1990 Milli Vanilli were exposed as Mimey Vanilli. The Monkees were actively banned from playing on their early albums. Marvin Gaye’s estate took Robin Thicke and Pharrell to court over blurred lines and won. Pop is full of controversy. Well 2026 doesn’t disappoint … with an AI twist.

A French team has gone looking for the brain cells that hold our earliest smell memories. But do these memories lay dormant for decades only to burst back to life? Or are we subtly topping them up across the years?

One year on, the Grand Canyon's giant penis worm gets a sober second look. NerdNews asks ‘how does it measure up’?

AI is now hacking other AI!!!Breathless headlines. I’m doing radio and tv interviews. NerdNews takes a breath and asks ‘what really happened’ when some AI got out of its sandbox’?

A Sydney PhD student has traced one of space's most baffling radio signals to a white dwarf feeding off its neighbour, the clearest clue yet to a mystery that has held out for years.

Most neuroscientists locate consciousness in our wrinkly cortexes, the outer layer of our brains where thought and sensation are supposed to live. But a growing band of rebels says the lights of experience may switch on far deeper, in the brain’s ancient core. And that cracks the door open to an even stranger idea. Could awareness be everywhere?

The biggest AI companies on Earth have started investigating whether their own chatbots have feelings. The sharpest sceptics say we cannot even frame the question properly. Either way soon we probably won't be able to tell the difference. Ethical dilemma anyone?

How do you read a 2,000 year old scroll cooked to a crisp by no less than Mt Vesuvius? Hint, it’s the same imaging tech we use to design cutting edge cancer drugs.

Twenty years ago this week the world licensed a vaccine against a cancer.

An AI just knocked over a famous geometry problem!

Undefeated and seemingly undefeatable, a 20 year old Uzbeh arrives and advances to chess's biggest stage.

This week we meet the most famous question in the history of graph theory. But did someone say Matt Damon?

Four astronauts just launched toward the Moon on Artemis II. The most important space mission in 50 years. And Australia's got their back.

A Swedish study of 15,000 adults finds antibiotics may reshape the gut microbiome for up to eight years. Miracle drugs, but with a microbial hangover.

From garage rebels to global powerhouse, Apple has shaped how we compute, create, and connect, blending brilliance, control, and tools (some) people genuinely love.

Two brilliant supergeeks had their genius immortalised last week with the awarding of the 2025 Turing Award

Aussie superfish Cam McEvoy just set a world record. But he did it with maths as much as muscle!

Aussie dog dad and awesome geek turns to AI, genomics and mRNA vaccines to fight his rescue dog’s “months to live” cancer.

Melbourne scientists connected human neurons to a computer chip and taught them video games. The result could reshape AI, energy use and consciousness.

150 years on, Alexander Graham Bell's genius still powers our mobile world.