The future of Star Trek isn’t just nostalgia. Although the buzz around Picard season 3 focuses on the reunion of the Next Generation, and the season is replete with callbacks to the classic feature films, the most striking thing about this season is that it looks forward.

If you think Picard Season 3 will be a warm, fuzzy trip down memory lane, think again. What makes it work is that this is a sequel to the most famous era of Star Trek. And this time, everything is on the line.

Amid a flurry of recent news about computer algorithms doing everything from nearly passing medical licensing exams to assisting therapists with their sessions, one astronomer just scored some points for his fellow humans.

Giuseppe Donatiello recently discovered three new (to science) dwarf galaxies in a massive set of data from a six-year survey of the sky. An algorithm designed to search the data for anything that looked like a galaxy had missed all three of the small, faint galaxies, but Donatiello — an amateur astronomer who decided to process a swath of the survey’s data for the fun of it — found them. All three galaxies are now named after him: Donatiello II, III, and IV.

Time and time again, artificial intelligence is heralded for its impressive feats. Computer have beaten humans in dozens of games, crafted essays instantaneously, and even detected cancer with stunning accuracy.

In many ways, AI might seem to surpass the intelligence of humans. But what about pigeons?

The birds’ primary learning strategy is nearly identical to machine learning algorithms on a basic level, according to a new study published in the journal Current Biology.

Obviously, pigeon brains have limitations that computers don’t. But their method of solving challenging problems isn’t all that different from the technique used by some AI systems to pull off superhuman accomplishments.