A lot of people do, and for powerful reasons – we are facing enormous challenges unprecedented in human history, from climate change and nuclear war to engineered pandemics and malicious artificial intelligence. A 2017 survey showed that nearly four in 10 Americans think that climate change alone has a good chance of triggering humanity's extinction. But we seem largely blind to the many profound reasons for hope – and it's not entirely our fault. Humans are wired with a "negativity bias" that triggers a stronger emotional response to bad news than good news – evident in the journalism maxim "if it bleeds, it leads". This loss-aversion behavior served a purpose in our evolutionary past, when information and resources were scarce, but in the age of endless information access, it can lead to pessimism, anxiety and a distorted vision of what humanity is capable of.

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. The Iditarod is the longest annual sled dog race– covering over 1,500 miles across Alaska. A close look into canine genetics reveals sled dogs have been around and on the move for thousands of years. Specifically, the Greenland sled dog–called Qimmeq (singular), or Qimmit (plural) in Greenlandic–has a history traceable all the way back 9,500 years to Zhokhov Island in Eastern Siberia. And they've been a distinct, isolated group for about 1,000 years of that time.

Today is the opening day of Gamescom, the Cologne expo that is now the biggest event in the video game calendar. This year, I am not among the 300,000-odd crowd descending on Germany, but I did watch the two-hour livestreamed opening-night broadcast yesterday – so you don't have to. Here is all of the most interesting news, arranged by theme because I am deeply bored of writing straightforward lists of games and trailers. News that will annoy Xbox fanboys the most There was a new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Bethesda and MachineGames's new first-person adventure, in which longtime video game actor Troy Baker seems charmingly thrilled to be playing Indiana Jones. It'll be out on Xbox and PC on 9 December – but it was also announced that it will be coming to PlayStation 5 in spring 2025.

Albert Lin might hunt for lost cities, and occasionally wear a wide-brimmed hat, but he and Indiana Jones couldn't be more different in their methods. While Indy had to make do with nothing more high-tech than his whip, this real-life explorer is bringing the best tech out there. Using cutting-edge tools, Albert has uncovered hidden cities of the past everywhere from Scotland to Sudan. Speaking to MailOnline, Albert revealed how he was inches away from being crushed by a boulder while searching for a mysterious civilization in Israel - surviving only thanks to his prosthetic leg. Albert and Indiana Jones might share a taste in hats and adventure but their techniques couldn't be more different Albert Lin is a National Geographic Explorer who uses technology to rediscover lost cities.

On July 13, 1833, during a visit to the Cabinet of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, Ralph Waldo Emerson had an epiphany. Peering at the museum's specimens--butterflies, hunks of amber and marble, carved seashells--he felt overwhelmed by the interconnectedness of nature, and humankind's place within it. Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. The experience inspired him to write "The Uses of Natural History," and to articulate a philosophy that put naturalism at the center of intellectual life in a technologically chaotic age--guiding him, along with the collective of writers and radical thinkers known as transcendentalists, to a new spiritual belief system. Through empirical observation of the natural world, Emerson believed, anyone could become "a definer and map-maker of the latitudes and longitudes of our condition"--finding agency, individuality, and wonder in a mechanized age. America was crackling with invention in those years, and everything seemed to be speeding up as a result.

Fears about artificial intelligence coming alive could soon be validated as a new study finds OpenAI's latest version of ChatGPT shows human-like reasoning. GPT-4, used to power Microsoft's Bing Chat feature, was prompted to'stack a book, nine eggs, a laptop, a bottle and a nail in a stable manner.' The system arranged the items so the eggs would not break, detailing how each should be placed on the other - starting with the book and ending with the nail. It also commented on arranging the items so the eggs do not crack - something only humans could fully understand. Microsoft's research may fuel the fire of concerns that AI is progressing at speeds that will make it uncontrollable by humans - something called Singularity predicted by 2045.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is speaking in front of Congress about the dangers of AI after his company's ChatGPT exploded in popularity in the past few months. Lawmakers are grilling the CEO, stressing that ChatGPT and other models could shape'human history' like the printing press or the atomic bomb. The printing press, according to officials, brought liberty to the American people, while the atomic bomb left behind haunting consequences. Altman told senators that generative AI could be a'printing press moment,' but he is not blind to its fault, noting policymakers and industry leaders need to work together to'make it so.' Tuesday's hearing is the first of a series intended to write rules for AI, which lawmakers said should have been done with the birth of social media.

The Israeli author and historian said a lack of safety measures in new AI tech could cause the West to lose to China. Israeli historian and "Sapiens" author Yuval Noah Harari claimed there is no kill switch for artificial intelligence (AI) and urged for the implementation of safety checks and guardrails, or else risk the possibility of societal collapse. During a March interview with ABC News, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was asked if ChatGPT had a "kill switch" in the event their AI went rogue. Altman's responded with a quick "yes." "What really happens is that any engineer can just say we're going to disable this for now. Or we're going to deploy this new version of the model," he added.

Between Christmas and New Year's, my family took a six-hour drive to Vermont. I drove; my wife and two children sat in the back seat. Our children are five and two--too old to be hypnotized by a rattle or a fidget spinner, too young to entertain themselves--so a six-hour drive amounted to an hour of napping, an hour of free association and sing-alongs, and four hours of desperation. We offered the kids an episode of their favorite storytelling podcast, but they weren't in the mood for something prerecorded. They wanted us to invent a new story, on the spot, tailored to their interests.

According to reporting from Reuters, OpenAI's ChatGPT is now the fastest-growing app in human history, reaching an estimated 100 million active monthly users in just the two months since its November release. "In 20 years following the internet space," UBS analysts reportedly wrote in a note to Reuters, citing a report from web traffic analytics firm SimilarWeb, "we cannot recall a faster ramp in a consumer internet app." Per that report, an average of roughly 13 million unique visitors were using ChatGPT per day in January -- a jaw-dropping figure, and double the average number of individual users that were using the tech each day in December. To say this thing has taken off like wildfire hardly cuts it, and VCs have paid attention. Of course, comparing ChatGPT, certainly the newest Silicon Valley darling, to established SV behemoths like Google, Apple, or Meta isn't totally fair, considering the role that social media in particular has played in ChatGPT's exponential success.