The rise of the malicious use of drones

A brief history of drones

While accounts of military strategists using uncrewed hot air balloons for attacks and surveillance exist from the 19th century, the first use of drones as a modern concept began in World War I with a radio-controlled propeller craft. This online...

Spy balloons. UFOs. What else is up there?

The appearance and downing of a Chinese surveillance balloon brought the concept of high-altitude floating aircraft into the public consciousness. While sparking a diplomatic row, it also revealed how many objects—nefarious or benign—are...

Pyrodrones combine fireworks with millisecond-accurate drone choreography

Drones are outfitted with fireworks and positioned using 3D software to ensure perfect timing and safe spacing during shows. A single GPS error during planning can ruin the show, as happened in 2024 when a drone crashed and injured a spectator due to programming failures.

The best drone photos of 2023

The Drone Awards are a prestigious global competition focused on aerial photography and video. They are dedicated to showcasing this distinct genre of photography, seeking entries from various platforms, including drones and fixed-wing aircraft.

'Birds Aren't Real' parodies the way memes traffic conspiracy theories

Peter McIndoe claims the US government killed 12 billion birds only to replace them with drones. These statements have powered protests—and McIndoe's fictional campaign that highlights how conspiracies and their theorists are treated.

The X Games pioneered broadcast innovation with live drone coverage

In 2015, ESPN used untethered drones for the first time in US live sports—deploying them at the X Games to capture aerial footage from angles previously impossible.

The promise and peril of AI in agriculture

Robots. Drones. Artificial Intelligence. All three are touted as potential saviors for farmers, and are already being deployed on large farms, where they assist with such tasks as managing crops, milking cows, and helping farmers make decisions about their land. But agricultural AI could have disastrous, unintended consequences.

Despite privacy risks, scientists are using DNA in the air to assess ecosystem health

While DNA in soil and water samples has long been used for such analyses, airborne DNA is being incorporated into such efforts to monitor individual species abundance, detect invasive species, measure biodiversity, and determine the success of conservation actions. Future work may include detecting attacks from biological weapons.

As of 2025, there are no federal laws involving privacy and smart city technologies

Advancements in cloud technology and artificial intelligence allow cities to capture, store, and analyze more information than ever before. Experts warn that the unhindered ability to collect and use this data may infringe on residents' rights and endanger them if the data gets into the hands of malicious parties.

Watch two Russian jets damage US drone over Black Sea

The Pentagon has released footage that appears to show a Russian aircraft intercepting a US Air Force drone in international airspace over the Black Sea.

Efficiency of commercial honeybees may exacerbate population declines in native bees

Commercial beekeepers are increasingly breeding honeybees on public lands, raising concerns among environmentalists that they’ll compete with and introduce new diseases to already threatened native pollinator populations. However, native species alone are often unable to meet the pollination levels required to meet necessary crop yields.

Deepfakes came to prominence in the form of nonconsensual pornography

The explosion of deepfakes depicting renowned people in both ridiculous and compromising videos has provoked widespread fears they will undermine public trust in authoritative knowledge. However, some scholars argue that real videos will always be distinguishable from deepfakes via the video-sharer's testimony and a broader social context.

Who owns outer space?

More and more material ends up in Earth's orbit, posing threats to orbiting space stations and satellites. A 1960s treaty technically made space the common property of humankind, but with increasing chances of conflict in space, things can seem anarchic. This video breaks down the brewing tensions in space.

During flights, cell phones can act like signal jammers as they search for service

When farther from cell towers, these devices expend more energy to emit more powerful signals, which can overwhelm any ground-based tower or radio telescope they fly past. Rather than protecting the flight, airplane mode conserves a cell phone's battery.

How to catch a TikTok thief

Someone took a 10-second clip of a parody video made by Hugh Clegg and posted it to TikTok, where it racked up millions of views. The uncredited clip meant viewers assumed it was owned by the uploader, an assumption Clegg was eager to rectify. His messages and comments had no real effect outside of earning him temporary bans for "spamming." So he decided to moonlight as a private eye.

Bear raiding is a manipulative tactic to bring a stock price down—and part of why short selling can be controversial

Bear raids occur when short sellers use manipulative tactics—like spreading false rumors or coordinating trades—to artificially drive down a stock's price and profit from short positions. Although bear raids are an illegal form of market manipulation, they can spook investors, prompting large selloffs of shares and causing a company's value to plummet. As a result, investors may be hesitant to invest in the company in the future, creating a feedback loop of stock downturn.

The negative effects of cannabis use

After decades of criminalization, cannabis is a legalized drug in an increasing number of countries around the world. This allows for accurate, robust research on the drug's effects on humans . While weed isn't as harmful as alcohol, regular usage has its negative effects. As strains of the drug become stronger, so does its consequences. Watch this video for a lucid look at the effects of cannabis on its users.

Dario Amodei explains what led to his company being designated a supply chain risk

When pressed about the use of Claude in the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Anthropic's CEO acknowledged its contract with the Pentagon. However, he also emphasized that Claude is not to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, in part because the technology is not yet safe or reliable for such uses.

The trend of onstage mishaps

In the past few years, performers have seen a rise in onstage accidents. While artists are doing their jobs, they face risks of dangerous falls, flying objects, and audience aggression. This article aims to explain why this trend may be occurring and emphasizes the importance of concert-going etiquette and adequate security.

Frisbee, Jet Ski, and Dumpster—explore a list of words you might not realize are trademarked

Many products that have become household names started out as first-of-a-kind items. As those products grew in popularity, the brand name became the default name for the product.

Different types of malware are categorized by how they spread or operate

Computer viruses require user interaction to execute a file and spread, whereas worms can self-replicate across systems without human intervention. Ransomware locks systems until a key is provided, spyware tracks and reports user activity to a third party, and trojans disguise various types of malware as legitimate software.

Davos has faced backlash over private jet usage

For the 2022 Davos meeting, which focused on the climate crisis, approximately one in 10 attendees arrived by private jet, producing emissions equivalent to those of roughly 350,000 cars in a week. One recorded jet flight to Davos covered just 13 miles.

Policies related to the coronavirus pandemic inadvertently increased illegal border crossings

A pandemic-era public health measure called Title 42—intended to seal the border by expelling migrants immediately—backfired. Because expulsions carried no legal consequences, migrants simply tried again, driving illegal crossings to a peak of over 370,000 people in December 2023.

Wedding photographers and other vendors have tailored their services to social media in recent years

In this podcast interview with Xochitl Gonzalez—a former luxury wedding planner who wrote the viral The Fake Poor Bride article in 2023—you'll learn a lot about how the wedding-industrial complex has evolved over the past few years and how modern additions, such as the rise of wedding styling services for "wedding weeks," have driven costs up.

Individuals have been convicted of ordering assassinations from the dark web

Researchers have uncovered online storefronts allegedly run by members of various mafia or hitmen that offer to harm or murder individuals in exchange for monetary payment. However, no known murder has been attributed to any of them, and cybercrime task forces believe them to be scams (warning—sensitive content).

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

Shooting stars, or meteors, are fragments of asteroids and comets that burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere, creating streaks in the sky called meteor showers.

Lesser-known phobias include turophobia, or the fear of cheese, and nomophobia, the fear of being without your cell phone.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.