From fingerprints at crime scenes to elephants’ manners, from decoding whale songs to reviving ancient Greek philosophy — AI is bringing a quiet revolution to every corner of science. 

We are using AI to write emails or plan vacations -- and scientists do too. But artificial intelligence takes on surprising roles in research. Scientists now rely on AI not just to crunch data, but to suggest new experiments, spot patterns no one else sees, and sometimes even challenge long-held dogmas. It’s changing how we understand the world now, but what happens when the machine starts asking its own questions? And will it ever bother to explain the answers?