Claire chatted to Emma Hart from Edinburgh Napier University about algorithms that'evolve' better robot designs and control systems. Emma Hart is a computer scientist working in the field of evolutionary computation. Her work takes inspiration from the natural world, in particular biological evolution, and uses this to develop algorithms that'evolve' both the design and control systems of a robot, customised to a specific application. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2022, and was awarded the ACM SIGEVO Award for Outstanding Contribution to Evolutionary Computation in 2023. She was invited to give a TED Talk on her work in 2021 that has over 1.8 million views.

Why not spoil your furry friend--and save some bones while you're at it too--with some of our favorite Amazon Pet Day deals. In the great tradition of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Amazon Prime Day, Amazon has expanded these savings extravaganzas to the pet tech sphere. As the pet tech writer here at WIRED, I have strong opinions about which (often pricey) pet gear is worth your hard-earned dough. I've rounded up some of the best deals I've seen so far on some of my favorite pet-related items I've tested. From automatic litter boxes to toys, feeders to fountains, and even DNA testing kits and pet cameras, I've put the best pet-related deals on WIRED-tested gear that I've seen so far below.

Chinese soldiers are seen marching in Moscow's Red Square on Friday, May 9. (Credit: CCTV) Chinese President Xi Jinping was photographed standing next to Vladimir Putin on Friday as thousands of Russian troops and military vehicles rumbled through Moscow's Red Square during the country's annual Victory Day parade. The event, marking Russia's 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, featured over 11,500 troops and more than 180 military vehicles, including tanks, armored infantry vehicles and artillery used on the battlefield in Ukraine. "We are proud of their courage and determination, their spiritual force that always has brought us victory," Putin said about the Russian troops fighting in the war. Russian flag carrier Aeroflot canceled more than 100 flights to and from Moscow and delayed over 140 others on Wednesday as the military were repelling repeated Ukrainian drone attacks on the capital. Russian President Vladimir Putin, center right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, watch the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia, on Friday, May 9. (Mikhail Korytov/Photo host agency RIA Novosti via AP) Ukrainian authorities also reported scores of Russian strikes on Friday that killed at least two people in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and damaged buildings.

Why is it that we still get a tiny thrill from checking the mailbox each day? Rationally, we know what's in there: bills we don't want, catalogs we never ordered, and that bulky Valpak stuffed with coupons we'll never use. But somehow, despite the noise, there's a quiet hope we might find something meaningful. And every once in a while, we do. In a society obsessed with social media, texts, AI, speed and automation, the handwritten thank-you note has become an endangered species.

Recently, after an update that was supposed to make ChatGPT "better at guiding conversations toward productive outcomes," according to release notes from OpenAI, the bot couldn't stop telling users how brilliant their bad ideas were. ChatGPT reportedly told one person that their plan to sell literal "shit on a stick" was "not just smart--it's genius." Many more examples cropped up, and OpenAI rolled back the product in response, explaining in a blog post that "the update we removed was overly flattering or agreeable--often described as sycophantic." The company added that the chatbot's system would be refined and new guardrails would be put into place to avoid "uncomfortable, unsettling" interactions. But this was not just a ChatGPT problem. Sycophancy is a common feature of chatbots: A 2023 paper by researchers from Anthropic found that it was a "general behavior of state-of-the-art AI assistants," and that large language models sometimes sacrifice "truthfulness" to align with a user's views.

When Mimi*, 22, was in college, she created a fake profile on the dating app Hinge to report another phony account. Someone was impersonating her then-boyfriend on the app, and the couple wanted to report this account together. "I didn't think much of it at the time," she says. But two years later, single and living in New York City, Mimi turned back to Hinge, this time in a real attempt to try online dating and meet someone new. She quickly discovered she had been banned.

Artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT are getting a whole lot smarter, a whole lot more natural, and a whole lot more…human-like. It makes sense -- humans are the ones creating the large language models that underpin AI chatbots' systems, after all. But as these tools get better at "reasoning" and mimicking human speech, are they smart enough yet to pass the Turing Test? For decades, the Turing Test has been held up as a key benchmark in machine intelligence. Now, researchers are actually putting LLMs like ChatGPT to the test.

AI agent deployments will grow 327% during the next two years. Chief human resources officers (CHROs) plan to expand their digital labor in the next two years, investing in AI agents to increase productivity, according to the latest Salesforce global research. By 2030, 80% of CHROs believe most companies will have humans and AI agents working together. Almost nine of every 10 CHROs will focus on integrating AI agents into the workforce. By 2027, CHROs anticipate 327% growth in agent AI adoption, from 15% in 2025 to 64% in 2027.

Is your favourite sci-fi novel included here, or have we forgotten it? Almost exactly a year ago, I asked our team of expert science writers here at New Scientist to name their favourite science fiction novels. Personal tastes meant we ended up with a wonderfully eclectic list, ranging from classics by the likes of Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler to titles I'd not previously read (Jon Bois's 17776 was a particularly wild suggestion, from our US editor Chelsea Whyte – but it's well worth your time). We New Scientist staffers tend to be sci-fi nerds, and we realised we hadn't quite got all the greats yet. So here, for your reading pleasure, is our second take on our favourite sci-fi novels of all time, otherwise known as the ones we forgot. Again, we're not claiming this is a definitive list. It's just our top sci-fi reads, in no particular order, and we hope you'll discover some new favourites of your own in this line-up. We asked New Scientist staff to pick their favourite science fiction books. Here are the results, ranging from 19th-century classics to modern day offerings, and from Octavia E. Butler to Iain M. Banks And if we still haven't got them all, then come and tell us about it on Facebook.

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