Chatbots just showed scientists how to make social media less toxic

Tech Insider : Politics
A scientist experiments with AI.
Researchers built a fake Twitter and filled it with 500 bots. What happened next surprised them.

Ian Grandjean for Insider

Parasitic worms highjack their hosts' free will, and scientists finally think they know how

Tech Insider
A worm, Chordodes fukuii, and a mantid, Tenodera angustipennis, pose with a leaf for scale.
In a fight between this measly worm and majestic mantis, who do you think would win? You might be surprised.

Takuya Sato

Rats could breed too quickly for NYC's successful new extermination method to keep up

Tech Insider
A rat climbing up a rope.
Climate change is threatening a lot of species, but rats don't seem to mind a warming world.

CreativeNature_nl / Getty Images

Orcas sunk another boat and sailors are resorting to some very weird and wild ways to save their yachts

Tech Insider
The fin and head of a killer whale surface on the foreground between two small boats with forested mountains behind them.
An orca slightly breaches the water between two boats in Alaska.

Joel Rogers/Getty images

How did the zebra get its nicely patterned stripes? The answer may come from mathematician Alan Turing.

Tech Insider
zoo captivity zebra
A zebra's stripes help it hide from predators, but how do they form so evenly spaced?

Reuters/Jose Luis Gonzalez

A volcano could erupt in Iceland within hours. Experts say you shouldn't cancel your flights — yet

Tech Insider
Blue Lagoon in Grindavik, Iceland

Getty/VW Pics

Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift, and more celebrities with species named after them

Tech Insider
A side-by-side of Jimmy Buffett playing guitar on stage and the yellow Cayo margarita snail under the sea.
In honor of Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville,” scientists named this yellow snail Cayo margarita.

Hal Horowitz/WireImage/Getty Images; R. Bieler

Naming a species after a celebrity may do more harm than good

Tech Insider
A side-by-side image of Taylor Swift looking over her shoulder and the Nannaria swiftae millipede
Taylor Swift had a millipede named in her honor. How does the millipede feel about it?

Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images; Dr. Derek Hennen

Tourists are flocking to a strange bubblegum-pink pond in Hawaii

Tech Insider
Shad Hanohano, from left, Leilani Fagner and their daughter Meleana Hanohano view the pink water at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge in Kihei, Hawaii on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023
Visitors at the Kealia Pond in Hawaii in early November.

Matthew Thayer/The Maui News via AP

The McRib is coming back to select McDonald's despite its 2022 farewell tour. Here's a look at the iconic sandwich's history.

Tech Insider
McRib
McRibGate is another McRib superfan website.

Photo by David Paul Morris/Getty Images

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