Science | The Verge

My $5K smart bed needs to shut the hell up

2026-05-01T16:39:34-04:00

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here.

I take my beauty rest seriously. So seriously that, after months of testing, I bought my ludicrously expensive Eight Sleep Pod 4 Ultra review unit. It had a lot of things going for it. It kept my spouse's side of the bed cool and mine toasty. That, in turn, convinced my aloof cats to curl on my side at night. It improved my marriage by dramatically reducing my spouse's sonorous snoring. What more could I possibly wa …

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Oura adds birth control support to its period tracker

2026-05-01T06:24:52-04:00

Here’s an example of what the new Hormonal Birth Control support will look like when it rolls out on May 6th. | Image: Oura

Oura is launching a new reproductive health feature that takes hormonal contraception into consideration when tracking period cycles. The smart ring maker describes the Hormonal Birth Control update as a "first-of-its-kind experience" inside Oura's existing Cycle Insights feature, allowing users to see how over 20 combinations of hormonal birth control methods - including pills, patches, IUDs, and implants - can affect their overall biometric data.

The feature will begin rolling out globally on May 6th. It's designed to show the impact that hormonal contraception may have on temperature patterns, sleep, and recovery, and can help users to t …

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Is this ‘de-extinction’ project actually onto something?

2026-04-30T07:53:07-04:00

Dallas-based genetics and biotech startup Colossal has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from venture capitalists, the CIA, and Peter Thiel, among others. Its buzzy "de-extinction" projects aim to "bring back" lost animals like the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and the dire wolf - although it isn't creating copies of extinct creatures from ancient DNA, as the "de-extinction" tagline may suggest. In the case of the "dire wolves" presented to the world in 2025, the pups were gray wolves spliced with a few genetic traits to somewhat resemble the dire wolves. This ambitious branding opened the company up to questions about its conser …

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Spotify is partnering with Peloton for guided workouts

2026-04-27T07:18:12-04:00

Spotify has dabbled in customized running playlists, but now it's diving more firmly into the fitness space with curated playlists and content from creators like Yoga with Kassandra, Sweaty Studio, Chloe Ting, and Pilates Body by Raven. Not only that, but Premium subscribers will have access to over 1,400 classes from Peloton.

Spotify has already expanded well beyond its music roots, with audiobooks, podcasts, and video. So moving into fitness and wellness doesn't seem like a big stretch, especially since there are plenty of playlists out there built around exercise. But it does further crowd an already messy app.

Users will now have acces …

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Trump fires the entire National Science Board

2026-04-25T18:29:03-04:00

Multiple sources are reporting that the Trump administration has dismissed the entire National Science Board (NSB). The NSB advises the president and Congress on the National Science Foundation (NSF), which has already been funding research at historically low levels and has seen significant delays in doling out that funding. The NSF has been fundamental in helping develop technology used in MRIs, cellphones, and it even helped get Duolingo get off the ground.

In a statement, Zoe Lofgren, the ranking Democrat on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said:

"This is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to …

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Researchers say we’re talking less than ever

2026-04-25T11:03:53-04:00

Nobody is talking. | Image: Metrograph Pictures

Researchers at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Arizona say that between 2005 and 2019, the number of words we speak out loud to another human being fell by nearly 28 percent. And that has likely only gotten worse following the pandemic.

The researchers actually counted the number of words we were speaking on average (16,632 in 2005). They looked at data from 22 studies in which over 2,000 people recorded audio of their daily lives. Over time, as ordering through apps became the norm, texting increased, and our lives became increasingly online, they found that number had dropped dramatically. By 2019, we were onl …

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I don’t think Gwyneth Paltrow knows what a peptide is

2026-04-24T10:26:03-04:00

She’s definitely heard of a peptide. I don’t know if she understands what they are. | Photo: Getty Images

These days, it seems I cannot escape peptides. Online, I've been assaulted by videos of shirtless Chads injecting dubiously sourced bottles of the so-called "Wolverine stack." On the New York City subway, I'm haunted by Serena Williams' Ro ads for easy GLP-1 access. Silicon Valley seems to be a parade of peptide parties. In Washington, RFK Jr. has said he's pro-peptide and wants to expand access. In July, the FDA wi …

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Watch Sony’s elite ping-pong robot beat top-ranked players

2026-04-22T14:41:37-04:00

Ace is the first robot that can beat the best human players while following the official rules of table tennis. | Image: Sony AI

Humans have been building ping-pong playing robots for decades, such as Omron's FORPHEUS that challenged amateur competitors at CES 2017. What sets Ace apart from the rest is that the robot, which was developed by Sony's AI division, is the first that can hold its own against top-ranked human players and occasionally even beat them in matches that follow the official rules of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).

AI is already capable of besting humans at games like Chess and Go, but physical games pose a much greater challenge as robots have to be engineered to match the speed and responsiveness of the human mind and body. To b …

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SpaceX cuts a deal to maybe buy Cursor for $60 billion

2026-04-22T05:40:37-04:00

With an IPO looming for Elon Musk's SpaceX / xAI / X combo platter of companies, SpaceX has announced an odd arrangement to either acquire the automated programming platform Cursor for $60 billion or pay a fee of $10 billion. Buying this startup that's focused on AI coding could help xAI's tools compete with market leader Anthropic, as well as the other competitors. A report by The Information this week said Sergey Brin has directed Google's "strike team" to help its agentic AI tools catch up, while Sam Altman reportedly declared a "code red" at OpenAI last year before shutting down Sora to focus on the ChatGPT superapp and its own Codex too …

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ISS astronauts are getting new laptops

2026-04-21T17:56:01-04:00

Astronaut Chris Williams and the rest of the Expedition 74 crew are getting new laptops. | Photo: NASA

Even astronauts need to level up their laptops once in a while - including the crew of Expedition 74 on board the ISS, which NASA announced last week is in the process of some computer upgrades. According to NASA, the crew met on Friday to review plans to "first replace network servers then activate their new, more powerful laptop computers." In a statement to The Verge, NASA spokesperson Joshua Finch confirmed the new laptops the astronauts will be using: "The International Space Station Program has selected the HP ZBook G9 Mobile Workstation as the next laptop for the space station."

Astronaut Chris Williams unpacked computer hardware on the ISS on April 15th. | Photo: NASA' data-portal-copyright='Photo: NASA'> Astronaut Jessica Meir is one of the Expedition 74 astronauts getting a laptop upgrade. | Photo: NASA' data-portal-copyright='Photo: NASA'>

According to HP, the custom ZBook Fury G9 …

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