If you speak, AI will be listening.

We don’t come across papers that attempt to redefine reality very often.

Vitaly Vanchurin, a physics professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, makes the particularly startling claim that we are living inside a vast neural network that controls everything around us in a paper that was recently uploaded to arXiv.

Determining what’s real online is getting more difficult. But there are steps you can take to deal with it.

Coming to a tight spot near you: CLARI, the little, squishable robot that can passively change its shape to squeeze through narrow gaps—with a bit of inspiration from the world of bugs.

CLARI, which stands for Compliant Legged Articulated Robotic Insect, comes from a team of engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder. It also has the potential to aid first responders after major disasters in an entirely new way.

Several of these robots can easily fit in the palm of your hand, and each weighs less than a Ping Pong ball. CLARI can transform its shape from square to long and slender when its surroundings become cramped, said Heiko Kabutz, a doctoral student in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering.