Category: Science & Technology

A doctor from AIIMS Delhi has identified gastroenteritis as one of the key triggers for GBS and warned people about the risks associated with contaminated food and water.

Pune has recorded over 111 cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), with one suspected fatality reported in Solapur. At least 17 patients are reportedly on ventilators, while seven have been discharged. Amid growing concerns, a doctor has urged people to be mindful of their diet and highlighted certain foods that could contribute to this rare but treatable condition.

Dr Priyanka Sehrawat from AIIMS Delhi has identified gastroenteritis as one of the key triggers for GBS and warned people about the risks associated with contaminated food and water.

“Avoid eating out. Avoid contaminated food and water. Take care of yourself immunity too,” Dr Sehrawat advised, adding that foods like paneer, cheese, and rice should be consumed with caution, as they are particularly susceptible to bacterial growth if not stored or handled properly. Additionally, she recommended including vitamin C-rich foods into the diet to boost immunity.

What is GBS virus?

Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) is a rare neurological disorder, often preceded by symptoms of an infection within six weeks. These infections can range from respiratory to gastrointestinal issues, including Covid-19. GBS can also be triggered by the Zika virus.

GBS symptoms

Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) causes symptoms like numbness, weakness, and paralysis, often starting with tingling in the hands and feet. It can lead to difficulty walking, facial movements, and breathing. In severe cases, it’s a medical emergency requiring hospitalisation and can also cause pain, vision issues, and problems with bladder or bowel control.

“GBS is an autoimmune-mediated illness where the body’s own antibodies attack the nerves, weakening muscle strength. It starts with reduced power in the legs, making it difficult to wear slippers or lift objects. Patients may experience tingling sensations in the hands and legs. As the condition progresses, it can impact the lungs, eventually leading to the need for ventilatory support. The rate of progression varies for each patient, but in the current outbreak, the deterioration is alarmingly rapid, with some patients requiring ventilators within just 2-3 days,” Dr Sehrawat said.

Source : https://www.news18.com/viral/aiims-doctor-reveals-foods-fueling-punes-gbs-outbreak-avoid-eating-9206162.html

The Vatican on Tuesday called for governments to keep a close eye on the development of artificial intelligence, warning the technology contained “the shadow of evil” in its ability to spread misinformation.
“AI generated fake media can gradually undermine the foundations of society,” said a new text on the ethics of AI, written by two Vatican departments and approved by Pope Francis.
“This issue requires careful regulation, as misinformation—especially through AI-controlled or influenced media—can spread unintentionally, fuelling political polarization and social unrest,” it said.

Francis, leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church since 2013, has focused attention on the ethical issues surrounding AI in recent years.
Last week, the pope sent a message about AI to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, warning political, economic and business leaders there that the technology raised “critical concerns” about humanity’s future.
The pope also spoke about the technology at the G7 summit in Italy last June, and said people should not let algorithms decide their destiny.

The Vatican’s new document, titled “Antica et nova” (Ancient and new), considered the impacts of AI in a range of sectors, including in the labour market, healthcare and education.
“As in all areas where humans are called to make decisions, the shadow of evil also looms here,” it said. “The moral evaluation of this technology will need to take into account how it is directed and used.”

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/vatican-says-ai-has-shadow-evil-calls-close-oversight-2025-01-28/

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he is the “product of the bond” that exists between India and the US, as top government officials and American lawmakers lauded the Indian community’s contribution during Republic Day commemoration here.

The Consulate General of India in Seattle hosted a special reception on Sunday at the Bell Harbour Conference Centre to commemorate India’s 76th Republic Day.

Washington State Governor Bob Ferguson and Nadella were the Guests of Honour at the reception attended by over 500 people from the Indian-American community, according to a press release issued by the Consulate. In a unique first, several members of the US Congress also joined the evening celebrations.

Nadella, addressing the gathering, acknowledged that he “was a product of the bond that exists between the two countries (India and US).” He praised the leadership of both nations for their “focus on how to use technology to leverage education outcomes, health outcomes, public service efficiency, competitiveness and productivity of small businesses”, the press release said.

Addressing members of the Indian-American community at the Republic Day reception, Ferguson, the newly elected 24th Governor of Washington State, acknowledged “the incredible contribution the Indian society makes not just for India but for the entire world”.

He added that as a new Governor of the State of Washington, he looked forward to building on the relationship with the Consulate General of India in Seattle.

In a special recognition to mark the occasion, Washington State Senate in Olympia passed a State Senate Resolution, moved by State Senator Manka Dhingra and supported by Senator Vandana Slatter, welcoming the 76th Republic Day of India and the strong friendship between the people of India and the US.

The Republic Day reception, hosted by the Consul General of India in Seattle Prakash Gupta was also attended by a distinguished line-up of top government officials, lawmakers as well as Mayors of ten cities.

Several members of the US Congress who joined the evening celebrations included Rep. Suzan DelBene, Rep. Adam Smith, Rep. Michael Baumgartner, and Rep. Kim Schrier, who welcomed India’s achievements as the world’s largest democracy. Other distinguished participants included Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, several Washington State Senators and Representatives.

The Republic Day reception in Seattle showcased several unique exhibits highlighting the cultural diversity of India, including ‘One District, One Product’ (ODOP) featuring one unique cultural heritage product from each state and union territory of India.

On the occasion, a photo exhibit ‘India through Tim’s Eyes’ was also organised that displayed some of India’s most iconic tourism sites photographed by ace photographer Tim Durkan during a visit to India in September last year. The reception also featured a specially-curated dance performance showcasing various dance forms of Bharat titled ‘Natyam’, which was widely applauded by the gathering.

In another special gesture by Seattle city, several iconic buildings in Seattle, including the Seattle Great Wheel, Seattle Convention Center and Columbia Center were lit up in hues of the Indian tricolour to mark the Republic Day, the release added.

Earlier this month, Nadella had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. “Thank you, PM @narendramodi ji for your leadership. Excited to build on our commitment to making India AI-first and work together on our continued expansion in the country to ensure every Indian benefits from this AI platform shift,” the Microsoft Chairman and CEO had said in a post on X about his meeting with Modi.

Source : https://www.deccanherald.com/india/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-calls-himself-product-of-india-us-bond-3375851 

NASA has issued an alert about two asteroids, 2025 BF5 and 2025 BS4, that will make dangerously close flybys by Earth tomorrow, January 28. Though no immediate danger of collision is expected, the close proximity of these space rocks raises concerns about the risk of an impact. Should we be worried?

When we bake two loaves of bread using the same recipe, subtle differences in temperature or mixing could lead to slightly different results. Even with identical ingredients and instructions, the outcome isn’t always identical. Scientists have just discovered that something similar happens in human development, and it might explain why some people are more likely to get cancer than others.

An intriguing new study from the Van Andel Institute suggests that tiny differences in our earliest stages of development — even before birth — might set the stage for cancer risk later in life. This discovery challenges what we thought we knew about cancer, which has traditionally been viewed mainly as a disease caused by genetic mutations that accumulate as we age.

“Most people think of cancer as bad luck,” explains Dr. Ilaria Panzeri, who led the research. “But bad luck doesn’t fully explain why some people develop cancer and others don’t. Most importantly, bad luck cannot be targeted for treatment.”

At the heart of this discovery is something called epigenetics, akin to a set of switches that can turn genes on or off without changing the genes themselves. These switches help control which instructions in our DNA get carried out and which remain dormant. When these switches don’t work properly, it can lead to health problems, including cancer.

The research team focused on a particular switch-operator called TRIM28. Using mice with reduced levels of TRIM28, they discovered something fascinating: identical mice naturally developed into two distinct groups with different cancer risks, despite having the exact same genes. One group tended to be lighter in weight, while the other was heavier; but the real differences went far deeper than appearance.

Even more interesting was how these differences affected the types of cancer that developed. Mice in one group were more likely to develop blood cancers like leukemia, while the other group showed higher rates of solid tumors, like lung or prostate cancer. These differences could be detected in tissue samples taken when the mice were just 10 days old – long before any visible signs of disease appeared.

“Because most cancers occur later in life and are understood as diseases of mutation, or genetics, there hasn’t been a deep focus on how development might shape cancer risk. Our findings change that,” explains Dr. Andrew Pospisilik, who helped lead the research. He notes that while we can’t change our genes, we might be able to influence these genetic switches, potentially leading to new ways to prevent or treat cancer.

When the scientists looked at human cancer databases, they found patterns comparable to their findings. Patients with changes in the human versions of the genes affected in the mice tended to have worse cancer outcomes, suggesting these early-life patterns might be important in human cancer too.

What makes the study, which is published in Nature Cancer, particularly exciting is its potential for cancer prevention. If doctors could identify these risk patterns early in life, they might be able to develop strategies to prevent cancer before it starts. It’s like having an early warning system that could help identify who might benefit most from enhanced screening or preventive measures.

Much work remains to be done, but this study marks a crucial step toward understanding — and potentially preventing — cancer at its earliest origins.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/cancer-risk-starts-before-birth/

iOS 18.3 is here, and it’s bringing changes to AI notification summaries on your iPhone. In iOS 18.3’s release notes, Apple says it has temporarily disabled notification summaries for news and entertainment apps.

The change, which was first spotted in the iOS 18.3 beta, comes after the BBC called out the feature for incorrectly summarizing one of its headlines. If you opt-in to the feature, Apple will notify you once it becomes available again.

For Apple devices that support Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro and later, iPads and Macs with the Apple Silicon M1 chip or later, and the most recent version of the iPad mini), today’s updates will also switch Apple Intelligence on by default.

Other features coming with the new iPhone update include the ability to use Visual Intelligence to add an event to the Calendar app from a poster or flyer, as well as a way to “easily identify plants and animals.” On Macs, the macOS 15.3 update that is also rolling out now is adding support for Genmoji, along with similar changes for notification summaries.

Source : https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/27/24353079/ios-18-3-launch-notification-summaries-apple-intelligence-default

When most middle school students go on field trips, they might bring back photos or souvenirs. But at Chicago’s Garfield Park Lagoon, one student brought back something far more significant: bacteria from goose droppings that would lead scientists to discover a potential new cancer-fighting compound.

The discovery emerged through an innovative program called the Chicago Antibiotic Discovery Lab, where students from underserved communities work alongside university scientists to explore their neighborhoods for beneficial bacteria. Led by Brian Murphy at the University of Illinois Chicago, the 14-week program, in concert with the Boys and Girls Club of Chicago, aims to address significant disparities in science education while producing meaningful research.

These young participants became genuine biomedical scientists before entering high school. Rather than observing from the sidelines, they actively participate in sophisticated laboratory work. Students learn to program and operate a specialized robot that scoops up bacterial colonies from growth plates and tests them for antibiotic activity. This hands-on approach transforms students into scientific investigators, giving them real-world experience while contributing to potential medical breakthroughs.

From 14 samples of goose dropping collected by the students, one particular sample collected in 2022 by 11-year-old Camarria Williams yielded exciting results. The bacteria discovered in the sample, called Pseudomonas idahonensis, produces a previously unknown natural compound named orfamide N. Williams interpreted the initial bioassay data, determining that the bacterium showed promising antibiotic activity.

“It was Camarria’s intellectual input that chose the goose poop,” Murphy told the Chicago Tribune. “None of us would have thought to do that, and she did it.”

In an interesting twist, it turned out that orfamide N wasn’t responsible for the antibiotic effects first observed. Incredibly, subsequent laboratory testing revealed it had a different and equally valuable (and exciting) property.

When testing the compound’s effects on cancer cells, researchers found that relatively small amounts of orfamide N could slow down the growth of both melanoma and ovarian cancer cells. Specifically, they measured how much of the compound was needed to reduce cancer cell growth by half. The results showed that orfamide N was effective at concentrations comparable to another similar compound they used for comparison.

This unexpected turn demonstrates a common occurrence in scientific research: sometimes you find something valuable while looking for something else entirely.

For Williams, the finding meant she was listed as a co-author on the paper documenting the discovery, which was published this past October in the peer-reviewed journal ACS Omega.

While the long-term impact of orfamide N remains to be seen, the impact of this discovery on the students involved is already clear. They’ve learned that science isn’t just something that happens in distant laboratories. It’s happening in their own neighborhoods, and they can be part of it. That realization might prove just as valuable as any compound they’ve discovered.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/middle-school-student-goose-poop-cancer-compound/

If you are using Google Chrome on Windows, Linux or Mac — now is the time to update your browser. The government has issued a high-risk warning about critical security flaws in Google Chrome users in India. The advisory, released by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), warned about serious security flaws that could make users in India vulnerable to cyberattacks. These newly discovered issues could allow hackers to exploit the browser, putting user data and devices at serious risk.

“Multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Google Chrome which could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause denial of service (DoS) condition on the targeted system,” the CERT-In team said.

OpenAI has told an Indian court that any order to remove training data powering its ChatGPT service would be inconsistent with its legal obligations in the United States, according to a recent filing seen by Reuters.
The Microsoft-backed AI firm also said that it was not within the jurisdiction of Indian courts to hear a copyright breach case brought by local news agency ANI as OpenAI had no presence in the country.

In the most high-profile and closely-tracked lawsuit on AI use in India, ANI sued OpenAI in Delhi in November, accusing it of using the news agency’s published content without permission to train ChatGPT.
OpenAI responded to the lawsuit, which is also seeking the deletion of ANI’s data already stored by ChatGPT, in an 86-page filing at the Delhi High Court dated Jan. 10 which has not previously been reported.

OpenAI and other firms have faced a wave of similar lawsuits from prominent copyright owners over alleged misuse of their work to train AI models, including a case brought by the New York Times against OpenAI in the United States.
OpenAI has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying its AI systems make fair use of publicly available data.
During a November hearing, OpenAI told the Delhi court it would not use ANI’s content anymore but the news agency argued its published works were stored in ChatGPT’s memory and should be deleted.

In the Jan. 10 submission, OpenAI said that it is currently defending litigation in the United States concerning the data on which its models have been trained, with laws there requiring it to preserve the data while hearings are pending.
OpenAI “is therefore under a legal obligation, under the laws of the United States to preserve, and not delete, the said training data”, it said.
OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

In its submission, OpenAI also said the relief being claimed by ANI was not subject to the processes of Indian courts and was beyond their jurisdiction.
The company has “no office or permanent establishment in India … the servers on which (ChatGPT) stores its training data are similarly situated outside of India”.
ANI, in which Reuters holds a 26% interest, in a statement said that it believes the Delhi court has jurisdiction to decide on the matter, and it would file a detailed response.
A Reuters spokesperson did not respond immediately to a request for comment but the agency in November said it was not involved in ANI’s business practices or operations.
The New Delhi court is due to hear the case on Jan. 28.
OpenAI has been gearing up to transition from a non-profit enterprise into a for-profit business as it looks to capture even more funding to stay ahead in the costly AI race after raising $6.6 billion last year.
In recent months, it has signed deals with Time magazine, the Financial Times, Business Insider-owner Axel Springer, France’s Le Monde and Spain’s Prisa Media to display content.
ANI has also said it is concerned about unfair competition given OpenAI’s commercial partnerships with other news organisations, and has told the court that in response to user prompts, ChatGPT reproduced verbatim or substantially similar extracts of ANI’s works.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/openai-tells-india-court-chatgpt-data-removal-will-breach-us-legal-obligations-2025-01-22/

Your smartphone can recognize faces, and your car can detect lane markers; now, researchers have taught machines to taste. A team at Penn State University has developed an “electronic tongue” that combines atom-thin sensors with artificial intelligence to detect food fraud, spoilage, and contamination within minutes.

This research, published in Nature, combines two cutting-edge technologies. The team used sensors made from graphene, which is an incredibly thin form of carbon that’s just one atom thick and conducts electricity exceptionally well. They paired these sensors with artificial intelligence that can learn patterns. Together, this creates a system that’s remarkably good at detecting tiny differences between similar liquids.

The system mimics how humans taste and process flavors. Just as our tongues have taste receptors that send signals to our brain’s gustatory cortex — the region responsible for interpreting tastes beyond the basic categories of sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and savory — this electronic tongue uses sensors that send electrical signals to an artificial neural network that analyzes the data.

Traditional food testing requires expensive laboratory equipment and time-consuming analysis. However, this new system can detect various substances and assess their quality, authenticity, and freshness in about a minute. The sensors work like electronic taste buds, producing electrical signals that change when exposed to different chemical solutions.

What makes this system particularly innovative is its ability to learn and improve on human expertise. When researchers allowed the artificial intelligence to define its own parameters for analysis rather than using human-selected metrics, accuracy improved from 80% to more than 95%. Using a technique called Shapley additive explanations, the team could even peek into the AI’s decision-making process, offering a rare glimpse into how artificial intelligence reaches its conclusions.

“We found that the network looked at more subtle characteristics in the data—things we, as humans, struggle to define properly,” says corresponding author Saptarshi Das, in a statement. “In terms of the milk, the neural network can determine the varying water content of the milk and, in that context, determine if any indicators of degradation are meaningful enough to be considered a food safety issue.”

The system proved remarkably effective at detecting watered-down milk at concentrations as low as 5%, distinguishing between different types of coffee blends, and tracking fruit juice freshness over several days. In one impressive demonstration, it differentiated between similar products like regular Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi, caffeine-free Coke, and zero-sugar Coke with over 97% accuracy.

What’s amazing is this system doesn’t need perfectly identical sensors to work well. The AI is smart enough to adjust for small differences between sensors, much like our brains can adjust to slight variations in taste buds. This makes the technology much cheaper to produce in large quantities since manufacturers don’t need to worry about making every sensor exactly the same.

The system is incredibly sensitive at detecting harmful chemicals in food and water. To put this in perspective, it can find a potentially dangerous compound called perfluorohexanoic acid (a chemical used in manufacturing that can contaminate food and water) at levels equivalent to detecting a single drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool—that’s 2.5 parts per billion. This ultra-sensitive detection ability could help catch contaminated food and water before it reaches consumers.

These results extend far beyond food testing, though. According to the researchers, its applications could potentially include medical diagnostics, with its capabilities limited only by the data used to train it.

This “electronic tongue” represents a significant step toward making sophisticated chemical testing more accessible and reliable. By embracing imperfection in the sensors while leveraging artificial intelligence, the researchers have created a system that could fundamentally change how we verify food safety and authenticity.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/electronic-tongue-taste-spoiled-milk/

Astronomers have made a perplexing discovery that’s pushing the boundaries of what we know about mysterious cosmic signals. Using specialized telescopes, they’ve detected powerful radio bursts coming from an unexpected location: the distant outskirts of an ancient, inactive galaxy located 2 billion light-years from Earth.

The discovery began when researchers using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope detected repeated bursts of intense radio waves from a source in the northern constellation Ursa Minor. These cosmic signals, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), appear as powerful flashes that last for just milliseconds.

Between February and July 2024, the team observed 22 separate bursts from this single source, dubbed “FRB 20240209A.” To precisely locate these signals, they combined observations from CHIME with those from a partner facility called KKO, located 66 kilometers away. This combination worked like a giant pair of astronomical binoculars, allowing unprecedented precision in pinpointing the bursts’ origin.

What they found challenged existing theories: the signals were coming from approximately 40,000 light-years away from the center of their host galaxy –roughly twice the distance from Earth to the center of our Milky Way. This represents the largest offset from a host galaxy ever observed for an FRB source.

Even more puzzling was the nature of the host galaxy itself. Unlike most galaxies where these signals have been found before, this one is an elliptical galaxy estimated to be 11.3 billion years old, which is quite ancient by cosmic standards. With a mass more than 100 billion times that of our Sun, this galaxy is effectively “dead,” meaning new stars rarely form there.

“This is not only the first FRB to be found outside a dead galaxy, but compared to all other FRBs, it’s also the farthest from the galaxy it’s associated with,” said Vishwangi Shah, a doctoral student at McGill University and lead author of the study, in a statement. “The FRB’s location is surprising and raises questions about how such energetic events can occur in regions where no new stars are forming.”

The discovery, described in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, challenges the leading theory that these bursts come from magnetars, which are highly magnetized, spinning neutron stars left over from the explosive deaths of massive young stars. In an galaxy as old as this one, such stellar remnants should have disappeared long ago.

One possible explanation is that the bursts might be coming from a globular cluster — a dense collection of ancient stars that orbits the main galaxy. “The source could be in a globular cluster, a dense region of old, dead stars outside the galaxy. If confirmed, it would make FRB 20240209A only the second FRB linked to a globular cluster,” Shah noted.

To investigate further, the research team used the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii to study this region in detail. While they were looking for signs of a small companion galaxy that might be hosting these bursts, they found nothing visible at that location, deepening the mystery.

The timing pattern of these signals provides additional intrigue. After its initial discovery in February 2024, the source remained relatively quiet for several months before dramatically increasing its activity in June, producing 17 bursts in just one month.

It’s been an exciting time for fast radio burst research. A third telescope array is being added to the CHIME network at Hat Creek Observatory in Northern California, which will help scientists locate these mysterious bursts with even greater precision. “When paired with the three outriggers, we should be able to accurately pinpoint one FRB a day to its galaxy, which is substantial,” said Calvin Leung, a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley and co-author of the study.

This discovery expands our understanding of where these enigmatic signals can occur and what might be producing them. Finding repeating bursts in such an unexpected location suggests multiple formation pathways for these cosmic phenomena, providing new directions for future research.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/dead-galaxy-fast-radio-bursts/

A pioneering new treatment promises to tackle a wider range of cancers, with fewer side-effects than conventional radiotherapy. It also takes less than a second.

In a series of vast underground caverns on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland, experiments are taking place which may one day lead to new generation of radiotherapy machines. The hope is that these devices could make it possible to cure complex brain tumours, eliminate cancers that have metastasised to distant organs, and generally limit the toll which cancer treatment exerts on the human body.

The home of these experiments is the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (Cern), best known to the world as the particle physics hub that developed the Large Hadron Collider, a 27 kilometre (16.7 mile)-long ring of superconducting magnets capable of accelerating particles to near the speed of light.

Arguably Cern’s crowning achievement was the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, the so-called “God Particle” which gives other particles their mass and in doing so lays the foundation for everything that exists in the universe. But in recent years, the centre’s unique expertise in accelerating high-energy particles has found a new niche – the world of cancer radiotherapy.

Eleven years ago, Marie-Catherine Vozenin, a radiobiologist now working at Geneva University Hospitals (Hug), and others published a paper outlining a paradigm-shifting approach to traditional radiotherapy treatment which they called Flash. By delivering radiation at ultra-high dose rates, with exposures of less than a second, they showed that it was possible to destroy tumours in rodents while sparing healthy tissue.

Its impact was immediate. International experts described it as a seminal breakthrough, and it galvanised fellow radiobiologists around the world to conduct their own experiments using the Flash approach to treat a wide variety of tumours in rodents, household pets, and now humans.

The Flash concept resonated as it addressed some of the long-standing limitations of radiotherapy, one of the most common cancer therapies, which two-thirds of all cancer patients will receive at some point in their treatment journey. Typically delivered through administering a beam of X-rays or other particles over the course of two to five minutes, the total dose is usually spread across dozens of individual treatment sessions over up to eight weeks, to make it more tolerable for the patient.

Over the past three decades, advanced imaging scans and state-of-the-art radiotherapy machines have made it possible to target an individual tumour with increasing precision. But the risk of damaging or deadly side effects is still present.

Vozenin cites the example of paediatric brain tumours, which can often be cured by blasting the brain with radiotherapy, but at a great cost. “The survivors are often left with lifelong anxiety and depression, while the impact of the radiation affects brain development, causing significant loss of IQ,” she says. “We’re [sometimes] able to cure these kids but the price they pay is high.”

Billy Loo, a professor of radiation oncology who runs the Flash sciences lab at Stanford University School of Medicine in the US, explains that tumours, especially those of larger volume, are rarely neatly segregated from the surrounding tissue. This means it’s often next to impossible to avoid harming healthy cells, so oncologists are often unable to use as high a dose as they would like, says Loo.

Cancer specialists have long believed that being able to boost the radiation dose would greatly enhance their ability to cure patients with difficult-to-treat cancers, according to Vozenin. For example, research has previously indicated that being able to increase the radiation dose in lung cancer patients with tumours that have metastasised to the brain could improve survival.

In recent years, animal studies have repeatedly shown that Flash makes it possible to markedly increase the amount of radiation delivered to the body while minimising the impact that it has on surrounding healthy tissue. In one experiment, healthy lab mice which were given two rounds of radiation via Flash did not develop the typical side effects which would be expected during the second round. In another study, animals treated with Flash for head and neck cancers experienced fewer side effects, such as reduced saliva production or difficulty swallowing.

Loo is cautiously optimistic that going forwards, such benefits may also translate to human patients. “Flash produces less normal tissue injury than conventional irradiation, without compromising anti-tumour efficacy – which could be game-changing,” he says. An additional hope is that this could then reduce the risk of secondary cancers, resulting from radiation-induced damage later in life, although it is still too early to know if that will be the case.

Now, increasing numbers of human trials are beginning to take place around the world. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio, US, is planning an early stage trial in children with metastatic cancer that has spread to their chest bones. Meanwhile, oncologists at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland are conducting a Phase 2 trial – where the details are finessed, including the optimum dose, how effective the treatment is and if there are any side effects – for patients with localised skin cancer.

But the next phase of research is not only about testing whether Flash works in people. It’s also about identifying which kind of radiation is the best one to use.

In the high-stakes world of music streaming, getting noticed can make or break an artist’s career. But what drives users to follow certain playlists over others on Spotify? Prime real estate on the Search Page has emerged as a powerful force in playlist popularity. A new study from Tilburg University reveals that simply appearing on this digital storefront drives more playlist followers than having a Taylor Swift track in your mix, fundamentally shifting how music reaches our ears.

The study, published in Marketing Science, analyzed over 30,000 popular playlists on Spotify between October 2019 and March 2020, examining how different factors influenced playlist follower growth. They focused on playlists tracking everything from follower counts to content updates to understand what drives their popularity.

“Before our work, little was known about how strongly users respond to the drivers of playlist demand,” says study co-author Hannes Datta of Tilburg University, in a statement. “We decided to more deeply explore the cause-and-effect nature and influence of curated playlists.”

The researchers analyzed data from Chartmetric.com, tracking 34,483 playlists from professional curators, including both Spotify and major record labels. They compiled information about roughly 2 million tracks, monitoring daily follower counts and playlist changes over six months. This comprehensive approach allowed them to measure precisely how different factors influenced playlist popularity.

When Spotify features a playlist prominently on its Search Page, the main discovery hub where users browse music categories, that playlist sees an average 0.95% increase in daily followers. For mega-popular playlists like “Reggaeton Classic” with 1.9 million followers, being featured can bring in over 18,000 new followers in a single day. By comparison, adding a track from a major label superstar artist increases daily followers by just 0.45%.

“This demonstrates Spotify’s ability to steer user engagement and listening behavior through its platform design,” explains study co-author Max Pachali. “In comparison, we find that users are about half as sensitive to the addition of popular label artists.”

Major record labels still wield considerable influence through their roster of superstar artists. The research found that playlists featuring tracks by major label superstars attract an average of 72,255 followers, compared to 54,017 followers for playlists without superstar content. These playlists also tend to be updated more frequently and feature shorter tracks.

The findings arrive at a critical moment for the music industry. Historically, major record labels controlled not just content distribution but also how music was promoted and sold in physical stores. Today’s digital landscape tells a different story. Streaming platforms have assumed unprecedented influence over listening habits through their ability to curate and promote content. In 2023, streaming accounted for 84% of total recorded music revenue in the U.S.

“For industry players, understanding playlist curation strategies – especially the role of major label superstar content and how platform algorithms prioritize playlists on the search page – is more important than ever,” says Pachali.

The research suggests that while superstar artists remain valuable assets for major music labels, professional playlist curation combined with strategic platform placement has become an even more powerful force in shaping music consumption.

Industry experts predict this tension between streaming platforms and traditional music industry players will only intensify. Some suggest that record labels may eventually need to pay for prominent playlist placement, similar to how they historically paid for radio play.

These findings demonstrate that in modern music consumption, the medium has become as influential as the message. While star power continues to draw audiences, platform visibility has emerged as the dominant force in playlist success. By curating what we see and hear, Spotify doesn’t just reflect our preferences—it shapes them, influencing the music that becomes part of our daily lives. This reality promises to shape music industry strategy for years to come.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/spotify-shapes-what-you-listen-to/

Apple Intelligence will be switched on by default, starting in iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS 15.3. In release candidate notes spotted by 9to5Mac, Apple says it will switch on AI-powered features automatically for new users or those upgrading to the latest versions of its operating systems.

The AI update will only apply to devices that support Apple Intelligence, including the iPhone 15 Pro and later, iPads and Macs with the Apple Silicon M1 chip or later, and the most recent version of the iPad mini.

For users new or upgrading to macOS 18.3, Apple Intelligence will be enabled automatically during Mac onboarding. Users will have access to Apple Intelligence features after setting up their devices. To disable Apple Intelligence, users will need to navigate to the Apple Intelligence & Siri Settings pane and turn off the Apple Intelligence toggle. This will disable Apple Intelligence features on their device.

As Apple’s notes mention, after updating your device, you’ll have to manually disable Apple Intelligence if you don’t want support for features like AI notification summaries, Image Playground, and tools that can rewrite pieces of text running on your device. To turn Apple Intelligence off, you’ll have to head to the Apple Intelligence & Siri Settings pane and then switch off the Apple Intelligence toggle.

Source : https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/21/24348850/apple-intelligence-ai-default-setting-ios-18-3

There are several memes that burst on the internet on the accuracy of Google Maps and other GPS navigation tools. Earlier a vehicle tragically drove over an unconstructed bridge in UP and cost lives, followed by another incident which left no other than police officials in trouble after they entered into another state being guided by Google Maps.

A recent case reported regarding the navigation tool threw light on Bengaluru traffic and misrepresented a space as a parking lot. A car stuck in city traffic was shown on Google Maps suggesting the area was meant for parking.

While the area wasn’t really a parking zone, Google Maps confused people for suggesting the traffic-hit car’s location to be a parking space.

Google Maps in Bengaluru traffic

TikTok stopped working in the United States late on Saturday and disappeared from Apple and Google app stores ahead of a law that takes effect Sunday requiring the shutdown of the app used by 170 million Americans.
President-elect Donald Trump said earlier in the day he would “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from the ban after he takes office on Monday, a promise TikTok cited in a notice posted to users on the app.

TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, told users attempting to use the app around 10:45 p.m. ET (0345 GMT): “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned.”
Other apps owned by ByteDance, including video editing app Capcut and lifestyle social app Lemon8, were also offline and unavailable in U.S. app stores as of late Saturday.

“The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate,” Trump told NBC. “If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”
It was not clear if any U.S. users could still access the app, but it was no longer working for many users and people seeking to access it through a web application were met with the same message that TikTok was no longer working.

TikTok, which has captivated nearly half of all Americans, powered small businesses and shaped online culture, warned on Friday it would go dark in the U.S. on Sunday unless President Joe Biden’s administration provides assurances to companies such as Apple (AAPL.O) and Google (GOOGL.O) that they will not face enforcement actions when a ban takes effect.

Under a law passed last year and upheld on Friday by a unanimous Supreme Court, the platform has until Sunday to cut ties with its China-based parent ByteDance or shut down its U.S. operation to resolve concerns it poses a threat to national security.
The White House reiterated on Saturday that it was up to the incoming administration to take action.
“We see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office on Monday,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment on the new White House statement.

The Chinese embassy in Washington on Friday accused the U.S. of using unfair state power to suppress TikTok. “China will take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” a spokesperson said.

USERS MOVE TO ALTERNATIVES

Uncertainty over the app’s future had sent users – mostly younger people – scrambling to alternatives including China-based RedNote. Rivals Meta (META.O) and Snap (SNAP.N) had also seen their shares rise this month ahead of the ban, as investors bet on an influx of users and advertising dollars.

“This is my new home now,” wrote one user in a RedNote post, tagged with the words “tiktokrefugee” and “sad”.
Minutes after TikTok’s U.S. shutdown, other users took to X, formerly called Twitter.
“I didn’t really think that they would cut off TikTok. Now I’m sad and I miss the friends I made there. Hoping it all comes back in just a few days,” wrote @RavenclawJedi.
Marketing firms reliant on TikTok have rushed to prepare contingency plans this week in what one executive described as a “hair on fire” moment after months of conventional wisdom saying that a solution would materialize to keep the app running.
There have been signs TikTok could make a comeback under Trump, who has said he wants to pursue a “political resolution” of the issue and last month urged the Supreme Court to pause implementation of the ban.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew plans to attend the U.S. presidential inauguration and attend a rally with Trump on Sunday, a source told Reuters.
Suitors including former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt have expressed interest in the fast-growing business that analysts estimate could be worth as much as $50 billion. Media reports say Beijing has also held talks about selling TikTok’s U.S. operations to billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk, though the company has denied that.
U.S. search engine startup Perplexity AI submitted a bid on Saturday to ByteDance for Perplexity to merge with TikTok U.S., a source familiar with the company’s plans told Reuters. Perplexity would merge with TikTok U.S. and create a new entity by combining the merged company with other partners, the person added.
Privately held ByteDance is about 60% owned by institutional investors such as BlackRock and General Atlantic, while its founders and employees own 20% each. It has more than 7,000 employees in the U.S.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/tiktok-faces-us-ban-deadline-users-brace-fallout-2025-01-18/

A doctor’s unconscious bias could affect patient care. A hiring manager’s preconceptions might influence recruitment. But what happens when you add AI to these scenarios? According to new research, AI systems don’t just mirror our biases — they amplify them, creating a snowball effect that makes humans progressively more biased over time.

This troubling finding comes from new research published in Nature Human Behaviour that reveals how AI can shape human judgment in ways that compound existing prejudices and errors. In a series of experiments involving 1,401 participants, researchers from University College London and MIT discovered that even small initial biases can snowball into much larger ones through repeated human-AI interaction. This amplification effect was significantly stronger than what occurs when humans interact with other humans, suggesting there’s something unique about how we process and internalize AI-generated information.

“People are inherently biased, so when we train AI systems on sets of data that have been produced by people, the AI algorithms learn the human biases that are embedded in the data,” explains Professor Tali Sharot, co-lead author of the study, in a statement. “AI then tends to exploit and amplify these biases to improve its prediction accuracy.”

Consider a hypothetical scenario: A healthcare provider uses an AI system to help screen medical images for potential diseases. If that system has even a slight bias, like being marginally more likely to miss warning signs in certain demographic groups, the human doctor may begin unconsciously incorporating that bias in their own screening decisions over time. As the AI continues learning from these human decisions, both human and machine judgments could become increasingly skewed.

The researchers investigated this phenomenon through several carefully designed experiments. In one key test, participants were asked to look at groups of 12 faces displayed for half a second and judge whether the faces, on average, appeared more happy or sad. The initial human participants showed a small bias, categorizing faces as sad about 53% of the time. When a computer program called a Convolutional Neural Network (think of it as an AI system that processes images similarly to how human brains do) was trained on these human judgments, it amplified this bias significantly, classifying faces as sad 65% of the time.

When new participants interacted with this biased AI system, they began adopting its skewed perspective. The numbers tell a striking story. When participants disagreed with the AI’s judgment, they changed their minds nearly one-third of the time (32.72%). In contrast, when interacting with other humans, participants only changed their disagreeing opinions about one-tenth of the time (11.27%). This suggests that people are roughly three times more likely to be swayed by AI judgment than human judgment.

The bias amplification effect appeared consistently across various types of tasks. Beyond facial expressions, participants completed tests involving motion perception where they judged the direction of dots moving across a screen. They also assessed other people’s performance on tasks, where researchers found participants were particularly likely to overestimate men’s performance after interacting with an AI system that had been deliberately programmed with gender bias to mirror biases found in many existing AI systems.

“Not only do biased people contribute to biased AIs, but biased AI systems can alter people’s own beliefs so that people using AI tools can end up becoming more biased in domains ranging from social judgements to basic perception,” says Dr. Moshe Glickman, co-lead author of the study.

To demonstrate real-world implications, the researchers tested a popular AI image generation system called Stable Diffusion. When asked to create images of “financial managers,” the system showed a strong bias, generating images of white men 85% of the time – far out of proportion with real-world demographics. After viewing these AI-generated images, participants became significantly more likely to associate the role of financial manager with white men, demonstrating how AI biases can shape human perceptions of social roles.

When participants were falsely told they were interacting with another person, while actually interacting with AI, they internalized the biases to a lesser degree. The researchers suggest this may be because people expect AI to be more accurate than humans on certain tasks, making them more susceptible to AI influence when they know they’re working with a machine.

This finding is particularly concerning given how frequently people encounter AI-generated content in their daily lives. From social media feeds to hiring algorithms to medical diagnostic tools, AI systems are increasingly shaping human perceptions and decisions. The researchers note that children may be especially vulnerable to these effects, as their beliefs and perceptions are still forming.

However, the research wasn’t all bad news. When humans interacted with accurate, unbiased AI systems, their own judgment improved over time. “Importantly, we found that interacting with accurate AIs can improve people’s judgments, so it’s vital that AI systems are refined to be as unbiased and as accurate as possible,” says Dr. Glickman.

AI bias is not a one-way street but rather a circular path where human and machine biases reinforce each other. Understanding this dynamic is crucial as we continue to integrate AI systems into increasingly important aspects of society, from healthcare to criminal justice.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/ai-systems-amplify-human-bias/

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), on Friday, released a video of the docking of two satellites of the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission. The docking process was carried out on Thursday, January 16. With this manoeuvre, India became the fourth country after the United States, Russia and China to dock satellites in the space.

The video showed the complete docking process. The milestone was achieved after the ISRO brought the two satellites to three metres and then moved them back at a safe distance in its trial attempt.

The space agency launched the mission on December 30. The PSLV C60 rocket, carrying two small satellites — SDX01 (Chaser) and SDX02 (Target) — along with 24 payloads, lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. About 15 minutes later, the two small spacecraft weighing about 220 kilogrammes each were launched into a 475-kilometre circular orbit, as intended.

Notably, the docking mechanism is a low-impact docking system (approach velocity is in the order of 10 mm/s), androgynous (docking systems are identical for both spacecraft, Chaser & Target), and is a peripheral docking system (concept similar to the International Docking System Standard used by other agencies for human missions), accordingto the Indian space agency.

“The mechanism is smaller (450 mm) with one degree of freedom for extension and uses two motors compared to the IDSS (800 mm) on a hexapod with 24 motors. Multiple test beds were established to test the hardware and software simulation of the docking kinematics to verify and finalise the docking approach parameters,” the ISRO said.

Source : https://www.freepressjournal.in/science/watch-how-isro-docked-2-spadex-satellites-in-space

It’s been more than four years since Donald Trump first moved to expel TikTok from the US — and now, just days before a second Trump presidency begins, it just might happen.

President Joe Biden signed legislation last April that officially began the countdown that would force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the US business. But even afterward, the atmosphere on the video powerhouse was mostly nonchalant, with a handful of stray jokes about “this app disappearing” slotted between the usual fare.

In the last week, though, the vibe has shifted — my favorite creators are posting links to their other social accounts, audiences are making highlight reels of the most viral moments on the app, and they’re saying goodbye to their “Chinese spy” and threatening to hand over their data to the Chinese government. A Chinese-owned app Xiaohongshu, known as RedNote, topped the App Store this week, driven by a wave of “TikTok refugees” trying to recreate the experience of the platform. It’s feeling a bit like a fever dream last day of school.

For many creatives online, this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had to migrate to new spaces: reach, engagement, and visibility are constantly shifting even on the largest and most stable platforms. But the possibility that a social media site of this size would disappear — or slowly break down until it’s nonfunctional — is a new threat. For small creators especially, TikTok is like playing the lottery: you don’t need thousands of followers for your video to get big, and this unpredictability incentivized the average person to upload content.

It’s still unclear what will happen to TikTok after January 19th. I asked content creators what their game plan is. (Responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.)

Noelle Johansen, @astraeagoods (89K followers)

“At the peak, I was making approximately 70 percent of my sales through TikTok from December 2020 to January 2022. Now, it drives at most, 10 percent of my sales,” says Noelle Johansen, who sells slogan sweatshirts, accessories, stickers, and other products.

“At my peak with TikTok, I was able to reach so many customers with ease. Instagram and Twitter have always been a shot in the dark as to whether the content will be seen, but TikTok was very consistent in showing my followers and potential new customers my videos,” Johansen told The Verge in an email. “I’ve also made great friends from the artist community on TikTok, and it’s difficult to translate that community to other social media. Most apps function a lot differently than TikTok, and many people don’t have the bandwidth to keep up with all of the new socials and building platforms there.”

Going forward, Johansen says they’ll focus on X and Instagram for sales while working to grow an audience on Bluesky and Threads.

Kay Poyer, @ladymisskay_ (704K followers)

“I think the ease of use on TikTok opened an avenue for a lot of would-be creators,” Kay Poyer, a popular creator making humor and commentary content, says. “Right now we’re seeing a cleaving point, where many will choose to stop or be forced to adapt back to older platforms (which tend to be more difficult to build followings on and monetize).”

As for her own plans, Poyer says she’ll stay where the engagement is if TikTok becomes unavailable — smaller platforms like Bluesky or Neptune aren’t yet impactful enough.

“I’m seeing a big spike in subscribers to my Substack, The Quiet Part, as well as followers flooding to my Instagram and Twitter,” Poyer told The Verge. “Personally I have chosen to make my podcast, Meat Bus, the flagship of my content. We’re launching our video episodes sometime next month on YouTube.”

Bethany Brookshire, @beebrookshire (18K followers)

Bethany Brookshire, a science journalist and author, has been sharing videos about human anatomy on TikTok, Bluesky, Instagram, and YouTube. Across platforms, Brookshire has observed differences in audiences — YouTube, for example, “is not a place [to] build an audience,” she says, citing negative comments on her work.

“I find people on TikTok comment and engage a lot more, and most importantly, their comments are often touching or funny,” she says. “When I was doing pelvic anatomy, a lot of people with uteruses wrote in to tell me they felt seen, that they had a specific condition, and they even bonded with each other in the comments.”

Brookshire told The Verge in an email that sharing content anywhere can at times feel fraught. Between Nazi content on Substack, right-wing ass-kissing at Meta, and the national security concerns of TikTok, it doesn’t feel like any platform is perfectly ideal.

“Sometimes I feel like the only ethical way to produce any content is to write it out in artisanal chalk on an organically sourced vegan stone, which I then try to show to a single person with their consent before gently tossing it into the ocean to complete its circle of life,” Brookshire says. “But if I want to inform, and I want to educate, I need to be in the places people go.”

Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, @woodstocksanctuary (117K followers)

The Woodstock Farm Sanctuary in upstate New York uses TikTok to share information with new audiences — the group’s Instagram following is mostly people who are already animal rights activists, vegans, or sanctuary supporters.

“TikTok has allowed us to reach people who don’t even know what animal sanctuaries are,” social media coordinator Riki Higgins told The Verge in an email. “While we still primarily fundraise via Meta platforms, we seem to make the biggest education and advocacy impact when we post on TikTok.”

With a small social media and marketing team of two, Woodstock Farm Sanctuary (like other small businesses and organizations) must be strategic in how it uses its efforts. YouTube content can be more labor-intensive, Higgins says, and Instagram Reels is missing key features like 2x video speed and the ability to pause videos.

“TikTok users really, really don’t like Reels. They view it as the platform where jokes, trends, etc., go to die, where outdated content gets recycled, and especially younger users see it as an app only older audiences use,” Higgins says.

The sanctuary says it will meet audiences wherever they migrate in the case that TikTok becomes inaccessible.

Source : https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/17/24342982/tiktok-ban-creators-instagram-reels-youtube-twitch

SpaceX’s gigantic Starship rocket has been “lost” just minutes into its seventh test flight.

The 400ft rocket – the biggest and most powerful in the world – soared from Boca Chica, south Texas, on Thursday around 4.40pm local time (10.40pm in the UK).

Just minutes after the rocket launched, its booster made its planned return to the ground and after momentarily hovering over the launchpad, it was spectacularly caught between two giant mechanical arms.

It’s the second time SpaceX has managed this particular feat.

However, as crowds cheered the booster’s return, the company said it had lost contact with Starship as the engines went out.

A host on SpaceX’s livestream soon confirmed: “At this point in time, we can confirm we did lose the ship.

“It looks like we lost contact a little under eight and a half minutes into the flight.”

“It was great to see a booster come down, but we are obviously bummed out about ship,” SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot said, adding it will take time to analyse the data and figure out what went wrong.

The last data received from Starship indicated an altitude of 90 miles and a velocity of 13,245 mph.

India’s space tech startup Pixxel launched three of its six hyperspectral imaging satellites aboard a SpaceX rocket from California on Tuesday.
The satellites were launched at 1915 GMT, just after midnight in India, from the Vandenberg Space Force Base, a live telecast from SpaceX showed. The launch marks a milestone for the country’s growing private space sector and for Google-backed Pixxel, a five-year-old startup.

The satellites aim to use hyperspectral imaging, a technology that captures highly detailed data across hundreds of light bands to serve industries such as agriculture, mining, environmental monitoring and defence.
Such technology can help deliver insights into improving crop yields in India’s agrarian economy, track resources, monitor oil spills and geographic boundaries in much better details than current technology allows.

The remaining three satellites are expected to be deployed in the second quarter of the year.
The SpaceX rocket is also carrying a satellite from another Indian space company, Diganatara.
“By 2029, the (satellite imagery) market is projected to reach $19 billion. Hyperspectral imaging, which is new, could realistically capture $500 million to $1 billion of this,” Pixxel’s founder and Chief Executive Awais Ahmed told Reuters earlier on Monday.

The startup plans to add 18 more spacecraft to the six it has already developed, Ahmed said, adding that Pixxel has signed up around 65 clients, including Rio Tinto, British Petroleum, and India’s Ministry of Agriculture, with some already paying for data from its demo satellites.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/google-backed-pixxel-successfully-launches-indias-first-private-satellite-2025-01-14/

TikTok plans to keep paying U.S. employees even if the Supreme Court does not overturn a law that would force the sale of the short-video app in the U.S. or ban it, the company’s leadership said in an internal memo reviewed by Reuters on Tuesday.
The hugely popular platform is owned by China-based ByteDance and has 7,000 employees in the U.S.

“I cannot emphasize enough that your wellbeing is a top priority and so most importantly, I want to reinforce that as employees in the US, your employment, pay, and benefits are secure, and our offices will remain open, even if this situation hasn’t been resolved before the January 19 deadline,” the memo to TikTok employees said. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court seemed inclined to uphold the law, which was passed in April, despite calls from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and lawmakers to extend the Jan. 19 deadline.

Trump, whose inauguration takes place the day after the law goes into effect, has said he should have time after taking office to pursue a “political resolution” to the issue.
“Our leadership team remains laser focused on planning for various scenarios and continuing to plan the way forward,” TikTok said in the memo.
“The bill is not written in a way that impacts the entities through which you are employed, only the US user experience,” the company said, adding that it will continue to navigate the situation to protect employees and the more than 170 million TikTok users in the United States.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/tiktok-seeks-reassure-us-employees-ahead-jan-19-ban-deadline-2025-01-15/

When is the end for humankind? Whether it’s by a nuclear holocaust, a result of exceeding a critical climate threshold, at the hands of artificial intelligence-powered robots, or the “Don’t Look Up” asteroid, the question plagues our thoughts, our research, and our Facebook rants.

Now, one theorist warns that the human civilization of 8.2 billion people is at a critical junction: teetering between what he forecasts will be authoritarian collapse and superabundance.

“Industrial civilisation is facing ‘inevitable’ decline as it is replaced by what could turn out to be a far more advanced ‘postmaterialist’ civilisation based on distributed superabundant clean energy. The main challenge is that industrial civilisation is facing such rapid decline that this could derail the emergence of a new and superior ‘life-cycle’ for the human species”, Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, the bestselling author and journalist who is a distinguished fellow at the UK-based Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems, said in a statement.

Ahmed, who has spoken at United Nations summits in recent years, is the author of the paper which was recently published in the journal Foresight.

Gaya Herrington, vice president at Schneider Electric who was not involved in the research, told The Independent that she agrees with all of Ahmed’s big points.

“We live in a historic now-or-never moment, and what we do in the next five years will determine our wellbeing levels for the rest of this century,” she said.

Using scientific literature, the study offers a theory of the rise and fall of civilizations, concluding that humanity is on the brink of the next “giant leap” in evolution, should progress not be thwarted by authoritarianism.

The research concludes that civilizations evolve through a four-stage life-cycle: growth, stability, decline, and eventual transformation. Today’s industrial civilization, he says, is moving through decline.

The increase in authoritarian politics and efforts to protect the fossil fuel industry — which produce the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change — are factors that could jeopardize civilization, Ahmed says. The global decrease in energy return on investment is central to the decline.

Investing in carefully-designed clean energy and new material capabilities like that industry, artificial intelligence, 3D printing and lab-grown agriculture could create new forms of networked superabundance — when there is an abundance of resources available through networks — that protect Earth systems. But, they cannot be governed by old, centralized industrial hierarchies, Ahmed states.

Ultimately, he finds a widening rift between the so-called emerging new system and “industrial operating system,” leading to political and cultural disruption and global crises.

“An amazing new possibility space is emerging, where humanity could provide itself superabundant energy, transport, food, and knowledge without hurting the earth. This could be the next giant leap in human evolution. But if we fail to genuinely evolve as humans by rewiring how we govern these emerging capabilities responsibly and for the benefit of all, they could be our undoing,” he warned. “Instead of evolving, we would regress – if not collapse. The rise in authoritarian and far-right governments around the world, increases this grave risk of collapse.”

In his new book A Darwinian Survival Guide, University of Toronto Professor Daniel Brooks says that while the danger is great and the time is short, humans can make change happen.

His perspective, he told The Independent via email, is that while utopia is unattainable, apocalypse won’t happen even if there is a major collapse of technological humanity. He believes that the world has a “no-technological-solution problem,” and that if there is a collapse around 2050, people who continued business as usual will “all be to blame – regardless of politics, economics, or beliefs – and those who manage to be part of the survivors and rebuilders will all share in the credit.”

“We agree with those who say that we have sufficient technology to solve the problems now and although technological advances are helpful, the accelerating pace of global climate change is outstripping the rate of technological advance – the solution to maintaining technological humanity lies in changing our behavior (not electing anti-science authoritarians would be a good behavioral change at the level of elections, a point with which we agree with Dr. Ahmed),” Brooks wrote, referring to his co-author, Virginia Commonwealth University associate professor Salvatore Agosta.

Ahmed’s paper comes following dire warnings about Earth’s rapidly warming future. Last year, a team of international scientists said that six of Earth’s nine planetary boundaries — that define a safe operating space for humanity — have been crossed.

“This update on planetary boundaries clearly depicts a patient that is unwell, as pressure on the planet increases and vital boundaries are being breached. We don’t know how long we can keep transgressing these key boundaries before combined pressures lead to irreversible change and harm,” said co-author Johan Rockström, the director of the Germany Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Research published earlier this year found that maintaining at least net zero emissions of greenhouse gases, a level that can be absorbed by nature and other carbon dioxide removal methods, is crucial by 2100 to minimize the risk of climate tipping points and to ensure planetary stability.

Source : https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/world-end-apocalypse-human-civilization-collapse-b2678651.html

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) LVM3 rocket will launch in March a communication satellite of a US-based firm AST SpaceMobile that plans to provide space-based cellular broadband network services on smartphones.

“The commercial LVM3-M5 mission, set for March, will deploy BlueBird Block-2 satellites under a contract with the US-based AST SpaceMobile,” an official statement said.

The statement came after Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh reviewed the functioning of the Department of Space with senior officials, including the outgoing ISRO chairman S Somanath, his successor V Narayanan and Pawan Kumar Goenka, Chairman of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe).

V Narayanan, who will succeed S Somanath on January 14, during the meeting outlined a strategic roadmap for expanding the ISRO’s global footprint.

The joint NASA-ISRO satellite – NISAR – and a navigation satellite NVS-02 are set for launch in February on board two separate missions of the GSLV rocket, it added.

With ambitious projects on the horizon, including the first “uncrewed” orbital mission under “Gaganyaan”, India’s space exploration efforts are poised for groundbreaking achievements.

The ISRO has lined up significant missions showcasing technological prowess and international collaboration, which include the launch of Gaganyaan’s uncrewed orbital test mission.

“This critical endeavour will pave the way for India’s human spaceflight program, aiming to validate systems for crew safety and recovery,” the statement said.

In addition, two GSLV missions, a commercial launch of LVM3 and the much-anticipated ISRO-NASA collaboration on the NISAR satellite are slated for the coming months.

The GSLV-F15 mission in January will carry the NVS-02 navigation satellite to augment the NavIC constellation, bolstering India’s positioning and navigation capabilities with indigenously developed atomic clocks.

In February, the GSLV-F16 mission will launch NISAR, a sophisticated Earth observation satellite co-developed with NASA.

Equipped with advanced radar imaging technology, NISAR will provide critical data on agriculture, natural disasters and climate monitoring.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/isro-to-launch-communication-satellite-of-us-based-firm-ast-spacemobile-7438311

A new facility could eventually allow humans to ‘pause’ their bodies until the future arrives.

TimeShift describes itself as the world’s first cryopreservation facility and is based on cutting-edge AI and new cryopreservation techniques.

If the idea comes to fruition, cryopreservation could allow cancer patients to ‘freeze’ themselves until medicine advances, or allow humans to ‘outlive’ the apocalypse – as seen in Futurama.

AI could also be utilised to help an ‘avatar’ of the frozen person’s likeness speak with their family and friends while their real body is frozen.

The facility has been proposed by Dr Alex Zhavoronkov, a generative AI scientist and anti-ageing researcher, and Hashem Al-Ghaili, a molecular biologist.

Hashem said: ‘The project is still in the R&D phase. The primary focus right now is to continue optimising the cryopreservation process developed by Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov.

‘Once fully optimised, we plan to test it on animal models and proceed from there.

‘Traditional cryopreservation methods are ineffective and lead to cell death; however, the new method is designed to avoid this problem.

‘After optimising the process, the next step will involve testing its efficacy and safety. There is no specific timeframe, but if everything goes as planned, a functional prototype could be ready within 5 to 8 years.’

TimeShift also hopes to offer ‘pre-hibernation enhancements’, which could allow those frozen to wake up healthier.

Dr Alex Zhavoronkov said: ‘Over the past 10 years, multiple technologies have advanced in different laboratories around the world, and it is now a matter of multi-parameter optimisation for rapid cryogenic freezing and rewarming protocol.

‘Getting to the dream of gaining the ability to see more life is now a matter of time.’

Hashem Al-Ghaili added: ‘By combining AI and cryopreservation, we’re making it possible for families to remain close, even across decades.”

Source : https://metro.co.uk/2025/01/08/soon-freeze-body-outlive-apocalyptic-disaster-22320089/

Miles beneath the Pacific Ocean, in a region of Earth’s mantle where conventional wisdom says nothing unusual should exist, scientists have discovered something extraordinary. Using innovative technology to analyze seismic waves, researchers have identified massive structures that challenge fundamental theories about how our planet formed and evolved. It’s as if we’ve discovered a new geological continent – not on Earth’s surface, but deep within it.

Just as doctors use ultrasound waves to peer inside the human body without surgery, geophysicists employ seismic waves from earthquakes to study Earth’s deep interior. When earthquakes occur, they send waves in all directions through the planet. These waves travel at different speeds depending on the materials they encounter, getting bent, bounced, and scattered along the way. By recording these waves at seismic stations worldwide, scientists can create images of structures deep within Earth, much like creating a medical scan of our planet.

For decades, this technique revealed fast-moving wave patterns primarily beneath areas where tectonic plates collide and one plate dives beneath another – a process called subduction. These patterns were thought to be the remains of ancient tectonic plates that had sunk into Earth’s mantle, the layer between the crust and core. However, the earth-shattering new study, published in Scientific Reports, has uncovered something unexpected.

Using one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, the Piz Daint at CSCS in Lugano, researchers from ETH Zurich and the California Institute of Technology have discovered similar wave patterns in places where they shouldn’t exist – beneath vast oceans and continental interiors, far from any known plate boundaries. “Apparently, such zones in the Earth’s mantle are much more widespread than previously thought,” says Thomas Schouten, the study’s lead author and doctoral student at ETH Zurich’s Geological Institute, in a statement.

The key to this discovery lies in a sophisticated technique called full-waveform inversion (FWI). Unlike traditional methods that analyze only specific types of seismic waves, FWI examines entire seismograms, capturing a more complete picture of Earth’s interior. This comprehensive approach requires enormous computational power but provides unprecedented detail.

The most striking finding emerged beneath the western Pacific Ocean, where researchers identified a massive anomaly between 900 and 1,200 kilometers depth. According to current plate tectonic theories, this material couldn’t have come from subducted plates because the region has no recent history of subduction zones.

ETH professor Andreas Fichtner, who developed the computer model, draws a medical parallel: “It’s like a doctor who has been examining blood circulation with ultrasound for decades and finds arteries exactly where he expects them. Then if you give him a new, better examination tool, he suddenly sees an artery in the buttock that doesn’t really belong there. That’s exactly how we feel about the new findings.”

The discovery suggests these deep Earth structures might have diverse origins, Schouten explains. They could be ancient silica-rich material that has survived since the mantle’s formation about 4 billion years ago, despite continuous churning movements. Alternatively, they might be zones where iron-rich rocks have accumulated over billions of years due to these mantle movements.

The research team emphasizes that current models only show wave speed patterns, which alone cannot fully explain Earth’s complex interior. Future research will need to delve deeper into the material properties creating these patterns, requiring even more sophisticated models and computational power.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/massive-structures-deep-beneath-pacific-ocean-mantle/

The Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) satellites, which ISRO planned to unite early Thursday, faced an unexpected issue late Wednesday, forcing it to postpone the procedure for the second time in just three days. “While making a maneuver to reach 225m between satellites, the drift was found to be more than expected, post non-visibility period. The planned docking for tomorrow (January 9) is postponed. Satellites are safe,” ISRO announced at around 9 pm on Wednesday.
The drift maneuver for the chaser satellite — one of the two satellites designated as chaser and target — began at 8:05 pm. Since their launch on December 30, ISRO has been meticulously preparing for the docking, which involves a series of complex steps. Each stage has been closely monitored from the ground, with clearance required before moving to the next phase.
This latest delay comes just days after ISRO had rescheduled the first docking attempt. On January 6, the agency identified a need for further ground simulation validations based on an abort scenario and moved the docking attempt to January 9.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/india/isros-spadex-docking-attempt-hits-another-hurdle-delayed-2nd-time-in-3-days-article-117061967

Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly planning to add a new feature that allows users to attach photos to polls. By adding the ability to attach photos to poll options, voters will have a visual representation of each choice, making it easier to understand and evaluate the options before casting their vote.
This feature is helpful when text isn’t enough, and visuals can add clarity. According to the report from WABetaInfo, a website that tracks WhatsApp, Channel owners will be able to add a photo to each poll option. For example, channels about design, travel, or food can use images for poll choices, making it easier for followers to decide
“It appears WhatsApp is continuing to enhance the polls feature by developing new options to further boost engagement. Thanks to the latest WhatsApp beta for Android 2.25.1.17 update, which is available on the Google Play Store, we discovered that WhatsApp is working on a feature to assign photos to poll options in channels,” the report said.

The report also revealed that if you add a photo to one poll option, you’ll need to add photos to all the other options too. This keeps the poll consistent and ensures every choice is shown equally. It also avoids confusion by presenting all options in the same format, making it easier for voters to compare them.

Initially, the ability to assign photos to poll options will be exclusive to channels, likely to enable WhatsApp to refine the feature within a controlled environment before expanding it to group chats and individual conversations in the future.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/whatsapp-may-soon-allow-users-to-add-images-to-polls-here-is-how-article-117040662

Social media company Meta Platforms (META.O), on Tuesday scrapped its U.S. fact-checking program and reduced curbs on discussions around contentious topics such as immigration and gender identity, bowing to criticism from conservatives as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office for a second time.
The move is Meta’s biggest overhaul of its approach to managing political content on its services in recent memory and comes as CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been signaling a desire to mend fences with the incoming administration.

The changes will affect Facebook, Instagram and Threads, three of the world’s biggest social media platforms with more than 3 billion users globally.
Last week, Meta elevated Republican policy executive Joel Kaplan as global affairs head and on Monday announced it had elected Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship and a close friend of Trump, to its board.
“We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. It’s time to get back to our roots around free expression,” Zuckerberg said in a video.

He acknowledged the role of the recent U.S. elections in his thinking, saying they “feel like a cultural tipping point, towards once again prioritizing speech.”
When asked about the changes at a press conference, Trump welcomed them. “They have come a long way – Meta. The man (Zuckerberg) was very impressive,” he said.
Asked if he thought Zuckerberg was responding to his threats, which have included a pledge to imprison the CEO, Trump said “probably.”

In place of a formal fact-checking program to address dubious claims posted on Meta’s platforms, Zuckerberg instead plans to implement a system of “community notes” similar to that used on Elon Musk-owned social media platform X.
Meta also will stop proactively scanning for hate speech and other types of rule-breaking, reviewing such posts only in response to user reports, Zuckerberg said. It will focus its automated systems on removing “high-severity violations” like terrorism, child exploitation, scams and drugs.
The company will move teams overseeing the writing and review of content policies out of California to Texas and other U.S. locations, he added.
Meta has been working on the shift away from fact-checking for more than a year, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters.
It has not shared relocation plans with employees, however, prompting confused posts on the app Blind, which provides a space for employees to share information anonymously.
Most of Meta’s U.S. content moderation is already performed outside California, another source told Reuters.
Kaplan, who appeared on the “Fox & Friends” program on Tuesday morning to address the changes, offered Meta employees only a summary of his public statements in a post on the company’s internal forum Workplace, which was seen by Reuters.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment on planning for the changes or say which specific teams would be leaving California. The spokesperson also declined to cite examples of mistakes or bias on the part of fact-checkers.

CAUGHT BY SURPRISE

The demise of the fact-checking program, started in 2016, caught partner organizations by surprise.
“We’ve learned the news as everyone has today. It’s a hard hit for the fact-checking community and journalism. We’re assessing the situation,” AFP said in a statement provided to Reuters.
The head of the International Fact-Checking Network, Angie Drobnic Holan, challenged Zuckerberg’s characterization of its members as biased or censorious.
“Fact-checking journalism has never censored or removed posts; it’s added information and context to controversial claims, and it’s debunked hoax content and conspiracies,” she said in a statement.
Kristin Roberts, Gannett Media’s chief content officer, said “truth and facts serve everyone — not the right or the left — and that’s what we will continue to deliver.”
Other partners did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while Reuters declined to comment. Meta’s independent Oversight Board welcomed the move.
Zuckerberg in recent months has expressed regret over certain content moderation actions on topics including COVID-19. Meta also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, in a departure from its past practice.
“This is a major step back for content moderation at a time when disinformation and harmful content are evolving faster than ever,” said Ross Burley, co-founder of the nonprofit Centre for Information Resilience.
“This move seems more about political appeasement than smart policy.”
For now, Meta is planning the changes only for the U.S. market, with no immediate plans to end its fact-checking program in places like the European Union which take a more active approach to regulation of tech companies, a spokesperson said.
Musk’s X is already under European Commission investigation over issues including the “Community Notes” system.
The Commission began its probe in December 2023, several months after X launched the feature. A Commission spokesperson said it had taken note of Meta’s announcement and was continuing to monitor the company’s compliance in the EU.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-ends-third-party-fact-checking-program-adopts-x-like-community-notes-model-2025-01-07/

A Q&A with the lead U.S. scientist of the mission, which will track changes in everything from wetlands to ice sheets to infrastructure damaged by natural disasters.

The upcoming U.S.-India NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission will observe Earth like no mission before, offering insights about our planet’s ever-changing surface.

The NISAR mission is a first-of-a-kind dual-band radar satellite that will measure land deformation from earthquakes, landslides, and volcanoes, producing data for science and disaster response. It will track how much glaciers and ice sheets are advancing or retreating and it will monitor growth and loss of forests and wetlands for insights on the global carbon cycle.

As diverse as NISAR’s impact will be, the mission’s winding path to launch — in a few months’ time — has also been remarkable. Paul Rosen, NISAR’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, has been there at every step. He recently discussed the mission and what sets it apart.

How will NISAR improve our understanding of Earth?

The planet’s surfaces never stop changing — in some ways small and subtle, and in other ways monumental and sudden. With NISAR, we’ll measure that change roughly every week, with each pixel capturing an area about half the size of a tennis court. Taking imagery of nearly all Earth’s land and ice surfaces this frequently and at such a small scale — down to the centimeter — will help us put the pieces together into one coherent picture to create a story about the planet as a living system.

What sets NISAR apart from other Earth missions?

NISAR will be the first Earth-observing satellite with two kinds of radar — an L-band system with a 10-inch (25-centimeter) wavelength and an S-band system with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) wavelength.

Whether microwaves reflect or penetrate an object depends on their wavelength. Shorter wavelengths are more sensitive to smaller objects such as leaves and rough surfaces, whereas longer wavelengths are more reactive with larger structures like boulders and tree trunks.

So NISAR’s two radar signals will react differently to some features on Earth’s surface. By taking advantage of what each signal is or isn’t sensitive to, researchers can study a broader range of features than they could with either radar on its own, observing the same features with different wavelengths.

Is this new technology?

The concept of a spaceborne synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, studying Earth’s processes dates to the 1970s, when NASA launched Seasat. Though the mission lasted only a few months, it produced first-of-a-kind images that changed the remote-sensing landscape for decades to come.

It also drew me to JPL in 1981 as a college student: I spent two summers analyzing data from the mission. Seasat led to NASA’s Shuttle Imaging Radar program and later to the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission.

What will happen to the data from the mission?

Our data products will fit the needs of users across the mission’s science focus areas — ecosystems, cryosphere, and solid Earth — plus have many uses beyond basic research like soil-moisture and water resources monitoring.

We’ll make the data easily accessible. Given the volume of the data, NASA decided that it would be processed and stored in the cloud, where it’ll be free to access.

How did the ISRO partnership come about?

We proposed DESDynI (Deformation, Ecosystem Structure, and Dynamics of Ice), an L-band satellite, following the 2007 Decadal Survey by the National Academy of Sciences. At the time, ISRO was exploring launching an S-band satellite. The two science teams proposed a dual-band mission, and in 2014 NASA and ISRO agreed to partner on NISAR.

Since then, the agencies have been collaborating across more than 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) and 13 time zones. Hardware was built on different continents before being assembled in India to complete the satellite. It’s been a long journey — literally.

More About NISAR

The NISAR mission is an equal collaboration between NASA and ISRO and marks the first time the two agencies have cooperated on hardware development for an Earth-observing mission. Managed for the agency by Caltech, JPL leads the U.S. component of the project and is providing the mission’s L-band SAR. NASA is also providing the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem.

Source : https://www.nasa.gov/missions/nisar/how-us-indian-nisar-satellite-will-offer-unique-window-on-earth/

The carbon atoms in your body have likely traveled much farther than you have, possibly hundreds of thousands of light-years into space and back. A new study reveals how galaxies, including our own Milky Way, operate vast recycling systems that send star-forged elements like carbon on epic journeys through space before they eventually become part of planets, and even living things.

Life as we know it depends entirely on elements created inside stars. Nearly all atoms heavier than helium — including the carbon in our DNA, the oxygen we breathe, and the iron in our blood — were forged in stellar furnaces and scattered across space when those stars died. But rather than drifting aimlessly through space, these life-essential elements appear to travel on massive conveyor belt-like currents extending far beyond their galaxies of origin.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, lead author Samantha Garza’s international research team studied this galactic recycling system — known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM) — by examining how light from distant quasars was affected by the gas surrounding closer galaxies. They specifically tracked triply-ionized carbon, a form of carbon that has lost three electrons, serving as an important marker of the CGM’s composition and conditions.

“Think of the circumgalactic medium as a giant train station: It is constantly pushing material out and pulling it back in,” explains Garza, a University of Washington doctoral candidate, in a statement. “The heavy elements that stars make get pushed out of their host galaxy and into the circumgalactic medium through their explosive supernovae deaths, where they can eventually get pulled back in and continue the cycle of star and planet formation.”

The research, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, revealed a striking difference between active star-forming galaxies and their quieter counterparts. Among galaxies still actively forming stars, 72% showed significant amounts of carbon in their surrounding halos. In contrast, only 23% of passive galaxies — those that had largely stopped forming stars — displayed similar carbon signatures. In some cases, researchers detected carbon extending almost 400,000 light-years into space, four times the diameter of our own galaxy.

“The implications for galaxy evolution, and for the nature of the reservoir of carbon available to galaxies for forming new stars, are exciting,” says Jessica Werk, UW professor and chair of the Department of Astronomy. “The same carbon in our bodies most likely spent a significant amount of time outside of the galaxy!”

This pattern mirrors a similar phenomenon previously discovered for another element, oxygen, suggesting that the relationship between a galaxy’s star formation activity and its recycling system is fundamental to galactic evolution. The presence or absence of these highly ionized elements provides crucial clues about how galaxies maintain their ability to form new stars — and eventually planets that could support life.

Understanding this cosmic recycling system could help explain why galaxies eventually cease forming stars. If the cycle of pushing material out and pulling it back in slows down or breaks down, a galaxy may lose its fuel source for creating new stars.

The team calculated that these galactic halos contain massive amounts of carbon — at least 3 million times the mass of our Sun. This substantial reservoir exists within a radius of about 120,000 light-years from each galaxy’s center, highlighting the vast scale of these galactic recycling systems and their potential role in seeding the universe with the building blocks of life.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/your-atoms-journey-through-space/

Imagine a device that could sniff out mechanical damage in apples before bruising appears, detect diseases through a patient’s breath, monitor food freshness in real-time across entire supply chains, and identify hazardous gases in industrial settings — all using technology similar to what’s already in your smartphone. Scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have developed just such a device: a revolutionary electronic nose that achieves with a single sensor what typically requires hundreds.

This breakthrough, dubbed the “Ant-nose,” could transform how we monitor everything from food safety to environmental hazards, while being significantly simpler and less expensive than existing systems. What makes this development particularly remarkable is that it leverages familiar antenna technology — the same basic principle that helps our phones and computers communicate — to create an artificial sense of smell that in some ways surpasses both human and canine olfactory abilities.

Researchers believe the Ant-nose could match or exceed both human and canine olfactory abilities, using technology that’s already present in our homes. Their findings are published in the journal Sensors and Actuators: B. Chemical.

“We are literally surrounded by technology that communicates using antenna technology,” says Michael Cheffena, professor of telecommunications at NTNU, in a statement. The ubiquity of antennas in our everyday devices, from mobile phones to computers and TVs, creates an existing infrastructure that could be leveraged for this new sensing technology.

Traditional electronic noses, or e-noses, were inspired by how mammals smell. They usually need arrays of different sensors, sometimes hundreds of them, each coated with distinct materials to detect various gases. “Other electronic noses can have several hundred sensors, often each coated with different materials,” Cheffena explains. “This makes them both very power-intensive to operate and expensive to manufacture. They also entail high material consumption. In contrast, the antenna sensor consists of only one antenna with one type of coating.”

The Ant-nose works by transmitting radio signals at various frequencies and analyzing how they’re reflected back. These reflections create unique patterns based on the gases present, similar to chemical fingerprints. The device can detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs), gases that readily evaporate at low temperatures. These compounds are present throughout our environment — from the pleasant scent of freshly cut grass (which plants emit for protection and communication) to gasoline fumes.

One of the device’s notable capabilities is its ability to distinguish between isomers – chemical compounds that Yu Dang, the study’s lead author, describes as being “a bit like twins: very similar, yet not identical.” The Ant-nose demonstrates remarkable accuracy in differentiating these molecularly similar compounds, achieving a 96.7% accuracy rate in distinguishing between six different VOCs, including pairs of isomers.

The research suggests several potential applications across industries. The Ant-nose could potentially assist in food quality monitoring, industrial safety, and environmental protection. Its ability to maintain stable communication while sensing makes it particularly interesting for integration into existing sensor networks.

In laboratory tests, researchers demonstrated the Ant-nose’s practical utility. They used it to assess apple damage by monitoring chemical emissions after applying pressure similar to what fruit might experience during shipping. The device successfully distinguished between damaged and undamaged apples, suggesting potential applications in food transport monitoring.

The team expanded their testing to evaluate food freshness, examining strawberries, grapes, and pork samples. The device proved capable of detecting the chemical changes that occur as food ages, successfully differentiating between fresh items and those stored for five days.

The researchers envision future medical applications for this technology. “Volatile organic compounds enable trained dogs to detect health-threatening changes in blood sugar and diseases like cancer, so the principle is largely the same,” says Dang. Unlike detection dogs, which require months of specialized training, the Ant-nose could potentially offer a more accessible solution for disease detection, though this application requires further research and validation.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/artificial-nose-spoiled-food-deadly-gases/

The draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025, published by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on January 3, introduces measures aimed at protecting the personal data of children.

These draft rules are part of a broader legislative framework established by the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, which was cleared by Parliament in August 2023.

The government has sought objections and suggestions from stakeholders on the rules by February 18, 2025.

Artificial intelligence has shown remarkable promise in healthcare, from reading X-rays to suggesting treatment plans. But when it comes to actually talking to patients and making accurate diagnoses through conversation — a cornerstone of medical practice — AI still has significant limitations, according to new research from Harvard Medical School and Stanford University.

Published in Nature Medicine, the study introduces an innovative testing framework called CRAFT-MD (Conversational Reasoning Assessment Framework for Testing in Medicine) to evaluate how well large language models (LLMs) perform in simulated doctor-patient interactions. As patients increasingly turn to AI tools like ChatGPT to interpret symptoms and medical test results, understanding these systems’ real-world capabilities becomes crucial.

“Our work reveals a striking paradox — while these AI models excel at medical board exams, they struggle with the basic back-and-forth of a doctor’s visit,” explains study senior author Pranav Rajpurkar, assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School. “The dynamic nature of medical conversations – the need to ask the right questions at the right time, to piece together scattered information, and to reason through symptoms – poses unique challenges that go far beyond answering multiple choice questions.”

The research team, led by senior authors Rajpurkar and Roxana Daneshjou of Stanford University, evaluated four prominent AI models across 2,000 medical cases spanning 12 specialties. Current evaluation methods typically rely on multiple-choice medical exam questions, which present information in a structured format. However, study co-first author Shreya Johri notes that “in the real world this process is far messier.”

Testing conducted through CRAFT-MD revealed stark performance differences between traditional evaluations and more realistic scenarios. In four-choice multiple-choice questions (MCQs), GPT-4’s diagnostic accuracy dropped from 82% when reading prepared case summaries to 63% when gathering information through dialogue. This decline became even more pronounced in open-ended scenarios without multiple-choice options, where accuracy fell to 49% with written summaries and 26% during simulated patient interviews.

The AI models demonstrated particular difficulty synthesizing information from multiple conversation exchanges. Common problems included missing critical details during patient history-taking, failing to ask appropriate follow-up questions, and struggling to integrate various types of information, such as combining visual data from medical images with patient-reported symptoms.

CRAFT-MD’s efficiency highlights another advantage of the framework: it can process 10,000 conversations in 48-72 hours, plus 15-16 hours of expert evaluation. Traditional human-based evaluations would require extensive recruitment and approximately 500 hours for patient simulations and 650 hours for expert assessments.

“As a physician scientist, I am interested in AI models that can augment clinical practice effectively and ethically,” says Daneshjou, assistant professor of Biomedical Data Science and Dermatology at Stanford University. “CRAFT-MD creates a framework that more closely mirrors real-world interactions and thus it helps move the field forward when it comes to testing AI model performance in health care.”

Based on these findings, the researchers provided comprehensive recommendations for AI development and regulation. These include creating models capable of handling unstructured conversations, better integration of various data types (text, images, and clinical measurements), and the ability to interpret non-verbal communication cues. They also emphasize the importance of combining AI-based evaluation with human expert assessment to ensure thorough testing while avoiding premature exposure of real patients to unverified systems.

The study demonstrates that while AI shows promise in healthcare, current systems require significant advancement before they can reliably engage in the complex, dynamic nature of real doctor-patient interactions. For now, these tools may best serve as supplements to, rather than replacements for, human medical expertise.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/critical-flaws-in-medical-ai-systems-exposed/

A Data Fiduciary will have to ensure verifiable consent of the parent before the processing of any personal data of a child, according to the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 which have been published by the Central Government on Friday.

This will doubly ensure the privacy of a child on various social media platforms and other websites.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 was passed by the Parliament in 2023. The draft rules, once finalised and notified, will come into force. The Centre has set a deadline of February 18, 2025, for the public to comment and send their feedback over the draft rules.

As per the draft, the Data Fiduciary shall adopt appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure that verifiable consent of the parent is obtained before the processing of any personal data of a child. The Data Fiduciary would also observe due diligence, for checking that the individual identifying herself as the parent is an adult who is identifiable.

The draft rules have illustrated four scenarios in this regard where C is a child, P is her parent, and DF is a Data Fiduciary. A user account of C is sought to be created on the online platform of DF, by processing the personal data of C.

Case 1

C informs DF that she is a child. DF shall enable C’s parent to identify herself through its website, app or other appropriate means. P identifies herself as the parent and informs DF that she is a registered user on DF’s platform and has previously made available her identity and age details to DF. Before processing C’s personal data for the creation of her user account, DF shall check to confirm that it holds reliable identity and age details of P.

Case 2

C informs DF that she is a child. DF shall enable C’s parent to identify herself through its website, app or other appropriate means. P identifies herself as the parent and informs DF that she herself is not a registered user on DF’s platform. Before processing C’s personal data for the creation of her user account, DF shall, by reference to identity and age details issued by an entity entrusted by law or the Government with maintenance of the said details or to a virtual token mapped to the same, check that P is an identifiable adult.

P may voluntarily make such details available using the services of a Digital Locker service provider.

Case 3

P identifies herself as C’s parent and informs DF that she is a registered user on DF’s platform and has previously made available her identity and age details to DF. Before processing C’s personal data for the creation of her user account, DF shall check to confirm that it holds reliable identity and age details of P.

Source : https://www.news18.com/india/children-need-consent-of-parents-to-open-social-media-account-centre-in-draft-rules-for-data-protection-act-9176602.html

Artificial intelligence has shown remarkable promise in healthcare, from reading X-rays to suggesting treatment plans. But when it comes to actually talking to patients and making accurate diagnoses through conversation — a cornerstone of medical practice — AI still has significant limitations, according to new research from Harvard Medical School and Stanford University.

Published in Nature Medicine, the study introduces an innovative testing framework called CRAFT-MD (Conversational Reasoning Assessment Framework for Testing in Medicine) to evaluate how well large language models (LLMs) perform in simulated doctor-patient interactions. As patients increasingly turn to AI tools like ChatGPT to interpret symptoms and medical test results, understanding these systems’ real-world capabilities becomes crucial.

“Our work reveals a striking paradox — while these AI models excel at medical board exams, they struggle with the basic back-and-forth of a doctor’s visit,” explains study senior author Pranav Rajpurkar, assistant professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School. “The dynamic nature of medical conversations – the need to ask the right questions at the right time, to piece together scattered information, and to reason through symptoms – poses unique challenges that go far beyond answering multiple choice questions.”

The research team, led by senior authors Rajpurkar and Roxana Daneshjou of Stanford University, evaluated four prominent AI models across 2,000 medical cases spanning 12 specialties. Current evaluation methods typically rely on multiple-choice medical exam questions, which present information in a structured format. However, study co-first author Shreya Johri notes that “in the real world this process is far messier.”

Testing conducted through CRAFT-MD revealed stark performance differences between traditional evaluations and more realistic scenarios. In four-choice multiple-choice questions (MCQs), GPT-4’s diagnostic accuracy dropped from 82% when reading prepared case summaries to 63% when gathering information through dialogue. This decline became even more pronounced in open-ended scenarios without multiple-choice options, where accuracy fell to 49% with written summaries and 26% during simulated patient interviews.

The AI models demonstrated particular difficulty synthesizing information from multiple conversation exchanges. Common problems included missing critical details during patient history-taking, failing to ask appropriate follow-up questions, and struggling to integrate various types of information, such as combining visual data from medical images with patient-reported symptoms.

CRAFT-MD’s efficiency highlights another advantage of the framework: it can process 10,000 conversations in 48-72 hours, plus 15-16 hours of expert evaluation. Traditional human-based evaluations would require extensive recruitment and approximately 500 hours for patient simulations and 650 hours for expert assessments.

“As a physician scientist, I am interested in AI models that can augment clinical practice effectively and ethically,” says Daneshjou, assistant professor of Biomedical Data Science and Dermatology at Stanford University. “CRAFT-MD creates a framework that more closely mirrors real-world interactions and thus it helps move the field forward when it comes to testing AI model performance in health care.”

Based on these findings, the researchers provided comprehensive recommendations for AI development and regulation. These include creating models capable of handling unstructured conversations, better integration of various data types (text, images, and clinical measurements), and the ability to interpret non-verbal communication cues. They also emphasize the importance of combining AI-based evaluation with human expert assessment to ensure thorough testing while avoiding premature exposure of real patients to unverified systems.

The study demonstrates that while AI shows promise in healthcare, current systems require significant advancement before they can reliably engage in the complex, dynamic nature of real doctor-patient interactions. For now, these tools may best serve as supplements to, rather than replacements for, human medical expertise.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/critical-flaws-in-medical-ai-systems-exposed/

When it comes to mobile phone radiation, living in a city with abundant cell towers might actually reduce your exposure. This seemingly paradoxical conclusion emerges from new research examining how 5G technology is changing our electromagnetic environment across urban and rural landscapes.

Switzerland, an early adopter of 5G technology in Europe, provided an ideal testing ground for this research. After introducing new frequency bands in 2019, including the crucial 3.5 GHz band used by 5G networks, the country became perfectly positioned to study how these advanced networks influence our daily exposure to electromagnetic fields.

Modern 5G networks employ sophisticated antenna systems that function quite differently from previous cellular technologies. These systems, called massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (Ma-MIMO) antennas, can direct focused beams of signal precisely toward users’ devices. Consider it like a spotlight following an actor on stage rather than flooding the entire theater with light. This targeted approach, known as beamforming, marks a significant shift from older cellular networks that broadcast signals more uniformly across wide areas.

The research team, part of Project GOLIAT, collected measurements across two major Swiss cities (Zurich and Basel) and three rural villages (Hergiswil, Willisau, and Dagmersellen). In their baseline measurements, taken with phones in airplane mode, they found that exposure levels increased with population density. Rural villages experienced average exposure levels of 0.17 milliwatts per square meter (mW/m²), while the cities of Basel and Zurich recorded higher averages of 0.33 and 0.48 mW/m² respectively.

“The highest levels were found in urban business areas and public transport, which were still more than a hundred times below the international guideline values,” says study senior author Martin Röösli, a researcher at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, in a statement.

When researchers simulated intensive data usage by downloading large files repeatedly, exposure levels increased significantly to averages of 6-7 mW/m². This increase was particularly noticeable in urban areas, where 5G networks use beamforming to direct stronger signals to active devices.

The most compelling findings emerged during tests of maximum upload speeds, where devices continuously sent large files to the network. During these tests, exposure levels reached an average of 16 mW/m² in cities but jumped to 29 mW/m² in villages. This unexpected result occurs because phones in rural areas must work harder to maintain connections with distant cell towers.

“We have to keep in mind that in our study the phone was about 30 cm away from the measuring device, which means that our results might underestimate the real exposure,” says study lead author Adriana Fernandes Veludo. “A mobile phone user will hold the phone closer to the body and thus the exposure to RF-EMF could be up to 10 times higher.”

“Environmental exposure is lower when base station density is low. However, in such a situation, the emission from mobile phones is by orders of magnitude higher,” This creates what Veludo describes as a paradoxical situation. “This has the paradoxical consequence that a typical mobile phone user is more exposed to RF-EMF in areas with low base station density.”

As this research expands beyond Switzerland’s borders to nine more European nations, scientists will track how different approaches to 5G implementation affect electromagnetic exposure levels. Their findings will help inform the ongoing debate about optimal cellular network design and its implications for public health.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/how-5g-networks-reshaping-exposure-to-mobile-phone-radiation/

India is all set to launch a massive American communications satellite that would allow making phone calls using direct connectivity from space. This is a highly innovative and a more modern approach to satellite telephony than the existing services.

This is also the first time an American company is launching a massive communications satellite from India in a dedicated launch on an Indian rocket. Till date, India has only launched small satellites made by American entities.

India’s Science Minister Dr Jitendra Singh disclosed that “In February or March we will be launching a US satellite for mobile communication, this satellite will enable voice communication on mobile phones. It will be an interesting mission”.

While neither the minister nor Indian space agency ISRO confirmed who the American satellite operator is, experts confirm that it is AST SpaceMobile, a Texas-based company is hoping to launch its big communication satellite from Sriharikota.

The US company has asserted that one can use any smartphone to make voice calls using their services. Most other current satellite-based Internet and voice providers ask subscribers to buy special handsets or have special terminals like Starlink does.

American media had reported that Abel Avellan, the CEO of AST SpaceMobile, had confirmed in an investor call last year by announcing that they will use the Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) to launch a single Block 2 of the Bluebird satellite.

NDTV has reached out to AST SpaceMobile for a statement. No response came in till the time the story was filed.

Each Bluebird satellite will have an antenna of the size of 64 square meters or about half the size of a football field. The satellite will weigh nearly 6000 kilograms and India’s rocket will put it in a low Earth orbit.

In an earlier statement, Abel Avellan said they “invented a technology that connects satellites directly to ordinary cell phones and provides broadband internet through the largest ever commercial phase array in low Earth orbit”.

AST SpaceMobile’s mission, he added, is to close the global connectivity gap and digitally transform nations by bringing “affordable 5G broadband service from space to billions of people worldwide, direct to everyday smartphones”.

An ISRO expert said this satellite will enable “direct to mobile communication” and the company is hoping to place some massive satellites in the Earth’s orbit to power this path-breaking technology.
ISRO experts confirmed that AST SpaceMobile has hired the services of India’s Bahuballi rocket or the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 for launching the Bluebird satellite.

It is a huge boost for ISRO since now even American companies are having faith in India’s LVM-3 which has a one hundred percent success record.

Before this there have been two dedicated commercial launches of LVM-3 to hoist satellites for the OneWeb constellation, where Bharti Enterprises have a big stake, the same group also owns Indian telecom service Airtel.

This new satellite-based direct to mobile connectivity will be in direct competition to the existing providers like Starlink and Oneweb, both of which use massive constellations (satellite network) to provide broadband Internet connectivity.

In contrast, an ISRO expert said since AST SpaceMobile wants to deploy massive satellites they could make do with a slightly smaller constellation.

AST SpaceMobile asserts its technology is “designed to connect directly to mobile phones by becoming a pioneer as we create the first and only space-based cellular broadband network”.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/us-satellite-launch-by-isro-may-make-phone-calls-directly-via-space-a-reality-7378668

“Private autopsy doesn’t confirm cause of death stated by police.”

The family of Suchir Balaji, the 26-year-old OpenAI whistleblower who was found dead just a month after his New York Times exposé was published, is claiming that the young man was murdered.

An account that appears to belong to Balaji’s mother Poornima Ramarao — shortened to “Rao” online — said in a post on X-formerly-Twitter that a private investigator’s probe has led the family to believe that the young whistleblower did not commit suicide as officials allege.

“We hired private investigator and did second autopsy to throw light on cause of death,” Ramarao tweeted. “Private autopsy doesn’t confirm cause of death stated by police.”

“Suchir’s apartment was ransacked,” she continued, adding that there was some “sign of struggle in the bathroom and looks like some one hit him in bathroom based on blood spots.”

The account, which has shared photos of Balaji that hadn’t previously been seen in the press and a GoFundMe for the private investigation efforts, went on to suggest that the city of San Francisco is covering up a “cold blooded” murder.

After calling for an FBI investigation, the Rao account then tagged Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — and actually got a response from Musk himself.

“This doesn’t seem like a suicide,” the X owner and OpenAI cofounder wrote.

Pressing Matter

In the wake of Balaji’s death, Ramarao has spoken out online and in the press about her son and her suspicions — though for the most part, her missives have not made waves stateside.

Earlier in December, Business Insider published an interview with the grieving mother, who described her son’s precocious interest in math and artificial intelligence, his disillusionment and ultimate exit from OpenAI, and the debacle she endured when trying to get answers about his death.

According to Ramarao, Balaji had been on vacation with friends to celebrate his 26th birthday just before being found dead in his apartment. She claims she was the one to call the police when she hadn’t heard from him upon his return from his trip, and that she waited outside the apartment for hours only to learn of Balaji’s death when a medical examiner’s van arrived on the scene with a stretcher.

“They didn’t give the news to me,” Ramarao told BI. “I’m still sitting there thinking, ‘My son is traveling. He’s gone somewhere.’ It’s such a pathetic moment.”

Source : https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-whistleblower-suchir-balaji-mother-murder-claims

Study pinpoints the percentage of daily calories individuals should consume in their morning meal

Mom always said breakfast was the most important meal of the day. As it turns out, she was right—but with a catch. New research suggests that when it comes to our morning meal, both portion size and nutritional quality play crucial roles in maintaining good health, especially for older adults at risk for heart disease.

While research has shown that skipping breakfast is linked to poorer overall diet quality and higher cardiometabolic risk, Spanish researchers wanted to explore an understudied area: how both the calorie intake and dietary quality of breakfast might affect cardiovascular health over time.

“Promoting healthy breakfast habits can contribute to healthy aging by reducing the risk of metabolic syndrome and associated chronic diseases, thereby improving quality of life,” says Karla-Alejandra Pérez-Vega, a researcher at Hospital del Mar and CIBER for Obesity and Nutrition, in a statement.

How breakfast influences overall health

The investigation was part of the larger PREDIMED-Plus trial, which studies the effects of Mediterranean diet and lifestyle interventions on cardiovascular health.

The study included 383 adults aged 55-75 who were participating in the trial at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute in Barcelona. All participants had metabolic syndrome—a cluster of conditions including high blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol levels that together increase risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. They were also following a weight-loss lifestyle intervention based on the Mediterranean diet.

For three years, researchers tracked these individuals’ breakfast habits and health markers. They discovered something fascinating: people who ate either too little (less than 20% of their daily calories) or too much (more than 30%) at breakfast tended to fare worse than those who hit the sweet spot of 20-30% of their daily caloric intake during their morning meal.

By the study’s end, the differences were striking. Compared to the goldilocks group who ate just right, participants who consumed too little or too much at breakfast showed higher body mass index (BMI) measurements and larger waist circumferences. Their blood work also revealed higher levels of triglycerides (a type of fat found in blood) and lower levels of “good” HDL cholesterol.

Quality plays key role, too

But quantity wasn’t the only factor that mattered. Quality played an equally important role. Participants whose breakfasts scored low on nutritional quality—regardless of size—showed similar negative health trends. They too had larger waist measurements, less favorable blood fat profiles, and perhaps most surprisingly, decreased kidney function compared to those who ate more nutritionally balanced morning meals.

To assess breakfast quality, researchers used the Meal Balance Index, which scores meals based on nine nutritional components. The index uses Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Ranges for proteins and fats, Daily Values for fiber, potassium, calcium, and iron, and World Health Organization recommendations for added sugars, saturated fats, and sodium. Each component receives a score from 0 to 100, with scores for potassium and saturated fat weighted double in the final calculation. Higher scores indicate better nutritional quality.

These findings, published in The Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging, have particular relevance for older adults trying to manage or prevent heart disease. While previous research has established that eating breakfast is better than skipping it, this study suggests that simply eating any breakfast isn’t enough—both portion size and nutritional quality need careful consideration.

Interestingly, the study took place during a broader health intervention where participants were following a Mediterranean diet and trying to lose weight. Even within this generally healthy dietary pattern, breakfast composition made a measurable difference in health outcomes.

The ‘perfect’ breakfast

For those wondering what an ideal breakfast might look like, the study suggests aiming for that 20-30% sweet spot of daily calories. For someone eating 2,000 calories per day, that would mean a breakfast between 400-600 calories. Quality-wise, think balanced meals incorporating whole grains, lean proteins, healthy fats, and fruits or vegetables while limiting processed foods high in added sugars and unhealthy fats.

With metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease representing major public health challenges worldwide, understanding how simple dietary adjustments—like optimizing breakfast—could help manage these conditions is invaluable.

As our understanding of nutrition science evolves, it’s becoming clear that when we eat may be almost as important as what we eat. This study adds another piece to that puzzle, suggesting that front-loading our day with the right amount of high-quality nutrition might be one key to better metabolic health.

Perhaps mom’s advice needs a slight update.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but what and how you eat it matters. Eating controlled amounts—not too much or too little—and ensuring good nutritional composition is crucial,” says Álvaro Hernáez, researcher at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, CIBER for Cardiovascular Diseases (CIBERCV), and professor at the Blanquerna Faculty of Health Sciences at Ramon Llull University. “Our data show that quality is associated with better cardiovascular risk factor outcomes. It’s as important to have breakfast as it is to have a quality one.”

Source : https://studyfinds.org/precise-breakfast-formula-that-could-help-protect-your-heart/

In the tech world, we like to label periods as the year of (insert milestone here). This past year (2024) was a year of broader experimentation in AI and, of course, agentic use cases.

As 2025 opens, VentureBeat spoke to industry analysts and IT decision-makers to see what the year might bring. For many, 2025 will be the year of agents, when all the pilot programs, experiments and new AI use cases converge into something resembling a return on investment.

In addition, the experts VentureBeat spoke to see 2025 as the year AI orchestration will play a bigger role in the enterprise. Organizations plan to make management of AI applications and agents much more straightforward.

Here are some themes we expect to see more in 2025.

More deployment
Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of AI and data at AWS, said 2025 will be the year of productivity, because executives will begin to care more about the costs of using AI. Proving productivity becomes essential, and this begins with understanding how multiple agents, both inside internal workflows and those that touch other services, can be made better.

“In an agentic world, workflows are going to be reimagined, and you start asking about accuracy and how do you achieve five times productivity,” he said.

Palantir chief architect Akshay Krishnaswamy agreed that decision-makers, especially those outside of the technology cluster, are beginning to get antsy about seeing the impact these AI investments will have on their businesses.

“People are rightfully fatigued about more sandboxing, because it’s off the back of the whole data and analytics journey of the past 10 years, where people also did a ton of experimentation,” said Krishnaswamy. “If you’re an executive, you’re like, ‘this has to be the year I actually start to see some ROI, right?’”

An explosion of orchestration frameworks
Going into 2025, there is a greater need to create infrastructure to manage multiple AI agents and applications.

Chris Jangareddy, a managing director at Deloitte, told VentureBeat that next year will be very exciting. Competitors will face LangChain and other AI companies looking to offer their own orchestration platforms.

“A lot of tools are catching up to LangChain, and we’re going to see more new players come up,” Jangareddy said. “Even before organizations can think about multiagents, they’re already thinking about orchestration so everyone is building that layer.”

Many AI developers turned to LangChain to start building out a traffic system for AI applications. But LangChain isn’t always the best solution for some companies, which is where some new options including Microsoft’s Magentic, or comparable companies like LlamaIndex come in. But for 2025, expect to see an explosion of even more new options for enterprises.

“Orchestration frameworks are still very experimental, with LangChain and Magentic, so you can’t be heads down for just one,” said PwC global commercial technology and innovation officer Matt Wood. “Tooling in this space is still early, and it’s only going to grow.”

Better agents and more integrations
AI agents became the biggest trend for enterprises in 2024. As organizations gear up to deploy multiple agents into their workflows, the possibility of agents crossing from one system to another becomes more apparent. This is particularly true when enterprises are looking to demonstrate their agents’ full value to executives and employees.

Platforms like AWS’s Bedrock, and even Slack, offer connections to other agents from Salesforce’s Agentforce or ServiceNow, making it easier to transfer context from one platform to another. However, understanding how to support these integrations and teaching orchestrator agents to identify internal and external agents will become an important task.

When agentic workflows become more complex, the recent crop of more powerful reasoning models, like OpenAI’s recently announced 03 or Google’s Gemini 2.0, could make orchestrator agents more powerful.

Source: https://venturebeat.com/ai/three-ways-2025-will-be-the-year-of-agentic-productivity/

After a phenomenal start on July 26 when bids worth Rs 1.45 lakh crore were received in a single day, the response has been tepid in the following days.

The Centre received bids worth Rs 1,50,130 crore after a total of 37 rounds of bidding in the ongoing 5G Spectrum auction. The auction kicked off on July 26. July 31 saw seven rounds of bidding. At the end of five days, the government had received bids worth Rs 1,49,966 from Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. The total bids received on July 30 were to the tune of Rs 111-112 crore.

After a phenomenal start on Tuesday, July 26 when bids worth Rs 1.45 lakh crore were received in a single day, the response has been tepid in the following days. However, after conducting seven fresh rounds of auction on July 30, Saturday, the auction was extended to July 31, Sunday– a departure from the past when the auctions would take place only from Monday to Saturday.

Until July 29, Friday, 71% of the total spectrum put on the block has been sold.

Intense competition in Uttar Pradesh East circle
According to the industry sources, the pitched battle for the 1800 MHz spectrum in Uttar Pradesh East circle seems to be peaking as of now, pointing towards the auction reaching its final stages. Notably, the demand for the Uttar Pradesh East circle after surpassing the supply for the first three days receded below the supply level on July 30.
Earlier, the demand was for 75 blocks against the supply of 54 blocks. However, on July 30, the demand fell to 50 blocks, four less than the available supply in the UP East circle.

Source: https://www.republicworld.com/technology-news/mobile/5g-spectrum-auction-day-6-govt-receives-bids-worth-rs-150130-crore-after-37-rounds-articleshow.html

A Polish scientific institute has categorized domestic cats as an “invasive alien species.”

The Polish Academy of Sciences has defined the house cat (felis catus) as “alien” as it was domesticated in the Middle East and has deemed cats as “invasive” due to the “negative influence of domestic cats on native biodiversity,” they explained in a statement.

The Academy has a long list of animals they deem an “invasive alien species,” including Japanese knotweed, raccoons, clearwing moths, and mandarin ducks.

They state that such species pose “an unpredictable risk to local wildlife,” citing a study showing that cats in Poland kill and eat 48.1 and 583.4 million mammals and 8.9 and 135.7 million birds yearly.

The criteria for including the cat among alien invasive species “are 100% met by the cat,” Wojciech Solarz, a biologist at the state-run Polish Academy of Sciences, told AP.

Cat owners and cat-lovers have expressed outrage at the classification, concerned it will incite the abuse or mistreatment of domestic cats.

Some media reports that given the false impression that the institute was calling for feral and other cats to be euthanized, AP reported.

Comments on the Academy’s Facebook page see people saying the institution’s classification is “simply stupid and harmful,” with one saying, ” you suck and are unworthy of your name.”