintain work quality when using AI—motivated by the need to avoid errors, produce better results, and develop their skills. Findings Balancing cognitive effort. Participants’ reports about critical thinking and the effort involved align with longstanding human tendencies to manage cognitive load at work. For high-stakes tasks requiring accuracy, they say they expend more effort in applying critical thinking with AI than they would performing the same tasks without it. In contrast, during routine, low-stakes tasks under time pressure, they report spending less effort on critical thinking when using AI compared with completing the task without it.  Confidence effects. The study found that higher confidence in AI was associated with less Shift in the nature of critical thinking. Participants reported a shift in critical thinking activities, with a greater focus on information verification, response integration, and task stewardship. While AI automates certain aspects of knowledge work, it also demands more effort in evaluating the accuracy and relevance of AI-generated content.  Barriers to critical engagement. The study identified several barriers that inhibit critical thinking when using AI. These include a lack of awareness of the need for critical evaluation, limited motivation due to time pressure or perceived job scope, and difficulty in refining prompts—especially in unfamiliar domains. Recommendations To foster critical thinking at work, we recommend that AI tools actively encourage awareness, motivation, and skill development. AI tools should enhance motivators for critical thinking (e.g., quality standards, skill-building) and mitigate inhibitors (e.g., time constraints, low awareness). Proactive prompts can surface overlooked tasks, while reactive features can offer on-demand assistance. Motivation can be strengthened by positioning critical reflection as part of professional growth—not just extra work. AI tools should also support knowledge workers’ ability to think critically by providing reasoning explanations (as some newer AI models now do), guided critiques, and cross-references. This shift must occur in both the design of the technology and in the mindsets of knowledge workers. Rather than treating AI as a tool for delivering answers, we suggest treating it as a thought partner—one that can also act as a provocateur. Beyond these insights, our other CHI papers explore practical ways to design AI that augments human cognition. Enhancing decision-making with AI Decision-making is central to knowledge work, and AI is increasingly used to help people make decisions in complex fields like healthcare and finance. However, how much agency do knowledge workers retain when AI is involved? Our study, “AI, Help Me Think—but for Myself: Exploring How LLMs Can Assist People in Complex Decision-Making by Providing Different Forms of Cognitive Support,” conducted in collaboration with University College London, examines this question. We began with a small formative study involving 10 participants, followed by a comparative study with 21 participants using two different AI-supported decision-making systems. For a complex financial investment task, we compared two different AI tools (Figure 1): RecommendAI, which provides AI-generated recommendations, and ExtendAI, which encourages users to articulate their reasoning before receiving AI feedback. Figure 1. Illustrative comparison of the thought process involved when interacting with two types of AI: RecommendAI and ExtendAI. Findings Both systems were found to offer benefits for augmenting cognition and addressing some of the challenges to critical thinking identified in the knowledge worker survey above, suggesting the potential for a balanced approach.  RecommendAI offered concrete suggestions that inspired users to explore new directions in their decision-making. This often led to fresh insights and reflections. However, the recommendations at times felt disconnected from the user’s own reasoning, reducing the depth of engagement.  In contrast, ExtendAI encouraged users to reflect more deeply on their decisions by providing feedback on their reasoning. This helped them examine their thought processes and consider alternative perspectives. However, some users found the feedback too general and not actionable enough.  When it came to how users integrated the tools into their decision-making process, RecommendAI, introduced perspectives that pushed users to think beyond their usual patterns. By recommending options not based on users’ own reasoning, it encouraged exploration of ideas they might not have considered. However, some users perceived the recommendations as a “black box” solution. This lack of transparency made those recommendations harder to understand, trust, and apply to their own thought processes.  ExtendAI, on the other hand, aligned with users’ existing reasoning, making its feedback easier to incorporate. This helped the users maintain a sense of control and continuity. However, because the feedback often echoed their initial thoughts, it sometimes limited new insights and risked reinforcing existing biases. These findings suggest that AI tools like ExtendAI, designed to elicit and build on users’ own cognitive processes, may offer a more effective approach to augmentation than simply providing “ready-made solutions” that users must figure out how to interpret and apply. Are we on track? Making meetings better with AI Meetings are often criticized for being ineffective. While this is sometimes due to poor practices—such as weak agendas, late starts, and unclear facilitation—we believe the deeper issue is a lack of meeting intentionality: knowing why a meeting is occurring and keeping the discussion focused on that purpose. A key challenge is maintaining goal clarity throughout a meeting. In the paper “Are We On Track? AI-Assisted Goal Reflection During Meetings,” we explore how AI tools can improve meetings in real time by encouraging reflection—awareness about the meeting’s goals and how well the current conversation is aligned with those goals. Our study with 15 knowledge workers examined two AI-driven design paradigms: passive goal assistance through ambient visualization (a live chart displaying how conversational topics relate to meeting objectives) and active goal assistance through interactive questioning (nudging participants to consider whether the current conversation aligns with the meeting objectives). These approaches are illustrated in Figure 2. Figure 2. Technology prototypes exploring passive and active ways to keep meetings focused on established objectives. Recommendations The findings highlight AI’s potential to help teams with meeting objectives. We found three key design tradeoffs between passive and active support. Based on these, we offer the following AI design recommendations. Information balance. There is a tradeoff between ambient visualizations in the passive approach—which can risk information overload—and interactive questioning in the active approach, which may lack detail. To be effective, AI should deliver the right amount of information at the right time and tailor content to the individuals who need it most—without overwhelming users, while offering meaningful and timely support for reflection. Balance of engagement versus interruption. When participants are deeply engaged in discussion, significant interruptions can overwhelm and disrupt the flow. Conversely, during moments of confusion or misalignment, subtle cues may be insufficient to get the team back on track. AI systems should dynamically adjust their level of intervention—from ambient and lightweight to more direct—escalating or de-escalating based on timing thresholds, which can be customized for each team. Balance of team versus individual goal awareness. AI assistance can nudge team action, such as adjusting agendas. These effects were stronger with the active approach, which required group responses, while the passive approach supported individual thinking without directly influencing team behavior. Team-wide engagement depends on both the visibility of AI cues and how they are introduced into the discussion. This study helps us understand how AI design choices can support intentionality during meetings and enhance productivity without disrupting natural workflows. Spotlight: blog post GraphRAG auto-tuning provides rapid adaptation to new domains GraphRAG uses LLM-generated knowledge graphs to substantially improve complex Q&A over retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Discover automatic tuning of GraphRAG for new datasets, making it more accurate and relevant. Read more Opens in a new tab Encouraging diverse problem-solving brainstorming with AI Diverse perspectives drive creative problem-solving in organizations, but individuals often lack access to varied viewpoints. In the paper “YES AND: An AI-Powered Problem-Solving Framework for Diversity of Thought,” we build on the idea of “design improv” to explore a multi-agent AI prototype that simulates conversations with persona-based agents representing a range of expertise. The agents follow a classic model of conversational turn-taking, combined with a confidence model to determine when to take or respond to a turn. This allows both the agents and the user to organically build on each others’ ideas and ask clarifying questions. The system enables free-flowing, multi-party idea generation while avoiding common pitfalls of group brainstorming—such as social loafing, production blocking, and groupthink (Figure 3). Figure 3. The YES AND system supports conversational turn-taking among agents and the user to generate ideas around a problem. At the end of a session, an AI agent called Sage distills the discussion, leaving it to the user to develop a conclusive approach to the problem. In this way, YES AND helps unblock forward momentum in problem-solving while preserving the agency of knowledge workers to shape their own ideas. We believe the best way to advance next-generation tools for thought is by bringing together a wide range of perspectives and approaches. Besides our four papers, the fifth cornerstone of our CHI presence this year is our workshop on April 26, co-organized with collaborators from industry and academia: Tools for Thought: Research and Design for Understanding, Protecting, and Augmenting Human Cognition with Generative AI. In this session, over 60 researchers, designers, practitioners, and provocateurs will gather to examine what it means to understand and shape the impact of AI on human cognition. Together, we’ll explore how AI is changing workflows, the opportunities and challenges for design, and which theories, perspectives, and methods are increasingly relevant—or still need to be developed.  The enthusiastic response to this workshop highlights the growing interest in AI’s role in human thought. Our goal is to foster a multidisciplinary community dedicated to ensuring that AI not only accelerates work but also strengthens our ability to think critically, creatively, and strategically. We look forward to ongoing discussions, new collaborations, and the next wave of innovations in AI-assisted cognition at CHI 2025.   Opens in a new tab

Thorin was the name given to a Neanderthal specimen found amongst a small group of Neanderthals that lived between 42,000 years and 52,000 years ago in the Grotte Mandrin, a cave located in southern France. According to a 2024 study in Cell Genomics, Thorin was a Neanderthal found in Eurasia, and he’s genetically similar to the Gibraltar Neanderthals, who lived across the continent. Thorin was an adult male, identified through 30 fossilized teeth and bones, and buried at the mouth of the cave. Life for Thorin the Neanderthal“It was very cold in Europe at the time, a very arctic ambiance,” says archaeologist Ludovic Slimak, lead study author and author of The Naked Neanderthal. And Europe would have been filled with ice age beasts that included woolly rhinoceros, as well as bison, Irish elk, and woolly mammoths.Four archeological layers that came from four distinct periods of time are found inside the Grotte Mandrin. Thorin was buried in the very last layer, which tells us that he’s from the most recent layer and is among the last remaining populations of Neanderthals, says Slimak.This group of Neanderthals probably numbered around 40 to 200 and had been genetically isolated from other Neanderthals for nearly 50,000 years. It was one of the last remaining groups of Neanderthals to survive. It’s also worth noting that archaeologists found Thorin buried at the entrance of the cave, so it’s unclear whether the population buried its dead or not, based on the findings.Neanderthals Were an Isolated PopulationThis last culture of Neanderthals would have lived alongside a large group of Homo sapiens who arrived in Europe from Africa and began spreading throughout Europe to Spain, Italy, and France. This group is known as the “third wave” of early humans coming onto the continent in droves and growing numbers. Interestingly, says Slimak, Thorin and his ancestors within this group of Neanderthals were isolated and did not show any traces of ancient humans in their DNA. This is a surprising feat considering that research has shown Neanderthals and humans regularly interbred. Even today, they contribute 1 percent to 4 percent of their DNA to humans across the globe.Judging by the flints that this Neanderthal population would have used, as well as by studying isotopes that show the water they would have drunk, researchers can also tell that they lived within a particular area and did not venture beyond it. They didn’t cross the Rhone River even though at the time it would have been frozen over for much of the year and easy to traverse.Thorin Was One of the Last NeanderthalsAccording to Slimak, this seems to run counter to how H. sapiens existed. They moved about constantly and had relations with all sorts of different populations along the way. They established social connections and therefore a sort of uniformity that Neanderthals didn’t seem to have. This might have contributed to why humans lived and Neanderthals went extinct.“This is something that is deeply rooted in Homo sapiens,” says Slimak. “This new way that Homo sapiens behaved was super efficient and allowed them to spread their culture where ever they went.”It’s through the establishment of these social structures that they were able to pass on knowledge and rules across large swaths of territory and over multiple generations. Thorin was among the last of a dying breed of Neanderthals, whose culture may have been similar, but on a deeper level, their view of the world was much more isolated.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Cell Genomics. Long genetic and social isolation in Neanderthals before their extinctionSmithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Ancient DNA and Neanderthals Sara Novak is a science journalist based in South Carolina. In addition to writing for Discover, her work appears in Scientific American, Popular Science, New Scientist, Sierra Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, and many more. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia. She's also a candidate for a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University, (expected graduation 2023).