It’s official—artificial intelligence is one of the top 10 fears in the United States. Well, it’s technically two of the top 10 fears, according to the 12th annual Chapman University Survey of American Fears.

First conducted in 2014, the recurring questionnaire tracks yearly anxiety trends that often range from everyday concerns to existential terrors. This year, 61.1 percent of over 1,200 respondents once again cited “corrupt government officials” as their biggest fear—the same subject was last year’s number one entrant as well as its 11th year on the list. After that, it’s the fear of another world war (51.9 percent). However, “AI harming the political process” wasn’t too far behind for third place at 51.9 percent. The technocentric worry is now essentially tied with the fear of loved ones becoming gravely ill (51.8 percent).

That said, the survey’s own plus or minus 3.79 percentage point margin of error complicates the results a bit. Taking the margin of error into consideration, it’s a tossup when trying to definitively rank the list’s third through tenth fears. Regardless, about 49.7 percent survey takers are also anxious about AI negatively impacting the economy—a double dose of AI-centric woes for the first time in the survey’s history. It’s also the first year researchers at Chapman University in California included questions about AI, but they made it clear it likely won’t be the last.

“As artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into everyday life, understanding these fears will be increasingly important,” said Chapman University sociologist and survey creator Christopher Bader. “We expect concerns about AI to remain a significant part of the national conversation in the years ahead.”

It’s understandable why AI currently vexes so many people. The blanket term now encompasses everything from photorealistic fake images, to dubious search engine chatbots, to nebulous doomsday warnings. Despite these worries, the AI industry’s biggest threats arguably remain the rampant spread of misinformation, coupled with a lack of meaningful regulations or oversight.

But no matter your top technological fear, survey organizers still believe the annual report highlights a very relatable human emotion.

“What I’m seeing more and more over time is that our fear about our loved ones is going to always be there, no matter what’s going on in the world,” said sociologist Ashley Kranjac, director of Chapman University’s Earl Babbie Research Center.

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In a world where tech leaders are racing to build autonomous machines that can do almost anything, one hobbyist is going the complete opposite route: an over-engineered  robot that does exactly one thing and one thing only. 

T-Kuhn’s Hexa-Bouncer only bounces a ping-pong ball, but looks like it’s capable of far more. The six-armed, metal machine was first designed  in a simulated environment and then brought to life with a CNC milling machine. Custom-built joints let it rise, fall, and tilt, and even bob up and down while tracing a circle. A pair of cameras, set 120 degrees apart, track the ball’s position and send that data to a computer over USB. The computer then builds a 3D picture of the scene, then calculates when the paddle should strike the ball and at what angle. All of this happens in a fraction of a second.

Hexa-Bouncer keeps balls in the air remarkably well. In a video, Kuhn holds a ping-pong ball above his creation, and the machine moves up and down in sync with his hand. When he drops the ball, the robot immediately reacts, striking it back into the air and keeping it aloft bounce after bounce, all the while making small adjustments. After a few more bounces, the device eases off its swing and the ball starts bouncing lower and lower. It’s unclear exactly how long Hexa-Bouncer can keep the ball in the air, it never misses—at least in the video posted online.. 

Kuhn describes his ball juggler as the latest in a series of, “useless but mildly interesting ball bouncing machines.” Prior to this, he released his Octo-Bouncer, a similar design that keeps a ping-pong ball bouncing in the air using a four-sided flat plate. Some might say all this over-engineered ball bouncing is unnecessary, but Kuhn would disagree. For him, solving the design puzzle is a journey in itself. 

“Building a thing like this is like bashing your way through a jungle,” he said. “It’s an adventure. You’re not completely sure if you can make it through or not, and that’s exactly why you do it.”

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Launched in 2023, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid space telescope observes some of the most distant regions of the visible universe for signs of dark matter and dark energy. But even while focused on the “big picture,” Euclid’s onboard equipment is surprising astronomers by capturing tiny photobombers like errant comets.

Its recent portraits of one specific dusty space rock are especially impressive, however. Euclid spotted a never-before-seen comet sailing through space more than 807.7 million miles from Earth. The telescope isn’t designed to automatically flag an image interloper. Instead, the bright blemish seen in multiple images was spotted by a moving object detection program designed by Mikko Pöntinen, an astronomer at the University of Helsinki in Finland.

“I was excited to see my software flag a ‘streak’ smeared across several images—the result of a fast-moving object,” said Pöntinen. “Further inspection revealed that it had a fuzzy cloud around it, indicative of an active object like a comet that is shedding dust and gas.”

Pöntinen quickly relayed his findings to the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center (MPC), which then passed the news along to researchers around the world. On October 8, the MPC confirmed the newly discovered comet, which is now classified C/2026 S1 (Euclid).

C/2026 S1 was seen from five different fields of view over multiple days in the Euclid Deep Field North region of the telescope’s scans. Astronomers now know the comet’s trajectory isn’t located on the same horizontal plane as the planets. Instead, its path is technically taking it over the solar system along a multi-thousand-year orbit.

Euclid’s discovery is particularly striking because the telescope’s six-year mission is specifically mapped to avoid areas of the sky that are laden with comets and asteroids.

“Very few comets are expected to be discovered by Euclid, so it was a happy coincidence,” added Euclid archive scientist Bruno Altieri.

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At the narrowest point of the Karmsundet, the channel that separates the island of Karmøy from the mainland on Norway’s west coast, five stones stand upright on a hillside. Some are more than five metres (16 ft) tall. They were raised inside a cairn, a mound of piled stones, laid out in the shape of […]

En el punto más estrecho del Karmsundet, el canal que separa la isla de Karmøy del continente en la costa occidental de Noruega, se alzan cinco piedras hincadas en vertical, algunas de más de cinco metros de altura. Se levantaron dentro de un túmulo de piedras con forma de estrella de tres brazos, y bajo […]

With Alaska’s fat bears done packing on their winter weight and spooky season in full swing, it’s time to turn our collective animal-loving attention to a smaller mammal—bats. The Bureau of Land Management’s (BOEM) annual Bat Beauty Contest returns on October 24 and promises “plenty of batty puns.”

Beginning Saturday, October 24, BOEM will post photos of the competitors to their Facebook and Instagram accounts and ask you to vote for the best-looking one. All of the competing bats are part of wild populations that live on land managed by the public agency and are photographed by wildlife technicians. The winner will be announced (appropriately) on Saturday, October 31.

The bats in this competition are known for their squishy faces and clever names. In 2024, a hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus) from Oregon named Hoary Potter took the crown. Other contestants included a long-eared myotis (Myotis evotis) named Honey Bunches of MyOtis, a myotis bat (Myotis myotis) named Robert Battinson, and western small-footed bats (Myotis ciliolabrum) named Batt Damon and Batlor Swift. The contest was not held in 2025 due to the 43-day-long federal government shutdown. 

The contest is not all bat puns and a way to keep the spirit of Fat Bear Week alive. It falls during Bat Week (October 24-31). Bat Week raises awareness about the Earth’s only flying mammal. More than just a Halloween symbol, bats play a critical ecological role as plant pollinators and through eating insects that can threaten crops and forests around the world. According to Bat Week, one bat can eat up to its body weight in insects every night. Only three species of bats eat animal blood, with two specializing in bird blood. Female lesser long-nosed bats even make tequila possible. Every spring, they migrate from south-central Mexico up to the southwestern United States, following “nectar corridors” of columnar cacti and agave plants. They pollinate agave plants, which are then used to make tequila and mezcal. When they feed on cactus fruits and nectar, they may also help disperse cacti seeds. Other bats eat pollen, nectar, or fruit.

Bats are increasingly threatened due to habitat loss, light pollution, and diseases like white-nose syndrome. This fungal disease infects the skin of the muzzle, ears, and wings of hibernating bats. In about 20 years, it has killed millions of bats across North America and affects about half of the species on the continent. Bats also are often misunderstood as carriers of diseases such as rabies. 

The planet is home to over 1,400 species of bats, and they make up almost 20 percent of all mammal species. Bats also can be found almost everywhere on Earth, even in desert and polar regions. To look up which bat species live near you, you can use Bat Week’s state bat database.

Stay tuned for more Bat Week updates!

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LOS ANGELES — October 20, 2026 AnySignal, a leading provider of software-defined radios and space-based networking, today announced an agreement with Reflect Orbital to deliver space-to-earth communications for Reflect Orbital’s inaugural […]

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The Transition Metals Outlook is BNEF’s annual long-term outlook for the role of metals in the energy transition.

BloombergNEF’s (BNEF) Transition Metals Outlook 2026 finds that nine of the 10 materials studied are on track to have sufficient supply capacity through 2050, a significant improvement on previous forecasts.

Nature Energy, Published online: 20 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41560-026-02148-w

Cathode interlayers play a pivotal role in improving the performance of organic solar cells. Yao, Zhang, Zhang, Wang et al. show a stepwise solvent treatment to achieve a vertically aligned cathode interlayer, enabling a certified efficiency of 20.65% in binary organic solar cells.

SAN FRANCISCO –Spanish startup UARX Space is remedying anomalies identified during the maiden flight of OSSIE-D, an orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) launched Oct. 1 aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-18 mission. At least […]

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Join us for a conversation on how machine learning is transforming the GEOINT mission across different markets

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In this episode, SpaceNews’ Mike Gruss talks with NASA’s Shatel Bhakta, the principal systems engineer for Moon Base, about what’s needed between now and 2028 and the incremental steps to […]

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BELLEVUE, Wash., Oct. 15, 2026 — Agile Space Industries, a leading provider of in-space chemical propulsion solutions, has expanded into the Seattle metropolitan area with the opening of a new […]

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How is surging solar and battery investment reshaping Central and Southeast Europe’s power markets? Explore how grid constraints, widening power-price spreads and coal closures are shifting value toward flexibility across the region.

When the European thermal-imagery company constellr began working with Space Inventor on its next generation of satellites, some of the most important details of the spacecraft had yet to be […]

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MDA Space, a global leader in communications satellites, Earth and space observation, space exploration and infrastructure, will utilize Jena-Optronik’s ASTRO HP star sensor on a LEO mission. This milestone underscores […]

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In this episode, a panel of industry experts discuss what’s needed to build a moon base. During a live event at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center, leaders Astrolab, Firefly […]

The post What will it take to build a moon base? appeared first on SpaceNews.

Many consumers pay more for power today than before the Covid-19 pandemic. Explore how prices have shifted around the globe.