Scientists found the key to accurate Maya eclipse tables

Scientists found the key to accurate Maya eclipse tables

fivenewscrypto    novembre 21, 2025   

Astronomical events such as eclipses were central to Maya culture, reflected in the care the Maya took to keep accurate calendars to aid in celestial predictions. Among the few surviving Maya texts is the so-called Dresden Codex, which includes a table of eclipses. Researchers have concluded that this table was repurposed from earlier lunar month tables, rather than being created solely for eclipse prediction, according to a paper published in the journal Science Advances. They also figured out the mechanism by which the Maya ensured that table would be accurate over a very long time period.

The Maya used three primary calendars: a count of days, known as the Long Count; a 260-day astrological calendar called the Tzolk’in; and a 365-day year called the Haab’. Previous scholars have speculated on how awe-inspiring solar or lunar eclipses must have seemed to the Maya, but our understanding of their astronomical knowledge is limited. Most Maya books were burned by Spanish conquistadors and Catholic priests. Only four hieroglyphic codices survive: the Dresden Codex, the Madrid Codex, the Paris Codex, and the Grolier Codex.

The Dresden Codex dates back to the 11th or 12th century and likely originated near Chichen Itza. It can be folded accordion-style and is 12 feet long in its unfolded state. The text was deciphered in the early 20th century and describes local history as well as astronomical lunar and Venus tables.

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Trump revives unpopular Ted Cruz plan to punish states that impose AI laws

Trump revives unpopular Ted Cruz plan to punish states that impose AI laws

fivenewscrypto    novembre 21, 2025   

President Trump is considering an executive order that would require the federal government to file lawsuits against states with AI laws, and prevent states with AI laws from obtaining broadband funding.

The draft order, “Eliminating State Law Obstruction of National AI Policy,” would order the attorney general to “establish an AI Litigation Task Force whose sole responsibility shall be to challenge State AI laws, including on grounds that such laws unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, are preempted by existing Federal regulations, or are otherwise unlawful in the Attorney General’s judgment.”

The draft order says the Trump administration “will act to ensure that there is a minimally burdensome national standard—not 50 discordant State ones.” It specifically names laws enacted by California and Colorado and directs the Secretary of Commerce to evaluate whether other laws should be challenged.

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Attack, defend, pursue—the Space Force’s new naming scheme foretells new era

Attack, defend, pursue—the Space Force’s new naming scheme foretells new era

fivenewscrypto    novembre 21, 2025   

A little more than a century ago, the US Army Air Service came up with a scheme for naming the military’s multiplying fleet of airplanes.

The 1924 aircraft designation code produced memorable names like the B-17, A-26, B-29, and P-51—B for bomber, A for attack, and P for pursuit—during World War II. The military later changed the prefix for pursuit aircraft to F for fighter, leading to recognizable modern names like the F-15 and F-16.

Now, the newest branch of the military is carving its own path with a new document outlining how the Space Force, which can trace its lineage back to the Army Air Service, will name and designate its “weapon systems” on the ground and in orbit. Ars obtained a copy of the document, first written in 2023 and amended in 2024.

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Study: Kids’ drip paintings more like Pollock’s than those of adults

Study: Kids’ drip paintings more like Pollock’s than those of adults

fivenewscrypto    novembre 21, 2025   

Not everyone appreciates the artistry of Jackson Pollock’s famous drip paintings, with some dismissing them as something any child could create. While Pollock’s work is undeniably more sophisticated than that, it turns out that when one looks at splatter paintings made by adults and young children through a fractal lens and compares them to those of Pollock himself, the children’s work does bear a closer resemblance to Pollock’s than those of the adults. This might be due to the artist’s physiology, namely a certain clumsiness with regard to balance, according to a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Physics.

Co-author Richard Taylor, a physicist at the University of Oregon, first found evidence of fractal patterns in Pollock’s seemingly random drip patterns in 2001. As previously reported, his original hypothesis drew considerable controversy, both from art historians and a few fellow physicists. In a 2006 paper published in Nature, Case University physicists Katherine Jones-Smith and Harsh Mathur claimed Taylor’s work was “seriously flawed” and “lacked the range of scales needed to be considered fractal.” (To prove the point, Jones-Smith created her own version of a fractal painting using Taylor’s criteria in about five minutes with Photoshop.)

Taylor was particularly criticized for his attempt to use fractal analysis as the basis for an authentication tool to distinguish genuine Pollocks from reproductions or forgeries. He concedes that much of that criticism was valid at the time. But as vindication, he points to a machine learning-based study in 2015 relying on fractal dimension and other factors that achieved a 93 percent accuracy rate distinguishing between genuine Pollocks and non-Pollocks. Taylor built on that work for a 2024 paper reporting 99 percent accuracy.

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“We’re in an LLM bubble,” Hugging Face CEO says—but not an AI one

“We’re in an LLM bubble,” Hugging Face CEO says—but not an AI one

fivenewscrypto    novembre 21, 2025   

There’s been a lot of talk of an AI bubble lately, especially regarding circular funding involving companies like OpenAI and Anthropic—but Clem Delangue, CEO of machine-learning resources hub Hugging Face, has made the case that the bubble is specific to large language models, which is just one application of AI.

“I think we’re in an LLM bubble, and I think the LLM bubble might be bursting next year,” he said at an Axios event this week, as quoted in a TechCrunch article. “But ‘LLM’ is just a subset of AI when it comes to applying AI to biology, chemistry, image, audio, [and] video. I think we’re at the beginning of it, and we’ll see much more in the next few years.”

At Ars, we’ve written at length in recent days about the fears around AI investment. But to Delangue’s point, almost all of those discussions are about companies whose chief product is large language models, or the data centers meant to drive those—specifically, those focused on general-purpose chatbots that are meant to be everything for everybody.

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Rocket Lab Electron among first artifacts installed in CA Science Center space gallery

Rocket Lab Electron among first artifacts installed in CA Science Center space gallery

fivenewscrypto    novembre 21, 2025   

It took the California Science Center more than three years to erect its new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, including stacking NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour for its launch pad-like display.

Now the big work begins.

“That’s completing the artifact installation and then installing the exhibits,” said Jeffrey Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center in Los Angeles, in an interview. “Most of the exhibits are in fabrication in shops around the country and audio-visual production is underway. We’re full-on focused on exhibits now.”

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He got sued for sharing public YouTube videos; nightmare ended in settlement

He got sued for sharing public YouTube videos; nightmare ended in settlement

fivenewscrypto    novembre 21, 2025   

Nobody expects to get sued for re-posting a YouTube video on social media by using the “share” button, but librarian Ian Linkletter spent the past five years embroiled in a copyright fight after doing just that.

Now that a settlement has been reached, Linkletter told Ars why he thinks his 2020 tweets sharing public YouTube videos put a target on his back.

Linkletter’s legal nightmare started in 2020 after an education technology company, Proctorio, began monitoring student backlash on Reddit over its AI tool used to remotely scan rooms, identify students, and prevent cheating on exams. On Reddit, students echoed serious concerns raised by researchers, warning of privacy issues, racist and sexist biases, and barriers to students with disabilities.

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