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In the Bordeaux region of southwest France, scores of vineyard estates transform finicky grapes into bold blends of red wine. Some bottles sell for thousands of dollars each. Prestigious chateaus boast about the soil, microclimate and traditional methods that make their own wine superior, an inscrutable mix known as terroir.“It’s one of those terms that the wine industry likes to keep a bit mysterious, part of the magic of wine,” said Alex Pouget, a computational neuroscientist at the University of Geneva.Dr. Pouget is trying to apply chemical precision to this je ne sais quoi. In a study published Tuesday in the journal Communications Chemistry, he and his colleagues described a computer model that could pinpoint which Bordeaux estate produced a wine based only on its chemical makeup. The...

Traumatic brain injuries have left more than five million Americans permanently disabled. They have trouble focusing on even simple tasks and often have to quit jobs or drop out of school.A study published on Monday has offered them a glimpse of hope. Five people with moderate to severe brain injuries had electrodes implanted in their heads. As the electrodes stimulated their brains, their performance on cognitive tests improved.If the results hold up in larger clinical trials, the implants could become the first effective therapy for chronic brain injuries, the researchers said.“This is the first evidence that you can move the dial for this problem,” said Dr. Nicholas Schiff, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York who led the study.Gina Arata, one of the volunteers who receiv...

The bodies of 11 hikers were found on the slopes of Mount Marapi on the Indonesian island of Sumatra after a volcanic eruption sent ash plumes cascading down the mountain on Sunday, the local search and rescue agency said on Monday.Dozens of climbers were on the active volcano in West Sumatra Province when it began spewing a column of ash nearly 3,000 meters, about 10,000 feet, high, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Volcanic ash rained on nearby towns, and residents were advised not to leave their homes, the agency said.The local search and rescue team based in the city of Padang said that 12 climbers were still missing. Efforts to find them have been stalled by periodic volcanic activity, the team leader, Abdul Malik, said in a statement. As of Monday morning,...

While artificial intelligence has taken the limelight over the past year, technology that can appear to operate like human brains has been top of mind for researchers, investors and tech executives in Silicon Valley and beyond for more than a decade.Here are some of the people involved in the origins of the modern A.I. movement who have influenced the technology’s development.Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York TimesSam AltmanMr. Altman is the chief executive of OpenAI, the San Francisco A.I. lab that made the chatbot ChatGPT that went viral over the past year and ushered in recognition of the power of generative artificial intelligence. Mr. Altman helped start OpenAI after meeting with Elon Musk about the technology in 2015. At the time, Mr. Altman ran Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley start-...

The U.S. government is making an intense effort to persuade Israel and Hamas to resume negotiations so they can once again pause hostilities and exchange more prisoners for hostages, a White House spokesman said on Sunday.“We are still working it really hard, hour by hour, to see if we can get the sides back to the table and see if we can get something moving,” John F. Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator at the White House National Security Council, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We would like that to happen today. But honestly, I just don’t know.”In appearances on several Sunday talk shows, Mr. Kirby emphasized that Hamas was to blame for the breakdown in talks, saying that it had not lived up to the terms of its original agreement to begin handing over captives held in Gaza...

On the same soundstage where Bob Barker lorded over “The Price Is Right,” “Squid Game” is coming to life.On Wednesday, Netflix will unveil its latest live experience, based on the dystopian hit show in which desperate South Koreans competed in a brutal contest of simple schoolyard games for a prize of 45.6 billion won (around $38 million). Winners moved closer to the money. Losers died. The live attraction mimics both the popular iconography of the series — the massive piggy bank filled with cash, a giant animatronic doll named Young-hee, the sterile white dormitory — and the childish games.For $30, fans of “Squid Game” will compete in some 70 minutes of play, with moral twists and turns and six group activities, including the schoolyard race Red Light, Green Light and a nonlethal version ...

The fragile truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed on Friday morning because the adversaries could not find common ground for further exchanges of hostages and prisoners, according to Israeli and Hamas officials.Publicly, Israel and Hamas blamed each other for military activity that violated the weeklong cease-fire. Israel said Hamas had fired rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, while Hamas said Israeli troop operations had resumed in northern Gaza. But two Israeli officials and Zaher Jabareen, a Hamas official who oversees prisoner issues, said the real reason the pause ended was a stalemate in prisoner-hostage swap negotiations.Israel signaled on Saturday that it was ending its involvement in talks for now. A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that David...

One day this summer, the internet personality Adin Ross switched on his camera and started broadcasting himself live to thousands of fans, sipping a Yerba Mate drink and nodding along to Lil Uzi.Mr. Ross soon cut the music and started talking, assuring his fans that he would livestream Jake Paul’s upcoming boxing match, even though it would violate copyright laws. “I’ll pay the fines,” he promised them. Later, he streamed himself playing online slot machines and blackjack on a gambling site, Stake. Once, he streamed pornography. He has hosted Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, and Andrew Tate, the online influencer known for his misogyny who faces human-trafficking charges. As Mr. Ross streams, his viewers post a torrent of messages in his channel’s chat feature — some celebrating him, som...

What’s in a number?According to a recent calculation by a team of biologists and geologists, there are a more living cells on Earth — a million trillion trillion, or 10^30 in math notation, a 1 followed by 30 zeros — than there are stars in the universe or grains of sand on our planet.Which makes a certain amount of sense. The overwhelming majority of these cells are microbes, too small to see with the unaided eye; a great many are cyanobacteria, the tiny bubbles of energy and chemistry that churn away in plants and in the seas assembling life as we know it and mining sunlight to manufacture the oxygen we need to breathe.Still, it boggled my mind that such a calculation could even be performed. I’ve been pestering astrobiologists lately about what it means. Could Earth harbor even more lif...

Listen and follow ‘Hard Fork’Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YouTubeThe drama at OpenAI is not over. Kevin and Casey take stock of new information they’ve gathered since last week, and look at how other artificial intelligence companies are trying to capitalize on the debacle. Then, why people are still buying cryptocurrency even after Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, and its founder pleaded guilty to money laundering violations. And finally, three ways A.I. is ruining web search. Or is it?Today’s guest: David Yaffe-Bellany covers crypto for The New York Times.Additional Reading:Casey has new details from the OpenAI board fight.Changpeng Zhao, the Binance founder, agreed to pay a $50 million fine and step down from his role as chief executive.Credits“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin R...