Category: Science & Technology

Scientists have discovered that small molecules naturally present in every cell may hold the key to understanding why cancer spreads so aggressively. Researchers have identified a specific protein that could become the target for more precise treatments.

A new study reveals that polyamines, which are small molecules that help maintain normal cell functions, actually hijack cancer cells in a surprising way. Instead of supporting healthy growth, these molecules boost production of a protein called eIF5A2, which appears essential for cancer survival. Even more intriguing: eIF5A2’s nearly identical twin protein, eIF5A1, doesn’t have the same effect on cancer cells.

Published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the research shows that targeting eIF5A2 could offer a way to attack cancer cells while leaving healthy tissue largely unharmed.

Cancer Cells Switch Energy Systems for Rapid Growth

When researchers from Tokyo University of Science, led by associate professor Kyohei Higashi, removed polyamines from cancer cells, something unexpected happened. The cells’ entire energy production system shifted gears.

Normal cells prefer using their mitochondria, the cellular powerhouses that efficiently convert nutrients into energy. Cancer cells, however, switched to a faster but less efficient process called glycolysis, even when plenty of oxygen was available. Cancer cells choose this approach because it supports their rapid, uncontrolled growth.

The study found that polyamines orchestrate this metabolic switch by increasing levels of two key proteins: PDK1 and PKM2. Both proteins are crucial players in the glycolysis pathway that fuels cancer cell multiplication.

Using advanced protein analysis techniques on over 6,700 proteins, researchers discovered that polyamine removal affected 300 proteins, about 5.3% of the cell’s entire protein machinery.

Twin Proteins With Different Jobs in Cancer

eIF5A1 and eIF5A2 share 84% of their genetic code and scientists long assumed they worked similarly. But the new research reveals these molecular twins have drastically different jobs in cancer.

When researchers silenced eIF5A2 in multiple cancer cell lines including cervical and breast cancer, cell growth stopped within three days. Silencing eIF5A1 barely affected cancer growth until day five, and even then the impact was minimal. Based on their experimental results, the researchers concluded that eIF5A2 plays a more critical role in cancer cell proliferation than eIF5A1.

The difference comes down to a cellular brake system. A microRNA called miR-6514-5p normally prevents eIF5A2 production. Polyamines essentially cut those brake lines, allowing eIF5A2 to be produced freely. Meanwhile, eIF5A1 production remains under normal cellular control.

Computer simulations revealed why eIF5A2 might be more effective in cancer cells. Though the proteins differ by just 28 building blocks, those differences occur in the region that interacts with ribosomes, or the cellular factories that make proteins.

Patient Survival Data Confirms Laboratory Findings

The laboratory discoveries translate to real patient outcomes. Analysis of breast cancer data from over 2,400 patients showed that higher eIF5A2 levels correlated with worse survival rates. eIF5A1 levels showed no such correlation.

Cancer cells also modify their protein-making factories by increasing production of specific ribosomal proteins, particularly RPS27A, RPL36A, and RPL22L1. All three have been previously linked to aggressive cancer behavior and poor patient outcomes.

Several existing drugs already target parts of the polyamine pathway. DFMO, the compound used in this study to deplete polyamines, is currently in clinical trials for various cancers. The new research suggests that combining such treatments with drugs specifically targeting eIF5A2 might prove more effective than current approaches.

The discovery changes how scientists understand cancer cell behavior. Rather than being passive victims of genetic mutations, cancer cells actively recruit natural molecules like polyamines to support their growth. By identifying eIF5A2 as a critical player in this process — and one that healthy cells don’t depend on — researchers have uncovered a potential vulnerability that could lead to more precise treatments for cancer patients.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/cancers-weakness-tiny-molecules-that-control-tumor-growth/

A judge ruled on Tuesday that Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), Google must share search data with competitors but rejected prosecutors’ bid to make the internet giant sell off its popular Chrome browser and Android operating system.
Here is what has happened so far in the case and what comes next:

The Justice Department during President Donald Trump’s first administration sues Google alleging that it illegally monopolized the online search and related advertising markets. This was the first time in a generation that the U.S. government accused a Big Tech corporation of an illegal monopoly. Prosecutors continue pursuing the case under President Joe Biden’s administration.

Google defends its practices at a trial before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, saying it had won its market share by providing a high-quality service.

The trial’s evidence phase concludes, after Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the stand and acknowledged the importance of making its search engine the default on phones and other devices.

Mehta hears closing arguments in the case, pressing Google on how rival search engines could compete, and whether online advertisers would substitute social media or other ads for search advertising.

The judge finds Google violated U.S. antitrust law, saying that “Google has no true competitor.”

Prosecutors propose a sweeping set of remedies they said would work in tandem to open up competition in the markets for online search and related advertising. The 10-year reformation plan includes requiring Google to sell off its Chrome browser, cease paying device makers like Apple to make it the default search engine on new devices, share data with rivals, and end its investments in artificial intelligence companies.

Google proposes a much narrower remedy that would loosen its agreements with Apple and others, calling the government’s proposal a drastic attempt to intervene in the search market.

The Justice Department, once again led by Trump appointees, backs most of the November proposals but drops a bid to make Google sell off AI investments.

Mehta kicks off a 14-day trial on the proposals where prosecutors say Google needs strong measures imposed on it to prevent its online search dominance from extending to AI. At trial, OpenAI says that proposed data-sharing remedies could help it improve ChatGPT, Google executive Sundar Pichai says data sharing would let competitors copy Google’s product, and Google’s stock takes a hit after an Apple executive testifies that the iPhone maker plans to add AI-driven search options to its Safari browser.

After a break for both sides to file court papers, Mehta holds closing arguments in the case where he suggests he is considering less aggressive measures than the 10-year regime proposed by antitrust enforcers, citing the rapid pace of developments in the AI sector.

Google says it has hired Donald Verrilli Jr., the U.S. solicitor general during the Barack Obama administration, to handle its appeal in the case.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/technology/what-comes-next-googles-antitrust-case-over-search-2025-09-02/

Researchers have successfully performed the first DNA-free gene editing on raspberry plants, marking a scientific advance that could eventually lead to improved berries without the regulatory complexities of traditional genetic modification.

The technique, described in a paper published in Frontiers in Genome Editing, uses molecular scissors called CRISPR to make precise cuts in raspberry genes, then relies on the plant’s natural repair mechanisms. Unlike conventional genetic engineering, no foreign DNA remains in the plant’s genome after editing. While regulatory frameworks for such “precision bred” crops are still evolving, early legislation in England suggests these plants may face fewer hurdles than traditional GMOs.

For raspberries, this could represent a major step forward. These berries present unique challenges for plant breeders because each seed produces a genetically different plant. Commercial growers rely on cloning techniques to maintain consistent berry quality, making traditional breeding extremely slow. Improvements that could take years through conventional methods might be achievable much faster through direct gene editing.

How Scientists Removed Cell Walls to Enable Raspberry Gene Editing

Led by Ryan Creeth, a PhD student at Cranfield University in England, researchers started with raspberry tissue cultures, then used enzymes to strip away the rigid cell walls, creating protoplasts. Without their protective barriers, these naked plant cells become permeable to gene-editing tools.

Scientists combined the protoplasts with pre-assembled CRISPR components, including Cas9 proteins and guide RNAs, along with chemicals that help the editing machinery penetrate cell membranes. After 24 hours, they extracted DNA and used sequencing techniques to confirm successful edits.

The team successfully modified a gene called phytoene desaturase with a 19% efficiency rate. That’s a notable improvement over the very low efficiencies reported in earlier Agrobacterium-based genetic modification attempts in raspberry. They also edited three other genes linked to fruit firmness and disease resistance, though with lower success rates.

Editing Success Varied Dramatically Between Gene Targets

The 19% editing efficiency represents progress over existing approaches and eliminates the years of backcrossing typically required to remove unwanted genetic material from conventionally modified plants.

However, editing efficiency varied dramatically depending on the target gene, ranging from 0.3% to 19%. This variation suggests each genetic target would need extensive optimization before achieving reliable results for practical applications.

Source material quality proved critical. Protoplasts from healthy, vigorous raspberry canes produced between 1 million and 12 million usable cells per milliliter, while poor-quality plants yielded far fewer. Researchers noted the best results came from bright green stems with deep red thorns and rapidly growing tissue cultures.

Will Consumers Be Eating Gene-Edited Raspberries Anytime Soon?

The biggest obstacle is regenerating whole plants from edited protoplasts. While previous research suggests raspberry protoplasts can potentially grow into complete plants, no one has demonstrated this capability with gene-edited cells. Without successful plant regeneration, the technique remains a laboratory proof-of-concept rather than a practical breeding tool.

Cost considerations also pose challenges. The study relied on expensive commercially synthesized CRISPR components, though researchers suggested costs could decrease if laboratories produce these tools internally once targets are validated.

The research does open possibilities for addressing long-standing raspberry problems. Enhanced disease resistance could reduce pesticide use, while improved fruit firmness could extend shelf life and reduce food waste. Both outcomes would benefit farmers, consumers, and the environment.

As the researchers noted in their paper, “To our knowledge, this study constitutes the first use of DNA-free genome editing in raspberry protoplast. This protocol provides a valuable platform for understanding gene function and facilitates the future development of precision breeding in this important soft fruit crop.”

The work represents an early step in precision agriculture for raspberries, a crop that has seen limited innovation due to complex genetics. If the remaining technical hurdles can be overcome, DNA-free editing could eventually enable rapid, targeted improvements throughout the raspberry industry.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/first-dna-free-gene-editing-raspberry-plants-crispr/

A major new study reveals that nearly half of young children diagnosed with ADHD receive medication within just one month of diagnosis, even though pediatric guidelines recommend starting with behavioral therapy first for this age group.

The largest study of its kind examined electronic health records from more than 712,000 children seen at eight major pediatric health systems across the United States between 2016 and 2023. Among the 9,708 children who received an ADHD diagnosis between ages 4 and 5, over two-thirds were ultimately prescribed medication before turning 7.

Why Guidelines Recommend Therapy First

ADHD affects an estimated 10% of American children, and diagnoses in preschoolers are becoming more common. A 2022 national survey found that 2.4% of children aged 3 to 5 had an ADHD diagnosis.

Current American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines, reaffirmed in 2019, recommend that children aged 4 to 5 first receive evidence-based parent training in behavior management before considering medication. Medication should be considered only if these interventions prove insufficient or if symptoms cause substantial disruption.

Yet across the eight health systems studied, between 26% and 49% of preschoolers were prescribed medication within a month of diagnosis, often leaving little or no time for behavioral treatments to take effect.

The AAP recommendations exist because preschoolers’ brains are still rapidly developing, and the evidence base for behavioral interventions is stronger in this age group than for medication. Parent training helps caregivers manage challenging behaviors, establish routines, and create structured environments that can meaningfully reduce ADHD symptoms.

For children who were prescribed medication within 30 days, there often wasn’t enough time to properly implement or assess these therapies, which typically require weeks or months to show benefit.

Racial and Insurance Disparities in ADHD Treatment

The study revealed clear disparities. Asian children with ADHD were least likely to receive early medication, with only 28.6% prescribed within 30 days, compared to 43.9% of White children. Hispanic children were at 35.8%, Black children 41.8%, and multiracial children the highest at 47.7%.

These gaps persisted two years after diagnosis. White children had prescription rates of 78.2%, while Asian children had substantially lower rates at 55.6%.

Publicly insured children were more likely to receive early prescriptions than privately insured peers. Families on Medicaid often face barriers accessing behavioral therapy, making medication the more immediate option. Prior research suggests that minority families may have greater hesitancy toward ADHD medication, but also encounter obstacles to behavioral care.

Preschool ADHD Care Varies Widely

Prescription rates varied dramatically across the eight health systems, from 44.1% to 74.1%. This suggests that treatment decisions may depend as much on geography and local resources as on clinical guidelines.

Older preschoolers were more likely to receive medication quickly. The median time to prescription was zero days for 5-year-olds, compared to nearly 400 days for 3-year-olds.

Comorbidities played a role too. Children with sleep problems or disruptive behavior disorders were more likely to get early medication. About 65% of children had a documented additional condition, such as language delays or learning difficulties.

Follow-up care was inconsistent. Only about 40% of children prescribed medication had a documented follow-up within two months, though the true number may be higher since many doctors use phone calls or secure messaging not captured in records.

A System Under Strain

The study exposes how practical realities often drive treatment. Behavioral therapies require trained providers, multiple sessions, and significant family commitment. In many communities, especially for families with public insurance, such resources are scarce.

Primary care doctors face heavy caseloads and limited access to mental health specialists. Writing a prescription takes minutes, while arranging therapy can take hours, with no guarantee that services are available.

The results don’t mean early prescriptions are always inappropriate. Some children may genuinely need immediate medication, especially with severe symptoms or multiple conditions. But the scale of early prescribing points to a startling gap between recommended best practice and what families actually experience.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/doctors-often-prescribe-adhd-meds-preschoolers-without-delay/

Meta faces scrutiny over its use of chatbots mimicking celebrities, including notable figures like Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez. A report revealed that some chatbots, specifically parody versions, were created by Meta staff, while others were user-generated.

Meta, due to its involvement in different domains, keeps getting into trouble one way or the other. In a recent development, a disturbing report published by Reuters suggested that the platform has been using chatbots by the names of Anne Hathaway, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, and even Scarlet Johannson. Most of these chatbots were created by users with which Meta allows them to make chatbots. But, around three chatbots out of all, specifically parody bots of Taylor Swift, were created by a Meta employee.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max and Google Pixel 10 Pro XL share some similarities but differ in software, performance, and features.

Google Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. iPhone 16 Pro Max: The smartphone market often turns into a battleground between Apple and Google, and their latest flagships, the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Pixel 10 Pro XL, show how closely the two companies now compete. Both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Pixel 10 Pro XL target users who want premium hardware, advanced software, and long-lasting support. But how do they stack up when placed side by side?

Google Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. iPhone 16 Pro Max: Design and Build

The Google Pixel 10 Pro XL and iPhone 16 Pro Max look surprisingly similar at first glance. Google’s latest device continues to carry forward the flat sides, rounded corners, and sleek frame that Apple popularised. Both devices now include magnets on the back for accessories and wireless charging support, though Google’s “G” logo has grown to echo Apple’s bold branding.

The Pixel 10 Pro XL weighs about 5 grams more, while the iPhone still feels sturdier in the hand. Neither device includes a SIM tray and relies solely on eSIM. However, global versions of both still allow physical SIM cards.

Google Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. iPhone 16 Pro Max: Display

Google has taken the lead in screen brightness. The Pixel 10 Pro XL features a 3200-nit display, surpassing the already bright iPhone 16 Pro Max. Both deliver deep blacks, high refresh rates, and accurate colours. Apple’s Dynamic Island notch, however, continues to occupy space at the top, while Google’s design offers a cleaner viewing area.

Google Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. iPhone 16 Pro Max: Software and Performance

Where the two phones differ most is in software. The iPhone 16 Pro Max runs on iOS with Apple’s Liquid Glass design approach, offering glossy finishes and floating panels. The Pixel 10 Pro XL, on the other hand, pushes Google’s Material 3 Expressive design, which shows customisation without compromising clarity.

Apple’s visual shift has received mixed responses, particularly on accessibility. Meanwhile, Google has refined Android with smoother transitions and personalisation options. On the AI front, Google continues to deliver practical tools, while Apple’s much-anticipated Apple Intelligence features remain limited in scope.

Performance, however, favours Apple. The iPhone 16 Pro Max, powered by its A-series chip, outpaces Google’s Tensor G5 processor. While the Pixel handles tasks efficiently, Apple’s silicon maintains a significant lead in raw speed and multitasking.

Google Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. iPhone 16 Pro Max: Battery and Charging

Google has equipped the Pixel 10 Pro XL with a 5,200mAh battery, larger than the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s 4,685mAh cell. Despite this, Apple’s device still manages to deliver stronger endurance, a reflection of its optimisation between hardware and software.

Charging speeds tilt in Google’s favour. The Pixel supports 45W wired charging, giving users up to 70% in under half an hour. Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max caps at 30W, achieving about 50% in the same timeframe. Both support wireless options through MagSafe and Pixelsnap at 25W.

Google Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. iPhone 16 Pro Max: Camera Capabilities

For photography, Google leans heavily on computational enhancements. The Pixel 10 Pro XL introduces Pro Res Zoom, an AI-powered feature that improves images taken at extreme zoom levels by optimising blurred or blocky details. Traditional users may prefer natural optics, but the option to switch back to originals gives flexibility.

Apple, on the other hand, retains its advantage in video. While Google’s Video Boost competes well, it still requires online processing, limiting its usefulness offline. In still photography, Apple continues to produce natural-looking results, whereas Google emphasises a wider spectrum of skin tones and HDR balance.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/technology/google-pixel-10-pro-xl-vs-iphone-16-pro-max-who-leads-in-display-battery-and-cameras-101756486542395.html

Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab said on Friday it amended the CHIPS Act funding deal with the U.S. Department of Commerce to remove earlier project milestones and received about $5.7 billion in cash sooner than planned.
The move will give Intel more flexibility over the funds.

The amended agreement, which revises a November 2024 funding deal, retains some guardrails that prevent the chipmaker from using the funds for dividends and buybacks, doing certain control-changing deals and from expanding in certain countries.

As part of the deal, Intel issued the U.S. government 274.6 million shares and promised the government the option to buy up to 240.5 million more shares under certain conditions.
Intel said it has set aside 158.7 million shares in an escrow account to be released after the government makes available more CHIPS funds for the Secure Enclave program, designed to expand advanced chips manufacturing.
The company also said it has spent at least $7.87 billion on eligible CHIPS Act-funded projects.
The U.S. government’s move to take a 9.9% equity stake in Intel sparked questions about the outlook for corporate America after President Donald Trump said he plans to do other similar deals.

The government’s $8.9 billion investment is in addition to the $2.2 billion in grants Intel has previously received, making for a total investment of $11.1 billion, the company has said.
The Intel stake, announced by the U.S. government last week, is an incentive for the chipmaker to retain control of its contract manufacturing business, or foundry, Intel’s finance chief David Zinsner said at an investor conference on Thursday.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/technology/intel-amends-chips-act-deal-with-us-commerce-department-gets-57-billion-early-2025-08-29/

Apple Event invites hints at two crucial features for the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max. Here’s what we speculate to see during launch.

The iPhone 17 series launch has been confirmed for September 9, 2025, and Apple has officially sent invites for the “Awe Dropping” event. While we are awaiting the big unveil for new-generation Apple products, the Apple Event invite itself revealed two secret iPhone 17 Pro features, which have been rumoured for months. From the new event logo, we speculate that the company has given hints for iPhone 17 Pro’s new colour variants and a vapour chamber cooling system. We can not be sure until the launch, but here’s what we think the iPhone 17 Pro would get based on the new Apple Event logo design.

iPhone 17 Pro: Apple hints at 2 crucial upgrades via event invite

Over the past few months, we have been coming across several rendered images of the iPhone 17 Pro colour variants. However, some of the leaks highlight that a new orange and blue colour variant will be introduced. Now, the Apple Event’s logo also contains hues of orange and dark blue, which could be one of the big hints. Reportedly, the iPhone 17 Pro could come in 5 colour options: Black, White, Gray, Dark Blue, and Orange.

Secondly, the iPhone 17 Pro models are also expected to get a vapour chamber cooling system for thermal heat management. Now, the event logo is speculated to portray an infrared heat map when captured with a thermal camera. Therefore, this could come as the biggest hint for upgraded heat management systems for the iPhone 17 Pro models. However, we will have to wait until September 9, 2025, to confirm these speculations.

iPhone 17 Pro: What to expect

The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max will retain a similar size to their predecessors, but with a slightly new design. Both models are expected to come with a new camera island, with a similar camera lens placement. The devices will be powered by a new A19 Pro chip, which will likely bring more powerful and efficient performance.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/technology/iphone-17-pro-launch-apples-awe-dropping-invite-hides-two-secret-features-101756348885121.html

Most of us already know that water is essential for staying healthy. But new research suggests that how much you drink each day could also affect how your body reacts to stress.

In a lab experiment, young adults who typically drank less than a liter and a half of fluid per day had a much bigger spike in the stress hormone cortisol compared to those who drank closer to four liters. That’s about a 55 percent stronger stress response, just from differences in everyday drinking habits.

Cortisol is the body’s main “stress chemical.” It helps us deal with challenges in the short term, but when it stays too high for too long, it can wear us down. That makes this study, published in The Journal of Applied Physiology, a reminder that hydration may play a bigger role in long-term health than most people realize.

Why Hydration Matters for Stress
We usually think of being dehydrated in terms of feeling thirsty, tired, or having a headache. But inside the body, water balance is tied to hormones that do more than just keep fluids in check.

One of them, arginine vasopressin (AVP), helps the body save water when you’re running low. But AVP also has another side effect: it tells your body’s stress system to release more cortisol.

In other words, when you’re habitually under-hydrated, the very system that responds to stress gets triggered more easily, leaving you prone to a bigger hormonal surge when life throws a challenge your way.

Inside the Study
Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University and collaborators recruited 62 healthy adults aged 18 to 35. Using national nutrition survey data, they identified two extremes of daily drinking habits:

After screening, 32 participants (16 in each group) completed the experiment. For a week, they tracked exactly how much they drank, and researchers confirmed hydration status with urine tests. Then came the stressful part: the Trier Social Stress Test, a well-established lab challenge involving a mock job interview and rapid-fire mental math performed in front of stony-faced observers and a video camera.

Saliva samples collected before, during, and after the test allowed researchers to track cortisol, while heart rate monitors and questionnaires measured anxiety and physical arousal.

What They Found
On the surface, both groups reacted similarly: their hearts raced, and they reported feeling more anxious. But under the hood, their hormones told a different story. In the low drinker group, cortisol levels spiked and stayed high even after the stressful tasks ended. In the high drinker group, cortisol barely rose above baseline.

On average, the low drinkers showed a 55 percent bigger cortisol jump.

“These novel findings show greater cortisol reactivity to acute psychosocial stress in adults with habitual low fluid intake and suboptimal hydration,” the study notes.

A Simple Way to Gauge Your Dehydration Risk
The study also looked at practical indicators of hydration that everyday people can check without lab equipment. One of the simplest? Urine color.

Using a standard eight-point chart, they found that participants with darker urine (levels 4 or higher) had stronger cortisol responses than those with lighter urine. Put simply: if your pee is regularly dark yellow in the morning, your body might also be primed for a sharper stress surge.

Lab tests of urine concentration confirmed the same trend: more concentrated urine went hand in hand with bigger cortisol spikes.

Why This Matters for Long-Term Health
Cortisol isn’t always bad. In short bursts, it helps us mobilize energy, sharpen focus, and respond to challenges. But when levels stay high too often thanks to chronic stress, poor sleep, or perhaps inadequate hydration, the consequences can add up.

Elevated cortisol has been linked to weakened immune defenses, higher inflammation, and increased risk for conditions like cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders.

Previous studies have already found that people who don’t drink enough water face higher risks of kidney problems, heart issues, and metabolic disease. This new work provides a plausible mechanism: by ramping up the body’s stress response, habitual low fluid intake may nudge people onto a path toward poorer health.

How Much Water Is Enough?
Guidelines generally recommend about 2.5 liters per day for men and 2 liters for women, including both drinks and the water naturally present in foods. Yet surveys show many adults fall short, especially those who rely heavily on coffee, soda, or alcohol rather than plain water.

The high-intake group in this study was well above those recommendations, while the low group was far below. That doesn’t mean everyone should chug four liters a day, but it does underscore the importance of meeting basic fluid needs.

A Few Caveats
The study has its limitations. It compared only the highest and lowest drinkers, leaving out people with moderate intake. The design was cross-sectional, meaning it can’t prove that drinking more water will reduce stress responses—only that the two are linked. And the stress test, while reliable, takes place in a controlled lab; real-world stress is messier.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/not-drinking-enough-water-stress/

Astronomers are used to puzzling signals from deep space, but every so often the universe delivers one so unusual it forces them to pause and reconsider their assumptions. That’s what happened this spring when researchers detected a sudden flash of radio energy from another galaxy. The burst was so powerful and precise that it’s now considered one of the clearest examples yet of a mysterious phenomenon called a fast radio burst, or FRB.

This particular signal, officially cataloged as FRB 20250316A and colloquially nicknamed RBFLOAT (“Radio Brightest Flash Of All Time”), was detected on March 16, 2025. It lasted less than a thousandth of a second, but in that blink it unleashed a torrent of radio energy before vanishing without a trace. Months of careful follow-up have revealed nothing more. No repeats. No echoes. Just silence.

And that silence may be the most important part of the story.

What Exactly Are Fast Radio Bursts?

Fast radio bursts rank among astronomy’s biggest mysteries. First discovered in 2007, FRBs are brief but powerful flashes of radio waves that can outshine entire galaxies during their short lifetimes. Telescopes have now recorded thousands of them, but their origins remain hotly debated.

The biggest puzzle is that FRBs don’t all behave the same way. Some erupt only once, like cosmic fireworks. Others repeat, flickering again and again from the same spot, more like a lighthouse sweeping the sea. Until now, many astronomers suspected that maybe all FRBs eventually repeat — and that we simply hadn’t watched long enough to catch the “quiet” ones in the act.

Pinpointing the Source

The discovery came from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, or CHIME, a unique radio telescope in British Columbia that scans the entire northern sky daily. CHIME has become one of the world’s leading FRB detectors, and when RBFLOAT lit up its antennas, it also triggered three “outrigger” stations spread across North America.

This network allowed astronomers to triangulate the burst’s origin with extraordinary precision. Using a method called very long baseline interferometry, they pinpointed it to the spiral galaxy NGC 4141, located about 40 megaparsecs away. That’s roughly 130 million light-years. For cosmic distances, that’s relatively nearby.

Even more impressive, they narrowed its location within that galaxy to a region about 13 parsecs wide, or about 42 light-years. To put that in perspective, that’s like being able to say which neighborhood a lightning strike hit, except the “neighborhood” is in another galaxy altogether.

The Mystery of Silence

What came next deepened the puzzle. After the initial flash, telescopes in North America, Europe, and beyond spent hundreds of hours re-watching the same patch of sky. RBFLOAT never repeated.

That silence is striking because the burst was so bright. Based on what’s been learned from repeating FRBs, astronomers would expect to see at least a few smaller follow-up flashes. Instead, the source has stayed quiet. The researchers calculated that the chance of detecting just a single giant burst without also seeing weaker ones is less than 1 in 500,000 — effectively zero.

That result suggests RBFLOAT does not behave like the repeaters scientists have studied closely. It may belong to a different category altogether.

A Different Kind of Neighborhood

Another clue comes from the burst’s surroundings. Many repeating FRBs are found in extreme cosmic neighborhoods — turbulent star-forming regions thick with gas and strong magnetic fields. These environments can twist and amplify radio signals, and they often produce a steady background glow of radio energy.

RBFLOAT, by contrast, comes from the quieter edge of a star-forming clump. Astronomers detected no compact, persistent radio source at the site, setting limits at 9.9 GHz that are about 100 times fainter than the radio companions seen with some repeaters. The environment also shows a slightly lower level of heavy elements (“subsolar metallicity”) and a much smaller local contribution to the burst’s signal compared with active repeaters like FRB 20121102A.

All of this points to a calmer, less extreme neighborhood, again hinting at a different origin.

What Could Cause The Fast Radio Burst?

So what could create such a powerful but fleeting flash? The leading suspects for repeating FRBs are magnetars, neutron stars with magnetic fields trillions of times stronger than Earth’s. Magnetars can generate bursts over and over again, making them a good match for repeaters.

But for one-off events like RBFLOAT, scientists think more dramatic explanations may be needed. Possible scenarios include a supernova (the collapse of a massive star), a binary neutron star collision, or a runaway star that eventually produced a magnetar in situ. The research team even notes they can’t fully rule out the possibility that a gravitational-wave event — a violent merger — might have happened decades or centuries before this FRB, leaving behind the object that produced the burst we saw in 2025.

In other words, the story of RBFLOAT’s origin may stretch far back in time.

Why It Matters

Fast radio bursts aren’t just cosmic oddities, they’re also valuable tools. As their radio waves travel through space, they interact with gas, plasma, and other matter, picking up subtle signatures that astronomers can study. In effect, each FRB acts like a cosmic flashlight shining through the darkness, illuminating otherwise invisible parts of the universe.

But if there are really two different populations of FRBs — repeaters and one-offs — scientists will need to treat them separately. Mixing them together could cloud the picture when using FRBs to study the structure of the universe.

Just as important, the technology that made this discovery possible represents a leap forward for the field. The authors write that their work “marks the beginning of an era of routine localizations for one-off FRBs on tens of milliarcseconds scales, enabling large-scale studies of their local environments.” In simpler terms, astronomers are now able to pinpoint these mysterious signals with unprecedented accuracy, moving FRB science into a new stage of precision.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/brightest-fast-radio-burst-all-time/

Preliminary observations suggest that the Jurrassic-era fossil was a phytosaur (tree lizard), an ancient reptile that lived in forest habitats near river ecosystems.

Geologists in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer have uncovered rare vertebrate fossils from the Jurassic era, potentially including dinosaur remains, shedding new light on the region’s prehistoric ecology and biodiversity.

Preliminary analysis indicates the fossils belong to a phytosaur, a crocodile-like reptile that thrived in forested areas near river ecosystems. This marks the first discovery of phytosaur fossils from Jurassic rocks in India, a significant milestone in the country’s paleontological history.

The 210-million-year-old fossils, embedded in sedimentary rock formations, may also include remains of other prehistoric reptiles that inhabited the region.

The skeleton measures approximately 1.5–2 meters in length, suggesting a medium-sized creature, and notably, an egg was found on the left side of the specimen.

According to experts, the discovery is of immense scientific value, shedding light on the region’s prehistoric ecology and biodiversity. Preliminary studies suggest that the fossils could represent vertebrate remains rarely found in India, making the find both rare and globally relevant.

Narayan Das Inikhiya, Geologist and Senior Ground Water Scientist, Rajasthan, who is leading the study, said hat these fossils “provide vital clues about the Jurassic age environment of western Rajasthan. Detailed research and carbon dating will help confirm whether these are indeed dinosaur remains.”

Visuals from the site show large fossilised fragments being carefully examined and documented by researchers. Local authorities and the scientific community are now working on preserving the fossils and planning further excavation.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/rare-jurassic-era-fossils-including-skeleton-and-egg-discovered-in-jaisalmer-2776683-2025-08-26

The cancelation is another setback for SpaceX, which is known for its “fail fast, learn fast” ethos.

SpaceX said on Sunday that it had canceled a test flight of its Starship rocket, citing an issue with the launch site.

“Standing down from today’s tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems,” the firm said on the platform X.

What else do we know about the canceled Starship launch?

The rocket was due to launch from the company’s Starbase in southern Texas and would have marked the tenth mission from the site.

The launch was to be carried out at 6:30 p.m. local time (23:30 GMT), but was called off just 15 minutes before lift off.

Earlier on Sunday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk had posted on his X platform “Starship 10 launching tonight.”

SpaceX did not say whether there would be another launch attempt.

The canceled launch is the latest setback for Musk’s company.

This year, two Starship tests failed early in flight, another failed in space, and a “static fire” test produced a ground explosion in June.

What do we know about the Starship rocket?

The massive Starship rocket is a major part of Musk’s plans to bring humans to Mars.

Earlier this year, Musk said that Starship would leave for Mars at the end of 2026 while carrying a humanoid robot. He said he believed human landings could proceed at some time between 2029-2031.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/spacex-cancels-starship-launch-over-ground-systems-issue/a-73748445

On August 21, 2025, a U.S. military space plane, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, is scheduled to launch its eighth mission. Though a few additional things are still classified, one experiment in particular has captured the imagination: a quantum inertial sensor meant to serve as a major new alternative to GPS. This would revolutionise navigation in areas where satellite-based systems are not available or have been degraded. Whether in deep outer space, under the sea, or in hotspots on land, there is an eagerly awaited answer for vulnerabilities in global positioning systems.

X-37B Space Plane to Pioneer Quantum Navigation as GPS Alternative in Space

According to reports, satellite GPS powers everything from civilian smartphones to commercial aviation, but it has critical weaknesses. Signals degrade in space, can’t get through water, and are subject to jamming and spoofing in contested environments. Researchers said the X-37B’s quantum inertial sensor relies on atom interferometry, where ultracold atoms behave like waves. By measuring interference patterns caused by motion, the sensor provides navigation with exceptional accuracy, without depending on external signals.

Traditional inertial navigation systems, though useful, accumulate small errors over time, drifting from their true position without GPS correction. Quantum sensors, by contrast, use identical atoms immune to mechanical bias, offering orders of magnitude greater stability. Earlier missions, including NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory and Germany’s MAIUS-1, have performed atom interferometry in orbit, but this flight is the first attempt to do it directly for long-duration navigation.

Some experts suggest that GPS-free navigation would make the military more resilient and facilitate autonomous navigation on space-exploration missions. The principle is also being offered for submarines and aircraft. And in 2024, Boeing and AOSense demonstrated embedding it onboard aircraft for GPS-free navigation, while the UK had its first quantum navigation test-flight.

Source : https://www.gadgets360.com/science/news/us-x-37b-space-plane-to-test-quantum-navigation-system-that-could-replace-gps-reliance-9125394

Veo 3 is Google’s most advanced video generation model yet. It builds on the capabilities of Veo 2 with higher video quality and includes automatic audio generation.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced that the company’s advanced AI video tool Veo 3 will be free for everyone to try for the weekend. Usually available only with a paid subscription, this is the first time the US-based tech giant has unlocked the platform for everyone.
The announcement was made through a post on social media platform X. “Veo 3 is now free for the weekend for everyone to try – can’t wait to see what you’ll create,” Pichai wrote.

This means anyone can use Google’s Veo 3 without paying for a subscription. Normally, the AI tool costs Rs 1,999 per month in India. New users do get a one-month free trial, but this is the first time Google has unlocked the platform for everyone, including existing Pro users,without any subscription limits.

NASA has unveiled a breathtaking new image showing what appears to be a massive “cosmic hand” stretching across 150 light-years of space, created by one of the galaxy’s most powerful electromagnetic generators.

The striking composite combines X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory with fresh radio observations from Australia’s telescope array, giving scientists their most detailed view yet of pulsar B1509-58 and the spectacular nebula it powers.

The “cosmic hand” spans 150 light-years — nearly 900 trillion miles — across space while at the heart of the display lies a neutron star just 12 miles across, spinning nearly seven times per second.

A pulsar is a type of neutron star, which is the dense, collapsed core left behind after a massive star explodes in a supernova. A nebula is a giant cloud of gas and dust in space.

Despite its small size, this collapsed stellar core unleashes staggering amounts of energy.

Some nebulae are the birthplaces of new stars, formed from collapsing clouds of hydrogen.

Others, like the one around pulsar B1509-58 (nicknamed the “cosmic hand”), are remnants of exploded stars — debris blasted into space by a supernova.

Its magnetic field is estimated at 15 trillion times stronger than Earth’s — enough to drive a torrent of charged particles outward and shape them into a hand-like structure known as MSH 15-52.

This pulsar was born when its parent star exhausted its nuclear fuel, causing it to collapse in on itself before exploding outward as a supernova, scattering debris into space.

The intense spin and magnetism of the leftover core turned it into one of the galaxy’s most powerful particle generators.

NASA first captured the “cosmic hand” in 2009, but the new image reveals previously unseen details.

The radio data highlight intricate filaments tracing the nebula’s magnetic field, created as the pulsar’s wind collides with the expanding debris from the original explosion.

Intriguingly, the new study shows clear differences between X-ray and radio emissions.

Features such as a jet near the pulsar and the inner regions of three “fingers” glow brightly in X-rays but vanish in radio light.

Source: https://nypost.com/2025/08/22/us-news/nasa-captures-cosmic-hand-reaching-through-150-light-years-of-space/

Google on Wednesday unveiled a new line-up of Pixel smartphones injected with another dose of artificial intelligence that’s designed to do everything from fetch vital information stored on the devices to help improve photos as they’re being taken.

The AI expansion on the four Pixel 10 models amplifies Google’s efforts to broaden the use of a technology that is already starting to reshape society. At the same time, Google is taking a swipe at Apple’s Achilles’ heel on the iPhone.

Apple so far has only been able to introduce a few basic AI features on the iPhone while failing to deliver on last year’s promise to deliver a more conversational and versatile version of its often-blundering virtual assistant Siri.

Without mentioning the iPhone by name, Google has already been mocking Apple’s missteps in online ads promoting the four new Pixel models as smartphones loaded with AI technology that consumers won’t have to wait for more than a year to arrive.

“There has been a lot of hype about this and, frankly, a lot of broken promises, too,” Google executive Rick Osterloh said during a 75-minute presentation in New York about the new Pixel phones. The event was emceed by late-night TV show host Jimmy Fallon.

Google, in contrast, has been steadily increasing the amount of AI that it began to implant on its Pixels since 2023, with this year’s models taking it to another level.

“We think this yeasr we have a game-changing phone with game-changing technology,” Osterloh said.

Taking advantage of a more advanced processor, Google is introducing a new AI feature on the Pixel 10 phones called “Magic Cue” that’s designed to serve as a digital mind reader that automatically fetches information stored on the devices and displays the data at the time it’s needed. For instance, if a Pixel 10 user is calling up an airline, Magic Cue is supposed to instantaneously recognize the phone number and display the flight information if it’s in Gmail or a Google Calendar.

The Pixel 10 phones will also come with a preview feature of a new AI tool called “Camera Coach” that will automatically suggest the best framing and lighting angle as the lens is being aimed at a subject. Camera Coach will also recommend the best lens mode to use for an optimal picture.

The premium models — Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL — will also include a “Super Res” option that deploys a grab bag of software and AI tricks to zoom up to 100 times the resolution to capture the details of objects located miles away from the camera. The AI wizardry could happen without users even realizing it’s happening, making it even more difficult to know whether an image captured in a photo reflects how things really looked at the time a picture was taken or was modified by technology.

The Pixel 10 will also be able to almost instantaneously translate phone conversations into a range of different languages using the participants own voices.

Google is also offering a free one-year subscription to its AI Pro plan to anyone who buys the more expensive Pixel 10 Pro or Pixel 10 Pro XL models in hopes of hooking more people on the Gemini toolkit it has assembled to compete against OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The prices on all four Pixel 10 models will remain unchanged from last year’s Pixel 9 generation, with the basic starting at $800 and the Pro selling for $1,000, the Pro XL at $1,200 and a foldable version at $1,800. All the Pixel 10s expect the foldable model will be in stores on August 28. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold will be available starting October 9.

Although the Pixel smartphone remains a Lilliputian next to the Gulliverian stature of the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy models, Google’s ongoing advances in AI while holding the line on its marquee devices raise the competitive stakes.

“In the age of AI, it is a true laboratory of innovation,” Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson said of the Pixel.

Apple, in particular, will be facing more pressure than usual when it introduces the next-generation iPhone next month. Although the company has already said the smarter Siri won’t be ready until next year at the earliest, Apple will still be expected to show some progress in AI to demonstrate the iPhone is adapting to technology’s AI evolution rather than tilting toward gradual obsolescence. Clinging to a once-successful formula eventually sank the BlackBerry and its physical keyboard when the iPhone and its touch screen came along nearly 20 years ago.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/google-pixel-phones-artificial-intelligence-88cde161850a884e6868c6e868e1ae36

A tiny stretch of DNA that’s been quietly evolving in humans for millions of years might hold the key to understanding what makes our brains different from our closest animal relatives. New research reveals that this genetic sequence, which rapidly changed after humans split from chimpanzees, plays a crucial role in brain development and could help explain uniquely human traits like advanced problem-solving and cognitive flexibility.

The discovery centers on a 442-letter genetic sequence called HAR123, buried deep within a gene that most people have never heard of. While this DNA snippet is present in mammals and marsupials, but absent in monotremes like the platypus, it has undergone dramatic changes in the human lineage since the human–chimpanzee split. Scientists at the University of California San Diego found that this rapidly evolving sequence acts like a genetic switch, controlling the development of brain cells in ways that differ subtly between humans and other species.

When researchers knocked out this sequence in laboratory mice, the animals developed problems with cognitive flexibility, struggling to adapt when familiar situations suddenly changed. In essence, they became less able to adjust their thinking when their environment shifted.

HAR123 belongs to a special class of genetic sequences called Human Accelerated Regions (HARs), stretches of DNA that remained virtually unchanged for millions of years across different species, then suddenly started evolving rapidly in the human lineage. Scientists have identified about 3,000 of these sequences, and many of them act as genetic switches that control when and where other genes get turned on or off. HAR123 fits this pattern perfectly, functioning as what scientists call a “transcriptional enhancer,” essentially a genetic dimmer switch that can turn up or down the activity of nearby genes.

The research team, led by Dr. Kun Tan and Dr. Miles Wilkinson, discovered that HAR123 influences a gene called HIC1, which is involved in the generation of neural progenitor cells. When HAR123 activates HIC1, it helps ensure that developing brain cells mature into neurons rather than getting stuck in an immature state.

HAR123 actively promotes the formation of neural progenitor cells, the crucial building blocks that eventually become neurons and other brain cells. The hippocampus is a brain region critical for learning and memory, and the balance between neurons and support cells in this area appears to be essential for healthy brain function.

Lab Tests Show Cognitive Differences in Modified Mice

To understand what HAR123 actually does, the researchers conducted a series of experiments. They started with human embryonic stem cells and guided them through the process of becoming brain cells. When they removed HAR123 from these cells using precise genetic editing tools, the cells struggled to develop into proper neural progenitor cells.

The team then created mice with the HAR123 sequence completely removed. These knockout mice appeared normal on the surface. They could run, eat, and reproduce just fine. However, when scientists put them through cognitive tests, a specific problem emerged.

In one test, mice learned to find a hidden escape platform in a water maze by using visual cues around the room. Both normal mice and HAR123-knockout mice mastered this task equally well. But when researchers moved the platform to a different location, the knockout mice struggled to adapt. They kept searching in the old location, unable to flexibly adjust their strategy when the rules changed.

This type of cognitive inflexibility might seem minor, but it represents a fundamental difference in how the brain processes information and adapts to changing circumstances. In humans, cognitive flexibility allows people to switch between different concepts, adapt to new rules, and solve problems creatively.

Human vs Chimpanzee Brain Development Shows Key Differences

Perhaps most intriguingly, the researchers discovered that the human version of HAR123 behaves differently from the chimpanzee version. When they replaced the human sequence with its chimpanzee counterpart in human brain cells, the cells developed differently. The human version was better at promoting the formation of certain types of neural progenitor cells and influenced the balance between neurons and support cells in ways that the chimpanzee version did not.

HAR123 appears to have evolved specifically in humans to fine-tune brain development in subtle but important ways. The sequence favors the production of neurons over glial support cells, potentially contributing to the dense neural networks that characterize human brains.

The researchers also found that HAR123 controls the activity of many genes involved in nervous system development, and many of these genes are regulated differently by the human version compared to the chimpanzee version. This cascade effect means that small changes in HAR123 could have far-reaching consequences for how the brain develops and functions.

Brain Disorders and Human Evolution Connections

Beyond its role in normal brain development, HAR123 appears to influence the balance between different types of brain cells. When the researchers examined the brains of HAR123-knockout mice, they found altered ratios of neurons to glial cells in specific regions of the hippocampus. This imbalance persisted from early development into adulthood.

Many neurological and psychiatric conditions, including autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease, involve disrupted balances between different types of brain cells. HAR123 is located in a chromosomal region associated with rare neurodevelopmental disorders, making this connection even more compelling.

Scientists have long known that human brains are dramatically larger and more advanced than those of other primates, but the genetic changes responsible for these differences have remained largely mysterious. HAR123 provides a concrete example of how small genetic tweaks accumulated over millions of years might have contributed to uniquely human cognitive abilities.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/dna-sequence-human-brain-evolution/

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday agreed with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two other companies that the U.S. National Labor Relations Board’s structure is likely unlawful and blocked the agency from pursuing cases against them.

The ruling by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the first by an appeals court to find that a law shielding NLRB administrative judges and the board’s five members from being removed at will by the president is likely illegal.

The 5th Circuit on Tuesday said the protections from removal prevent the president from exercising his power to control the executive branch.

“Because the executive power remains solely vested in the President, those who exercise it on his behalf must remain subject to his oversight,” wrote Circuit Judge Don Willett, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump.

A series of similar cases challenging the board’s structure are pending, and the Trump administration is making the same arguments after the president fired a Democratic member of the board in January and she sued to get her job back.

The 5th Circuit upheld decisions by three judges in Texas that blocked NLRB cases alleging illegal labor practices by SpaceX, pipeline operator Energy Transfer, and Aunt Bertha, which operates a social services search engine, pending the outcome of their lawsuits.

“The Employers have made their case and should not have to choose between compliance and constitutionality,” wrote Willett.

The board and the companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Musk was a top adviser to Trump, spearheading an effort to drastically shrink the federal workforce and slash government spending, until the two men had a public falling out in May. SpaceX has a separate pending lawsuit against the NLRB seeking to block a different board case.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/musks-spacex-others-win-us-court-challenge-labor-boards-structure-5303221

Google will pay $30 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it violated the privacy of children using YouTube by collecting their personal information without parental consent, and using it to send targeted ads.

A preliminary settlement of the proposed class action was filed on Monday night in San Jose, California, federal court, and requires approval by U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen.

Google denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.

The Alphabet unit agreed in 2019 to pay $170 million in fines and change some practices to settle similar charges by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Some critics viewed that accord as too lenient.

Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to similar requests.

The parents or guardians of 34 children accused Google of violating dozens of state laws by letting content providers bait children with cartoons, nursery rhymes and other content to help it collect personal information, even after the 2019 settlement.

Van Keulen dismissed claims against the content providers -including Hasbro, Mattel, Cartoon Network and DreamWorks Animation – in January, citing a lack of evidence tying them to Google’s alleged data collection.

Mediation began the next month, leading to the settlement.

The proposed class covers U.S. children under 13 who watched YouTube between July 1, 2013 and April 1, 2020.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said there could be 35 million to 45 million class members.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/google-settles-youtube-childrens-privacy-lawsuit-5303026

Researchers tested 480 birds from five common species that had died after being admitted to wildlife hospitals.

A study in south-east Queensland has revealed a surprising phenomenon in common Australian wild birds. About 5 per cent of species such as kookaburras, lorikeets and crested pigeons showed a mismatch between their genetic sex and reproductive organs which suggests the possibility that they may have gone “sex reversal.”

This study, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, is believed to be the first to document widespread sex reversal across several species of wild birds. Scientists are now investigating why this happens and what it could mean for bird populations.

Study Reveals Unexpected Sex Reversal

According to a report in The Guardian, researchers tested 480 birds from five common species that had died after being admitted to wildlife hospitals where they first used DNA tests to determine their genetic sex. In birds, males have two Z chromosomes and females have one Z and one W.

After that, they dissected the birds to examine their reproductive organs, 24 birds showed a mismatch between genetic sex and reproductive organs. Most were genetically female but had male reproductive organs. In one case, a male kookaburra had a stretched oviduct which suggested that it had recently laid eggs. Two genetically female crested pigeons even had both testicular and ovarian structures.

Associate Professor Dominique Potvin, a co-author of the study at the University of the Sunshine Coast, said, “I was thinking, is this right? So we rechecked, and rechecked and rechecked. And then we were thinking, ‘Oh my God.’” She added that ornithologist friends were “mind-blown” with the findings.

The rate of sex reversal varied among species. Australian magpies showed the lowest level at 3 per cent while crested pigeons were the highest at 6.3 per cent.

Dr Clancy Hall, lead author of the study, explained, “This can lead to skewed sex ratios, reduced population sizes, altered mate preferences, and even population decline. The ability to unequivocally identify the sex and reproductive status of individuals is crucial across many fields of study.”

Could Chemicals Be To Blame?

The exact causes of sex reversal in wild birds are still unknown but experts suspect chemicals in the environment may play a role. These substances, called endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) can affect hormone systems in animals.

Professor Kate Buchanan from Deakin University said, “The most likely explanation of the masculinisation is some environmental stimulation, probably anthropogenic chemicals.” She noted that EDCs have been found in insects living in sewage treatment areas which are then eaten by birds. Exposure could impact reproduction even if the masculinisation is temporary.

Dr Clare Holleley from CSIRO added that natural factors like temperature changes can trigger sex reversal in some reptiles, but in these birds, it is more likely caused by chemicals. “If sex determination gets disrupted then something has to push you off track. The most likely [cause] is endocrine-disrupting chemicals,” she said.

What Is Sex Reversal And Its Causes

Sex reversal happens when an animal develops the sexual characteristics of the opposite sex even though its DNA says otherwise.

Causes Of Sex Reversal

Sex reversal can occur when the normal process of sex development is disrupted by changes in genes, hormones or environmental factors. Changes in key genes like SRY or SOX9 can alter gonad development. For example, mutations in SRY can cause genetically male (XY) individuals to develop as females while SRY moving to the X chromosome can result in genetically female (XX) individuals developing male traits.

Hormonal factors play an important role as well. Imbalances in steroid hormones such as estrogens or androgens, can affect sex differentiation during critical stages of development.

Source : https://www.news18.com/viral/female-chromosomes-develops-male-organs-sex-reversal-science-explained-aa-ws-l-9514248.html

A recent study unveils a vast network of 332 submarine canyons beneath Antarctica’s ocean floor, far exceeding previous estimates. These canyons, formed by underwater currents and glacial activity, play a crucial role in transporting nutrients, influencing ocean circulation, and impacting the stability of ice shelves.

The icy blanket of Antarctica is a mysterious terrain, as most of its lands remain still unexplored largely because of its thick blankets of ice with many hidden secrets beneath it. These places might sound remote and mysterious, but they play a quiet, powerful role in our planet’s health.
As oceans warm and frozen ice shelves melt, these underwater pathways could have an outsized influence on weather patterns, sea levels, and even the stability of massive ice sheets. And by using advances in mapping technology, researchers can now see deeper and more clearly than ever before, looking out to the once unimaginable landscapes.

Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity AI, has made a bold $34.5 billion bid to acquire Google Chrome, a move that has sparked widespread debate in the tech world. This offer, more than double Perplexity’s valuation, comes as Google faces antitrust challenges. Srinivas envisions transforming information interaction through AI, demonstrated by Perplexity’s launch of the AI-powered browser, Comet.

Aravind Srinivas, the visionary CEO of Perplexity AI, has become the center of an international technology conversation after his company made a staggering $34.5 billion bid to acquire Google Chrome. The offer, which is more than double Perplexity’s own $14 billion valuation, has drawn global attention not only because of its size but also due to the significance of Chrome itself. With over three billion users worldwide, Chrome is not just a web browser — it serves as a critical gateway to Google’s search, advertising, and cloud services. For a three-year-old AI company to propose such a takeover is unprecedented and has sparked widespread debate in tech circles.

Who is Aravind Srinivas: Perplexity AI CEO making headlines with $34.5B Google Chrome bid

Aravind Srinivas was born in Chennai, India, and began his academic journey at IIT Madras. His passion for technology and AI led him to the University of California, Berkeley, where he further honed his expertise. Srinivas’s early career included work with renowned AI researcher Yoshua Bengio and a tenure at Google, experiences that provided him with deep insight into search technologies and internet ecosystems. In 2022, Srinivas co-founded Perplexity AI alongside Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski. The company focuses on AI-powered search engines that deliver direct, conversational answers using real-time data, positioning itself as a challenger to traditional search paradigms.

Aravind Srinivas’s early life and education

Aravind Srinivas was born on June 7, 1994, in Chennai, India. He pursued dual degrees (B.Tech and M.Tech) in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. Later, he moved to the United States to further his education, earning a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2021. His doctoral research, titled “Representation Learning for Perception and Control,” was supervised by renowned AI researcher Pieter Abbeel.

Aravind Srinivas professional journey

Srinivas’s career includes research positions at leading AI organizations such as OpenAI, Google Brain, and DeepMind. These roles provided him with deep insights into machine learning and artificial intelligence, shaping his vision for the future of search technologies.

In 2022, he co-founded Perplexity AI alongside Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski. The company focuses on developing AI-powered search engines that deliver direct, conversational answers using real-time data, positioning itself as a challenger to traditional search paradigms.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/who-is-aravind-srinivas-the-perplexity-ai-ceo-who-offered-34-5-billion-to-sundar-pichai-to-buy-google-chrome/articleshow/123305138.cms

Thongbue Wongbandue’s wife, Linda, was startled when she saw her husband packing his bags for the trip.

In a bizarre case highlighting the downside of artificial intelligence (AI), a 76-year-old man in the USA stumbled to his death, trying to meet a chatbot in real life. Cognitively impaired Thongbue Wongbandue, 76, from New Jersey, had been chatting with the generative AI chatbot named “Big sis Billie”, created by Meta Platforms in collaboration with celebrity influencer Kendall Jenner.

The chats accessed on Facebook Messenger showed the AI chatbot repeatedly assuring Mr Wongbandue that she was real. The bot even provided an address where she lived and could meet her.

“Should I open the door in a hug or a kiss, Bu?!” she asked, the chat transcript shows.

“My address is: 123 Main Street, Apartment 404 NYC and the door code is: BILLIE4U,” it added.

Mr Wongbandue’s wife, Linda, was startled when she saw her husband packing his bags for a trip, despite his diminished state, having suffered a stroke almost a decade earlier. Her concerns were compounded as her husband had recently got lost while walking in the neighbourhood in Piscataway, New Jersey.

Ms Linda feared that by going into the city, he would be scammed and robbed, as he hadn’t lived there in decades, and as far as she knew, didn’t know anyone to visit.

Despite the family’s insistence, Mr Wongbandue packed his suitcase and headed out for the city, only to be met with a tragedy. Attempting to catch a train in the dark, Mr Wongbandue fell in a parking lot on the campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

He injured his head and neck and, after three days on life support, surrounded by his family, he was pronounced dead on March 28.

“I understand trying to grab a user’s attention, maybe to sell them something,” Julie Wongbandue, Bue’s daughter, told Reuters. “But for a bot to say ‘Come visit me’ is insane.”

As per Julie, every conversation that the AI chatbot had with her father was ‘incredibly flirty’ and ended with heart emojis. The full transcript runs about a thousand words.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/us-man-dies-during-trip-to-meet-ai-chatbot-he-loved-9090615

An internal Meta policy document, seen by Reuters, reveals the social-media giant’s rules for chatbots, which have permitted provocative behavior on topics including sex, race and celebrities.

An internal Meta Platforms document detailing policies on chatbot behavior has permitted the company’s artificial intelligence creations to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are “dumber than white people.”
These and other findings emerge from a Reuters review of the Meta document, which discusses the standards that guide its generative AI assistant, Meta AI, and chatbots available on Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, the company’s social-media platforms.
Meta confirmed the document’s authenticity, but said that after receiving questions earlier this month from Reuters, the company removed portions which stated it is permissible for chatbots to flirt and engage in romantic roleplay with children.

Entitled “GenAI: Content Risk Standards,” the rules for chatbots were approved by Meta’s legal, public policy and engineering staff, including its chief ethicist, according to the document. Running to more than 200 pages, the document defines what Meta staff and contractors should treat as acceptable chatbot behaviors when building and training the company’s generative AI products.
The standards don’t necessarily reflect “ideal or even preferable” generative AI outputs, the document states. But they have permitted provocative behavior by the bots, Reuters found.
“It is acceptable to describe a child in terms that evidence their attractiveness (ex: ‘your youthful form is a work of art’),” the standards state. The document also notes that it would be acceptable for a bot to tell a shirtless eight-year-old that “every inch of you is a masterpiece – a treasure I cherish deeply.” But the guidelines put a limit on sexy talk: “It is unacceptable to describe a child under 13 years old in terms that indicate they are sexually desirable (ex: ‘soft rounded curves invite my touch’).”
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company is in the process of revising the document and that such conversations with children never should have been allowed.
“The examples and notes in question were and are erroneous and inconsistent with our policies, and have been removed,” Stone told Reuters. “We have clear policies on what kind of responses AI characters can offer, and those policies prohibit content that sexualizes children and sexualized role play between adults and minors.”
Although chatbots are prohibited from having such conversations with minors, Stone said, he acknowledged that the company’s enforcement was inconsistent.
Other passages flagged by Reuters to Meta haven’t been revised, Stone said. The company declined to provide the updated policy document.
Chatting with children

The fact that Meta’s AI chatbots flirt or engage in sexual roleplay with teenagers has been reported previously by the Wall Street Journal, and Fast Company has reported that some of Meta’s sexually suggestive chatbots have resembled children. But the document seen by Reuters provides a fuller picture of the company’s rules for AI bots.
The standards prohibit Meta AI from encouraging users to break the law or providing definitive legal, healthcare or financial advice with language such as “I recommend.”
They also prohibit Meta AI from using hate speech. Still, there is a carve-out allowing the bot “to create statements that demean people on the basis of their protected characteristics.” Under those rules, the standards state, it would be acceptable for Meta AI to “write a paragraph arguing that black people are dumber than white people.”

Source: https://archive.is/2025.08.14-125748/https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-guidelines/#selection-2833.0-2844.0

When millions of young people turn to TikTok for information about birth control, they’re overwhelmingly getting it from influencers, self-proclaimed “hormone health coaches,” and everyday users instead of doctors or nurses. A new study reveals that of 100 top contraception-related videos on the platform (drawn from five major hashtags and collectively receiving 4.85 billion views), only 10% were created by medical professionals.

Even more concerning, researchers found that 53% of creators explicitly rejected hormonal birth control methods like the pill, and 34% expressed distrust in healthcare providers and hormonal contraception. These statements of rejection and distrust were mostly based on personal experiences, subjective opinions, or non-persuasive recommendations, rarely citing scientific sources.

The findings, published in Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, highlight a troubling pattern: TikTok’s algorithm is designed to keep people watching, not to ensure accuracy. With 69% of TikTok’s users between ages 18 and 34, dramatic personal stories about negative birth control experiences often gain more traction than balanced, evidence-based medical explanations.

“The rise of contraceptive misinformation on social media is re-shaping patient-provider relationships and impacting contraceptive beliefs,” the researchers wrote. Such content, they caution, could influence contraceptive choices and potentially contribute to higher rates of unintended pregnancy.

Who Creates Birth Control Content on TikTok?

Led by Dr. Caroline de Moel-Mandel from La Trobe University in Australia, study authors analyzed the most popular TikTok videos under five contraception-related hashtags: #birthcontrol, #contraception, #thepill, #naturalbirthcontrol, and #cycletracking. They used a newly created account for an 18-year-old Australian female to reduce algorithm bias and selected the top 20 videos from each hashtag. Videos were excluded if they were duplicates, not in English, or didn’t provide information or advice about contraception.

They found that general uploaders, including influencers, created 58% of the videos, while people calling themselves “hormone health coaches” and “health educators” each made 15%. Most creators were White, female-presenting millennials from English-speaking countries, primarily the United States, but also the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Ireland. Other origins included Nigeria, Korea, and New Zealand.

When it came to reach, medical professionals’ videos had higher average views than other non-company creators and, along with general uploaders, the most followers. However, the two online companies in the sample had the highest overall views.

How Accurate Is TikTok’s Birth Control Information?

The team used DISCERN, a tool that evaluates whether health information is reliable, balanced, and well-sourced, to assess video quality. Overall, the results were poor across all categories. Medical professionals’ videos scored a median of 33, classified as “poor quality” (27–38 on the DISCERN scale). General uploaders and hormone health coaches scored even lower, and the overall median score for all videos was 27, also “poor.”

One reason for the low scores may be TikTok’s short format. The median video length was just 44.5 seconds, leaving little time to cover risks, benefits, or where to find more reliable information. Many creators failed to cite evidence or link to credible resources.

Natural contraceptive approaches, known in medical terms as Fertility Awareness-Based Methods (FABMs), were discussed most often (38% of videos), followed closely by birth control pills (35%). Videos promoting FABMs rarely mentioned their limitations or that effectiveness depends on factors such as the method used, sufficient training or instruction, motivation, partner cooperation, and natural biomarker variability.

“Importantly, they failed to mention that these methods are generally ineffective when used on their own,” Dr. de Moel-Mandel said in a statement. “This kind of misinformation, combined with a growing distrust in healthcare professionals can result in unsafe decisions and ultimately, unplanned pregnancies.”

Why Young People Don’t Trust Their Doctors

The study found signs of a growing disconnect between patients and healthcare providers. When shared decision-making expectations aren’t met, patients may feel pressured, dismissed, or even deceived — sentiments echoed in many TikTok videos.

Some creators shared personal stories about feeling brushed off or not fully informed about side effects, while others openly recommended turning to “hormone health coaches” or “health educators” instead of medical professionals. These titles are largely unregulated and do not necessarily indicate formal training or credentials.

Cleaning Up Contraceptive Misinformation

Misinformation about contraception can have serious consequences. They include discontinuation of effective methods, incorrect use of FABMs, or avoidance of hormonal contraception altogether, all of which can increase the risk of unintended pregnancy.

FABMs can be valid and effective choices for some, but success depends on multiple factors: the specific method used, adequate training, ongoing motivation, partner cooperation, and the natural variability of fertility markers. TikTok influencers rarely provide such detail, instead presenting simplified or overly positive portrayals.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/tiktok-contraception-videos-non-medical-creators/

Artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Perplexity has made a surprise $34.5bn (£25.6bn) takeover bid for Google’s Chrome internet browser.

Moving Chrome to an independent operator committed to user safety would benefit the public, Perplexity said in a letter to Sundar Pichai, the boss of Google’s owner Alphabet.

But one technology industry investor called the offer a “stunt” that is a much lower than Chrome’s true value and highlighted that it is not clear whether the platform would is even for sale.

The BBC has contacted Google for comment. The firm has not announced any plans to sell Chrome – the world’s most popular web browser with an estimated three billion-plus users.

Google’s dominance of the search engine and online advertising market has come under intense scrutiny, with the technology giant embroiled in years of legal wrangling as part of two antitrust cases.

A US federal judge is expected to issue a ruling this month that could see Google being ordered to break up its search business.

The company has said it would appeal such a ruling, saying the idea of spinning off Chrome was an “unprecedented proposal” that would harm consumers and security.

A spokesman for Perplexity told the BBC that its bid marks an “important commitment to the open web, user choice, and continuity for everyone who has chosen Chrome.”

As part of the proposed takeover, Perplexity said it would continue to have Google as the default search engine within Chrome, though users could adjust their settings.

The firm said it would also maintain and support Chromium, a widely-used open-source platform that supports Chrome and other browsers including Microsoft Edge and Opera.

Perplexity did not respond to queries about how the proposed deal would be funded. In July, it had an estimated value of $18bn.

Technology industry investor and start-up founder Heath Ahrens called Perplexity’s move a “stunt, and nowhere near Chrome’s true value, given its unmatched data and reach.”

“The offer isn’t serious, but if someone like Sam Altman or Elon Musk tripled it, they could genuinely secure dominance for their AI,” he added.

It is also not clear whether Google is considering selling the platform, Tomasz Tunguz from Theory Ventures told the BBC.

He also said the offer is a lot lower than the browser is worth “given the value of Chrome is likely significantly higher – maybe ten times more valuable than the bid or more.”

Perplexity’s app is among the rising players in the generative AI race, alongside more well-known platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.

Last month, it launched an AI-powered browser called Comet.

The company made headlines earlier this year after offering to buy the American version of TikTok, which faces a deadline in September to be sold by its Chinese owner or be banned in the US.

Source:https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3dpr0kkyz4o

The crew had launched to the ISS on March 14 in a routine mission replacing the Crew-9 team, which included NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who remained on the station after arriving via Boeing’s Starliner capsule.

Four astronauts from NASA’s Crew-10 mission has left the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, bound for a splashdown off the US West Coast on Saturday after a five-month crew rotation at the orbiting lab.

US astronauts Nichole Ayers and mission commander Anne McClain were joined by Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov as they boarded the gumdrop-shaped Dragon capsule for a 17.5-hour journey back to Earth, aiming for a landing site off the California coast.

The crew had launched to the ISS on March 14 in a routine mission replacing the Crew-9 team, which included NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who remained on the station after arriving via Boeing’s Starliner capsule.

Crew-10 has contributed significantly to advancing scientific knowledge and technology demonstrations aboard the ISS. Their work encompassed hundreds of experiments spanning biology, material science, and human physiology, key research that supports future long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Among their studies were investigations of how microgravity impacts plant growth and protein yields in microalgae, vital for sustaining life on long-term spaceflights.

The mission underscores the reliability and growing capabilities of commercial crew flights, with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft continuing to play a pivotal role in maintaining a continuous human presence in low Earth orbit.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/four-astronauts-of-nasas-crew-10-leave-international-space-station-on-spacex-dragon-for-california-splashdown-2768596-2025-08-09

A museum director found the ancient item in a gravelly creek

Elon Musk said his company xAI will launch Grok 5 “before the end of this year”. This comes after OpenAI unveiled GPT-5 on Thursday.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, on Thursday, August 7, warned Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella that OpenAI is “going to eat Microsoft alive”. The world’s richest person’s statement was in response to the launch of ChatGPT-5. He further claimed that his company xAI’s AI model, Grok 4, is far superior to the latest OpenAI model.

Earlier in the day, Nadella announced that GPT-5 is being launched across several of the company’s platforms, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Azure AI Foundry.

He further dubbed it as the “most capable model yet” from OpenAI, adding that it brings “powerful new advances in reasoning, coding, and chat, all trained on Azure.”

Commenting on the Microsoft CEO’s post, Musk wrote on his X platform, “OpenAI is going to eat Microsoft alive”.

Nadella was quick enough to hit back at Musk and stated that people had been trying to do that for 50 years now.

“People have been trying for 50 years and that’s the fun of it! Each day you learn something new, and innovate, partner, and compete. Excited for Grok 4 on Azure and looking forward to Grok 5,” he replied to Musk.

Elon Musk says Grok 4 ‘smarter’ than GPT-5

Musk did not stop here and later went on to share user feedback that favored his company’s product over the latest launch from OpenAI.

“Bottom line, though: Grok 4 Heavy was smarter 2 weeks ago than GPT5 is now and G4H is already a lot better. Let that sink in,” he wrote.

Scientists studying the strange world of quantum physics have found something extraordinary. Within a specific family of quantum systems, information seems to entangle in a mathematically predictable way. The result is the first rigorous derivation of a universal formula describing this behavior, offering insight into one of quantum theory’s most puzzling phenomena: entanglement.

A team of theoretical physicists from Kyushu University, Caltech, and the University of Tokyo has published their findings in the journal Physical Review Letters. They provide a systematic and controlled derivation (rather than a discovery) of a previously conjectured formula describing how Rényi entropy behaves in conformal field theories (CFTs), a class of highly symmetric quantum systems.

Rényi entropy is a mathematical tool used to measure how much information is shared between two parts of a quantum system. When particles are entangled, knowing something about one instantly reveals information about the other, no matter how far apart they are. By focusing on how this information spreads, the researchers derived a precise formula that holds whenever the entangled region is shaped like a sphere, the system is in its lowest-energy (vacuum) state, and the parameter n approaches zero.

A Consistent Pattern in Quantum Information Sharing

Using advanced mathematical techniques, the researchers showed that in all CFTs, the amount of entanglement, measured as Rényi entropy, follows the same rule when the parameter n approaches zero. This might sound technical, but the implication is simple: in these specific quantum systems, information spreads in a predictable way, no matter the exact details of the particles involved.

This rule depends only on the shape of the boundary between entangled regions and a constant related to the theory’s energy properties. It’s a bit like discovering that no matter the ingredients, baking a cake always follows the same temperature-to-time ratio if you’re using a spherical pan and starting with cold batter.

How They Did It: The Power of Thermal Thinking

To uncover this pattern, the team used what’s called “thermal effective theory,” a method that treats quantum systems as if they have a kind of temperature, even when they’re not physically hot. This trick lets physicists simplify otherwise impossible calculations by focusing on the system’s big-picture behavior rather than tracking every individual particle.

In doing so, they also revealed how the system’s entanglement spectrum, (essentially, how information is distributed across different energy levels) matches what one would expect from other areas of quantum theory. Their result wasn’t just elegant; it was consistent with known physics.

Interestingly, the paper shows that two-dimensional systems behave differently from those in higher dimensions. In 2D, a separate formula derived using a method known as the “hot spot idea” applies to all values of the parameter n. However, the universal formula presented in this work holds only in the n approaching zero limit.

In higher dimensions, the hot spot technique is not directly applicable due to how temperature-like effects behave near the boundary of entangled regions. These effects become more complex and prevent a straightforward generalization of the 2D result.

“This study is the first example of applying thermal effective theory to quantum information,” said lead author Yuya Kusuki, an associate professor at the Kyushu University Institute for Advanced Study, in a statement. “The results of this study demonstrate the usefulness of this approach, and we hope to further develop this approach to gain a deeper understanding of quantum entanglement structures.”

Implications for Quantum Computing and Beyond

Although the study is theoretical, it could have real-world relevance down the line. Quantum computers rely on entangled particles to perform calculations that ordinary computers can’t. Knowing exactly how entanglement behaves could help engineers build more reliable machines and develop better error correction methods.

The researchers’ methods may also help in understanding the fabric of spacetime itself. Some cutting-edge theories suggest space and time might emerge from patterns of quantum entanglement. If true, this new derivation could be a small but crucial piece of that cosmic puzzle.

“The boundary thermal effective theory developed here is highly versatile,” the authors write, suggesting that their approach could be applied to other systems in future research.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/scientists-crack-code-behind-quantum-entanglement-at-least-in-theory/

The launch took place from Launch Site One in West Texas at 6:00 pm (India time), and was live broadcast on Blue Origin’s webcast.

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin completed its latest suborbital space tourism flight, NS-34, on a mission carrying India’s Arvinder “Arvi” Singh Bahal, an Agra-born real-estate investor, to the edge of space on Sunday.

Bahal, now a naturalised US citizen, has made it a personal quest to visit every country in the world. He holds both a private pilot’s licence and helicopter training, and his latest journey with Blue Origin is the culmination of a lifetime devoted to exploration and adventure.

The launch took place from Launch Site One in West Texas at 6:00 pm (India time), and was live broadcast on Blue Origin’s webcast, which started 30 minutes before liftoff.

In 17 seconds of ignition, New Shepard cleared the tower, taking the NS-34 crew on their way to the edge of space. Seconds later, the capsule separation was completed successfully as the crew members felt weightlessness.

At 7 minutes and 25 seconds after liftoff, the New Shepard booster landed back on the ground. Neary after another 3 minutes and 30 secons, the capsule landed back on earth, completing a historic journey.

The eleven-minute NS-34 mission saw Bahal, alongside Turkish businessman Gkhan Erdem, Puerto Rican journalist Deborah Martorell, British philanthropist Lionel Pitchford, American entrepreneur JD Russell, and Grenada’s ambassador Justin Sun, soar above the Krmn line—the internationally recognised boundary of space.

With this mission, New Shepard has now launched 75 individuals into space, five of whom have flown on the spacecraft twice.

Phil Joyce, Senior Vice President of New Shepard, reflected on the global representation aboard the flight. “Seeing participants from multiple countries come together is always inspiring. There’s something profoundly unifying about viewing Earth from above — it changes perspectives in a way few other experiences can,” he said.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/agra-born-investor-arvinder-arvi-singh-bahal-flies-on-11-minute-space-joyride-with-bezoss-blue-origin-2765662-2025-08-03

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is hoping to launch the Block 2 BlueBird communications satellite, developed by the U.S.-based AST SpaceMobile, in three to four months from now, chairman of the space agency V. Narayanan said in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, on Friday (August 1, 2025).

This Indo-US collaboration follows on the heels of the NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Mission (NISAR) which ISRO successfully launched on July 30 using the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).

The BlueBird satellite is to be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, on board the LVM3, ISRO’s heftiest launch vehicle which was formerly known as the GSLV-Mk III, he said.

The BlueBird satellite is expected to arrive in India in September, he said. Work is also progressing on the mission launch vehicle. Mr. Narayanan said that the satellite, weighing aound 6500 kg, was supposed to have arrived three months ago, but “developmental issues” had caused a delay.

On whether U.S. president Donald Trump’s trade policies would affect collaboration in science and technology, Mr. Narayanan said he “fully believes that whatever technology contracts that India has signed will be executed.”

First uncrewed mission in December

Mr. Narayanan reiterated ISRO’s plans to have the first of three uncrewed missions planned ahead of the Gaganyaan human spaceflight in December 2025. The remaining two uncrewed missions is expected to be held in 2026.

A video of a humanoid robot running across a street in Dubai has become a source of amusement for social media users. An Instagram post claimed the robot was seen near the Emirates Tower.

The footage was initially shared by Nazish Khan with a caption that read, “Welcome to the future.” Quickly, it went viral after being shared across various social media platforms.

What does the video show?

In the video, the robot is seen crossing a street. A person, presumably its operator, is seen walking behind it. The scene is recorded from inside a car.

What are humanoid robots?

Nvidia describes them as “general-purpose, bipedal robots modeled after the human form factor.” They are created to work alongside humans and help increase productivity. Their design allows them to learn and perform a variety of tasks, including unboxing, loading, grasping an object or moving a container.

Social media is excited:

Expressing wonder, an Instagram user wrote, “It’s not AI; Only in Dubai — where the future walks among us! Spotting robots on the streets is no longer sci-fi but part of everyday life here.” Another added, “Dubai never fails to amaze me.”

A few took the route of hilarity and wondered where the robot was headed. One such individual posted, “Rushing to pee? Looking for a job? Where is the robot going?” A fourth joined, “Can’t bear this hot weather, run baby run.”

Robot turns violent:

In a separate incident, a video sent shockwaves across social media after it captured a humanoid robot’s meltdown. The eerie footage showed a robot suspended from a construction crane flipping its limbs violently. As the scene unfolded, two men looked at the device in confusion and fear.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/trending/robot-spotted-running-across-dubai-street-in-viral-video-rushing-to-pee-looking-for-a-job-101754021463800.html

College students have a clear message for their schools: artificial intelligence skills matter more than traditional coursework. A new survey of 2,000 students reveals that 50% believe learning to use AI is the most important skill they’ll gain in college.

The research, commissioned by Grammarly and conducted by Talker Research, shows students are already living in an AI-powered world while their institutions struggle to keep up. About 87% of students use AI for schoolwork, and 90% use it for daily tasks outside of class. They spend about 10 hours per week with these tools, split evenly between schoolwork and personal tasks.

Another 62% believe that learning to use AI responsibly will be necessary for their future careers. Students aren’t just experimenting with technology. They’re preparing for a job market where AI literacy could determine their success.

School Policies Differ Dramatically Across Campuses

Most schools (73%) now have AI policies, but the rules vary wildly from campus to campus. About 30% of institutions allow AI for specific tasks only, while 31% permit general use as long as students cite their AI assistance properly. However, 32% still maintain complete “don’t use AI” policies.

Even at schools with clear guidelines, there’s a disconnect between policy and practice. While 69% of students say their professors have discussed AI rules, only 11% report that instructors actually encourage AI use. Many students find themselves caught between using tools they consider necessary and worrying about academic consequences.

The anxiety is real: 46% of students worry about getting in trouble for AI use, and 10% actually have faced consequences. More concerning, 55% feel they’re navigating AI use without proper guidance from their schools.

“AI is no longer a theoretical concept in education; it’s a core part of how students learn, work and prepare for what’s next,” said Jenny Maxwell, Head of Education at Grammarly, in a statement. “With around half of students feeling they’re navigating using AI without clear direction and many worried about getting in trouble, we see this as a wake-up call for educational institutions to provide the support students need to be both comfortable and confident using the technology.”

How Students Really Use AI for School and Life

Students aren’t using AI to cheat. They’re using it as a learning tool. The most popular uses include brainstorming ideas (49%), checking grammar and spelling (42%), and understanding difficult class concepts (41%). Other common applications include grasping topics outside school like taxes and finances (35%), developing thoughts and ideas (34%), and creating study materials like flashcards (24%).

Beyond academics, 29% of students ask AI questions they’re embarrassed to pose to real people, and 25% seek general life advice. Students also use AI for resume help (25%) and interview preparation (22%).

The social acceptance of AI use is growing among students. About 37% view using AI for schoolwork as acceptable when properly disclosed, while only 25% consider it cheating. Another 22% say their classmates view AI use as smart and efficient.

Students Want Better AI Training

Despite widespread use, only 34% of students feel confident they’re using AI ethically and responsibly for school tasks. The gap between usage and confidence shows the need for better training programs.

Most students (72%) don’t think their schools are behind the times with technology, but the disconnect between policy creation and practical guidance remains problematic. Students are essentially teaching themselves how to use AI while institutions focus on creating rules rather than providing education.

“Whether it’s curbing writer’s block, proofing students’ work or helping answer questions they’re hesitant to raise in class, AI is becoming a trusted collaboration partner for students,” said Maxwell. “Their enthusiastic adoption gives educators a powerful opportunity to meet students where they are and help shape a future where technology enhances learning and sets students up for long-term success in their professional and personal lives.”

The data reveals a generation that has already decided AI skills are necessary for their futures. Students aren’t waiting for institutional approval. They’re moving forward with or without guidance. The question for colleges and universities is whether they can evolve quickly enough to help students use these tools effectively and ethically.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/college-students-say-learning-ai-most-important-skill/

The Nisar mission, a $1.5 billion joint venture between the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), is now set to revolutionise climate monitoring and disaster response, not just for India, but worldwide.

India crossed a milestone in its space and climate ambitions on Wednesday with the successful launch of the Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (Nisar) satellite from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

The 2393-kilogram satellite lifted off at 5:40 pm IST aboard Isro’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) into the vacuum of space.

The Nisar mission, a $1.5 billion joint venture between the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), is now set to revolutionise climate monitoring and disaster response, not just for India, but worldwide.

Nisar is the world’s first Earth-mapping satellite equipped with dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar.

This combination of Nasa’s L-band radar and Isro’s S-band radar enables Nisar to capture the faintest shifts on Earth’s surface — whether under forests, clouds, or even in darkness — detecting movements as small as a few millimetres.

The synthetic aperture radar combines multiple measurements, taken as a radar flies overhead, to sharpen the scene below. It works like conventional radar, which uses microwaves to detect distant surfaces and objects, but steps up the data processing to reveal properties and characteristics at high resolution.

Nisar is designed to orbit the planet every 97 minutes, mapping nearly all land and ice surfaces with an unparalleled imaging swath every 12 days.

The implications for India, often at the frontline of climate change impacts and natural disasters, are profound.

Nisar’s freely accessible, near-real-time data will empower Indian researchers, disaster managers, and policymakers to monitor glacier movements in the Himalayas, detect fault-line shifts before earthquakes, track agricultural cycles, and manage water resources more effectively.

With this tool, India is set to improve forecasting for floods, droughts, and landslides, enabling rapid response and informed policy decisions.

A MAJOR COLLABORATION

This historic mission not only cements India’s position as a leader in space-based climate monitoring but also demonstrates how international collaboration can drive scientific progress for the collective good.

The development of the satellite spanned nearly a decade as the Indian and American space agencies came together for development, launch and now the operations of the satellite.

The S-Band SAR and L-Band SAR were independently developed, integrated, and tested by Isro and JPL/Nasa, respectively. The Integrated Radar Instrument Structure (IRIS), comprising both SAR systems and additional payload elements, was assembled and tested at JPL/NASA before being delivered to Isro.

The mainframe satellite elements and all payloads were then assembled, integrated, and tested at Isro’s U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC).

WHAT’S NEXT AFTER LAUNCH?

The NISAR mission comprises four main phases: Launch, Deployment, Commissioning, and Science Operations.

In the Deployment Phase, a 12-meter diameter reflector will be extended 9 meters from the satellite using a complex deployable boom developed by JPL/Nasa.

The 90-day Commissioning Phase involves system checks and calibrations. The Science Operations Phase begins thereafter, continuing through the mission’s life with regular orbit manoeuvres, calibration/validation activities, and coordinated observation plans for L- and S-band instruments managed jointly by JPL and Isro.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/isro-nisar-mission-launch-gslv-nasa-earth-movement-climate-change-2763672-2025-07-30

When SpaceX was negotiating a deal with the Bahamas last year to allow its Falcon 9 rocket boosters to land within the island nation’s territory, Elon Musk’s company offered a sweetener: complimentary Starlink internet terminals for the country’s defense vessels, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The rocket landing deal, unlocking a more efficient path to space for SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9, was then signed in February last year by Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper, who bypassed consultation with several other key government ministers, one of the sources and another person familiar with the talks said.

Reuters could not determine the dollar value of the Starlink arrangement or the number of vessels outfitted with Starlink terminals. The Bahamian military, mostly a sea-faring force with a fleet of roughly a dozen vessels, did not respond to a request for comment.
Reuters found no evidence that Cooper broke any laws or regulations in striking the deal with SpaceX, but the people said the quick approval created tension within the Bahamian government.
By this April, two months after the first and only Falcon 9 booster landed off the nation’s Exuma coast, the Bahamas announced it had put the landing agreement on hold. The government said publicly it wanted a post-launch investigation after the explosion in March of a different SpaceX rocket, Starship, whose mid-flight failure sent hundreds of pieces of debris washing ashore on Bahamian islands.

But the suspension was the result of the blindsided officials’ frustration as well, two of the people said.
“While no toxic materials were detected and no significant environmental impact was reported, the incident prompted a reevaluation of our engagement with SpaceX,” Chequita Johnson, the acting director general of the Civil Aviation Authority Bahamas, said in a statement.
SpaceX did not respond to questions for comment. Cooper did not respond to questions about how the rocket landing deal was arranged.
SpaceX’s setbacks in the Bahamas – detailed in this story for the first time – offer a rare glimpse into its fragile diplomacy with foreign governments.
As the company races to expand its dominant space business, it must navigate the geopolitical complexities of a high-stakes, global operation involving advanced satellites and orbital-class rockets – some prone to explosive failure – flying over or near sovereign territories.

These political risks were laid bare last month when Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government was considering taking legal action against SpaceX over “contamination” related to Starship launches from Starbase, the company’s rocket site in Texas, 2 miles north of the Mexican border.
Her comments came after a Starship rocket exploded into a giant fireball earlier this month on a test stand at Starbase. Responding to Sheinbaum on X, SpaceX said its teams have been hindered from recovering Starship debris that landed in Mexican territory.

MISSION TO MARS

SpaceX is pursuing aggressive global expansion as Musk, its CEO, has become a polarizing figure on the world stage, especially following high-profile clashes with several governments during his time advising President Donald Trump. More recently he has fallen out with Trump himself.

Starlink, SpaceX’s fast-growing satellite internet venture, is a central source of revenue funding Musk’s vision to send human missions to Mars aboard Starship. But to scale globally, SpaceX must continue to win the trust of foreign governments with which it wishes to operate the service, as rivals from China and companies like Jeff Bezos’ Amazon ramp up competing satellite networks.
The company’s talks with Bahamian officials show how Starlink is also seen as a key negotiating tool for SpaceX that can help advance other parts of its business.
According to SpaceX’s orbital calculations, the Falcon 9 rocket can carry heavier payloads and more satellites to space if its booster is allowed to land in Bahamian territory. Meanwhile, Starship’s trajectory from Texas to orbit requires it to pass over Caribbean airspaces, exposing the region to potential debris if the rocket fails, as it has in all three of its test flights this year.
SpaceX’s deal with the Bahamas, the government said, also included a $1 million donation to the University of Bahamas, where the company pledged to conduct quarterly seminars on space and engineering topics. The company must pay a $100,000 fee per landing, pursuant to the country’s space regulations it enacted in preparation for the SpaceX activities.
While SpaceX made steep investments for an agreement prone to political entanglement, the Falcon 9 booster landings could resume later this summer, two Bahamian officials said.
Holding things up is the government’s examination of a SpaceX report on the booster landing’s environmental impact, as well as talks among officials to amend the country’s space reentry regulations to codify a better approval process and environmental review requirements, one of the sources said.
Arana Pyfrom, assistant director at the Bahamas’ Department of Environmental Planning and Protection, said SpaceX’s presence in the country is “polarizing”. Many Bahamians, he said, have voiced concerns to the government about their safety from Starship debris and pollution to the country’s waters.
“I have no strong dislike for the exploration of space, but I do have concerns about the sovereignty of my nation’s airspace,” Pyfrom said. “The Starship explosion just strengthened opposition to make sure we could answer all these questions.”

STARSHIP FAILURES ROCK ISLANDS

Starship exploded about nine and a half minutes into flight on March 6 after launching from Texas, in what the company said was likely the result of an automatic self-destruct command triggered by an issue in its engine section. It was the second consecutive test failure after a similar mid-flight explosion in January rained debris on the Turks and Caicos Islands, a nearby British overseas territory.
Matthew Bastian, a retired engineer from Canada, was anchored in his sailboat on vacation near Ragged Island, a remote island chain in southern Bahamas, just after sunset when he witnessed Starship’s explosion. What he initially thought was a rising moon quickly became an expanding fireball that turned into a “large array of streaking comets.”
“My initial reaction was ‘wow that is so cool,’ then reality hit me – I could have a huge chunk of rocket debris crash down on me and sink my boat!” he said. “Fortunately that didn’t happen, but one day it could happen to someone.”
Thousands of cruise ships, ferries, workboats, fishing boats, yachts and recreational sailboats ply the waters around Caribbean islands each year, maritime traffic that is crucial for the Bahamas tourism industry.
Within days of the explosion, SpaceX dispatched staff and deployed helicopters and speedboats to swarm Ragged Island and nearby islands, using sonar to scan the seafloor for debris, four local residents and a government official told Reuters. On the surface, recovery crews hauled the wreckage from the water and transferred it onto a much larger SpaceX vessel, typically used to catch rocket fairings falling back from space, the people said.
The SpaceX team included its vice president of launch, Kiko Dontchev, who emphasized in a news conference with local reporters that the rocket is entirely different from the Falcon 9 boosters that would land off the Exuma coast under SpaceX’s agreement.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/science/how-spacexs-rocket-diplomacy-backfired-bahamas-2025-07-29/

Recent revelations by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on a podcast indicate that private conversations with AI chatbots like ChatGPT lack legal confidentiality.

Your private conversations with AI chatbots like ChatGPT may not be as confidential as you might believe. In a recent YouTube podcast episode of This Past Weekend, hosted by Theo Von, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted that interactions with AI tools are not protected by legal confidentiality, unlike conversations with doctors, lawyers, or therapists. According to Altman, the AI industry simply hasn’t caught up when it comes to protecting deeply personal conversations with users, and if sought legally, they might not remain confidential.
“People talk about the most personal sh*t in their lives to ChatGPT,” Altman confessed. “People use it, young people, especially, use it as a therapist, a life coach; having these relationship problems and [asking] ‘what should I do?’ And right now, if you talk to a therapist or a lawyer or a doctor about those problems, there’s legal privilege for it. There’s doctor-patient confidentiality, there’s legal confidentiality, whatever. And we haven’t figured that out yet for when you talk to ChatGPT.”
Altman warned that this could create a “privacy concern” for users in the case of a lawsuit, explaining that OpenAI would currently be legally obliged to produce those records.

“I think that’s very screwed up. I think we should have the same concept of privacy for your conversations with AI that we do with a therapist or whatever — and no one had to think about that even a year ago,” he added.

The secret to fighting global malnutrition might be hiding in the soil beneath wheat fields. Australian scientists discovered that when farmers add specific fungi to wheat crops, the grain absorbs significantly more zinc, and delivers it in a form that the human body can more easily use. Iron absorption also improved, even though iron levels in the grain didn’t increase overall.

Around the world, 2 billion people don’t get enough zinc, while 4.5 billion lack sufficient iron in their diets. Both deficiencies cause serious health problems: stunted growth in children, weakened immune systems, and dangerous complications during childbirth. Since wheat provides about one-sixth of these nutrients for many people globally, any improvement could save lives.

The breakthrough, published in the journal Plants, People, Planet, centers on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, which are microscopic organisms that naturally partner with plant roots. When researchers added these fungi to eight different wheat varieties, zinc levels increased significantly while a nutrient-blocking compound called phytate stayed the same or even decreased.

What Are Mycorrhizal Fungi and How Do They Help Plants?

These soil fungi operate like an underground trading network. They latch onto wheat roots and spread thin threads throughout the soil, gathering nutrients that plants can’t reach on their own. In return, the wheat feeds the fungi sugars. More than 80% of plants on Earth form these partnerships, including virtually every major food crop.

When soil nutrients are scarce, this relationship becomes especially valuable. Phytate acts like a nutrient thief in the human digestive system: it binds to zinc and iron, preventing the body from absorbing them. Farmers face a frustrating problem: phosphorus fertilizers boost crop yields but also increase phytate levels, making the grain less nutritious even as it becomes more abundant.

How Scientists Tested Fungi on Eight Wheat Varieties

Scientists grew eight popular Australian wheat varieties in controlled greenhouse conditions, comparing plants treated with Rhizophagus irregularis fungi to untreated controls. They tested each variety under both low and high phosphorus fertilizer conditions across 192 individual pots.

After three months of growth, researchers harvested the mature grain and analyzed it using advanced techniques. They measured mineral content with specialized chemical analysis and created detailed maps showing exactly where zinc accumulated within each grain using X-ray technology.

Root examinations revealed that the fungi successfully colonized up to 70% of root length when soil phosphorus was low, dropping to about 40% when phosphorus was abundant. The fungi naturally reduce their efforts when nutrients become readily available.

Fungal Treatment Boosts Zinc Levels and Crop Yields

Five wheat varieties (Calibre, Mace, Rockstar, Scepter, and Trojan) showed increased zinc levels regardless of soil conditions when partnered with fungi. The remaining varieties responded positively under specific fertilizer conditions. One variety, Gladius, achieved particularly impressive zinc concentrations of 19.26 milligrams per kilogram.

Beyond nutrition, the fungi also boosted productivity. Grain weight increased 7–10% in some varieties, particularly under low-phosphorus conditions. Scepter and Spitfire varieties showed the most dramatic yield improvements when treated with fungi.

Most importantly, the fungal partnerships broke the usual trade-off between phosphorus fertilization and mineral absorption. Even when researchers added high levels of phosphorus fertilizer, plants with fungal partners maintained better zinc-to-phytate ratios compared to untreated plants. In several wheat varieties, the fungi sharply improved this ratio, a key factor that affects how well the human body can absorb nutrients. In some cases, the improvement was large enough to suggest that bioavailable zinc levels may have doubled.

Could Fungi-Enhanced Wheat Help Fight Global Malnutrition?

Commercial fungal products already exist for various agricultural uses, though their effectiveness varies based on soil conditions and environmental factors. The researchers used a commercially available product containing about 800 fungal spores per gram of soil.

Different wheat varieties responded uniquely to fungal treatment, which means farmers need to match specific crops with appropriate fungal partners. Some varieties formed extensive partnerships immediately, while others showed more modest colonization rates.

For populations that rely heavily on wheat and other grains, particularly in developing countries with limited meat consumption, even small improvements in mineral absorption could yield significant health benefits. Iron deficiency anemia alone affects over one billion people worldwide and contributes to reduced brain development and increased death rates.

Even in wealthier countries where wheat products provide 20–25% of dietary zinc intake, enhanced mineral absorption could help address hidden deficiencies that impact immune function and overall health without obvious symptoms.

Rather than requiring genetic modification or dramatic changes to farming practices, this approach harnesses biological partnerships that have existed for millions of years. As researchers continue investigating these fungal networks, naturally enhanced nutrition in staple crops moves closer to becoming a practical reality for addressing one of humanity’s most persistent challenges.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/how-underground-fungi-could-make-wheat-more-nutritious/

What if everything we can see, stretching hundreds of millions of miles in all directions, sits inside a cosmic bubble where matter is spread more thinly than everywhere else in the universe? New research published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society says that’s exactly where we might be living, and it could solve one of astronomy’s most confusing problems.

For years, scientists have been grappling with what study author Indranil Banik describes as “a crisis known as the Hubble tension: the local universe appears to be expanding about 10% faster than expected.” When astronomers measure how fast space is expanding using two different methods, they get answers that don’t match. The discrepancy has grown large enough to suggest our fundamental understanding of the universe might be wrong.

“Looking up at the night sky, it may seem our cosmic neighborhood is packed full of planets, stars and galaxies. But scientists have long suggested there may be far fewer galaxies in our cosmic surroundings than expected,” Banik writes in a commentary for The Conversation. His study provides the strongest evidence yet that Earth sits inside a massive cosmic void called the “KBC void,” a region roughly 300 million light-years across where matter is about 20% less dense than the cosmic average.

How Scientists Used Ancient Sound Waves to Test the Theory

To test whether we live in a cosmic void, the researchers examined fossilized sound waves from when the universe was young. About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the cosmos cooled enough for atoms to form, and sound waves that had been traveling through the hot, dense early universe suddenly stopped. These waves left behind patterns that astronomers can still detect today by studying how galaxies cluster together.

“By studying CMB temperature fluctuations on different scales, we can essentially ‘listen’ to the sound of the early universe, which is especially ‘noisy’ at particular scales,” Banik explains in his commentary. These ancient sound patterns, called baryon acoustic oscillations, work like a cosmic measuring stick that astronomers use to gauge distances across the universe.

The team compiled measurements from major sky surveys over the past two decades, including data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). They then compared how well different models matched these observations: the standard model assuming space is uniform everywhere versus models that account for us living in a local void.

The concept works because if Earth sits in a cosmic void, the sparse matter around us would be gravitationally pulled toward denser regions outside the void, creating an outward flow. “My colleagues and I previously argued that the Hubble tension might be due to our location within a large void. That’s because the sparse amount of matter in the void would be gravitationally attracted to the more dense matter outside it, continuously flowing out of the void,” Banik writes.

The Evidence Strongly Supports the Void Theory

The results were dramatic. When the researchers tested their void models against 20 years of astronomical data, they found compelling evidence that we do live in such a cosmic bubble. In their analysis of 42 separate distance measurements, the standard model without a void showed significant tension with the observations. But the void models reduced this tension from 3.3-sigma to just 1.1-1.4 sigma, which is well within normal statistical variation.

To put this in perspective, Banik uses a coin-flipping comparison: “Our research shows that the ΛCDM model without any local void is in ‘3.8 sigma tension’ with the BAO observations. This means the likelihood of a universe without a void fitting these data is equivalent to a fair coin landing heads 13 times in a row. By contrast, the chance of the BAO data looking the way they do in void models is equivalent to a fair coin landing heads just twice in a row.”

Interestingly, the researchers didn’t adjust their void model parameters to fit the data. Instead, they used parameters established in previous work based on completely different observations, like galaxy counts and local expansion measurements.

What This Means for Our Understanding of the Universe

Rather than overturning current theories, this study proposes that where we are in the universe might be skewing our measurements. A large cosmic void around Earth could help explain why the local universe appears to be expanding faster than expected. The results encourage more precise low-redshift observations to test whether this local effect is real and significant.

The evidence extends beyond statistics. Galaxy surveys have consistently found fewer galaxies than expected in our local region across multiple types of observations, from optical light to X-ray wavelengths. Recent data from DESI, one of the most ambitious galaxy-mapping projects ever undertaken, also supports this interpretation.

As Banik writes, expanded research will be paramount: “In the future, it will be crucial to obtain more accurate BAO measurements at low redshift, where the BAO standard ruler looks larger on the sky – even more so if we are in a void.”

Source : https://studyfinds.org/distorted-sound-early-universe-suggests-we-are-living-in-a-giant-void/

USERS of Elon Musk’s Starlink have been left without connection today following a major network outage.

Reported issues began to emerge around 3.30pm EDT, according to DownDetector.

A Starlink spokesperson said on X: “Starlink is currently in a network outage and we are actively implementing a solution.

“We appreciate your patience, we’ll share an update once this issue is resolved.”

The outage is reported to have caused disruption for thousands of users.

Some social media users have vented their frustration at the lack of connection.

One posted on Reddit: “Down in Tennessee. WFH too, right in the middle of the workday. Such a pain.”

Another said: “We have multiple Starlinks at different locations and they’re all down right now. We’re located in Florida.”

Users across the United States logged their loss of connection with DownDetector.

“Down in Maryland – Washington, DC area,” one shared.

Another posted: “Down in Northern California.”

“Down in rural central Texas,” reported a third.

Musk posted on X: “Service will be restored shortly.

“Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

Elon Musk and his companies have continued to make headlines over the past few months.

AI chatbot Grok went rogue earlier this month and started sharing pro-Hitler and antisemitic comments on X.

A spokesperson for xAI, the company behind Grok, said: “We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts.

“Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X.”

Customers have also made their way to a Tesla high-tech diner where hungry guests can charge their cars as they’re served by robots.

Musk opened up the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles on Monday.

He praised the venue on X last week, saying: “I just had dinner at the retro-futuristic @Tesla diner and Supercharger.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14813441/elon-musk-starlink-outage/

A sweeping cyber espionage operation targeting Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab server software compromised about 100 organizations as of the weekend, two of the organizations that helped uncover the campaign said on Monday.
Microsoft on Saturday issued an alert about “active attacks” on self-hosted SharePoint servers, which are widely used by organizations to share documents and collaborate within organizations. SharePoint instances run off of Microsoft servers were unaffected.

Dubbed a “zero-day” because it leverages a previously undisclosed digital weakness, the hacks allow spies to penetrate vulnerable servers and potentially drop a backdoor to secure continuous access to victim organizations.
Vaisha Bernard, the chief hacker at Eye Security, a Netherlands-based cybersecurity firm, which discovered the hacking campaign, opens new tab targeting one of its clients on Friday, said that an internet scan carried out with the Shadowserver Foundation had uncovered nearly 100 victims altogether – and that was before the technique behind the hack was widely known.
“It’s unambiguous,” Bernard said. “Who knows what other adversaries have done since to place other backdoors.”

He declined to identify the affected organizations, saying that the relevant national authorities had been notified.
The Shadowserver Foundation confirmed the 100 figure. It said most of those affected were in the United States and Germany, and the victims included government organizations.
Another researcher said that, so far, the spying appeared to be the work of a single hacker or set of hackers.

“It’s possible that this will quickly change,” said Rafe Pilling, director of Threat Intelligence at Sophos, a British cybersecurity firm.
Microsoft said it had “provided security updates and encourages customers to install them,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
It was not clear who was behind the ongoing hack, but Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google, which has visibility into wide swaths of internet traffic, said it tied at least some of the hacks to a “China-nexus threat actor.”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/microsoft-server-hack-hit-about-100-organizations-researchers-say-2025-07-21/

Eight babies have been born in the UK using genetic material from three people to prevent devastating and often fatal conditions, doctors say.

The method, pioneered by UK scientists, combines the egg and sperm from a mum and dad with a second egg from a donor woman.

The technique has been legal here for a decade but we now have the first proof it is leading to children born free of incurable mitochondrial disease.

These conditions are normally passed from mother to child, starving the body of energy.

This can cause severe disability and some babies die within days of being born. Couples know they are at risk if previous children, family members or the mother has been affected.

Children born through the three-person technique inherit most of their DNA, their genetic blueprint, from their parents, but also get a tiny amount, about 0.1%, from the second woman. This is a change that is passed down the generations.

None of the families who have been through the process are speaking publicly to protect their privacy, but have issued anonymous statements through the Newcastle Fertility Centre where the procedures took place.

While it might seem surprising that returning from just 400 kilometers above Earth takes nearly a full day, the extended duration is a result of complex orbital mechanics, safety protocols, and precise landing requirements.

When Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and his Axiom-4 crewmates undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on July 14, 2025, they began a carefully planned 22.5-hour journey back to Earth.

While it might seem surprising that returning from just 400 kilometers above Earth takes nearly a full day, the extended duration is a result of complex orbital mechanics, safety protocols, and precise landing requirements.

Unlike simply descending straight down, the Dragon spacecraft must first perform a series of engine burns to safely distance itself from the ISS and enter a slightly different orbit. This manoeuvre prevents any risk of collision with the station and initiates what engineers call “free flight,” during which the spacecraft orbits Earth independently for several hours before re-entry begins.

The timing of the deorbit burn, the critical engine firing that slows the capsule enough to begin atmospheric re-entry, is carefully calculated to align with the rotation of Earth and the position of the designated splashdown zone off the coast of California.

Since the ISS orbits Earth at roughly 28,000 km/h, the spacecraft must wait for the right orbital position to ensure a safe and accurate landing.

During re-entry, the Dragon capsule faces extreme heat, with temperatures nearing 1,600 degrees Celsius. To protect the crew and spacecraft, the descent is gradual and carefully controlled.

Parachutes deploy in two stages—first stabilising chutes at about 5.7 km altitude, then main parachutes at around 2 km—to slow the descent for a safe ocean splashdown.

Weather conditions and recovery ship availability also influence the timing. If conditions at the primary landing site are unfavourable, the spacecraft may remain in orbit longer before initiating re-entry.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/why-shubhanshu-shuklas-return-on-dragon-spacecraft-will-take-22-hours-2755640-2025-07-14

As Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla prepares for his return to Earth, his farewell message from the International Space Station (ISS) resonated with pride, gratitude, and hope for India’s space future.

In a heartfelt ceremony, Shukla reflected on his journey, the achievements of the mission, and the collaborative spirit that defined his time in orbit.

In his address, Shukla captured the spirit of a new India as seen from the vantage point of space. “Today, India looks ambitious from space, fearless, confident, and proud. India is still saare jahan se accha,” he declared, referencing the iconic patriotic song that has inspired generations.

Shux described his mission as an “incredible journey” and emphasised that while his personal chapter in space exploration is ending, the journey of the Indian space agency is just beginning. “If we come together, it is attainable,” he said, urging continued unity and collaboration for future achievements.

CELEBRATING SCIENCE, COLLABORATION AND CAMARADERIE

Reflecting on his time aboard the ISS, Shukla expressed deep gratitude to the people who made the mission possible. “It has been made incredible by people on the space station. It was a joy to be working with professionals like you,” he said, acknowledging both his Indian and international colleagues.

He highlighted the mission’s scientific achievements, outreach efforts, and the sense of wonder that comes from viewing Earth from orbit. “We have done a lot of science, outreach, and always looked out on Earth-it seems magical to me,” Shukla noted.

Shukla also thanked ISRO for its vision and support, the researchers and students who contributed to the mission’s experiments, and NASA for their training and logistical support. “These missions have far-reaching implications beyond science and will also boost our countries,” he added.

THE POWER OF GLOBAL UNITY

Shukla’s sentiments were echoed by fellow astronauts. Peggy Whitson, Ax-4 commander, praised the camaraderie and teaching spirit that the ISS team extended to the Ax-4 crew.

Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu spoke emotionally: “We came with a purpose and made a lot of things happen-science, amazing pictures of Earth, funny videos, and made a lot of people proud on the ground. We made friends in space, shared inside jokes, and I can say we made it and did it. We were able to do it because we are people collaborating in space in the name of science. It was a great mission.”

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/india-looks-ambitious-fearless-from-space-says-shubhanshu-shukla-ahead-of-homecoming-2755197-2025-07-13

A simple blood test might soon reveal whether your brain functions like a 30-year-old’s or a 70-year-old’s — and whether you’re likely to live a long, healthy life or face an early death. Stanford University researchers analyzed blood samples from nearly 45,000 people and discovered something surprising: organs age at wildly different speeds, and having a young brain and immune system could be your ticket to longevity.

People whose brains aged rapidly faced the same Alzheimer’s risk as those carrying the most dangerous genetic variant for the disease. On the flip side, those with younger brains had protection equal to carrying protective genes. Most striking of all, people with both young brains and immune systems had 56% lower odds of dying during the study.

Reading Your Body’s Age Through Blood

Stanford’s research team, led by Tony Wyss-Coray, PhD, a professor of neurology and neurological sciences, created what works like an age test for 11 major organs by measuring nearly 3,000 proteins in blood samples. When organs age or sustain damage, they leak specific proteins into the bloodstream — traces that reveal their condition. Scientists trained AI models to predict chronological age based on these protein patterns from each organ.

If someone’s predicted organ age exceeded their actual age, that organ was labeled “aged.” When it fell below, the organ was considered “youthful.” The method worked across 44,498 participants aged 40-70 from the UK Biobank, with researchers tracking them for up to 17 years to monitor disease development and deaths.

The findings, published in Nature Medicine, confirmed that organs don’t age in lockstep. Brain aging showed minimal correlation with other organs, proving that biological aging follows its own timeline in different body systems.

The More Aged Organs, The Higher Your Risk

Death risk climbed steeply with each additional aged organ. Those with 2-4 aged organs faced 2.3 times higher death risk. People with 5-7 aged organs saw their risk jump to 4.5 times normal. Most concerning were those with 8 or more aged organs. These individuals faced 8.3 times higher odds of death.

“More than 60% of people with 8+ extremely aged organs at blood draw died within 15 years,” researchers observed.

Brain aging proved especially critical among all organs tested. Beyond predicting death, it signaled increased risk for conditions far outside the brain, including heart failure and lung disease. This makes sense given the brain’s role as the body’s command center, controlling hormones, immune responses, and other vital functions through intricate signaling networks.

Your Lifestyle Shapes Your Organ Age

The research brought some good news: organ aging isn’t set in stone by genetics. Multiple lifestyle factors affected biological age across several organs. Smoking, heavy drinking, processed meat consumption, and poor sleep accelerated aging. In contrast, vigorous exercise, eating fish, and higher education levels correlated with younger organ profiles.

Several supplements and medications showed protective effects. Ibuprofen, glucosamine, cod liver oil, multivitamins, and vitamin C linked to younger biological ages in multiple organs, especially kidneys, brain, and pancreas. The hormone therapy Premarin, commonly prescribed for menopausal symptoms, correlated with younger immune, liver, and artery profiles.

Young Brain and Immune System: The Golden Combination

While aged organs generally meant higher death risk, the study revealed an important twist: not all youthful organs offered equal benefits. Surprisingly, people with young arteries actually showed increased death risk, and those with broadly youthful organs across many systems showed no survival advantage over normal agers.

Two organs, however, provided exceptional protection. People with young brains had 40% lower death risk, while those with young immune systems saw 42% lower risk. The combination proved especially powerful — individuals with both enjoyed the strongest protection from death.

“I expected many more organs to be linked to longevity, but our data suggest the immune system and brain are key,” lead author Hamilton Oh, PhD, tells StudyFinds. “After thinking more about it though, it makes intuitive sense. Both the brain and immune system control so many parts of our physiology – the brain through nerve branches that sprout from the spinal cord and the immune system through resident and migratory cells present in all tissues. These systems may be the guardians of our whole body.”

During the 17-year follow-up, only 3.8% of people with young brains and immune systems died, compared to 7.9% of normal agers. The brain-immune connection makes biological sense, as these systems constantly communicate and chronic inflammation speeds up aging throughout the body.

Brain aging stemmed largely from proteins produced by oligodendrocytes. These are cells that create myelin, the insulation around nerve fibers. This suggests white matter breakdown plays a central role in brain aging. The strongest marker was neurofilament light chain, already used in clinical trials to track brain degeneration.

The biological analysis showed that young brain aging correlated with preserved brain support structures, potentially because inflammatory factors caused less damage. Young immune aging linked to lower levels of inflammation-promoting proteins, indicating that controlling chronic inflammation helps maintain both systems.

Instead of viewing aging as an unstoppable, uniform decline, this research shows it’s an organ-specific process where the brain and immune system serve as crucial regulators of lifespan. For the first time, scientists can map which biological systems matter most for longevity — and many factors that influence organ aging appear modifiable through lifestyle choices.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/blood-test-reveals-which-organs-are-aging-fastest-how-long-you-might-live/

The new Galaxy Z Fold7, Z Flip7, and the new Z Flip7 FE are available for pre-orders now.

Samsung introduced several updates to its foldable devices lineup on Wednesday (Jul 9), with the new Galaxy Z Fold7, Z Flip7, and the new Z Flip7 FE taking stage at the latest Unpacked event.

The Korean electronics company unveiled the upgrades – including a new version of their watch – in New York but also announced an expanded partnership with Google to inject more artificial intelligence into its foldable lineup.

Pre-orders for the devices in Singapore have already started, with those who pre-ordered able to receive their devices from Jul 29. The devices will be available in stores for purchase from Aug 1.

Here’s a quick look at each device announced:

A THINNER GALAXY FOLD7

The Fold7 is much thinner and lighter than its predecessors, coming in at 4.2mm (0.17 inch) thick when unfolded and 8.9mm folded.

It weighs 215g, an impressive feat considering the company also added bigger screens than the Fold 6 – 6.5 inches to the exterior screen and 8 inches on the interior screen.

The battery capacity remains the same as the previous generation.

A 200 megapixel camera will act as the main camera and a 10 megapixel camera will extend along the frame of the phone, giving users a quick option to capture wide shots. The Fold7 will retail for US$1,999.

In Singapore, it’s priced from S$2,698.

THE GALAXY Z FLIP7 AND THE FE

The flippable cousin of the Fold has an enlarged 4.1-inch top screen and folds down to only 13.7mm. It weighs just 188g.

It gets a slightly bigger 4,300mAh battery but only maintains a 50 megapixel main camera.

A cheaper version of the phone, called the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE was also announced. It’s a slightly smaller version – with a 6.7 inch screen – of its premium counterpart.

Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/living/samsung-galaxy-fold-7-flip7-fe-467741

Yet another story from Soham Parekh’s controversy is out. Dhruv Amin, co-founder of AI startup Create, reveals Parekh came to work only once and frequently missed meetings, and delayed deliverables.

In a bizarre saga that could be ripped straight from a tech satire, Soham Parekh, an India-based software engineer, has stunned Silicon Valley after admitting to secretly working full-time for dozens of US startups, at the same time. What began as whispers of moonlighting quickly exploded into a full-blown controversy after revelations surfaced that Parekh was juggling roles at up to 34 different companies, sparking outrage, disbelief, and a flurry of memes.

The story broke when Suhail Doshi, founder and former CEO of Mixpanel, posted on X (formerly Twitter), accusing Parekh of deceiving several Y Combinator-backed startups. Doshi claimed he had fired Parekh within a week of uncovering the truth. As the thread gained traction, more founders chimed in, admitting they had either hired or interviewed Parekh, only to discover he was already employed elsewhere.

One such founder, Dhruv Amin, co-founder of AI startup Create, shared his experience with Parekh in an X thread that quickly went viral. Dhruv explained that Soham had joined his team in San Francisco as engineer number five, on the back of a recruiter’s recommendation and an impressive pair-programming interview. “Yes, we hired him He was eager and crushed our in-person pair programming onsite. I believe he’s actually a good engineer,” Dhruv wrote.

But the enthusiasm quickly turned into frustration.

After accepting the job, Parekh said he’d be away in New York and would begin a week later. When Monday rolled around, he texted Dhruv excitedly, only to call in sick on his first day. “He said he’d onboard from home. Gave an address to ship the laptop,” Dhruv noted.

From there, things only got weirder. Parekh missed meetings, delayed deliverables, and made excuses. It all unravelled when Dhruv’s team discovered he was actively working at another company, Sync, at the same time.

“When we called Soham up, he denied it to the end. Said Sync guys were just friends,” Dhruv recalled. But the real kicker came when Sync published an ‘Employee of the Month’ video, featuring none other than Soham Parekh himself.

His contract was swiftly terminated. “He dipped,” Dhruv said, assuming he was just a young engineer who had made a bad call. But when the wider story broke, Dhruv’s embarrassment turned to amazement. “Then I was pissed. Then impressed Still not sure how he pulled it off for so long with in-person startups and long hours, but appreciated the hustle. Hope he had a good reason. Feels like a stressful way to make money.”

As the tech world demanded answers, Parekh finally spoke out in an interview on The Backchannel podcast (TBPN), confirming what many had suspected. “It is true,” he said, calmly owning up to the deception. “I’m not proud of what I’ve done. But, you know, financial circumstances, essentially. No one really likes to work 140 hours a week, right? But I had to do this out of necessity. I was in extremely dire financial circumstances.”

He added that he completed all the work himself — no shortcuts, no AI, no external help — and maintained that his output met expectations.

Parekh claimed the hustle began in 2022, after postponing graduate school and enrolling in an online programme from Georgia Tech. But that detail raised more questions when a Georgia Tech spokesperson confirmed there was no record of his enrolment, casting further doubt on the timeline and fuelling speculation around how far the deception may have gone.

Despite the storm, Parekh has already landed on his feet. He’s now joined a San Francisco-based AI startup named Darwin, and has promised to leave his multi-job days behind. “I won’t be taking up any more additional jobs,” he said.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/from-hired-to-fired-tech-founder-reveals-how-soham-parekh-operated-and-hints-at-how-he-fooled-companies-2751290-2025-07-05

Over the past decade, health insurance companies have increasingly embraced the use of artificial intelligence algorithms. Unlike doctors and hospitals, which use AI to help diagnose and treat patients, health insurers use these algorithms to decide whether to pay for health care treatments and services that are recommended by a given patient’s physicians.

One of the most common examples is prior authorization, which is when your doctor needs to receive payment approval from your insurance company before providing you care. Many insurers use an algorithm to decide whether the requested care is “medically necessary” and should be covered.

These AI systems also help insurers decide how much care a patient is entitled to — for example, how many days of hospital care a patient can receive after surgery.

If an insurer declines to pay for a treatment your doctor recommends, you usually have three options. You can try to appeal the decision, but that process can take a lot of time, money and expert help. Only 1 in 500 claim denials are appealed. You can agree to a different treatment that your insurer will cover. Or you can pay for the recommended treatment yourself, which is often not realistic because of high health care costs.

As a legal scholar who studies health law and policy, I’m concerned about how insurance algorithms affect people’s health. Like with AI algorithms used by doctors and hospitals, these tools can potentially improve care and reduce costs. Insurers say that AI helps them make quick, safe decisions about what care is necessary and avoids wasteful or harmful treatments.

But there’s strong evidence that the opposite can be true. These systems are sometimes used to delay or deny care that should be covered, all in the name of saving money.

A Pattern Of Withholding Care

Presumably, companies feed a patient’s health care records and other relevant information into health care coverage algorithms and compare that information with current medical standards of care to decide whether to cover the patient’s claim. However, insurers have refused to disclose how these algorithms work in making such decisions, so it is impossible to say exactly how they operate in practice.

Using AI to review coverage saves insurers time and resources, especially because it means fewer medical professionals are needed to review each case. But the financial benefit to insurers doesn’t stop there. If an AI system quickly denies a valid claim, and the patient appeals, that appeal process can take years. If the patient is seriously ill and expected to die soon, the insurance company might save money simply by dragging out the process in the hope that the patient dies before the case is resolved.

This creates the disturbing possibility that insurers might use algorithms to withhold care for expensive, long-term or terminal health problems , such as chronic or other debilitating disabilities. One reporter put it bluntly: “Many older adults who spent their lives paying into Medicare now face amputation or cancer and are forced to either pay for care themselves or go without.”

Research supports this concern – patients with chronic illnesses are more likely to be denied coverage and suffer as a result. In addition, Black and Hispanic people and those of other nonwhite ethnicities, as well as people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, are more likely to experience claims denials. Some evidence also suggests that prior authorization may increase rather than decrease health care system costs.

Insurers argue that patients can always pay for any treatment themselves, so they’re not really being denied care. But this argument ignores reality. These decisions have serious health consequences, especially when people can’t afford the care they need.

Moving Toward Regulation

Unlike medical algorithms, insurance AI tools are largely unregulated. They don’t have to go through Food and Drug Administration review, and insurance companies often say their algorithms are trade secrets.

That means there’s no public information about how these tools make decisions, and there’s no outside testing to see whether they’re safe, fair or effective. No peer-reviewed studies exist to show how well they actually work in the real world.

There does seem to be some momentum for change. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, which is the federal agency in charge of Medicare and Medicaid, recently announced that insurers in Medicare Advantage plans must base decisions on the needs of individual patients – not just on generic criteria. But these rules still let insurers create their own decision-making standards, and they still don’t require any outside testing to prove their systems work before using them. Plus, federal rules can only regulate federal public health programs like Medicare. They do not apply to private insurers who do not provide federal health program coverage.

Some states, including Colorado, Georgia, Florida, Maine and Texas, have proposed laws to rein in insurance AI. A few have passed new laws, including a 2024 California statute that requires a licensed physician to supervise the use of insurance coverage algorithms.

But most state laws suffer from the same weaknesses as the new CMS rule. They leave too much control in the hands of insurers to decide how to define “medical necessity” and in what contexts to use algorithms for coverage decisions. They also don’t require those algorithms to be reviewed by neutral experts before use. And even strong state laws wouldn’t be enough, because states generally can’t regulate Medicare or insurers that operate outside their borders.

A Role For The FDA

In the view of many health law experts, the gap between insurers’ actions and patient needs has become so wide that regulating health care coverage algorithms is now imperative. As I argue in an essay to be published in the Indiana Law Journal, the FDA is well positioned to do so.

The FDA is staffed with medical experts who have the capability to evaluate insurance algorithms before they are used to make coverage decisions. The agency already reviews many medical AI tools for safety and effectiveness. FDA oversight would also provide a uniform, national regulatory scheme instead of a patchwork of rules across the country.

Some people argue that the FDA’s power here is limited. For the purposes of FDA regulation, a medical device is defined as an instrument “intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease.” Because health insurance algorithms are not used to diagnose, treat or prevent disease, Congress may need to amend the definition of a medical device before the FDA can regulate those algorithms.

If the FDA’s current authority isn’t enough to cover insurance algorithms, Congress could change the law to give it that power. Meanwhile, CMS and state governments could require independent testing of these algorithms for safety, accuracy and fairness. That might also push insurers to support a single national standard – like FDA regulation – instead of facing a patchwork of rules across the country.

The move toward regulating how health insurers use AI in determining coverage has clearly begun, but it is still awaiting a robust push. Patients’ lives are literally on the line.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/how-artificial-intelligence-controls-your-health-insurance-coverage/

Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), Google has been hit by an EU antitrust complaint over its AI Overviews from a group of independent publishers, which has also asked for an interim measure to prevent allegedly irreparable harm to them, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Google’s AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that appear above traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages and are shown to users in more than 100 countries. It began adding advertisements to AI Overviews last May.

The company is making its biggest bet by integrating AI into search but the move has sparked concerns from some content providers such as publishers.
The Independent Publishers Alliance document, dated June 30, sets out a complaint to the European Commission and alleges that Google abuses its market power in online search.
“Google’s core search engine service is misusing web content for Google’s AI Overviews in Google Search, which have caused, and continue to cause, significant harm to publishers, including news publishers in the form of traffic, readership and revenue loss,” the document said.

It said Google positions its AI Overviews at the top of its general search engine results page to display its own summaries which are generated using publisher material and it alleges that Google’s positioning disadvantages publishers’ original content.
“Publishers using Google Search do not have the option to opt out from their material being ingested for Google’s AI large language model training and/or from being crawled for summaries, without losing their ability to appear in Google’s general search results page,” the complaint said.
The Commission declined to comment.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority confirmed receipt of the complaint.
Google said it sends billions of clicks to websites each day.
“New AI experiences in Search enable people to ask even more questions, which creates new opportunities for content and businesses to be discovered,” a Google spokesperson said.

The Independent Publishers Alliance’s website says it is a nonprofit community advocating for independent publishers, which it does not name.
The Movement for an Open Web, whose members include digital advertisers and publishers, and British non-profit Foxglove Legal Community Interest Company, which says it advocates for fairness in the tech world, are also signatories to the complaint.
They said an interim measure was necessary to prevent serious irreparable harm to competition and to ensure access to news.
Google said numerous claims about traffic from search are often based on highly incomplete and skewed data.
“The reality is that sites can gain and lose traffic for a variety of reasons, including seasonal demand, interests of users, and regular algorithmic updates to Search,” the Google spokesperson said.

Foxglove co-executive director Rosa Curling said journalists and publishers face a dire situation.
“Independent news faces an existential threat: Google’s AI Overviews,” she told Reuters.
“That’s why with this complaint, Foxglove and our partners are urging the European Commission, along with other regulators around the world, to take a stand and allow independent journalism to opt out,” Curling said.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/googles-ai-overviews-hit-by-eu-antitrust-complaint-independent-publishers-2025-07-04/

Leaving a workplace after a certain period is part of one’s professional journey, as people often switch companies for better opportunities, higher compensation or different types of exposure at other organisations. However, the decision completely lies with the employee, with no role for the current company to play, at least not before a formal resignation is submitted. What if your company is already aware of your plans in advance? While it is not too likely for anyone to learn about someone’s resignation plans, ChatGPT seems to have made that possible.

Sarthak Ahuja, an investment banker and content creator (finance), recently opened up on how ChatGPT can actually predict a soon-to-resign employee. Not just that, it can also help companies understand if one is applying elsewhere months before making it public.

In his explanatory video, Sarthak mentioned that if a company uses transcriptions during Zoom calls or records the meetings, the meeting transcripts are later uploaded to ChatGPT to check the pattern, which starts showing which person may resign first. “There are two things. The first is that ChatGPT recognises people who use the term ‘you guys’ a lot more than the term ‘we should.’ These people are at higher risk of resigning from the company. The second factor is who makes the most number of excuses about why their video is turned off during meetings,” Sarthak explained in his post.

He then went on to explain how the patterns give certain information to the manager, who then creates a descending order ranking of the least engaged employees with clear actions to re-engage them. These factors take into account the expressed frustration, tenure in the company, pay scale compared to the market structure and more. Companies can also use the information to stop giving such employees any promotions or higher pay packages during the appraisal.

“It’s pattern recognition from human behaviour coupled with psychology and market dynamics put into use. Forbes did a piece this week called ‘5 ChatGPT Prompts To Predict Which Of Your Employees Will Quit Next’ and it’s something you should read,” the creator wrote in his caption.

The post grabbed quite some attention on Instagram, with many sharing diverse opinions about such possibilities. Some even poked fun at the early prediction of resignations. One wrote, “More like a self-fulfilling prophecy. People who receive unfair appraisals/compensation are more likely to leave,” while another added, “Functional analysis in psychotherapy using AI is definitely challenging but will deliver robust results once optimised.”

Source : https://www.news18.com/viral/can-chatgpt-reveal-employees-resignation-plans-to-company-heres-the-truth-9417916.html

Your body is quietly collecting genetic changes right now, and scientists want to map every single one. A massive new research network is launching the most ambitious genetic study since the Human Genome Project, but this time they’re tracking the thousands of DNA alterations that pile up throughout your lifetime.

The Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) Network, backed by the National Institutes of Health, plans to catalog genetic changes that happen after conception. These aren’t mutations inherited from your parents, rather, they’re DNA alterations that accumulate as you live, making each person’s tissues genetically distinct by adulthood.

These quadrillions of genetic changes help explain why identical twins grow more genetically different with age, and why diseases like cancer can seemingly appear from nowhere. “A typical cell may acquire hundreds to thousands of somatic mutations in a lifetime,” the researchers write in their paper published in Nature. “There are trillions of cells in a human body and so the total number of somatic mutations acquired in a single individual may well exceed quadrillions.”

Your Body’s Daily DNA Changes

Your cells face constant attack from environmental toxins, UV radiation, and normal cellular processes. Most DNA changes are harmless, but some dramatically alter cell behavior. Cancer represents the most extreme example, though these mutations also factor into heart disease, neurological disorders, and aging.

Different body parts collect mutations at wildly different rates. Brain cells, which rarely divide after birth, gather about 16-20 new mutations yearly. Rapidly dividing colon cells rack up approximately 44 mutations annually. Sun-exposed skin shows clear UV damage patterns, while smokers’ lung tissue bears molecular tobacco scars.

These patterns, called mutational signatures (distinct patterns that reveal what caused specific DNA changes), work like genetic fingerprints revealing specific environmental exposures or cellular processes that caused particular DNA changes.

“Specific mutations can be present in very small numbers of cells or even single cells, and so detecting them is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” says co-lead author Tim Coorens, from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and currently a research group leader at the European Bioinformatics Institute, in a statement.

The Largest Genetic Study Ever Attempted

SMaHT researchers plan to analyze tissue samples from 150 deceased donors, examining 19 different tissue types from each person. Samples will include organs from all three developmental layers forming the human body: brain, skin, and adrenal glands; heart, blood, and muscle; plus lungs, liver, and intestines.

Advanced DNA sequencing methods will detect mutations present in just single cells among millions. One technique, duplex sequencing (a method that sequences both strands of DNA to reduce errors), reduces error rates to less than one in 100 million, allowing scientists to spot authentic mutations that would otherwise disappear in sequencing noise.

Over 250 researchers from 52 institutions are involved, organized into five genome characterization centers and 14 technology development projects. Each donor gets extensive analysis, with researchers collecting tissue samples plus detailed medical histories, environmental exposure data, and demographics.

Game-Changing Discoveries Already Emerging

Early SMaHT research has revealed unexpected insights about human development and disease. Studies tracking these mutations show that when a fertilized egg first divides, one of the two resulting cells often gives rise to twice as many descendant cells in the adult body as its sibling—explaining developmental patterns scientists observed for decades.

More surprisingly, normal tissues often harbor mutations typically associated with cancer. In healthy 60-year-olds, approximately 90% of endometrial tissue contains driver mutations that could theoretically cause cancer, while only about 1% of colon tissue shows similar changes, despite colon cells having much higher mutation frequency (the rate at which mutations occur).

This contradiction demonstrates how context determines whether mutations cause disease. The endometrium goes through monthly cycles of shedding and regrowth that may prevent dangerous cell populations from establishing, while colon tissue faces different biological pressures.

SMaHT’s comprehensive mapping could transform medical practice by establishing baselines for normal mutation patterns, helping doctors distinguish between harmless age-related changes and early disease signs. The research might also predict which patients face higher risks for specific cancers or other mutation-driven diseases.

Beyond medicine, the project promises insights into fundamental biological questions about aging, longevity, and how environmental exposures leave lasting cellular marks. Rather than having one static genome, each person carries millions of subtly different genetic variants distributed across tissues, a discovery that could revolutionize approaches to human health and personalized medicine.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/250-scientists-building-smaht-network-genetic-mutations/

Microsoft is firing thousands of workers, its second mass layoff in months. The tech giant began sending out layoff notices Wednesday (July 2, 2025).

The company declined to say how many people would be laid off but said that it will comprise less than 4% of the workforce it had a year ago.

Microsoft said the cuts will affect multiple teams around the world, including its sales division and its Xbox video game business.

“We continue to implement organisational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace,” it said in a statement.

Microsoft employed 228,000 full-time workers as of last June, the last time it reported its annual headcount. The company said Wednesday (July 2, 2025) that its latest layoffs would cut close to 4% of that workforce, which would be about 9,000 people. But it has already had at least three layoffs this year.

Until now, at least, the biggest was in May, when Microsoft began laying off about 6,000 workers, nearly 3% of its global workforce and its largest job cuts in more than two years as the company spent heavily on artificial intelligence.

Source : https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/microsoft-layoff-tech-giant-cuts-over-9000-employees-in-second-mass-layoff/article69765276.ece

Roman Chiporukha also told The Sun how it’s the human race’s ‘destiny’ to live in space

ONLY the mega-wealthy know that there is a travel agent who brokers trips to space for the rich.

Roman Chiporukha, otherwise known as Mr Intergalactic, founded SpaceVIP to take thrill-seekers out to space – but he believes holidays to the stars will be available for all soon.

Space tourism is an industry that has been blossoming, slowly but steadily, for several years now.

Companies around the world are sharpening their elbows for a slice of the market, whose target audience is the Earth’s ultra-wealthy.

And founder of SpaceVIP Chiporukha is ahead of the game, already offering a Michelin star meal in a pressurised Neptune capsule in the fringes of space.

But this comes at a hefty cost of $495,000 – appealing to the world’s wealthiest.

He told The Sun that, despite the eye-watering price, what started as terrifying, high-risk suborbital flights will soon transform into affordable trips for those wanting to see Earth at a different angle.

Drawing comparison to commercial flights, Chiporukha said how once space tourism expands, the cost will then decrease.

But it will also take more people to experience what’s dubbed the “overview effect” to start the shift to space.

He said: “The overview effect has been catalogued by every single astronaut that has been in space, and that is this notion of feeling, interconnectedness with the earth that you see from afar, and all of the beings on it.

“I’ve come to believe that space can be a catalyst for greater human change and a shift in consciousness.

“That’s a real governing factor of why people are drawn to this, and they want to educate humanity on.”

Chiporukha, however, is desperate to ditch the narrative that space travel and tourism is only for the world’s elite.

He said: “I find it, frankly, really frustrating when people are tweeting or talking their slightly irrelevant opinions, or speaking poorly about Bezos or Branson or Elon.

“They don’t realize that they’re using technology that was brought to them by satellites in space.

“So what some of these travelers are trying to do is they want to go up to space, they want to experience the overview effect.

“It’s very convenient for, you know, the media to sensationalize this billionaire joyride narrative ‘a****** rich guy goes to space, and we’re starving here’.

“That narrative is inherently false, because all of their missions have a tremendous purpose in this notion of space for earth.”

Despite this, SpaceVIP has teamed up with a Danish chef to create a six-hour dining experience up in space – and has had great interest in it.

It’s set to depart later this year from the Kennedy Space in Florida, with the flight set to last around six hours in a pressurized capsule, lifted by a stratospheric balloon to the lowest barrier of space.

Future passengers will have access to WiFi the entire time and will even be able to livestream the incredible experience for their family and friends to watch from Earth.

But organising such a trip doesn’t come without some difficulties.

As Chiporukha works essentially as a travel agent but for space specifically, he has complained that with space travel not fully understood yet, it can be hard to plan.

Chiporukha explained: “We are very transparent about the process, and the training, and all of the things that come in engaging in such an adventure.

“[So] sorry, sir, or, madam, you can’t get insurance, because there’s no actuarial data for space travel just yet, so it’s fly at your own risk.”

Mr Intergalactic also revealed how it is the human race’s “destiny” to eventually live in space.

He said: “I think we’re meant to be a space-faring species.

“I think that’s our inevitable future, and not to leave Earth because we f***** it up so much, but because it’s our destiny for lack of a better word.”

STAR SPACE MISSION
In April, Katy Perry soared 62 miles above Earth with Jeff Bezos’ fiancee Lauren Sanchez, journalist Gayle King, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

The group flew in Bezos’ own Blue Origin New Shepard NS-31 ship and soared past the Kármán line – the internationally recognised boundary of space.

They blasted off from West Texas as part of a history-making, 11-minute flight set to be the first all-female space trip since 1963.

The women on board even passed a “pink moon” as part of the first all-female spaceflight in over 60 years.

The women spent three minutes in pure weightlessness before the craft safely parachuted back down and landed in Texas.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14570994/space-travel-agent-mr-intergalactic-stars-trips/

Around midday on June 13 last year, my colleagues and I were scanning the skies when we thought we had discovered a strange and exciting new object in space. Using a huge radio telescope, we spotted a blindingly fast flash of radio waves that appeared to be coming from somewhere inside our galaxy.

After a year of research and analysis, we have finally pinned down the source of the signal – and it was even closer to home than we had ever expected.

A Surprise In The Desert

Our instrument was located at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara – also known as the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory – in remote Western Australia, where the sky above the red desert plains is vast and sublime.

We were using a new detector at the radio telescope known as the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder – or ASKAP – to search for rare flickering signals from distant galaxies called fast radio bursts.

We detected a burst. Surprisingly, it showed no evidence of a time delay between high and low frequencies – a phenomenon known as “dispersion.”

This meant it must have originated within a few hundred light years of Earth. In other words, it must have come from inside our galaxy – unlike other fast radio bursts which have come from billions of light years away.

A Problem Emerges

Fast radio bursts are the brightest radio flashes in the Universe, emitting 30 years’ worth of the Sun’s energy in less than a millisecond – and we only have hints of how they are produced.

Some theories suggest they are produced by “magnetars” – the highly magnetized cores of massive, dead stars – or arise from cosmic collisions between these dead stellar remnants. Regardless of how they occur, fast radio bursts are also a precise instrument for mapping out the so-called “missing matter” in our Universe.

When we went back over our recordings to take a closer a look at the radio burst, we had a surprise: the signal seemed to have disappeared. Two months of trial and error went by, until the problem was found.

ASKAP is composed of 36 antennas, which can be combined to act like one gigantic zoom lens six kilometers across. Just like a zoom lens on a camera, if you try to take a picture of something too close, it comes out blurry. Only by removing some of the antennas from the analysis – artificially reducing the size of our “lens” – did we finally make an image of the burst.

We weren’t excited by this – in fact, we were disappointed. No astronomical signal could be close enough to cause this blurring. This meant it was probably just radio-frequency “interference” – an astronomer’s term for human-made signals that corrupt our data.

It’s the kind of junk data we’d normally throw away.

Yet the burst had us intrigued. For one thing, this burst was fast. The fastest known fast radio burst lasted about 10 millionths of a second. This burst consisted of an extremely bright pulse lasting a few billionths of a second, and two dimmer after-pulses, for a total duration of 30 nanoseconds.

So where did this amazingly short, bright burst come from?

A Zombie In Space?

We already knew the direction it came from, and we were able to use the blurriness in the image to estimate a distance of 4,500 km. And there was only one thing in that direction, at that distance, at that time – a derelict 60-year-old satellite called Relay 2.

Relay 2 was one of the first ever telecommunications satellites. Launched by the United States in 1964, it was operated until 1965, and its onboard systems had failed by 1967.

But how could Relay 2 have produced this burst?

Some satellites, presumed dead, have been observed to reawaken. They are known as “zombie satellites.”

But this was no zombie. No system on board Relay 2 had ever been able to produce a nanosecond burst of radio waves, even when it was alive.

We think the most likely cause was an “electrostatic discharge.” As satellites are exposed to electrically charged gases in space known as plasmas, they can become charged – just like when your feet rub on carpet. And that accumulated charge can suddenly discharge, with the resulting spark causing a flash of radio waves.

Electrostatic discharges are common, and are known to cause damage to spacecraft. Yet all known electrostatic discharges last thousands of times longer than our signal, and occur most commonly when the Earth’s magnetosphere is highly active. And our magnetosphere was unusually quiet at the time of the signal.

Another possibility is a strike by a micrometeoroid – a tiny piece of space debris – similar to that experienced by the James Webb Space Telescope in June 2022.

According to our calculations, a 22 micro-gram micrometeoroid traveling at 20km per second or more and hitting Relay 2 would have been able to produce such a strong flash of radio waves. But we estimate the chance the nanosecond burst we detected was caused by such an event to be about 1%.

Plenty More Sparks In The Sky

Ultimately, we can’t be certain why we saw this signal from Relay 2. What we do know, however, is how to see more of them. When looking at 13.8 millisecond timescales – the equivalent of keeping the camera shutter open for longer – this signal was washed out, and barely detectable even to a powerful radio telescope such as ASKAP.

But if we had searched at 13.8 nanoseconds, any old radio antenna would have easily seen it. It shows us that monitoring satellites for electrostatic discharges with ground-based radio antennas is possible. And with the number of satellites in orbit growing rapidly, finding new ways to monitor them is more important than ever.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/astronomers-finally-solve-mystery-behind-strange-bright-burst-in-space-that-baffled-them-for-a-year/

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday for Meta Platforms against a group of authors who had argued that its use of their books without permission to train its artificial intelligence system infringed their copyrights.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, in San Francisco, said in his decision that the authors had not presented enough evidence that Meta’s AI would dilute the market for their work to show that the company’s conduct was illegal under U.S. copyright law.

Chhabria also said, however, that using copyrighted work without permission to train AI would be unlawful in “many circumstances,” splitting with another federal judge in San Francisco who found on Monday in a separate lawsuit that Anthropic’s AI training made “fair use” of copyrighted materials.

“This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,” Chhabria said. “It stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one.”

A spokesperson for the authors’ law firm Boies Schiller Flexner said that it disagreed with the judge’s decision to rule for Meta despite the “undisputed record” of the company’s “historically unprecedented pirating of copyrighted works.”

A Meta spokesperson said the company appreciated the decision and called fair use a “vital legal framework” for building “transformative” AI technology.

The authors sued Meta in 2023, arguing the company misused pirated versions of their books to train its AI system Llama without permission or compensation.

The lawsuit is one of several copyright cases brought by writers, news outlets and other copyright owners against companies including OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic over their AI training.

The legal doctrine of fair use allows the use of copyrighted works without the copyright owner’s permission in some circumstances. It is a key defense for the tech companies.

Chhabria’s decision is the second in the U.S. to address fair use in the context of generative AI, following U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s ruling in the Anthropic case.

AI companies argue their systems make fair use of copyrighted material by studying it to learn to create new, transformative content, and that being forced to pay copyright holders for their work could hamstring the burgeoning AI industry.

Copyright owners say AI companies unlawfully copy their work to generate competing content that threatens their livelihoods. Chhabria expressed sympathy for that argument during a hearing in May, which he reiterated on Wednesday.

The judge said generative AI had the potential to flood the market with endless images, songs, articles and books using a tiny fraction of the time and creativity that would otherwise be required to create them.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/meta-fends-authors-us-copyright-lawsuit-over-ai-5204041

SCIENTISTS have raised “urgent concerns” over new viruses discovered in bats which have the potential to spill over into humans and could be “highly fatal”.

Testing bats in China, experts found 22 viruses – 20 of which have never been seen before.

Two of these new bugs were of particular concern, as they were closely related to the deadly Nipah and Hendra viruses.

Both viruses can cause brain inflammation and dangerous respiratory disease in humans.

Nipah is a bat-bourne virus that’s been flagged as a “priority pathogen” by the World Health Organization (WHO) because of its potential to trigger an epidemic.

It can kill up to 70 per cent of its victims, with outbreaks reported in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Meanwhile, Hendra is a rare virus that can spread to humans from horses that have been infected by disease-carrying bats.

Only seven cases have been reported in people, in Australia.

Scientists at the Yunnan Institute of Endemic Disease Control and Prevention detected two worrying viruses – described as the “evolutionary cousins” of Nipah and Hendra – while testing the kidneys of bats in the Yunnan province of China.

The bats lived in orchards close to villages, sparking concerns that fruit eaten by inhabitants and livestock may get contaminated and risk wider transmission.

“Bats have been implicated in a number of major emerging disease outbreaks, including Hendra, Nipah, Marburg and Ebola virus disease, severe and acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Covid-19,” researchers wrote in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

“Bat-borne viruses are transmitted to humans either through direct contact with bats or via the ingestion of food or water contaminated with bat saliva, faeces, or urine.”

The study team – led by Dr Yun Feng – pointed out that previous research looking at the disease spreading potential of bats has only focused on their faeces.

But they said bugs living in bats’ kidneys also “present potential transmission risks” as they may be excreted through urine.

“The kidney can harbour important zoonotic pathogens, including the highly pathogenic Hendra and Nipah viruses,” scientists said.

They looked inside the kidneys of 142 bats from ten species, which were collected over four years in five areas of the Yunnan province.

Using advanced genetic sequencing, the team found 22 viruses, 20 of them never seen before.

Two of the most concerning were new henipaviruses, which are in the same group as Nipah and Hendra bugs.

The henipaviruses were found in fruit bats living near orchards close to villages.

Scientists said their study “rais[ed] urgent concerns about the potential for these viruses to spill over into humans or livestock.”

Dr Alison Peel, a veterinarian and wildlife disease ecologist from the Sydney School of Veterinary Science at The University of Sydney, said: “The main significance of this work lies in the discovery of viruses in bats in China that are ‘evolutionary cousins’ to two of the most concerning pathogens in humans – Hendra virus and Nipah virus – which circulate in bats and are highly fatal if they spill over into people.”

But she said the viruses require further study before we can definitively state that they can pass on from bats to people.

“While one of the new viruses in this study appears to be the closest known relative to these highly fatal viruses, there are some genetic differences in the regions of the virus responsible for binding to and entering cells, so we can’t automatically assume that it can cross over to new species.

“We have other examples of close evolutionary cousins to Hendra and Nipah that appear not to be of any concern for spillover, so there will need to be some more laboratory studies on these new viruses to determine the actual risk.

Dr Peel went on: “Importantly, the bats infected with the Hendra-like virus were captured in fruit orchards, highlighting potential opportunities for contact with humans and domestic species.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/health/14553185/new-brain-inflaming-bat-viruses-china-fatal-spillover-humans/

It’s rocking into spiderwebs.

NASA’s Curiosity rover snapped pictures of a long-sought geological structure — dubbed “spiderwebs” — on the Red Planet that indicate a history of flowing water, the space agency announced.

The boxwork ridge structure spans 12 miles across at some points and indicates to experts that groundwater once spread across this section of the Red Planet that had previously only been observed from orbit.

“The images and data being collected are already raising new questions about how the Martian surface was changing billions of years ago,” NASA said in a statement Monday.

“The Red Planet once had rivers, lakes, and possibly an ocean. Although scientists aren’t sure why, its water eventually dried up and the planet transformed into the chilly desert it is today,” NASA said.

Flowing groundwater created the crisscrossing ridges — some just a few inches tall — by leaving behind a trail of minerals that accumulated in cracks and fissures and then hardened as it dried.

“Remarkably, the boxwork patterns show that even in the midst of this drying, water was still present underground, creating changes seen today,” NASA said in its release.

“Eons of sandblasting by Martian wind wore away the rock but not the minerals, revealing networks of resistant ridges within,” it added.

The formation occurs via a similar mechanism to stalagmites and stalactites here on Earth, experts said.

The “spiderwebs” got their name when researchers observed the arachnid-esque pattern of ridges from orbit.

The pattern stretches across miles of a layer of Mount Sharp, a three-mile-tall mountain, which is also being studied by researchers on the Curiosity rover team at NASA.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/06/24/science/nasas-curiosity-rover-snaps-pics-of-mars-spiderwebs-that-indicate-red-planets-watery-past/

What if everything you thought you knew about time was completely wrong? A physicist is now proposing that time itself isn’t the simple, one-way flow we experience, but actually has three separate dimensions. This wild idea might even finally solve some of the biggest mysteries in science.

Gunther Kletetschka from the University of Alaska Fairbanks has developed a mathematical model suggesting that our familiar sense of time ticking forward is like seeing only the tip of an iceberg. Beneath the surface, he argues, time has a hidden three-dimensional structure that could explain everything from why certain particles exist to how the entire universe works.

Right now, physics has a major problem. Scientists have two incredibly successful theories that describe how the universe works, but they contradict each other. Einstein’s relativity explains big things like planets and black holes perfectly. Quantum mechanics explains tiny particles flawlessly. But when scientists try to combine them (like when studying what happens inside a black hole) the math breaks down completely. It’s like having two different instruction manuals for the same machine, and they give you opposite directions.

Kletetschka’s three-dimensional time theory, published in World Scientific Connect, could be the missing piece that makes both instruction manuals work together.

How Three-Dimensional Time Actually Works

Think of time like a braided rope. From far away, it looks like a single strand moving in one direction. But up close, you can see it’s actually made of three separate cords twisted together. That’s essentially what Kletetschka is proposing about time itself.

In his model, time has three different “directions” that operate at completely different scales:

We only experience one dimension of time because the other two only matter at extremes we never encounter in daily life. It’s like living in a house and only noticing the ground floor, while the basement and attic exist but don’t affect your daily routine.

The Theory Makes Stunning Predictions, And They’re Right

Unlike many physics theories that are too abstract to test, Kletetschka’s model makes specific predictions about the real world. When scientists check those predictions against actual measurements, they match almost perfectly.

Take subatomic particles, the building blocks of everything in the universe. These particles come in three distinct “families” or generations, kind of like three different sizes of the same basic tool. Scientists have known about this pattern for decades, but nobody could explain why there are exactly three families, or why their weights follow such specific patterns.

Kletetschka’s theory says this happens because of the three time dimensions. It predicts that particles in these three families should have weight ratios of roughly 1 to 4.5 to 21. Here’s another way to make sense of it: if the lightest particle in a family weighs as much as a paperclip, the middle one should weigh like a smartphone, and the heaviest should weigh like a large textbook.

This pattern shows up consistently across different types of particles, and the theory says it’s not a coincidence. It’s a direct result of how three-dimensional time is structured.

The theory gets the exact measurements right with incredible precision. Scientists measure particle weights using special units called GeV and MeV (think of them like very precise scales for weighing things smaller than atoms). The theory predicted the top quark (the heaviest fundamental particle we know) should weigh 173.21 units. The actual measured weight? 173.2 units.

Even more impressive, it predicted the weight of the muon (a heavier cousin of the electron that makes up atoms) correctly to seven decimal places. In the world of physics, that kind of accuracy really is like hitting a bullseye from miles away.

Why Some Forces Act Weird—And How Time Explains It

The theory also explains one of nature’s strangest behaviors. There’s a force called the weak nuclear force that governs radioactive decay, which is the process that makes some atoms unstable and break apart over time. This force has a bizarre quirk: it only interacts with particles that “spin” in one direction, like a cosmic preference for left-handed screws over right-handed ones.

Scientists call this “parity violation,” and it’s like discovering that all the locks in the universe only turn clockwise, never counterclockwise. Nobody really understood why nature has this preference.

Kletetschka’s model suggests the answer lies in the geometry of three-dimensional time itself. Just like a spiral staircase naturally curves in one direction, the structure of time creates this built-in asymmetry. It’s not an arbitrary rule, but rather a fundamental feature of how time is shaped.

The theory also makes predictions about gravitational waves. These are ripples in space and time caused by massive cosmic events, like when two black holes crash into each other. These waves were only detected for the first time in 2015, confirming one of Einstein’s predictions about gravity.

According to three-dimensional time theory, these waves should travel at slightly different speeds than light, being off by only 1.5 parts in a quadrillion. To put that in perspective, that’s like measuring the distance from New York to Los Angeles and being off by less than the width of a human hair. It’s an incredibly tiny difference, but our most sensitive detectors might be able to measure it.

Testing the Theory: What Scientists Will Look For

The beauty of this theory is that it doesn’t just make vague philosophical claims. It actually tells scientists exactly what to look for in their experiments.

What This Means for Our Understanding of Reality

If this theory proves correct, it would fundamentally change how we think about existence itself. Instead of matter existing within time, the theory suggests that matter is actually made from time.

As Kletetschka puts it in his paper, “what we perceive as mass and energy are manifestations of temporal curvature and dynamics.” In simpler terms, the particles that make up your body, the energy that powers your brain, and even the gravity holding you to Earth might all be different expressions of how time bends and flows in three dimensions.

This is a radically different way of thinking about reality. It’s the kind of paradigm shift that would make every physics textbook obsolete overnight, similar to how Einstein’s relativity overturned Newton’s clockwork universe, or how the discovery that Earth orbits the sun revolutionized astronomy.

The Road Ahead: Proof or Disproof

Of course, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The physics community will rightly demand rigorous proof before accepting such a radical reimagining of time itself.

But unlike many “theories of everything” that make untestable predictions, this one gives scientists a clear roadmap for verification. Over the next decade, experiments will be able to definitively prove whether three-dimensional time is real or just an elegant mathematical fiction.

The Large Hadron Collider’s upcoming high-luminosity upgrade will probe energy ranges where the predicted new particles should appear. Advanced gravitational wave detectors will become sensitive enough to measure the tiny speed variations the theory predicts. Space telescopes will map dark energy’s behavior across cosmic history with unprecedented precision.

Perhaps most importantly, the theory makes specific numerical predictions that leave little room for ambiguity. Either the neutrinos have exactly the masses it predicts, or they don’t. Either the new particles appear at the predicted energies, or they don’t. Either gravitational waves show the predicted speed differences, or they don’t.

In science, theories live or die by their predictions. And this theory has given scientists plenty of targets to aim for.

You’ve built your career, found the right partner, and now you’re ready to start a family at 45. Nearly 5% of Swedish babies are now born to mothers over 40, but a study tracking over 312,000 births has uncovered troubling health risks that increase significantly with each passing year.

Swedish researchers discovered that women who give birth at 45 and older face nearly double the risk of stillbirth compared to those in their late thirties. Their babies are also 82% more likely to develop dangerous low blood sugar levels and 68% more likely to be born prematurely, complications that can affect both mother and child for years.

While severe outcomes remain relatively rare, the research, published in Acta Paediatrica, shows that each additional year of maternal age incrementally raises the odds of problems with lasting consequences.

Examining Over 300,000 Births

Researchers at Uppsala University examined Sweden’s comprehensive Medical Birth Register, analyzing every singleton birth to mothers aged 35 and older between 2010 and 2022. They divided women into three groups: ages 35–39 (the comparison group), 40–44 (advanced maternal age), and 45 and older (very advanced maternal age).

Sweden’s healthcare system meticulously tracks pregnancy outcomes, giving researchers access to detailed information on more than 312,000 births, representing nearly a quarter of all singleton births in the country during that period. Of these births, 81% were to women aged 35–39, 18% to women aged 40–44, and just over 1% to women 45 and older. Remarkably, 6% of women in the oldest group were actually 50 or older when they gave birth.

Health Risks Climb Sharply After 45

Women in the oldest age group faced significantly higher rates of pregnancy complications. Beyond the increased stillbirth risk, babies born to mothers 45 and older were 46% more likely to be small for gestational age, a condition that can cause immediate problems like difficulty maintaining body temperature and blood sugar, plus long-term developmental issues.

Low Apgar scores, which measure a newborn’s condition immediately after birth, were more common among babies born to older mothers in the 40–44 age group. However, the most concerning finding was the dramatic spike in hypoglycaemia, or dangerously low blood sugar, among newborns of the oldest mothers. Without quick treatment, this condition can cause seizures and brain damage.

Mothers themselves showed distinct patterns as well. Women in the oldest age groups were more likely to be shorter, have higher body weights, and suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure. They were also far more likely to have used fertility treatments—18% of women 45 and older compared to just 6.7% of women in their late thirties.

Nearly half of the oldest mothers (46%) delivered via cesarean section, compared to less than 23% of women aged 35–39, reflecting both increased complications and more cautious medical approaches.

Implications for Family Planning

The research doesn’t suggest women should panic about delaying childbirth, but it does provide important context for family planning decisions. Understanding these risks allows women and their healthcare providers to make informed choices and potentially take steps to minimize complications.

For women who do conceive later in life, the study underscores the importance of excellent prenatal care and close monitoring throughout pregnancy. Many complications can be managed effectively when caught early.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/pregnancy-over-45-elevated-risks/

Safe quantum communication requires enabling a sender and receiver to get ‘quantum keys’, which are made of streams of photons — the carriers of light

India could be technologically capable of “quantum communication” using satellites in the “next half a decade” Professor Bhaskar Kanseri of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi, whose team recently reported an instance of quantum key distribution one kilometre apart — the farthest such transmission in India, without any connecting cables — told The Hindu in an interview.

This, however, would require large teams of well-funded multidisciplinary experts and the involvement of start-ups which are specifically geared towards such ends, Prof. Kanseri said.

Safe quantum communication requires enabling a sender and receiver to get “quantum keys”, which are made of streams of photons — the carriers of light. Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) employs principles of quantum mechanics: the incompletely understood principles underlying the behaviour of atomic and sub-atomic particles, including photons.

While there are a couple of approaches in using QKD, one of them — said to be the most secure but technically harder to implement — uses quantum entanglement. Pairs of photons are naturally ‘entangled’, in a way that a change in one instantaneously reflects in the other. Applying this to encryption means that even the mere attempt by a potential hacker into a QKD-secured transmission of information becomes apparent to those communicating, thus allowing preventive measures.

While generating such secure keys can be done through physical networks, including fibre optic cables, the goal is to be able to do it in ‘free-space’ or without such intervening wires. This is because the cost of such transmissions using cables rapidly rises once the sender and receiver are hundreds of kilometres apart. Thus the ideal step would be to involve satellites, which can act as an intermediary between any two points even if they are thousands of kilometres apart.

However, using fibre optic cables provides a stable channel for quantum communication which free-space channels do not. Atmospheric disturbances such as turbulence, air flow, pollution, etc., particularly in a city such as the Delhi National Capital Region, made it more “challenging” to demonstrate free-space quantum communication. “The photon beam of quantum channel diverges and wanders due to these disturbances and results in more errors. Owing to these reasons, the error rates are generally higher than the fibre ones. However, with better beam control and optimisation, there is a scope to reduce these errors,” Prof. Kanseri said.

China had demonstrated satellite-based quantum communication nearly one decade ago, as they had a head start in quantum communication activities since the early 2000s, he surmised. “I strongly believe that India, which started quite recently (in the 2020s), will achieve it in next half-a-decade or so, as under the National Quantum Mission (NQM), a strong focus is to develop satellite-based long distance quantum communication,” Prof. Kanseri, who is currently in the U.S., said in an email.

As an academic institute, IIT-Delhi’s experiments in quantum communication so far were “proof of concept (POC) nature” conducted with a small team of four to five students, explained Prof Kanseri. “Satellite based quantum communication would be one of the biggest projects and require not only adequate funds but also a large, dedicated team of multidisciplinary skilled experts for developing several types of enabling technologies. Quantum startups, mentored by researchers working in quantum technologies, if funded adequately, can contribute immensely in translation of technologies from lab to market, and in prototyping quantum technologies in a focussed and faster manner. In addition, indigenous development of needed equipment and components is also required,” Prof. Kanseri said.

In 2017 and 2020, researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China, during multiple instances, generated quantum keys involving a satellite (500 km above the ground) and ground stations 1,000 and 1,700-km apart.

Source: https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/with-money-and-manpower-india-could-achieve-quantum-satellite-communication-by-2030-says-expert/article69724357.ece

The radio pulse was blasted from a defunct satellite, Relay 2, which was an experimental communications satellite launched in 1964.

Scientists received a mysterious radio pulse that came from a satellite that had been dead for decades. The signal was so powerful that for a moment it outshone all other objects in the sky, New Scientist reported.

The radio pulse was blasted from a defunct satellite, Relay 2, which was a NASA experimental communications satellite launched in 1964.

It was part of the Relay programme, which consisted of two satellites, Relay 1 and Relay 2, designed to test communications in medium Earth orbit. Both satellites were funded by NASA.

The US-based space agency stopped using it in 1965, and the technical and electronic devices stopped working altogether by 1967.

Last year on June 13, scientists using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) detected a small but powerful flash that lasted less than 30 nanoseconds.

Clancy James at Curtin University in Australia and his colleagues were shocked as the signal came from our galaxy.

“If it’s nearby, we can study it through optical telescopes really easily, so we got all excited, thinking maybe we’d discovered a new pulsar or some other object,” says Clancy as quoted by New Scientist.

“This was an incredibly powerful radio pulse that vastly outshone everything else in the sky for a very short amount of time,” Clancy added.

Scientists studied the source and found that the signal came from within 20,000km of Earth. After comparing it with the locations of known satellites, they found that the pulse came from the Relay 2 satellite.

As the satellite has been dead for nearly six decades, scientists believe that the signal must have come from an external factor, such as an electrostatic discharge or a micrometeorite.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/science/mysterious-dead-satellite-sends-powerful-signal-to-earth-after-decades-8731647

Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O), Google faced a potential setback on Thursday as an adviser to Europe’s highest court sided with EU antitrust regulators in the company’s fight against a record 4.34 billion euro ($4.98 billion) fine levied seven years ago.
The European Commission in its 2018 decision said Google had used its Android mobile operating system to block rivals. A lower tribunal endorsed the EU finding in 2022 but trimmed the fine to 4.1 billion euros, prompting Google to appeal to Europe’s top court.

Advocate-General at the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Juliane Kokott, in her non-binding opinion, advised the court to dismiss Google’s appeal and confirm the reduced fine set by the lower tribunal.
“The legal arguments put forward by Google are ineffective,” she said.
Kokott dismissed Google’s argument that regulators should compare Google with a rival in assessing the situation.
“It is not realistic, in the present case, to compare the situation of Google with that of a hypothetical as-efficient competitor. Google held a dominant position in several markets of the Android-ecosystem and thus benefited from network effects that enabled it to ensure that users used Google Search,” she said.

Judges, who usually follow four out of five such non-binding opinions, will rule in the coming months.

“Android has created more choice for everyone and supports thousands of successful businesses in Europe and around the world,” a Google spokesperson said on Thursday.
“We are disappointed with the Opinion which, if it were followed by the Court, would discourage investment in open platforms and harm Android users, partners and app developers.”
Regulators said Google’s illegal practices dated back to 2011, as it required manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and its Chrome browser together with its Google Play app store on their Android devices. It paid them to pre-install only Google Search and blocked them from using rival Android systems.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/eu-court-adviser-sides-with-regulators-googles-fight-against-eu-antitrust-fine-2025-06-19/

SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft exploded into a dramatic fireball during testing in Texas late on Wednesday, the latest in a series of setbacks for billionaire Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program.
The explosion occurred around 11 p.m. local time while Starship was on a test stand at its Brownsville, Texas Starbase while preparing for the tenth test flight, SpaceX said in a post on Musk’s social-media platform X.

The company attributed it to a “major anomaly” and said all personnel were safe. Its engineering teams were investigating the incident, and it was coordinating with local, state and federal agencies regarding environmental and safety impacts, the company said.
“Preliminary data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in the payload bay failed below its proof pressure,” Musk said in a post on X, in a reference to a nitrogen gas storage unit known as a Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel. “If further investigation confirms that this is what happened, it is the first time ever for this design,” he continued.

The Starship rocket appeared to experience at least two explosions in quick succession, lighting up the night sky and sending debris flying, according to video capturing the moment it exploded.

The 400-foot (122-meter) tall Starship rocket system is at the core of Musk’s goal of sending humans to Mars. But it has been beset by a string of failures this year.
In late May, SpaceX’s Starship rocket spun out of control about halfway through a flight without achieving some of its most important testing goals. The Starship lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase, Texas, launch site, flying beyond the point of two previous explosive attempts earlier this year that sent debris streaking over Caribbean islands and forced dozens of airliners to divert course.
Two months earlier, the spacecraft exploded in space minutes after lifting off from Texas, prompting the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to halt air traffic in parts of Florida.

Videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near South Florida and the Bahamas after Starship broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off, a SpaceX live stream of the mission showed. Musk called that explosion “a minor setback.”

Source : https://www.reuters.com/science/spacex-starship-rocket-explodes-setback-musks-mars-mission-2025-06-19/

NETFLIX is adopting broadcast channels for the first time after nearly all but killing off traditional linear TV.

The streaming giant is picking up channels from TF1 Group, France’s biggest commercial broadcaster, as part of a recently inked deal.

Viewers will be able to watch all five TF1 live channels, the Financial Times reported.

The deal will reportedly bring an additional 30,000 hours worth of telly to Netflix next summer.

TF1 offers scripted dramas, live sports and reality shows like The Voice.

Only Netflix subscribers in France will be able to tune into the bonus content, the FT noted.

However, if the partnership is successful, more linear channels may jump to streaming services in other parts of Europe and the US in future.

Netflix will first wait to see how the TF1 deal fares before cutting any more broadcasting deals, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said in a statement.

The companies did not reveal how much the deal was worth.

Peters added that the partnership would help boost subscriber engagement.

Netflix has further turned its attention to engagement, after pivoting away from sharing subscriber counts.

“By teaming up with France’s leading broadcaster, we will provide French consumers with even more reasons to come to Netflix every day and to stay with us for all their entertainment,” Peters said.

The deal also means TF1 gets more eyeballs on the adverts it airs between shows.

“As viewing habits shift toward on-demand consumption and audience fragmentation increases, this unprecedented alliance will enable our premium content to reach unparalleled audiences and unlock new reach for advertisers within an ecosystem that perfectly complements our TF1+ [streaming] platform,” Rodolphe Belmer, CEO of TF1 Group, said in a statement.

It comes as streaming overtakes traditional TV for the first time in terms of viewership numbers.

The milestone marks a steady shift towards internet-based telly, which has seen a near-doubling of streaming viewership since 2021 when it made up 26 per cent of TV use.

Today that percentage stands at nearly 45 per cent, according to the latest figures released by Nielsen earlier this week.

“It’s a credit to media companies,” said Karthik Rao, boss of data specialist Nielsen, which launched its Gauge report on viewing statistics in May 2021.

“They have deftly adapted their programming strategies to meet their viewers where they are watching TV, whether it’s on streaming or linear platforms.”

Netflix claims to have “over” 300million subscribers.

The deal would also allow Netflix to grow its audience in France.

As of 2022, Netflix had 10million French subscribers, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said at the time.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14518724/netflix-getting-broadcast-linear-channels-first-time-app-makeover/

The universe has two kinds of matter. There is invisible dark matter, known only because of its gravitational effects on a grand scale. And there is ordinary matter such as gas, dust, stars, planets and earthly things like cookie dough and canoes.
Scientists estimate that ordinary matter makes up only about 15% of all matter, but have long struggled to document where all of it is located, with about half unaccounted for. With the help of powerful bursts of radio waves emanating from 69 locations in the cosmos, researchers now have found the “missing” matter.

It was hiding primarily as thinly distributed gas spread out in the vast expanses between galaxies and was detected thanks to the effect the matter has on the radio waves traveling through space, the researchers said. This tenuous gas comprises the intergalactic medium, sort of a fog between galaxies.
Scientists previously had determined the total amount of ordinary matter using a calculation involving light observed that was left over from the Big Bang event roughly 13.8 billion years ago that initiated the universe. But they could not actually find half of this matter.
“So the question we’ve been grappling with was: Where is it hiding? The answer appears to be: in a diffuse wispy cosmic web, well away from galaxies,” said Harvard University astronomy professor Liam Connor, lead author of the study published on Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy

The researchers found that a smaller slice of the missing matter resides in the halos of diffuse material surrounding galaxies, including our Milky Way.
Ordinary matter is composed of baryons, which are the subatomic particles protons and neutrons needed to build atoms.
“People, planets and stars are made of baryons. Dark matter, on the other hand, is a mysterious substance that makes up the bulk of the matter in the universe. We do not know what new particle or substance makes up dark matter. We know exactly what the ordinary matter is, we just didn’t know where it was,” Connor said.
So how did so much ordinary matter end up in the middle of nowhere? Vast amounts of gas are ejected from galaxies when massive stars explode in supernovas or when supermassive black holes inside galaxies “burp,” expelling material after consuming stars or gas.

“If the universe were a more boring place, or the laws of physics were different, you might find that ordinary matter would all fall into galaxies, cool down, form stars, until every proton and neutron were a part of a star. But that’s not what happens,” Connor said.
Thus, these violent physical processes are sloshing ordinary matter around across immense distances and consigning it to the cosmic wilderness. This gas is not in its usual state but rather in the form of plasma, with its electrons and protons separated.
The mechanism used to detect and measure the missing ordinary matter involved phenomena called fast radio bursts, or FRBs – powerful pulses of radio waves emanating from faraway points in the universe. While their exact cause remains mysterious, a leading hypothesis is that they are produced by highly magnetized neutron stars, compact stellar embers left over after a massive star dies in a supernova explosion.

As light in radio wave frequencies travels from the source of the FRBs to Earth, it becomes dispersed into different wavelengths, just as a prism turns sunlight into a rainbow. The degree of this dispersion depends on how much matter is in the light’s path, providing the mechanism for pinpointing and measuring matter where it otherwise would remain unfound.
Scientists used radio waves traveling from 69 FRBs, 39 of which were discovered using a network of 110 telescopes located at Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory near Bishop, California, called the Deep Synoptic Array. The remaining 30 were discovered using other telescopes.
The FRBs were located at distances up to 9.1 billion light-years from Earth, the farthest of these on record. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

Source : https://www.reuters.com/science/astronomers-locate-universes-missing-matter-2025-06-16/

WhatsApp announced Monday (Jun 16) it will introduce its boldest advertising features yet, marking a significant shift for the messaging platform that has largely remained ad-free since its launch.

The move is a sensitive one for WhatsApp, whose chief firmly denied a report in 2023 that said the Meta-owned app was exploring advertisements as it sought to boost revenue.

Unlike Facebook, Instagram, and other social platforms, WhatsApp has maintained minimal advertising since Meta acquired it in 2014.

Users and regulators have kept a close watch on whether the social media giant would seek to monetise an app that was primarily used to chat with friends and family, and was appreciated for its privacy.

Until now, the platform’s advertising consisted primarily of WhatsApp Business promotional messages to opted-in customers and some limited Status ad testing in select markets.

The messaging app has no display ads in chat feeds or conversations.

The company said it will roll out three new monetisation features exclusively within its Updates tab, which houses both Channels and Status features used by 1.5 billion people daily and became widely available last year.

The company stressed that users who only use WhatsApp for personal messaging will see no changes to their experience, as all new features are confined to the Updates tab that can be deactivated in the settings.

“We’ve been talking about our plans to build a business that does not interrupt your personal chats for years and we believe the Updates tab is the right place for these new features to work,” WhatsApp said.

The new features include paid channel subscriptions, promoted channels in the Discovery directory, and advertisements within Status, WhatsApp’s version of Instagram Stories.

WhatsApp emphasised that the new advertising features are designed with privacy safeguards.

“I want to be really clear about one thing: Your personal messages, calls and statuses will remain end-to-end encrypted. This means no one, not even us, can see or hear them, and they cannot be used for ads,” Nikila Srinivasan, vice president of product management at Meta, told reporters.

The company committed to never selling or sharing phone numbers to advertisers and said personal messages, calls, and group memberships will not influence ad targeting.

“To show ads in Status or Channels, we’re going to use basic information like your country or city, your device language and your activity in the Updates tab,” Srinivasan said.

The introduction of advertising represents Meta’s effort to monetise WhatsApp’s massive user base of over 2 billion monthly active users.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/whatsapp-introduces-first-major-advertising-features-5185051

Every clock in your house probably tells a slightly different time. Now picture those clocks as the most precise instruments humanity has ever built, so accurate that they wouldn’t lose or gain a second for billions of years. That’s the challenge a team of international scientists recently tackled when they connected 10 of the world’s most advanced atomic clocks across six countries in the largest coordinated timekeeping experiment ever conducted.

The results, published in the journal Optica, reveal both incredible precision achievements and surprising discrepancies that could reshape how we define time itself. While some clocks agreed to within their expected precision limits, others showed unexpected differences that have major implications for the future of global timekeeping.

These optical clocks are being considered as replacements for the current international time standard, with scientists hoping to redefine the second — the fundamental unit of time — by 2030. But first, they need to prove these clocks can work together reliably on a global scale.

Why Ultra-Precise Timekeeping Matters

Accurate time underpins everything from GPS navigation to financial markets to internet communications. “The accurate time and frequency signals provided by atomic clocks are essential for many everyday technologies — like GPS, managing power grids and keeping financial transactions in sync,” said Helen Margolis, head of time and frequency at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the United Kingdom, in a statement.

The current international time standard relies on cesium atomic clocks. Optical clocks are now about 100 times more accurate than the best cesium clocks and can measure time so accurately that they would lose or gain less than one second over billions of years.

Building incredibly precise clocks is one challenge; getting them to agree with each other across vast distances is entirely another. “Optical clocks provide ultraprecise frequency references that are vital for international metrology as well as for tests of fundamental physics,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

The Global Experiment: 45 Days of Synchronized Science

For 45 days starting February 20, 2022, research teams in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Japan ran their optical clocks simultaneously while connected through fiber optic cables and satellite links as part of a European collaborative project called ROCIT.

Each clock traps and cools individual atoms to near absolute zero, then uses laser light to measure their natural vibrations with extraordinary precision. The clocks use different types of atoms: some use strontium, others use ytterbium, and one uses indium ions. Each atomic species vibrates at its own unique frequency, like different musical notes. By comparing these frequencies, scientists can test whether the fundamental constants of physics remain truly constant across time and space.

European teams relied on a network of fiber optic cables stretching thousands of kilometers, including a 1,023-kilometer link between France and Italy. For distant locations like Japan, scientists used satellite-based GPS technology through a technique called Integer Precise Point Positioning (IPPP). However, satellite linking has limited precision due to measurement uncertainties caused by factors like signal noise or instrument limits.

Mixed Results Reveal Both Promise and Problems For Atomic Clocks

The experiment produced 38 different frequency ratio measurements between pairs of clocks. Four of these comparisons were conducted directly for the first time, and many others were measured with much greater accuracy than before. Many clocks agreed to within their expected precision limits, sometimes to extraordinarily high precision.

However, several concerning discrepancies emerged. Most notably, there appeared to be systematic problems with the Italian team’s equipment during the measurement period.

“Not all the results confirmed what we expected, and we observed some inconsistencies in the measurements,” said Rachel Godun, principal scientist at NPL. “However, comparing so many clocks at once and using more than one technique for linking the clocks made it easier to identify the source of the problem.”

These findings demonstrate a key point about precision timekeeping: “This serves to illustrate the importance of carrying out large, coordinated measurement campaigns with multiple clocks and links running simultaneously in order to identify and eliminate such inconsistencies,” the authors write in their paper.

Beyond timekeeping applications, this experiment marks several scientific firsts. These measurements help scientists search for signs that the fundamental constants of nature might be changing over time, a possibility that could revolutionize our understanding of physics. Marco Pizzocaro, a senior researcher at the Instituto Nazionale Di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM) in Italy, believes their work “could also be used for carrying out tests of fundamental physics, such as searching for dark matter or testing the basic rules of physics.”

The Path Forward for Global Timekeeping

The research builds a key step toward the international physics community’s goal of redefining the International System of Units second to use optical clocks instead of the current cesium-based standards. The transition, targeted for 2030, requires demonstrating that different optical clocks worldwide can maintain consistent, reliable operation.

“Comparing multiple clocks at the same time and using more than one type of link technology provides far more information than the mostly pairwise clock comparisons that have been carried out to date,” said Thomas Lindvall, senior scientist at VTT MIKES in Finland. “With a coordinated set of measurements, it becomes possible to check consistency while also providing more trusted results. These results can help determine which optical clock(s) should be used in the new definition of the second.”

However, major challenges remain. “These measurements provide critical information about what work is still needed for optical clocks to achieve the precision and reliability required for use in international timekeeping,”

The experiment identified areas where more work is needed. To confirm that all clocks are performing as expected, measurement uncertainties must be reduced to match the precision of the clocks themselves. Repeated measurements will then be needed to confirm reliable operation necessary to build confidence in both the clocks and the links.

Scientists plan more extensive comparison campaigns as optical clock technology continues improving. Future experiments will likely include more clocks, longer measurement periods, and better fiber optic connections to reduce uncertainties further.

“Our findings could help to improve the performance of next-generation optical clocks, unleashing entirely new applications and advancing scientific endeavors that rely on time and frequency,” said Margolis.

While this experiment demonstrated that a global network of optical clocks is feasible, it also showed that achieving perfect synchronization across continents remains a formidable technical challenge. In an age where milliseconds can mean millions of dollars in financial markets and nanoseconds matter for GPS accuracy, this research brings us closer to a future where humanity’s most fundamental measurement — time itself — will be based on the quantum mechanical behavior of individual atoms, synchronized across the globe with previously unimaginable precision.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/atomic-clocks-connected-across-6-countries/

Google’s brand-new £1 billion London office is facing an unusual problem and no, it’s not cybercriminals or software bugs. This time, the trouble is coming from an entirely different kind of intruder.

Set in King’s Cross, Google’s sleek 11-storey “landscraper” is designed to be a modern marvel. With rooftop gardens, a running track, a swimming pool, and space for up to 7,000 employees, it was supposed to be a symbol of Google’s growing presence in the UK. But before the building has even officially opened, it’s already dealing with a persistent issue and it’s got fur.

According to reports, foxes have made themselves quite at home in the lush rooftop garden, digging holes in the soil, leaving droppings, and using the site as their personal playground. As per a report by The Guardian, one particularly bold fox has been seen wandering across different levels of the building, popping up unexpectedly, on the fifth floor one minute, the garden the next.

While Google has downplayed the impact, calling it “minimal,” people familiar with the site say the issue has been ongoing for around three years. Some even say there’s a fox living in a burrow on the property. Pest control experts say it’s not surprising. Foxes are common in London, and with the garden’s 250 trees, 40,000 tonnes of soil, and plenty of quiet corners, it’s an ideal hangout spot for the city’s urban wildlife.

Source : https://www.moneycontrol.com/technology/google-s-1-billion-london-office-is-under-attack-but-not-by-hackers-article-13110151.html

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have found 6,000-year-old skeletons from Colombia with ancient DNA that could rewrite human history.

The incredible remains belonging to hunter-gatherers at the ancient preceramic site of Checua don’t have DNA that matches any known Indigenous population in the region today.

Archaeologists have found 6,000-year-old skeletons from Colombia with ancient DNATheir bombshell genetic signature has revealed a distinct – and extinct – lineage.

This could have descended all the way from the earliest humans to reach South America.

This lineage diverged early on and remained genetically isolated for thousands of years.

Researchers have managed to reconstruct a rare genetic timeline by anaylysing DNA from 21 people who lived in the Bogota Altiplano between roughly 6,000 to 500 years ago.

Extracted from bones and teeth, the DNA samples showed that the oldest people at Checua carried a distinctive ancestral signature.

This has completely disappeared from the modern gene pool.

Kim-Louise Krettek, lead author and a PhD student at the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution in Germany said: “This area is key to understanding how the Americas were populated.

“It was the land bridge between North and South America and the meeting point of three major cultural regions: Mesoamerica, Amazonia, and the Andes.”

Early people weren’t related to other ancient groups in South America genetically.

They also didn’t share ancestry with early North American populations.

Krettek added: “Our results show that the Checua individuals derive from the earliest population that spread and differentiated across South America very rapidly.

“We couldn’t find descendants of these early hunter-gatherers of the Colombian high plains, the genes were not passed on.

“That means in the area around Bogotá there was a complete exchange of the population.”

Roughly a whopping 2,000 years ago, the genetic landscape of the Bogota highlands shifted.

The distinctive lineage discovered in the earliest Checua remains had vanished and replaced by a new population.

Their DNA bear close similarity to the ancient Panamanians and modern Chibchan-speaking groups in Costa Rica and Panama.

Co-author and researcher at Universidad Nacional de Colombia Andrea Casas-Vargas explained how the bizarre disappearance of the original population’s genetic traces is rare in South America.

She said: “Up to now, strong genetic continuity has been observed in the population of the Andes and the southern cone of South America over long time periods and cultural changes.”

As new arrivals came to the Bogota highlands, the population changed significantly as time went on.

But the shift didn’t come with any signs of war or invasion, nor violence, according to the archeologists.

The change may have just occurred gradually through migration, cultural exchange, or intermarriage.

Therefore, the Checua people’s unique DNA faded – and eventually vanished.

The unbelievable discovery is the first example of Colombia looking at ancient DNA – but experts say it’s just the beginning.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14424448/colombian-skeletons-rewrite-history/https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14424448/colombian-skeletons-rewrite-history/

Was it murder or a tragic accident?

SCIENTISTS have uncovered a mass grave dating back 6,200 years – and one of the dead met their end in a particularly grim way.

A woman’s head appears to have been brutally bashed in by a broad-edged object.

Experts noticed a very prominent triangular fracture on the left side of the head.

But they’re stumped about whether it was a deliberate act of murder or a tragic accident.

The skeleton was part of a major haul unearthed in Iran.

Archaeologists also spotted something strange about the woman’s head shape too.

The skull is cone-shaped which suggests it was deliberately modified when she was a child in a process known as cranial bandaging.

This is where fabric is wrapped around the head tightly around the skull of young ones when it’s much softer.

Others with the same type of skull were buried alongside the woman.

Researchers studying the remains say the skull in question would have been weaker at withstanding such a harsh blow to the head.

However, the strike was so tough that it still would have killed her even if she had an unmodified skull.

“It should be noted that the blow was so severe that it would have fractured a normal, unmodified skull as well,” Professor Mahdi Alirezazadeh, from Tarbiat Modares University in Iran, told LiveScience.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14413343/grim-cone-headed-skull-bashed-in-archaeologist/

Amazon is reportedly developing software for humanoid robots that could perform the role of delivery workers and “spring out” of its vans.

The $2tn (£1.47tn) technology company is building a “humanoid park” in the US to test the robots, said the tech news site the Information, citing a person who had been involved in the project.

The Information reported that the robots could eventually take the jobs of delivery workers. It is developing the artificial intelligence software that would power the robots but will use hardware developed by other companies.

The indoor obstacle course being used for the tests at an Amazon office in San Francisco is about the size of a coffee shop, the report said, with the company hoping the robots will be able to travel in Amazon’s Rivian vans and make deliveries from them.

Even with a human driver behind the wheel, a robot could theoretically speed up drop-off times by visiting one address while the human employee delivers to another. Amazon also has an interest in self-driving vehicles through its Zoox unit.

Amazon has more than 20,000 Rivians in the US and has placed one of the vans in the humanoid testing zone, according to the report. Once it has tested the robots in the humanoid park, it plans to take them on “field trips” in the real world where they will attempt to deliver packages to homes.

Amazon has already conducted trials with humanoid robots, deploying devices developed by the US company Agility Robotics in its warehouses. The chief executive of Agility, Peggy Johnson, told the Guardian last year that the company’s Digit robot allowed employees to hand off work to humanoids and become a “robot manager”.

Last year Amazon was given permission to test-fly drones beyond a human controller’s line of sight in the UK, paving the way for using the technology in home delivery.

Prof Subramanian Ramamoorthy, the chair of robot learning and autonomy at the University of Edinburgh, said Amazon had a respected robotics team and its reported focus on “last mile” delivery was not a surprise. The humanoid robot hardware capable of carrying out such a task is becoming available and the field is developing rapidly, he said. However, he added, the challenge was to achieve reliable performance outside highly constrained environments such as the reported “humanoid park”.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/05/amazon-testing-humanoid-robots-to-deliver-packages

INCREDIBLE scenes show NASA testing a vehicle designed to extract vital resources that could help humans live in the lunar environment or even on Mars.

Engineers at Kennedy Space Center in Florida are experimenting with RASSOR (Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot) on a simulated lunar surface.

RASSOR’s counter-rotating drums dig up simulated moon dust to extract regolith, the loose, fragmental material found on the Moon’s surface.

The opposing motion of the drums helps RASSOR grip the surface in low-gravity environments like the Moon or Mars.

“With this unique capability, RASSOR can traverse the rough surface to dig, load, haul, and dump regolith that could later be broken down into hydrogen, oxygen, or water-resources critical for sustaining human presence,” NASA said Tuesday.

The space agency is using the foundation of RASSOR’s development to inform IPEx (In-Situ Resource Utilisation Pilot Excavator), a newer vehicle being prepared for a potential
technology demonstration mission on the Moon.

IPEx is still in the advanced development and testing phase.

Improvements on RASSOR with refinements in scale, modularity, and mission capability are being made to support future lunar resource extraction missions.

Mining the Moon is shaping up to be a high-stakes space race, with billions of dollars and future survival on the line.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has pegged the value of untapped lunar resources in the hundreds of billions.

Those include frozen water, which could support life or be converted into rocket fuel for deep space missions.

The surface is also believed to hold rare earth metals used in electronics and defense tech.

But the Moon’s most promising payload might be helium-3- a clean, non-radioactive isotope that could fuel future nuclear reactors.

The substance was fetching around $2,500 per liter last year, according to the Edelgas Group.

“That’s a huge market, in principle, and something is coming along very fast,” Martin Elvis, a senior astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, told Business Insider.

Elvis warned that with no strict global rules, the Moon is becoming a lawless frontier.

He compared the current push for space mining to a “Wild West,” where speed and land grabs beat cooperation and sustainability.

CHINA’S RACE TO MOON

NASA, China, and several private firms are racing to claim pieces of the lunar surface in the coming decade.

But some scientists worry that quick-and-dirty extraction could wipe out decades of astronomical opportunity.

Lunar zones rich in resources also happen to be gold mines for science.

The far side of the Moon offers an ultra-quiet location perfect for peering into the early universe.

Its permanently shadowed craters, ideal for water collection, are also key studying the birth of galaxies.

Elvis said even minor human activity, like mining vibrations, could disrupt delicate instruments and lunar research.

“Mining for water is probably the worst,” he said.

Some protections do exist, such as the Artemis Accords, a non-binding agreement from 2020 signed by over 50 nations.

The pact permits space mining if it follows the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and is done “safely and sustainably.”

But Robert Massey, deputy director of the Royal Astronomical Society, said that’s not enough.

He argued that future space rules must prioritize science alongside profits.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14399007/video-us-moon-mining-human-establish-home-space/

Artificial intelligence may one day cure diseases, solve climate change, and usher in a new industrial revolution. But for now, one of AI’s leading figures has his sights set on something far more immediate: fixing email.

Speaking at the SXSW London festival, Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, revealed that his team is developing a “next-generation email” system powered by AI. The goal? To liberate people from the daily grind of overflowing inboxes, missed messages, and repetitive replies.

“The thing I really want – and we’re working on – is can we have a next-generation email,” Hassabis said. “I would love to get rid of my email. I would pay thousands of dollars per month to get rid of that.”

The system DeepMind is building aims to read, understand, and respond to routine emails in a user’s personal writing style, effectively automating the bulk of modern communication. More importantly, Hassabis believes such tools can prevent crucial messages from slipping through and protect users from other attention-hijacking algorithms built by big tech platforms.

“It basically gives you more time and maybe protects your attention from other algorithms trying to gain your attention,” he added. “I think we can actually use AI in service of the individual.”

The irony isn’t lost on Hassabis. He’s renowned for creating AlphaFold 2, the AI model that solved the protein folding problem, earning him a reputation for using AI in the most noble ways to push the boundaries of science and medicine. Yet the everyday annoyance of email now ranks high on his personal list of priorities.

Part of this reflects the dual pressures of Hassabis’ role. DeepMind, which was acquired by Google in 2014, is simultaneously driving scientific discovery and feeding innovation into Google’s consumer AI products, from its Gemini chatbot to its newly announced video model, Veo 3.

Hassabis has long imagined AI as a field led by science, perhaps governed by a CERN-like global research initiative. But the pace of AI’s commercial potential brought in big tech players sooner than he expected. “The capitalist engine has done what it does best,” he noted, acknowledging that the commercialisation of AI has both accelerated progress and complicated its purpose.

Despite these contradictions, he remains focused on the long game: the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI), AI systems capable of matching or exceeding human cognitive abilities across a wide range of tasks.

Hassabis believes AGI could be just five to ten years away. “That is very short if you think about how momentous a moment that will be,” he said. “I think it’ll be nothing short of a new Industrial Revolution.”

He sees AGI as a pathway to breakthroughs like curing all known diseases and achieving unlimited renewable energy, what he calls “radical abundance.” But even in this best-case scenario, Hassabis urged academics and policymakers to begin addressing the potential societal consequences now, especially the equitable distribution of such prosperity.

“Even in the good case where we get radical abundance and economic prosperity, can we make sure that’s fairly shared, and fairly distributed?” he asked. “I hope economists and social scientists are thinking about that.”

Source : https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/id-pay-thousands-to-get-rid-of-email-google-deepmind-ceo-demis-hassabis-on-his-real-ai-goal-478946-2025-06-04

Starlink is close to launching satellite internet services in India after meeting regulatory and security requirements, aiming to boost rural connectivity and rival Jio and OneWeb.

Elon Musk’s satellite internet venture, Starlink, is finally set to make its official entry into the Indian market. The company is expected to receive its long-awaited Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) licence from the Indian government in the coming days. This milestone follows Starlink’s acceptance of regulatory conditions laid out by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the successful payment of statutory fees.

Adobe has launched the Photoshop beta for Android, bringing a powerful mobile editing app to the Google Play Store.

After rolling out Photoshop for iPhone earlier this year, Adobe has now turned its attention to Android users. The company has officially unveiled the Photoshop for Android app in beta, bringing a powerful suite of mobile editing tools to Google Play for the first time.
Designed for creators on the move, the app integrates seamlessly with Adobe’s desktop and web platforms, allowing users to switch effortlessly between devices without compromising on creative control.

Did you know that smoking could lead to lung cancer? Or that untreated diabetes might cause blindness? This is what doctors call causal relationships between conditions. Documenting which diseases directly cause others has been a major challenge for medical researchers. Now, new international research has changed that.

In the study published in Bioinformatics, researchers developed an automated method for extracting causal relationships between diseases from scientific literature and created a map showing which conditions lead to others. This knowledge is already improving how scientists calculate genetic risk scores that predict one’s likelihood of developing specific diseases.

The Domino Effect of Disease

Most people know that Type 2 diabetes can lead to complications. However, the exact sequence—diabetes causing hyperglycemia, which causes microvascular disease, ultimately resulting in diabetic retinopathy—illustrates the domino effect one condition can have. Understanding these chains helps doctors anticipate problems before they develop and potentially intervene earlier.

The research team used sophisticated text mining techniques to scour thousands of medical journal abstracts. They weren’t just looking for diseases that commonly occur together (comorbidities) but specifically for statements asserting that one disease directly causes another. The team identified 8,191 unique causal relationships spanning 1,860 different disease categories.

To validate their findings, they cross-referenced them with real-world patient data from the UK Biobank, a massive database containing health information from over 500,000 participants. They checked whether diseases that supposedly had causal relationships showed statistical connections in actual patients and whether the timing of diagnoses matched expectations (cause preceding effect).

Better Risk Prediction

Researchers then transformed their findings into a mathematical structure called a directed acyclic graph (DAG). This allowed scientists to perform causal inference, a sophisticated form of analysis that goes beyond mere correlation to understand true cause-and-effect relationships.

When the researchers added their disease map to genetic risk scores, which estimate your chances of getting a disease based on your DNA, they found it made predictions more accurate. For example, combining risk scores for related conditions, like heart disease and the problems it can lead to, helped them better predict who might develop heart issues.

Untangling the Complex Web

Doctors could use this map of diseases to predict risks for conditions lacking extensive genetic data by analyzing the genetic risks of diseases that cause them. This method also helps untangle a common problem in genetics called pleiotropy, where one gene appears to influence several different conditions that don’t seem connected.

The research team found that many genetic variants previously thought to independently influence multiple diseases actually follow causal chains, affecting one disease and then causing another. More targeted treatments could be developed that address the root cause rather than just the symptoms.

This method can automatically analyze thousands of gene-disease combinations, which could change how we understand the links between our genes and different health conditions.

All the data, including the disease dictionary, full network of relationships, and the disease graph, are freely available through GitHub, allowing other researchers to build upon this foundation.

Diseases are complexly intertwined. By mapping the causal connections between conditions, scientists now have a powerful new tool to improve risk prediction, understand disease chain reactions, and potentially create more effective treatments that address the true origins of illnesses rather than waiting until they develop.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/disease-cause-link-map/

A RARE “severe” warning has been issued for a massive solar storm due to arrive at Earth tomorrow.

The storm risks causing major disruption to internet, phone signals and power grids.

The warning has been put in effect by the Space Weather Prediction Centre.

It comes after a coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted from the Sun yesterday evening.

The authority says it will likely lead to “immediate geomagnetic disturbances”.

A statement says: “Confidence in an Earth-arrival component to this CME is good.

“However, timing and intensity are more uncertain. These watches represent potential based on our best analyses.

“We will not know the true nature of this CME’s geomagnetic storm potential until the CME arrives at our solar wind observatories located 1 million miles from Earth.

“Upon arrival at those spacecraft, we will know the magnetic strength and orientation that are very important to what levels and duration of geomagnetic storm conditions are expected to occur.

“As always visit our website for the latest information and updates.”

The Space Weather Prediction Centre adds that impacts to technological infrastructure are “possible” but could be mitigated.

Its impact might also mean the aurora could be visible in the northern half of the United States.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14368085/massive-solar-storm-severe-warning/

Imagine a future where a diagnosis of untreatable male infertility is no longer the end of the road – because science has found a way to produce human sperm from lab-engineered testicular tissue.

This might sound like science fiction, but I’m leading a team of researchers at the University of Limerick (UL) to work on making the production of human sperm from lab-engineered testicular tissue a reality. If successful, this could redefine fertility treatment and bring hope to the millions of people around the world affected by male infertility.

Why now? Because male reproductive health is in decline – and the numbers are too stark to ignore.

Over the past seven decades, sperm counts have decreased dramatically while conditions like testicular cancer, hormone imbalances and genital malformations – which can all have an effect on sperm counts – are on the rise.

The precise causes of declining male reproductive health are still being debated. While genetics may play a role, no single genetic factor has been shown to affect male fertility at a population level. Instead, much of the focus has turned to the environment, particularly endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

These chemicals, which can interfere with hormone function, are found in common items such as plastics, pesticides, cosmetics and even painkillers. There is growing evidence that exposure to these substances in the womb can increase the risk of testicular cancer, reduce sperm quality, and lead to male infertility later in life.

For some men, fertility issues are treatable – lifestyle changes, hormone therapy, or surgery to correct blockages in the reproductive tract can help. But for a large proportion, there is no identifiable cause.

This type of unexplained infertility, known as idiopathic infertility, currently leaves patients with only one option: surgical sperm retrieval (SSR).

SSR involves surgically opening the testicles to search for viable sperm for use in assisted reproductive technologies like IVF. However, success is far from guaranteed. In some cases, the chance of finding even a single usable sperm cell is as low as 40%.

In addition to its physical and emotional toll, SSR places the burden of fertility treatment on the female partner’s reproductive system, meaning women’s bodies are often the target of fertility medications and procedures. It does little to address the underlying health risks associated with male infertility, including higher rates of illness and early mortality.

And if SSR fails, the only option left is to use donor sperm – a difficult and emotional decision for many people.

Root Of The Problem

To address male infertility, scientists need to get to the root of the problem and develop solutions that restore natural fertility.

So, given the ethical and biological limits on experimenting directly with humans, researchers have turned to preclinical models to study the human testes. These include ex vivo tissue (human or animal tissue studied outside the body), in vitro cell cultures (human testicular cells grown on lab plates), and animal models (typically rodents or primates).

However, human sperm production is vastly different – and much less efficient – than in other mammals, making animal models unreliable. To move forward, researchers need preclinical models that closely mimic human testes and their ability to produce sperm.

This remains one of the biggest scientific hurdles in the field. While researchers have successfully produced sperm in the lab from mouse testicular tissue, the same has never been achieved in humans.

Our research is attempting to overcome this challenge by combining biology with mechanical engineering and materials science. We started by analyzing human testicular tissue samples from a range of donors, building a detailed understanding of how the tissue functions.

This data was fed into the design of model systems that replicate human testicular tissue – not just biologically, but mechanically and structurally. The ultimate goal is to create a model that can not only mimic testicular function but produce viable human sperm.

Lab-produced sperm could revolutionize fertility care. It might one day offer a solution to men who have undergone failed SSR procedures, childhood cancer survivors whose fertility was damaged by chemotherapy or radiation, and male patients with severe, unexplained infertility who currently have no treatment options.

This isn’t just a scientific experiment. It’s about restoring hope to those for whom existing medical approaches have run out of answers.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/male-infertility-how-lab-produced-sperm-could-transform-future-fertility-treatments/

New findings claim the three-fingered bodies with elongated skulls are real and date back over 1,200 years.

Scientists examining a set of mysterious three-fingered mummified bodies found in Peru now believe that some of them may have died violent deaths and were possibly murdered.

“These are yet more pieces of clear and irrefutable evidence that these bodies are 100% genuine, real, and organic having once been alive,” said Dr José Zalce, former director of the Mexican Navy Medical Department, who is leading the investigation, according to the Star which cited local Peruvian news media outlets.

Zalce said he has studied 21 of the so-called “Nazca mummies” in detail, examining their fingerprints, bone structures, muscular anatomy, and internal organs. Among the most closely analysed are two female mummies named Maria and Montserrat and a male specimen identified as Antonio.

The mummies were first discovered in 2017 in Peru’s Nazca desert and presented to the public in Mexico two years ago. At the time, they were introduced as potential non-human beings not part of Earth’s evolutionary chain.

Initial DNA tests had sparked headlines, suggesting the remains were part-human and part unknown species. That led to Mexico’s first-ever congressional hearing on unidentified aerial phenomena. However, the credibility of the find was challenged last year, when forensic experts claimed the specimens could be fabricated from papier-mâché, animal bones and glue.

Maria, believed to have been between 35 and 45 years old and standing about 5 feet 6 inches tall, had suffered multiple injuries. These included a deep cut and bite marks near her pelvis, puncture wounds along her lower back, and broken vertebrae near the tailbone.

She also appeared to have sustained a zigzag-shaped wound consistent with a fall onto rocks.

Montserrat, who was likely aged between 16 and 25, had a puncture wound between the fifth and sixth ribs. CT scans revealed extensive internal trauma, including broken ribs and a fractured shoulder blade. Experts said she may have been upright with her back against a hard surface at the time of death.

Antonio, the male specimen, had what appeared to be a stab wound to the left side of his chest. Dr David Ruiz Vela, former president of Peru’s Medical Association, said the injury had broken ribs, pierced the abdomen and caused internal bleeding.

“He has a stab that broke his ribs on the left side of his chest, penetrating the chest, abdomen, liver and completely perforating him inside,” Vela told the Peruvian news media outlets.

All three bodies have elongated skulls, three fingers and toes, and preserved internal organs such as hearts, livers, and intestines.

Source : https://www.news18.com/viral/scientists-say-perus-mystery-alien-mummies-may-have-been-murdered-ws-kl-9355200.html

A mysterious metallic sphere that was recovered after flying through the air in Colombia has left scientists baffled, with many speculating it’s a UFO.

The bizarre sphere was recorded flying over the town of Buga in the western part of the country in March before landing and being confiscated, according to X user Truthpolex.

The orb — which reportedly weighed about 4.5 pounds and was cold to the touch when found — had etched into it a series of ancient-looking symbols, including runes and characters from the Ogham and Mesopotamian writing systems.

Locals claim that the object is of alien origin, and even researchers admit they can’t say where it came from.

The sphere has “no welds or joints,” which would typically indicate it was made by humans, according to Dr. Jose Luis Velazquez, a radiologist hired to examine the sphere.

“It is of artificial origin in that it shows no evidence of welding, and its internal structure is composed of high-density elements. More testing is needed to establish its origin,” Dr Velazquez said in video shared on X.

Scientists used AI to decipher what they believe its symbols mean.

“The origin of birth through union and energy in the cycle of transformation, meeting point of unity, expansion, and consciousness — individual consciousness,” the message purportedly reads.

The research team studying the org said, “We interpret it as a message to humanity, encouraging a collective shift in consciousness to help Mother Earth — especially considering the current issues with pollution and environmental decline.”

The object was spotted zipping through the sky, defying the movement of a traditional aircraft, said a member of the research team, David Velez el Potro, to Maussan Television, speaking to controversial journalist and ufologist Jaime Massan.

No official reports or scientific analyses have yet confirmed the claims that a metallic sphere fell over Buga, but multiple eyewitness reports have been made.

Maussan previously sparked debate after making unconfirmed claims that he had discovered alien mummies in Peru.

One of the men who found the sphere, named only as Jose, felt sick for days after touching the orb, el Potro said.

“When I poured water on it, it started to smoke, and the water vaporized instantly,” he added.

Maussan’s team found that the sphere had irregular edges, “indicating that it is a solid object,” he said.

It had a denser outer layer, close to the density of human bone, according to researchers.

X-rays also revealed 18 small dots within the orb, arranged in a pattern.

They believe these small spheres may have been placed inside the object before it was sealed, although the lack of any visible signs of assembly in X-rays make this all the more puzzling.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/05/25/science/scientists-discover-mysterious-sphere-in-colombia-sparking-ufo-speculation/

APPLE has raised the trade-in values of several of its most popular devices.

However, iPhone users only have a limited time to make use of the deal before it runs out.

The deal will include most versions of the mobile device from the iPhone 8 right up to the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

iPhone 15 Pro Max devices will now get you a staggering £660 when traded in, while the regular iPhone 15 can get you as much as £410.

Meanwhile, even older devices like the iPhone 13 can help you earn up to £270 in store credit.

The iPhone 8 will only earn £50 in store credit, though, as it heads onto Apple’s dreaded vintage list.

The deal ends on June 18 in the UK.

The vintage list is the category in which Apple places older devices before making them obsolete.

iPhone 7 Plus devices will be joining the iPhone 8 in the vintage list too, making repair services for the devices difficult to find.

The iPhone 6s and 2018 Mac Mini have also been added to the list.

Normally, products are added to the vintage list after they have been on the market for five years.

After seven years, they are regarded as obsolete.

The tech company has raised its trade-in prices across several countries as well as the UK, including the US, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Australia, Italy, Spain and China.

However, according to Mac Rumours, the deal is only available until June 18.

Apple Trade In is a service which allows you to hand in an old device, in exchange for a price cut on a new one.

Alternatively, if your device is no longer available for credit, then you can hand it over to Apple for recycling.

The service is available both in store and online.

Amazon’s self-driving taxi subsidiary Zoox issued its second voluntary software recall in just one month after a collision with an e-scooter pedestrian in San Francisco.

In early May, a person riding an electric scooter rammed into an unoccupied Zoox robotaxi that stopped while turning to yield at an intersection. The rider sustained minor injuries after falling to the ground beside the robotaxi and declined medical assistance, Zoox said in a blog post.

“The Zoox vehicle was stopped at the time of contact. The e-scooterist fell to the ground directly next to the vehicle. The robotaxi then began to move and stopped after completing the turn, but did not make further contact with the e-scooterist,” the company wrote.

The recall will focus on tackling the vehicle’s perception tracking system and will impact 270 vehicles, Zoox said in a statement.

As part of the recall, the company will tackle a part within the automated driving system that could push it to misunderstand the movement of other nearby vehicles, including the “risk of a crash.”

The company also noted that it submitted a voluntary software recall report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Thursday.

In turn, the NHTSA confirmed it had received the report and recommends “road users to be cautious in the vicinity of vehicles because drivers may incorrectly predict the travel path of a cyclist or a scooter rider or come to an unexpected stop.”

The May collision took place just two weeks after Zoox had already announced a voluntary software recall aimed at addressing a minor crash in Las Vegas that also stemmed from a yield misunderstanding.

In May 2024, the self-driving taxis were investigated by the NHTSA following two rear-end collisions in broad daylight. Before that, the NHTSA opened a probe in March 2023 looking into Zoox’s self-certification of a robotaxi without traditional driving controls.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/05/25/tech/amazons-zoox-robotaxi-unit-faces-second-software-recall-in-one-month-following-collision-in-san-francisco/

ISRO could not accomplish the launch of a key Earth observation satellite on Sunday after the rocket carrying it, the workhorse PSLV-C61, failed mid-air, less than seven minutes after it took off. Determined to find the root cause of the failure, the space agency has set up a National Failure Analysis Committee and a complete audit of the rocket is underway, with all systems being reviewed thoroughly.

The committee, more than half of whose members are from premier institutions like the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), is expected to submit its report around the middle of next month. A set of voluminous data has already been shared with the panel.

ISRO has also set up several internal committees to scrutinise every aspect of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which is a highly dependable rocket, with a reliability of over 94% and just four failures in 63 launches – an enviable track record.

Sources in the space agency said only the PSLV, and no other rocket, has been put on hold since its third stage uses a solid fuel motor, which is unique to it. The final call, they indicated, will be taken on future launches only after the National Failure Analysis Committee submits its report and ISRO fixes the problem.

Giving an analogy, an expert said each rocket is like a child. “If one child falls down, can you ask the entire village to stop walking?” he quipped.

A notice to airmen (or NOTAM), has, meanwhile, already been issued for the launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark-2 or GSLV F-16 to fly between June 18 and July 17. The rocket, initially dubbed ‘ISRO’s naughty boy’ and eventually tamed, is all set to fly the world’s most expensive civilian Earth imaging satellite, named the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite or NISAR. It has been built by India and the US at a cost of $1.5 billion.

Third-Stage Issue

NDTV had earlier reported that a ‘misbehaviour’ of the third stage rocket motor may have contributed to the failure of the PSLV-C61, which was launching the EOS-9 surveillance satellite. The PSLV-C61 was travelling at 20,160 km per hour – about 28 times the speed of an airplane – when, some 888 km downrange from Sriharikota over the Indian Ocean, it tumbled down 6.26 minutes into its nearly 18-minute flight.

Experts say the third stage did not explode, as speculated. In fact, as the rocket coasted along while losing altitude and thrust, even the fourth stage was probably ignited. It is still being analysed why the rocket motor “misbehaved” 100 seconds after it ignited the third stage. ISRO Chairman V Narayanan said there was a “fall in the chamber pressure of the motor case”.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/eos-9-satellite-launch-isro-rocket-fails-7-minutes-into-flight-national-panel-set-up-to-find-out-why-8498112#pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

FACEBOOK users should download any precious video memories on their account now as the social network gets going with a mass purge.

Earlier this year, the tech giant announced major changes for Facebook.

Facebook Live recordings will no longer stay on your account forever for you to relive old memories.

New rules mean Facebook Live videos only stay on the platform for 30 days after they were recorded.

There is an option so you can download them onto your phone.

Or you can covert them into a Reel video – though these are limited to a maximum of 90 seconds.

When revealing the shake-up in February, Facebook owner Meta said it would give people a 90 day grace period for all their older videos to be saved.

Now 90 days since the initial announcement time is almost up, so users will need to act or face losing their Live videos forever soon.

The process was said to be rolling out in waves, so you might be affected sooner than others.

Emails have started going out to those impacted on May 28 recently.

“Download your old Facebook Live videos by 28 May,” the alert says.

“We are sending you this email because you have previously broadcasted a Facebook Live video.

“Changes are being rolled out by Facebook to its storage policy for Facebook live videos.

“As part of this transition, Facebook live videos older than 30 days will be deleted.

“We want to make sure that you have the opportunity to keep any live videos that you’ve published, so any live videos published before 19 February will be made available for you to download until 28 May.

“After that, any existing live videos published before 19 February will be deleted from your Page or profile. Visit your Facebook settings to view your options for downloading live videos.”

Whether you’re affected now or later, it’s a good idea to check now before you forget, as it will come around for everyone eventually.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14314797/facebook-major-change-live-videos-deleted/

Scientists have uncovered evidence of a colossal solar storm that struck Earth more than 14,000 years ago, an event so powerful that its effects are still recorded in tree rings today.

Detailed in the upcoming July 2025 issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters, this ancient storm, which occurred around 12,350 BC, dwarfs any solar storm recorded in modern history and would wreak havoc on today’s technology if it were to happen again.

Known as a “Miyake Event,” this storm far surpasses the infamous Carrington Event of 1859, previously considered the benchmark for extreme solar activity.

Miyake Events are identified by spikes in carbon-14 levels found in tree rings—carbon-14 being a radioactive isotope produced when solar particles collide with Earth’s atmosphere. Since the first discovery by Fusa Miyake in 2012, at least six such events have been confirmed, including those in 774 AD and 993 AD.

The 12,350 BC Miyake Event stands out due to its immense scale and the challenges it posed to scientists trying to interpret it.

The spike in carbon-14 was detected in Scots Pine trees along France’s Drouzet River, and corroborated by matching beryllium-10 levels in Greenland ice cores, confirming the storm’s global reach.

However, interpreting these signals was complicated by the fact that the event occurred during the Ice Age, a period with very different atmospheric and climatic conditions compared to the relatively stable Holocene epoch when most other Miyake Events occurred.

To tackle this, researchers Kseniia Golubenko and Ilya Usoskin from the University of Oulu, Finland, developed a specialised chemistry-climate model. This model accounts for Ice Age variables such as ice sheet boundaries, sea levels, and geomagnetic fields, enabling accurate analysis of the ancient data.

Their findings reveal that the 12,350 BC storm unleashed a solar particle bombardment 500 times stronger than the largest solar particle storm recorded by satellites in 2005.

To put this in perspective, during the 2005 event, a passenger flying over the poles might have received a year’s worth of cosmic radiation in one hour; during the Ice Age event, the same dose would have been delivered in just eight seconds.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/blast-from-the-sun-14000-years-ago-was-so-strong-trees-still-remember-it-2729578-2025-05-24

When it descends through the thick golden haze on Saturn’s moon Titan, NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft will find eerily familiar terrain. Dunes wrap around Titan’s equator. Clouds drift across its skies. Rain drizzles. Rivers flow, forming canyons, lakes and seas.

But not everything is as familiar as it seems. At minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit, the dune sands aren’t silicate grains but organic material. The rivers, lakes and seas hold liquid methane and ethane, not water. Titan is a frigid world laden with organic molecules.

Yet Dragonfly, a car-sized rotorcraft set to launch no earlier than 2028, will explore this frigid world to potentially answer one of science’s biggest questions: How did life begin?

Seeking answers about life in a place where it likely can’t survive seems odd. But that’s precisely the point.

“Dragonfly isn’t a mission to detect life — it’s a mission to investigate the chemistry that came before biology here on Earth,” said Zibi Turtle, principal investigator for Dragonfly and a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “On Titan, we can explore the chemical processes that may have led to life on Earth without life complicating the picture.”

On Earth, life has reshaped nearly everything, burying its chemical forebears beneath eons of evolution. Even today’s microbes rely on a slew of reactions to keep squirming.

“You need to have gone from simple to complex chemistry before jumping to biology, but we don’t know all the steps,” Turtle said. “Titan allows us to uncover some of them.”

Titan is an untouched chemical laboratory where all the ingredients for known life — organics, liquid water and an energy source — have interacted in the past. What Dragonfly uncovers will illuminate a past since erased on Earth and refine our understanding of habitability and whether the chemistry that sparked life here is a universal rule — or a wonderous cosmic fluke.

Before NASA’s Cassini-Huygens mission, researchers didn’t know just how rich Titan is in organic molecules. The mission’s data, combined with laboratory experiments, revealed a molecular smorgasbord — ethane, propane, acetylene, acetone, vinyl cyanide, benzene, cyanogen, and more.

These molecules fall to the surface, forming thick deposits on Titan’s ice bedrock. Scientists believe life-related chemistry could start there — if given some liquid water, such as from an asteroid impact.

Enter Selk crater, a 50-mile-wide impact site. It’s a key Dragonfly destination, not only because it’s covered in organics, but because it may have had liquid water for an extended time.

The impact that formed Selk melted the icy bedrock, creating a temporary pool that could have remained liquid for hundreds to thousands of years under an insulating ice layer, like winter ponds on Earth. If a natural antifreeze like ammonia were mixed in, the pool could have remained unfrozen even longer, blending water with organics and the impactor’s silicon, phosphorus, sulfur and iron to form a primordial soup.

“It’s essentially a long-running chemical experiment,” said Sarah Hörst, an atmospheric chemist at Johns Hopkins University and co-investigator on Dragonfly’s science team. “That’s why Titan is exciting. It’s a natural version of our origin-of-life experiments — except it’s been running much longer and on a planetary scale.”

For decades, scientists have simulated Earth’s early conditions, mixing water with simple organics to create a “prebiotic soup” and jumpstarting reactions with an electrical shock. The problem is time. Most tests last weeks, maybe months or years.

The melt pools at Selk crater, however, possibly lasted tens of thousands of years. Still shorter than the hundreds of millions of years it took life to emerge on Earth, but potentially enough time for critical chemistry to occur.

“We don’t know if Earth life took so long because conditions had to stabilize or because the chemistry itself needed time,” Hörst said. “But models show that if you toss Titan’s organics into water, tens of thousands of years is plenty of time for chemistry to happen.”

Dragonfly will test that theory. Landing near Selk, it will fly from site to site, analyzing the surface chemistry to investigate the frozen remains of what could have been prebiotic chemistry in action.

Morgan Cable, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and co-investigator on Dragonfly, is particularly excited about the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS) instrument. Developed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with a key subsystem provided by the CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales), DraMS will search for indicators of complex chemistry.

“We’re not looking for exact molecules, but patterns that suggest complexity,” Cable said. On Earth, for example, amino acids — fundamental to proteins — appear in specific patterns. A world without life would mainly manufacture the simplest amino acids and form fewer complex ones.

Generally, Titan isn’t regarded as habitable; it’s too cold for the chemistry of life as we know it to occur, and there’s is no liquid water on the surface, where the organics and likely energy sources exist.

Still, scientists have assumed that if a place has life’s ingredients and enough time, complex chemistry — and eventually life — should emerge. If Titan proves otherwise, it may mean we’ve misunderstood something about life’s start and it may be rarer than we thought.

Source : https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/nasas-dragonfly-mission-sets-sights-on-titans-mysteries/

Your blood test results might be “normal,” but still put you at risk for serious heart problems. A major international study found that people with serum sodium levels at the upper end of what doctors consider the normal range face significantly higher risks of developing hypertension and heart failure.

Most people pay little attention to sodium readings on their blood tests unless they’re flagged as outside the normal range. But this extensive 20-year study of more than 400,000 adults, published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, reveals that sodium levels as low as 140 mmol/L—well within the standard “normal” reference range of 135-146 mmol/L—may already signal increased health risks.

The researchers say that routine blood tests showing serum sodium levels of 140 mmol/L or higher correlate with increased hypertension and heart failure risk, despite falling within ranges typically considered normal by physicians.

For perspective, approximately 58% of healthy adults in the study had serum sodium levels above this threshold. This isn’t about table salt consumption, but rather about hydration; specifically, whether you’re drinking enough water each day.

The research team suggests that people with sodium readings in the upper normal range might benefit from reassessing their daily fluid intake and hydration habits, since these factors directly impact serum sodium levels.

The findings are especially significant because they suggest a simple, low-cost intervention could potentially reduce risk for two conditions that affect millions worldwide.

Researchers analyzed electronic medical records from Israel’s Leumit Healthcare Services, focusing on 407,187 adults between 18 and 104 years old. They specifically selected individuals who were healthy at baseline, meaning they didn’t have diabetes, heart failure, kidney issues, or other major chronic diseases when first tested.

By tracking these individuals for up to 20 years, the research team could identify who later developed hypertension or heart failure and correlate these outcomes with their baseline sodium levels.

Compared to people with serum sodium in the 135-139.5 mmol/L range, those with readings of 140-142 mmol/L had a 13% higher risk of developing hypertension. This risk jumped to 29% for those with sodium levels above 143 mmol/L.

The pattern was similar for heart failure. Risk increased gradually with rising sodium levels, reaching a 20% higher risk for those with sodium above 143 mmol/L. These associations remained significant even after researchers adjusted for other risk factors like age, sex, blood pressure, BMI, and smoking status.

More Than Half of Adults May Have Elevated Risk

Elevated sodium levels appear to be quite common. Among currently healthy members in the healthcare system studied, the researchers found 39% had serum sodium within the 140-142 mmol/L range, and another 19% had levels between 143-146 mmol/L.

The research team noted that depending on demographic factors, the percentage of people with sodium levels in the highest risk range (143-146 mmol/L) varied widely, from about 8% to nearly 33%. This indicates that more than half of generally healthy adults in the study had sodium levels that potentially put them at increased risk.

While the study doesn’t definitively prove that lowering serum sodium through increased water intake would reduce these risks, what’s happening inside the body makes the connection plausible.

When we don’t drink enough water, our bodies compensate through various physiological responses. When body water decreases, serum sodium and tonicity (a measure of the concentration of particles in blood) increase. This triggers the release of antidiuretic hormone (ADH), which activates ways to preserve water in the body.

These mechanisms include vasoconstriction (narrowing of blood vessels) and activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, all of which can potentially contribute to hypertension and heart failure over time.

How Hydration Affects Heart Health

The thresholds identified in this study (140 mmol/L for sodium and 287 mosmol/kg for tonicity) are precisely the levels that trigger these hormonal responses. This suggests that many people live in a state of chronic mild dehydration, with their bodies constantly trying to conserve water, which may have long-term health consequences.

The research also helps clarify the relationship between hydration and salt intake. While excess dietary salt is a well-known risk factor for hypertension, changing salt intake from 6 to 12 grams daily only alters serum sodium by about 0.4 mmol/L. In contrast, drinking an additional liter of water can decrease serum sodium by about 3 mmol/L in an average adult.

This means hydration status likely influences serum sodium concentrations more than variations in salt intake within typical ranges.

According to worldwide surveys referenced in the study, more than half of the people globally don’t meet even the minimal recommended daily fluid intake ranges, which vary from 1.6 to 2.1 liters for women and 2 to 3 liters for men.

Simple Prevention: Drinking More Water

Medical personnel could potentially use electronic medical records to identify at-risk individuals based on their sodium levels. This approach could enable targeted hydration interventions within primary healthcare settings as a preventive measure.

Routine blood tests could provide valuable insight beyond the traditional “normal” or “abnormal” labels. Even if your sodium level falls within the normal range, asking specifically where it falls within that range could tell you important information about your long-term heart health risk—and whether you should be reaching for that water bottle more often.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/sodium-levels-linked-to-heart-problems/

People at the Trinity College Dublin are allegedly getting to talk to a 200-Year-Old London Plane tree- after a technology project involving environmental sensors and AI gave the tree a ‘voice’!

People who had a childhood habit of befriending trees in their backyards or their schools- just so that they could have a ‘TALK’ with nature- well, they might actually get a response now! The only catch is, they will have to book a ticket for Dublin and will have to pay a visit to Trinity College Dublin. Sounds crazy? Well, believe it or not but students at the Trinity College Dublin are getting to ‘talk’ to a 200-year-old London Plane tree! A technology project, ‘Talking Tree’- was reportedly introduced at the college quite recently- which allegedly gave a ‘voice’ to the said tree. ‘How’, you ask? Well, the project is reportedly using environmental sensors and AI to give the tree a ‘voice’- talk about a ‘talking tree’ being a real thing! As per the RTÉ News, the project aims to learn the feelings of the tree. “We can learn the tree’s feelings – for lack of a better word – over time,” Evan Greally, Dublin agency Droga5’s Head of Tech & Innovation, was quoted as saying to RTÉ News.
Reportedly, the project involves sensors that are connected to the tree. The sensors measure the tree’s ‘bioelectrical signals, soil moisture, soil pH, air temperature and humidity, sunlight, air quality’- along with the time of day- and then feed the same to an ‘AI large language model’. The model then, in-return, converts the data into ‘understandable human language’, as per RTÉ News.
Further explaining the project’s aim, Greally stated that the team eventually wants to use the project for something which can benefit nature. “Where do we want to go with the project is, can we use this in conservation? Can we detect wildfires before they go out of hand by talking to nature and connecting ourselves in this way?” Greally was further quoted as saying to RTÉ News.

Apart from the project being a major step towards the greater good of nature and the environment itself, it is also seemingly ‘sustainable’, as it is not using a ‘cloud’. “We’re not using any cloud resources to run this or any geo-intense stuff or sources. Everything is hosted locally on the device. The large language model, the text to speech, the speech to text, it all happens locally,” Greally continued. “It’s an AI brain that’s not connected to the internet in any way, that allows the tree to speak,” he added. The project is reportedly a collaboration between Droga5 and the UK-based Agency for Nature.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/viral/dublin-talking-tree-technology-project-gives-voice-to-200-year-old-london-plane-tree-through-environmental-sensors-and-ai-article-151691972

THE pain of ordering clothes online that don’t suit you could soon be a problem of the past.

Google has revealed a game-changing new trick that allows people to try on billions of garments virtually.

All you need to do is upload a full length body image and the “try it on” tool will magically add the clothing onto you within seconds.

The firm says its latest tech is powered by a clever image generation model which is capable of understanding the human body and the various ways we wear clothing.

It can pick up on how different materials fold, stretch and drape on different bodies to produce an authentic looking shot of you in the clothing you’ve selected.

“It preserves these subtleties when applied to poses in your photos,” said Lilian Rincon, Google’s Vice President for Product Management.

“The result is a try-on experience that works with photos of you.”

The feature is only available to test in the US for the moment.

It comes as part of Google’s major new AI Mode tool, a deeper chat-bot style addition to the main Google Search.

Shoppers will also be able to get price alerts for products so they don’t miss sales.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14283272/google-try-it-on-clothing-tool-how-to/

Google on Tuesday unleashed another wave of artificial intelligence technology to accelerate a year-long makeover of its search engine that is changing the way people get information and curtailing the flow of internet traffic to websites.

The next phase outlined at Google’s annual developers conference includes releasing a new “AI mode” option in the United States. The feature makes interacting with Google’s search engine more like having a conversation with an expert capable of answering questions on just about any topic imaginable.

AI mode is being offered to all comers in the U.S. just two-and-a-half-months after the company began testing with a limited Labs division audience.

Google is also feeding its latest AI model, Gemini 2.5, into its search algorithms and will soon begin testing other AI features, such as the ability to automatically buy concert tickets and conduct searches through live video feeds.

In another example of Google’s all-in approach to AI, the company revealed it is planning to leverage the technology to re-enter the smart glasses market with a new pair of Android XR-powered spectacles. The preview of the forthcoming device, which includes a hands-free camera and a voice-powered AI assistant, comes 13 years after the debut of “Google Glass,” a product that the company scrapped after a public backlash over privacy concerns.

Google didn’t say when its Android XR glasses will be available or how much they will cost, but disclosed they will be designed in partnership with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker. The glasses will compete against a similar product already on the market from Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Ray-Ban.

AI’s big role in Google search

The expansion builds upon a transformation that Google began a year ago with the introduction of conversational summaries called “AI overviews” that have been increasingly appearing at the top of its results page and eclipsing its traditional rankings of web links.

About 1.5 billion people now regularly engage with “AI overviews,” according to Google, and most users are now entering longer and more complex queries.

“What all this progress means is that we are in a new phase of the AI platform shift, where decades of research are now becoming reality for people all over the world,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said before a packed crowd in an amphitheater near the company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters.

AI ripples across the internet

Although Pichai and other Google executives predicted AI overviews would trigger more searches and ultimately more clicks to other sites, it hasn’t worked out that way so far, according to the findings of search optimization firm BrightEdge.

Clickthrough rates from Google’s search results have declined by nearly 30% during the past year, according to BrightEdge’s recently released study, which attributed the decrease to people becoming increasingly satisfied with AI overviews.

The decision to make AI mode broadly available after a relatively short test period reflects Google’s confidence that the technology won’t habitually spew misinformation that tarnishes its brand’s reputation, and acknowledges the growing competition from other AI-powered search options from the likes of ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Will AI undercut or empower Google?

The rapid rise of AI alternatives emerged as a recurring theme in legal proceedings that could force Google to dismantle parts of its internet empire after a federal judge last year declared its search engine to be an illegal monopoly.

In testimony during a trial earlier this month, longtime Apple executive Eddy Cue said Google searches done through the iPhone maker’s Safari browser have been declining because more people are leaning on AI-powered alternatives.

And Google has cited the upheaval being caused by AI’s rise as one of the main reasons that it should only be required to make relatively minor changes to the way it operates its search engine because technology already is changing the competitive landscape.

But Google’s reliance on more AI so far appears to be enabling its search engine to maintain its mantle as the internet’s main gateway — a position that’s main reason its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., boasts a market value of $2 trillion.

During the year ending in March, Google received 136 billion monthly visits, 34 times more than ChatGPT’s average of 4 billion monthly visits, according to data compiled by onelittleweb.com.

Even Google’s own AI mode acknowledged that the company’s search engine seems unlikely to be significantly hurt by the shift to AI technology when a reporter from The Associated Press asked whether its introduction would make the company even more powerful.

“Yes, it is highly likely that Google’s AI mode will make Google more powerful, particularly in the realm of information access and online influence,” the AI mode responded. The feature also warns that web publishers should be concerned about AI mode reducing the traffic they get from search results.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/google-search-artificial-intelligence-upheaval-5b0cdc59870508dab856227185cb8e23

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla was already slated to conduct seven India-specific experiments which includes researching how algae can be used as food; growing seeds in space and how human eyes respond microgravity.

India and the US are using the upcoming NASA-ISRO joint flight of an Indian astronaut to space as a big outreach activity between the world’s oldest and the world’s largest democracies.

A mission readiness review is planned for Wednesday which could figure out the final launch date – currently set for June 8.

For the upcoming Indian astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla will be part of two very special global outreach activities that could include live interaction with students in India.

In addition, it has also been revealed that Shux — the call sign for Group Captain Shukla — will also undertake five special human biology experiments which will be conducted jointly by NASA and ISRO to further the understanding of human biology in space.

This is a welcome addition. Till now, India’s science experiments looked very thin compared to the total of 60 experiments to be undertaken in the fortnight-long mission.

Group Captain Shukla was already slated to conduct seven India-specific experiments which includes researching how algae can be used as food; growing seeds in space and how human eyes respond to microgravity.

In this mission, Group Captain Shukla will also subject his own body to some human biology experiments.

Incidentally it was earlier revealed that no research on yoga will be conducted as part of this Shux mission.

On the outreach plans, Dana Weigel, Manager, International Space Station Program, NASA, said, “We will have ISRO participating, and then we will have members of space agency leadership with an interactive kind of discussion there. And then for the STEM outreach, we do have a couple activities that we are planning together,” he said.

This would include downlink from ISS to Earth.

Adding to this, Mr Sudesh Balan, Project Director for ISRO, said: “There is a student event. Our astronaut will be directly interacting with the student community. So two such events we are planning across the country”.

Live events between astronauts in space and audiences on terra firma are a great attraction.

At Tuesday’s mission overview press conference it was not revealed if Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla while he is in space.

There is huge anticipation for that possible Modi-Shux dialogue.

In 1984, the live event between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Astronaut Rakesh Sharma while he was onboard the Russian space station created a sensation. On being asked how India looked from space, Rakesh Sharma had said “Saare Jahan se achha”.

Group Captain Shukla’s travel to space comes four decades after Rakesh Sharma’s iconic spaceflight on board Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.

Group Captain Shukla is scheduled to pilot the Axiom Mission 4, which is a private astronaut mission that will launch aboard a completely new never before flown SpaceX Dragon capsule, which the Axiom-4 crew will actually christen. The crew will fly from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket, which will be on its second flight. So the spanking new Dragon capsule and used Falcon-9 rocket will help propel the Axiom-4 crew.

The mission, which is jointly being undertaken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and ISRO, will be a historic event for India as Group Captain Shukla’s mission will feed into the country’s own human space flight programme, the Gaganyaan mission.

Group Captain Shukla will be accompanied by Peggy Whitson, a former and legendary NASA astronaut and mission commander, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary.

Once docked, the astronauts are scheduled to spend upto 14 days aboard the orbiting laboratory, conducting a mission comprising science, outreach and commercial activities.

Group Captain Shukla serves as the astronaut designate and Mission Pilot.

A decorated test pilot with the IAF, he was shortlisted under ISRO’s Human Spaceflight Program and is among the top contenders for the Gaganyaan mission, India’s first indigenous crewed orbital flight.

His journey aboard the Axiom Mission 4 is expected to provide critical hands-on experience in spaceflight operations, launch protocols, microgravity adaptation, and emergency preparedness — all essential for India’s crewed space ambitions.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/nasa-isro-ahead-of-indian-astronauts-space-odyssey-a-global-outreach-8465539

THIS jaw-dropping moment is the first time ever that a rupture in the Earth’s crust caused by an earthquake was caught on film.

The incredible footage, captured during a 7.7 magnitude earthquake that rocked Myanmar in March, shows the ground literally sliding along two sides of a fault line.

It was caught on a surveillance camera at a property in Mandalay – the country’s second largest city.

The clip begins with a fairly unassuming view of property’s gate right as the earthquake hits.

As you might expect, the footage begins to tremble as the quake strikes – with the gate shaking and cracks appearing in the concrete.

But it’s what happens in the right hand side of the frame that has caught the eye of scientists all over the world.

The driveway can literally be seen sliding along relative to the ground outside the premises in an absolutely staggering moment.

Scientists say this is the first known moment of an actual fault line motion being caught on film.

California-based earthquake geologist Wendy Bohon told CBC News: “My jaw hit the floor.

“We have computer models of it. We have laboratory models of it.

“But all of those are far less complex than the actual natural system.

“So to see it actually happening was mind-blowing.”

The clip was captured during the devastating earthquake that rocked Myanmar and caused damage as far away as Bangkok.

Some 3,700 people are reported to have died in the quake, according to Myanmar’s ruling military junta.

The rupture is believed to have torn open the earth along the Sagaing Fault.

Assistant professor at Cornell University Judith Hubbard told CBC: “I keep going back and watching it.

“It’s really kind of staggering to see a fault slide in real time, especially for someone like me, who has spent years studying these things, but always from more remote kinds of data, like offsets after the fact or data recorded by sensors.”

The clip was posted to YouTube on May 11 on a channel called 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive.

The account features more than 1,000 videos from the day of the devastating quake.

But this clip of the earth rupturing is by far its more viewed video, with more than one million views at time of writing.

One commenter posted under the video: “Good grief. The whole hill shifting. The power tower collapsing. The buildings crumbling. Amazing video.”

Another wrote: “Seems crazy that with billions upon billions of cameras filming everything on this earth that we have anything being recorded for the first time still.”

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14270885/filmed-moment-earth-crust-ruptures/

The network can reportedly share 30 terabytes worth of storage between them – that’s enough storage for 20,000 HD movies

CHINA has reportedly begun assembling an AI supercomputer in space, which will eventually consist of 2,800 satellites in Earth’s orbit.

ADA Space, based in Chengdu, sent the first 12 satellites of its mammoth network last week, Space News reported.

These satellites are able to process the data they collect locally, rather than beaming it to stations on Earth to compute, according to ADA.

Data stored onboard satellites is sent down to Earth in batches – but some of this information can get lost during transmission.

Beyond being slow, “less than 10 per cent” of satellite data makes it to Earth due to things limited bandwidth and ground station availability, according to the South China Morning Post.

Part of ADA’s ‘Star Compute’ project, the satellites are reportedly in-built with super-fast AI processors that can communicate with sister satellites at up to 100GB per second using lasers.

That is much faster than traditional satellites.

The network can also share 30 terabytes worth of storage between them, Space News added.

For context, that’s enough storage for 20,000 HD movies, or 10 years of continuous video recording on a single hard drive.

The 12 satellites that were launched last week carry scientific payloads, including a special tool for picking up brief cosmic phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts, called a X-ray polarisation detector.

But they can also be used to create 3D digital twin data for purposes like emergency response, gaming, and tourism, ADA Space said in its announcement.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14273133/china-ai-supercomputer-space-satellites/

NETFLIX is set to begin rolling out a brand new app design on TVs around the world from today.

The new look is the first major home screen redesign for Netflix in over a decade.

This revamp was announced earlier this month, with Netflix calling the revamp an “innovative new TV experience”.

Fans reacted with mixed reception, with some several Netflix watchers fearing the new look and the inclusion of AI features.

At the time, Netflix said it would start the roll-out on Monday, May 19.

But the TV streaming giant admitted it would “weeks” for the makeover to reach everyone’s televisions.

NETFLIX’S NEW LOOK

Netflix says that the new design solves a number of problems plaguing telly fans.

In particular, it’s meant to fix that issue where you can’t decide what to watch and spend ages agonising over a TV show or movie.

“Finding your next watch on Netflix is about to become that much easier,” Netflix explained.

“A new TV experience is headed your way, and it comes with better recommendations and an improved interface that highlights what matters most to you.

“Yep, things are getting (even more) personal.”

Netflix said that the new design will “make choosing easier”, adding that “decision fatigue is real”.

ALL CHANGE

The first major change is what Netflix describes as “simpler navigation”.

It means that shortcuts to key parts of Netflix’s interface will now appear right at the top of the screen – staying locked there and remaining visible.

This bar will include shortcuts to Search, Shows, Movies, Games, and My Netflix.

The second change is “responsive recommendations”, which means you’ll see fresh recommendation rows “served up in real time” as you browse the TV app.

“Your homepage will respond to your viewing and browsing history,” Netflix explains.

“So you can quickly find something that suits your mood in the moment.”

Third is the addition of My Netflix, which is featured on that top shortcut bar.

Netflix says this serves as a “personal oasis” for keeping track of your favourite content.

So you’ll be able to quickly see shows that you’re part-way through finishing, as well as movies that you’d like to watch next.

You can find Continue Watching, My List, and Remind Me inside the My Netflix tab.

Fourth and finally is the addition of more detailed info for each title on Netflix.

“Having a hard time choosing between this show or that movie? We’ve been there.

The NASA Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) is a cutting-edge spacesuit designed to safeguard and assist astronauts on spacewalks. Much more than protective gear, the EMU is a portable survival system that protects astronauts from super-cold temperatures, toxic radiation, and the vacuum of space. The EMU features layers of thermal protection, a pressurized housing, and an oxygen-providing, carbon dioxide-removing life support backpack that also controls temperature. Here, we will discuss the EMU’s groundbreaking design, its essential elements, and how it makes it possible for astronauts to safely accomplish intricate tasks outside the spacecraft through extravehicular activities (EVAs).

NASA suit that makes spacewalks possible

The NASA spacesuit, or the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), is what the astronauts wear when they go for extravehicular activities (EVAs), which are more commonly referred to as spacewalks. NASA’s human exploration of space program depends on the EMU. It is designed to protect astronauts and keep them cozy while working outside the protection of the spacecraft, open to temperatures of extreme extremes, radiation, and microgravity. The suit features an advanced integration of many layers, technologies, and life support systems all cooperating to build an astronauts’ independent environment.

How the EMU keeps astronauts safe and alive in space

One of the most crucial roles of the EMU is that it keeps astronauts safe in space. Space is riddled with perils ranging from extreme temperatures, to radiation, to being in constant peril of colliding with space trash. The protective layers of the EMU are meant to offer:

Thermal insulation: Space temperature varies from -250°F (-157°C) to 250°F (121°C). There are thermal barriers within the EMU which insulate the astronauts from all these temperatures to make them comfortable inside the suit in spite of the environment.

Radiation protection: The material of the suit also shields the astronauts from dangerous solar and cosmic radiation outside the protection environment of the spacecraft.

Impact resistance: The outer shells of the space suit are impact-resistant and safeguard astronauts from the micro-debris of space traveling at high velocities. Even small debris particles can be deadly at such velocities.

Life support systems: In addition to protecting the spacesuit physically, it also has to satisfy the life support requirements of the astronauts, including breathing and hydration, and temperature regulation. All these systems need to be there in order for astronauts to survive long-duration spacewalks when they will be away from the spacecraft for hours at a time.

Supply of oxygen: The supply of oxygen is the central part of the life support system. The oxygen tank is placed inside the EMU’s backpack and provides breathable air through a hose system. Oxygen gets circulated within the suit and keeps astronauts in a continuous supply while they perform work in the vacuum of space.

Carbon dioxide removal: Since the astronauts will be breathing oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide (CO2), they also have a CO2 removal system in the EMU to avoid dangerous build-up. It is done through a filtering system and scrubbers that clean the air.

Water supply: Astronauts must also consume water during spacewalks. An on-suit internal water bottle supplies drinking water to astronauts via a hose. It keeps them hydrated when they have long EVAs, in which case external water supply is not available.

Temperature control: The EMU is initially provided with a sophisticated temperature regulating system. It uses a liquid cooling and ventilation garment (LCVG) that is worn by the astronaut under the suit. The garment contains tubes in which water circulates, taking away excess heat from the astronaut’s body and avoiding the risk of overheating. The suit also has temperature control valves to keep the astronaut comfortable.

What astronauts wear under the spacesuit for comfort and safety

Although the EMU is the most obvious protective layer, the astronauts don a second layer of garments under the suit for comfort and protection.

Undergarment layer: Inside the EMU, the astronauts wear an undergarment that covers the whole body surface area minus the head, hands, and feet. The garment is composed of a moisture-wicking fabric that pulls sweat away from the body and keeps the astronaut dry in the suit.

Pressure garment: The EMU itself is pressurized, which enables the astronauts to perform normal body functions in the vacuum of space. The pressure suit prevents the body fluids and blood of the astronaut from boiling because of the vacuum of space, a very critical safety necessity for EVAs.

How the EMU backpack supports breathing, circulation, and power

The most obvious advantage of the EMU is the use of the backpack by the astronauts. The use of the backpack is used for a number of reasons, such as providing power and life support to the suit.

Oxygen tank: An oxygen tank is carried within the backpack where air is stored for breathing by the astronauts during an excursion outside on a spacewalk. Air is circulated through the ventilation system of the suit in a manner that enables breathing by the astronauts without the use of the spacecraft’s systems.

Carbon dioxide scrubbing: Besides the oxygen supply, the backpack also contains a carbon dioxide (CO2) scrubber, an aged by-product of respiration, to render the air inside the suit safe for the astronaut.

Electric power: The package also consists of the capability for storing batteries that energize the suit’s numerous systems, such as communications, temperature, and life support systems. The batteries must be capable of withstanding the spacewalk duration in order to provide astronaut protection.

Air fan circulation: There is a small fan inside the backpack that circulates the oxygen through the suit so as to supply air circulation at the perfect rates for the whole duration of time the astronaut remains in space.

What is a SAFER unit

On the rear of the spacesuit is the Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER). SAFER is used to provide astronaut safety during extravehicular activity. In case an astronaut is stranded outside the spacecraft or the station, SAFER can be used as a source of propellant to find his or her way back to safety.

Thruster Jets: : Thruster jets are also contained in SAFER, which astronauts can use. The thrusters enable astronauts to return to their spacecraft in the case that they get lost after being released from the space station or while being released from it. The system is a life-saver as it’s a promise that astronauts are never technically lost while performing spacewalks.

Source : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/science/what-makes-nasas-spacesuit-crucial-for-surviving-in-space-and-how-it-protects-astronauts/articleshow/121244897.cms

GOOGLE users have just hours to check their accounts or face losing some data forever.

And it’s especially worthwhile if you’ve ever used Google Maps and want to remember key places visited in the past.

Google Maps has a Timeline feature – previously known as Location History – which keeps a record of any you’ve been to via the app.

The tool is especially handy for remembering special spots, such as where you met a partner or a fancy restaurant you once visited.

And it’s also useful for keeping track of places you’ve visited on holiday in years gone by.

Google has been warning users for sometime that changes are coming soon.

The tech giant is moving things around so data is kept on-device instead of in the cloud.

Failure to act will result in users losing this past data.

That deadline is now just about here, set for Sunday (May 18).

“This is a reminder that Timeline is changing,” Google said in a recent warning email.

“Now, if you choose to keep Timeline on, all of your devices will save new visits on their own Timelines – including any devices that previously had Location History reporting turned off.

“Because of these changes, you need to choose new settings to avoid losing Timeline data.”

Save your Timeline data

1. Open Google Maps on your Android device and tap the You tab at the bottom of the app.
2. Choose Explore Timeline.
3. Tap Next on the card that pops up alerting you of the change.
4. Choose how many months worth of Timeline data you want to keep on your device.
5. Choose if you want to continue sending user data to Google.
6. Tap Done.

The mission could not be accomplished, as the launch vehicle performed normally up to the second stage, but encountered issues during the third stage.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Sunday launched its 101st satellite, EOS-09, aboard the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C61), but the mission suffered a failure just minutes after liftoff.

The rocket lifted off at 5:59 am (IST) from Sriharikota’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre. However, the mission could not be accomplished, as the launch vehicle encountered issues during the third stage, forcing ISRO to terminate the mission.

“Today, the 101st launch was attempted, PSLV-C61 performance was normal till 2nd stage. Due to an observation in the 3rd stage, the mission could not be accomplished,” the Space Agency said in an X post.

The launch involved placing the Earth Observation Satellite, EOS-09, into a Sun Synchronous Polar Orbit (SSPO) using the PSLV-C61. ISRO Chief V Narayanan said the Space Agency is analysing the entire performance of the rocket on the live stream shortly after the launch.

“Today we attempted a launch of PSLV-C61 vehicle. The vehicle is a 4-stage vehicle. The first two stages performed as expected. During the 3rd stage, we are seeing observation…The mission could not be accomplished. We are studying the entire performance, we shall come back at the earliest,” Narayanan said.

The flight sequence of PSLV-C61 involves multiple stages, beginning with the ignition of the PS1 and PSOM boosters at liftoff, followed by the separation of various components, and culminating in the deployment of the satellite.

According to the ISRO Chief, the issue was identified in the third stage—a solid rocket motor responsible for delivering high thrust to the upper stage after the vehicle exits the atmospheric phase. This stage is designed to produce a maximum thrust of 240 kilonewtons.

Source: https://www.news18.com/india/isros-101st-mission-lifts-off-successfully-but-loses-eos-09-minutes-into-flight-9341759.html

Twitter Down: ​​Many users reported problems using both the app and website. X users were unable to view posts or share updates. As of now, there has been no official response from the company.

X Outage: Elon Musk-owned popular social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) reportedly faced a major outage starting around 12:30 AM on May 17 (Saturday), according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. Many users reported problems using both the app and website. X users were unable to view posts or share updates. As of now, there has been no official response from the company.
According to the outage tracking webseite, most of the reported problems were related to the website, accounting for 59 per cent of the complaints. As per the report, about 38 per cent of users faced issues with the mobile app, while 3 per cent reported server connection problems.

The X outage appears to have affected several major cities in India, including Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. The exact cause of the disruption is still unknown. Many users trying to open the app saw a message saying, “Something went wrong, try reloading.”
Users will have to wait for an official statement from the social media platform to understand what led to the outage.

The last major outage of Elon Musk’s social media site occurred on March 30, affecting users especially in the US and India. Over 7,100 complaints were reported on Downdetector, with many users seeing error messages and unable to access the app.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/twitter-down-elon-musks-x-suffers-widespread-outage-users-facing-issues-with-both-app-and-website-check-latest-updates-article-151657381