Category: Science

A Chinese artificial intelligence company announced Saturday it will permanently slash prices on its most advanced AI model by 75%, according to a company statement.

DeepSeek said the dramatic reduction will keep pricing for its V4-Pro artificial intelligence model at just one-quarter of what customers previously paid. The company did not reveal whether the permanent discount resulted from greater availability of Huawei’s Ascend 950 chips, which DeepSeek uses to enhance V4’s capabilities.

According to the statement, DeepSeek reduced V4-Pro API pricing to a range of 0.025 to 6 yuan per million tokens (approximately $0.0035 to $0.83) based on how customers use the service. Previously, costs ranged from 0.1 to 24 yuan. Tokens represent units of text that the AI system processes.

Sales of Huawei’s AI chips have grown due to U.S. trade restrictions that block Nvidia from marketing its most sophisticated semiconductors in China. However, additional limits on equipment exports for chip manufacturing have restricted Huawei’s capacity to increase Ascend production.

During V4’s debut last month, DeepSeek explained that the Pro version would carry prices up to 12 times higher than the less capable Flash version because of “constraints in high-end compute capacity,” which restricted how widely it could be offered.

The company also indicated that Pro pricing would drop significantly once Huawei begins mass production of Ascend 950 supernodes during the year’s second half.

A powerful 6.0 magnitude tremor shook Hawaii’s Big Island late Friday evening near Honaunau-Napoopoo, prompting scientists with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to evaluate conditions at the Kilauea volcano.

The famous Kilauea volcano, recognized as among the globe’s most active volcanic sites, sits on Hawaii’s Big Island and has been producing intermittent eruptions since December 23, 2024.

Scientists with the USGS’ Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) released information earlier Friday indicating their forecast models predict the volcano’s next eruption will happen between May 24 and May 27.

Friday’s seismic event registered at approximately 23 kilometers (14 miles) below the surface and created tremors that residents across Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu islands could feel, the USGS reported.

Officials with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center determined the earthquake would not generate tsunami conditions, and authorities received no initial reports of structural damage or injuries from the incident.

Plant species that define familiar landscapes around the world face a growing threat of extinction as rising global temperatures transform their natural environments, new research reveals.

Scientists examined the future survival prospects of more than 67,000 vascular plant species — representing roughly 18% of all known plants with water and nutrient transport systems. Their findings paint a concerning picture for botanical diversity worldwide.

The research indicates that between 7% and 16% of these species could see their natural ranges reduced by more than 90%, putting them in serious danger of disappearing entirely. Among the plants at highest risk are California’s Catalina ironwood, an uncommon native tree, bluish spike-moss from an ancient plant family spanning over 400 million years, and approximately one-third of all Eucalyptus varieties — trees synonymous with Australia’s landscape.

Scientists reached these conclusions by analyzing millions of location records for plants alongside projected greenhouse gas emission patterns for the years 2081-2100.

Plant survival depends on much more than geographic location — it requires specific combinations of temperature ranges, precipitation levels, soil types, land usage, and environmental features like shade coverage.

“One way to picture this is to imagine plants trying to follow a moving ‘climate envelope.’ As temperatures warm, many species can shift northward or uphill to stay cool enough. But temperature is only part of the story,” explained Junna Wang, a Yale University postdoctoral researcher, and Xiaoli Dong, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of California, Davis, in joint statements to Reuters.

Wang and Dong served as lead researchers for the study, which appeared in the journal Science.

According to their findings, climate change is reducing the availability of these essential environmental combinations in many regions, creating fewer locations where all necessary survival conditions exist simultaneously.

Plants typically spread to new areas over multiple generations through seeds or spores transported by wind, water, wildlife, or gravity. However, when researchers compared realistic plant movement patterns with hypothetical scenarios allowing unlimited dispersal, extinction projections remained remarkably similar.

“If slow movement were the main problem, then allowing unlimited dispersal should dramatically reduce extinction risk. But that is not what we found,” Wang and Dong noted.

This discovery carries significant implications for conservation efforts.

“If dispersal limitation were the main driver, then strategies like assisted migration — physically helping species move to new areas — could solve much of the problem. But if climate change is reducing the amount of suitable habitat overall, then simply helping species move may not be enough,” the researchers added.

Different regions face varying levels of threat. Arctic plants adapted to cold conditions may lose habitat as extremely cold climates become less common. Arid areas, including portions of the western United States and regions with Mediterranean-style climates, confront dangers from intensified drought conditions, reduced soil moisture, and increased wildfire frequency. Along southern and eastern Australian coasts, shorelines may prevent species from migrating toward the poles.

However, the study also identified potential benefits in some areas. Local plant diversity could increase across approximately 28% of Earth’s land surface as species establish themselves in newly favorable locations. This includes parts of tropical and subtropical regions where enhanced rainfall — beyond just temperature changes — might create suitable conditions for additional plant varieties.

The researchers characterized these changes as a worldwide reorganization, with some species vanishing from their traditional territories while others colonize new areas. They emphasized that local increases don’t necessarily indicate overall improvement for plant populations.

These geographical shifts could also produce “novel communities” — plant combinations that have never coexisted historically but would begin interacting for the first time. The researchers acknowledged uncertainty about how these new ecological relationships might develop.

Plants form the foundation of most land-based ecosystems. They capture and store carbon, prevent soil erosion, support animal populations, and supply food, lumber, medicines, and other essential materials. Changes in plant diversity can therefore trigger widespread effects throughout natural systems and human communities.

“If climate change reduces vegetation cover, ecosystems may absorb less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which can further intensify warming. That creates a feedback loop in which climate change harms plants, and reduced plant cover/productivity in turn worsens climate change,” Wang and Dong explained.

“Ultimately, protecting plant diversity is not only about conserving nature for its own sake — it is also about maintaining the ecological systems that support human societies,” they concluded.

The aerospace company conducted a test launch of its most powerful Starship rocket to date on Friday from its Texas facility.

The massive rocket’s trial flight took place just two days following an announcement from the company’s CEO that the business would go public. According to the NASA Administrator, this test brings the Starship vehicle closer to future lunar missions.

The enhanced rocket represents the company’s largest and most advanced version of the spacecraft designed for deep space exploration.

SpaceX conducted a test flight Friday of its most advanced Starship rocket to date, featuring an enhanced design that NASA plans to use for returning astronauts to the lunar surface.

The revamped mega rocket took its maiden voyage just two days following an announcement by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk about taking his company public. The launch occurred from Texas’s southern border region, with the spacecraft carrying 20 simulated Starlink satellites scheduled for deployment on the opposite side of the globe.

This marks the 12th experimental mission for the rocket system Musk envisions will eventually transport humans to Mars. However, lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis initiative come first in the timeline.

October saw the final launch of the previous generation of space-bound Starships. SpaceX’s third-generation model — an enhanced variant called V3 — lifted off from a newly constructed launch platform at Starbase, located close to the Mexican border. Technical problems with the launch pad prevented Thursday evening’s scheduled attempt.

The company hoped to prevent the explosive incidents that occurred during consecutive launches the previous year, when mid-flight detonations scattered debris across the Atlantic Ocean. Previous test flights also concluded with fiery endings.

Standing at 407 feet (124 meters) tall, this newest variant surpasses earlier Starship models by multiple feet (over 1 meter) and delivers increased engine power.

The updated booster features fewer but larger and more durable grid fins designed to guide it back to Earth after takeoff, plus an enlarged and reinforced fuel transfer system that supplies the 33 primary engines. This fuel line matches the dimensions of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 first-stage booster. The retro-styled, stainless steel vehicle also contains enhanced capabilities across the board — additional cameras, improved navigation and computing systems — along with docking equipment for upcoming rendezvous and lunar operations.

The Starship system is designed for complete reusability, utilizing massive mechanical arms at launch sites to capture returning rocket components. However, during this recent test mission, no recovery operations were planned. The redesigned first-stage booster’s journey ended in the Gulf of Mexico, while the spacecraft and its satellite demonstrations concluded in the Indian Ocean.

NASA has contracted SpaceX for billions of dollars — along with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin — to develop the lunar landing vehicles that will transport Artemis astronauts to the moon’s surface.

Both companies are competing to achieve the first successful mission.

Although Starship has reached space’s outer boundaries during multiple flights lasting no more than an hour, Bezos’ Blue Moon vehicle has not yet launched, though a prototype is being prepared for a lunar mission later this year.

NASA plans to follow April’s successful lunar flyby mission with four astronauts by conducting an orbital docking test around Earth next year. During that Artemis III mission, crew members will rehearse connecting their Orion capsule with either Starship, Blue Moon, or both vehicles.

A crewed lunar landing mission — Artemis IV — could occur as early as 2028 using whichever lander proves safer and becomes operational first. This would represent NASA’s first crewed moon landing since Apollo 17 in 1972. The current objective involves establishing a lunar base near the moon’s south pole, operated by both astronauts and robotic systems.

SpaceX has begun accepting bookings for private missions to the moon and Mars aboard Starship.

Dennis Tito, the world’s inaugural space tourist and California businessman, along with his wife, reserved seats 3 1/2 years ago for a lunar orbit flight. The departure date remains undetermined.

This week, another affluent space traveler — Chinese-born bitcoin investor Chun Wang — revealed his plans to journey to Mars on Starship’s inaugural interplanetary voyage. Wang previously funded a SpaceX polar mission in a Dragon capsule last year and, together with his selected crew, became the first to orbit over both polar regions.

Neither cost nor timeline details were disclosed for his Mars expedition.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX conducted a crucial test Friday evening, launching its 12th Starship mission from Texas facilities in what represents the maiden voyage of the upgraded V3 spacecraft.

The uncrewed launch from Starbase, Texas near Brownsville marked a significant moment for the rocket company as it approaches what could become the largest initial public offering in history next month.

This inaugural flight of the Starship V3 – engineered to support more regular Starlink satellite deployments and future NASA lunar missions – comes after months of testing postponements and could influence investor sentiment before the anticipated IPO.

The massive spacecraft, which has consumed over $15 billion in development costs as a completely reusable vehicle, plays a central role in Musk’s vision to reduce launch expenses, grow his Starlink enterprise, and pursue goals from deep-space missions to orbital data facilities – all calculated into his targeted $1.75 trillion IPO valuation.

A positive test outcome would strengthen SpaceX’s argument that Starship, recognized as the world’s most massive and powerful rocket ever launched, is approaching commercial viability following years of explosive failures and development setbacks.

The enormous rocket system, featuring the upper-stage Starship crew vehicle mounted on its Super Heavy booster, lifted off Friday evening from SpaceX’s Gulf of Mexico facilities near Brownsville.

This launch represented the company’s 12th Starship test since 2023 and the inaugural flight for the V3 version of both the spacecraft and its Super Heavy booster – equipped with the company’s latest Raptor 3 engines – plus the first departure from a new launch platform built for the enhanced rocket.

PLANNED OCEAN SPLASHDOWN

SpaceX announced it would not try to recover or land either the booster or upper-stage Starship following Friday’s test mission, regardless of performance.

However, test goals encompass completing multiple return-flight procedures by both the lower-stage rocket and Starship, including controlled landing sequences before both vehicles impact ocean waters.

The Super Heavy aims for a Gulf of Mexico splashdown location approximately seven minutes post-launch. The Starship will continue traveling through suborbital space before executing its own “exciting landing!” as SpaceX describes it, in the Indian Ocean roughly one hour afterward.

During Starship V3’s space journey, mission plans involve its payload system releasing 20 simulated Starlink satellites individually, plus two operational satellites positioned along Starship’s flight path to monitor the spacecraft’s heat protection and relay information to ground controllers during descent.

Approximately 20 minutes following the payload release demonstration, a scheduled restart of Starship’s Raptor engine in space will occur.

For Starship’s intense, transonic return through Earth’s atmosphere, engineers deliberately removed one heat shield tile to assess varying aerodynamic pressures on surrounding tiles. Additional tiles received white paint to function as imaging references during testing.

The rocket’s thermal protection system constitutes one of SpaceX’s most challenging development obstacles with Starship, as engineers work to create an extremely durable protective coating requiring minimal or zero maintenance between flights.

INVESTOR ATTENTION BEFORE IPO

This 12th test flight in the Starship program faces intense investor observation three weeks before an IPO that could establish the first U.S. market entry exceeding $1 trillion and instantly make SpaceX among the world’s most valuable public companies.

SpaceX’s most profitable operations, focused on its Starlink business and orbital data center plans, depend heavily on Starship successfully delivering them to space.

Although Musk has publicly accepted previous test-flight failures calmly, questions remain about how investors will balance the billionaire entrepreneur’s willingness to accept short-term risks against his long-term goals for lunar and interplanetary exploration.

SpaceX’s engineering approach, viewed as more risk-accepting than many established aerospace companies, relies on a flight-testing method that pushes new spacecraft to failure points, then refines improvements through repeated attempts.

Musk, who established his California-based rocket firm in 2002, stated one year ago he expected Starship to complete its first uncrewed Mars journey by late 2026, a timeline now clearly unattainable.

The V3 incorporates numerous enhancements designed to optimize the vehicle’s performance for missions extending beyond the low-Earth orbit domain of SpaceX’s current primary launch system, comprising Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rocket boosters with Dragon capsules.

Among the key improvements to the Super Heavy booster is redesigning its 33 Raptor engines to generate increased thrust from a configuration that weighs considerably less.

The upper-stage Starship’s propulsion system has similarly been enhanced for extended-duration missions, featuring capabilities for spacecraft-to-spacecraft connections, space-based refueling, and improved maneuverability.

Several Starship tanker craft would need to perform the orbital refueling process – a dangerous and untested procedure necessary for SpaceX’s strategy regarding its initial lunar-landing mission, scheduled for 2028.

These elements were all included in the $3 billion-plus contract SpaceX secured in 2021 through NASA’s Artemis program, the U.S. initiative to return astronauts to the moon’s surface this decade for the first time since 1972. These objectives position Starship at the heart of a renewed space competition with China, which targets its own crewed lunar landing in 2030.

Maritime safety advocates successfully extracted 10 derelict boats from Virginia waters during a coordinated three-day cleanup operation that ran from April 14-16. The BoatUS Foundation partnered with Lynnhaven River and TowBoatUS crews from Gwynns Island and Portsmouth to tackle the removal project in Gloucester and Portsmouth areas.

The cleanup represents part of a larger initiative targeting up to 100 abandoned vessels throughout the region. Lynnhaven River NOW spearheaded the collaborative effort, bringing together nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and private sector partners to combat the mounting environmental and safety concerns created by derelict boats. The project receives backing from a 2023 grant awarded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program.

“Abandoned boats don’t just disappear. They become a burden on communities, the environment and local economies,” said Alanna Keating, Director of Outreach at BoatUS Foundation. “By connecting trusted partners, we are addressing the issue of ADVs and making real progress toward cleaner, safer Virginia waterways.”

The extraction of derelict vessels delivers immediate advantages for waterway health and surrounding communities. When left to deteriorate, these boats can discharge fuel into the water, create dangerous obstacles for navigation, and cause lasting harm to marine habitats and coastal areas. Successful removal operations improve safety conditions for boaters, protect natural environments, and prevent long-term ecological damage.

Two TowBoatUS operators handled the challenging removal work: Chris Parker from Gwynns Island and Donald Duck from Portsmouth. Both contractors donated considerable time and equipment while navigating the complexities of extracting vessels in various states of decay.

“Every removal is different, and often more complex than people realize,” Parker said. “Some vessels can be refloated and towed, while others need to be taken apart piece by piece. It takes time and coordination, but the impact on the community and the bay is significant once removed.”

“These boats pose real risks to navigation and safety,” Duck said. “We see how they can break free, damage property, or require emergency response. Prevention through proper insurance and responsible disposal can make a big difference.”

The BoatUS Foundation operates a comprehensive abandoned vessel program that includes the Turning the Tide Summit and maintains a national tracking database for derelict boats across the country.

Several local officials attended the cleanup activities, including Gloucester County Administrator Greg Gentry, Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Coastal Zone Manager Jeff Flood, and Portsmouth Mayor Shannon Glover.

Boaters who spot abandoned or deteriorating vessels in waterways are urged to file reports with appropriate authorities.

The autonomous vehicle company Waymo has temporarily shut down its self-driving car operations in Atlanta and Texas following severe weather that left one of its vehicles trapped in floodwater, raising concerns about more dangerous storms expected during the holiday weekend.

The National Weather Service has forecast severe thunderstorms with large hail and strong winds for Friday across Texas and other areas of the Southern and Central Plains.

Weather experts are warning about potential flash flooding along the Gulf Coast areas of Texas and Louisiana on Saturday, with rain and thunderstorms anticipated throughout much of the central and eastern United States.

One of the company’s autonomous vehicles became trapped during heavy rainfall in Atlanta on Wednesday that caused street flooding and inundated part of a downtown highway. The vehicle had no passengers inside and was successfully retrieved afterward, according to a company statement. At least one additional vehicle from the fleet was also affected by the storm.

The company’s operations are limited to Atlanta city limits in Georgia, while it provides services across multiple Texas cities.

Operations in Texas were suspended “out of an abundance of caution for the forecasted severe weather,” according to the company’s statement.

When officials at the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission headquarters in Virginia faced a deteriorating asphalt parking area needing repairs, they decided against simply installing more traditional dark pavement.

Their replacement lot, finished last year, features porous concrete sections and zones with native vegetation and recycled components designed to reduce temperatures and flooding risks.

With these new sections, “the rain infiltrates faster than it can puddle and stop on the surface,” explained Jill Sunderland, the commission’s senior water resources planner.

“You notice too, that it’s cooler,” Sunderland continued. “You really can tell a difference out there … not to mention it’s just more inviting.”

This initiative represents one of many examples where communities and organizations nationwide are implementing alternatives to conventional asphalt surfaces to combat excessive heat and manage water drainage — particularly as climate impacts intensify.

New Orleans has mandated its Department of Public Works utilize permeable surfacing in appropriate lots and spaces. In Indianapolis, the Newfields art museum redesigned one parking area to incorporate bioretention rain gardens and converted another using a permeable grid system rather than standard blacktop. Denver’s dePaving a Greener Denver program aims to reduce the city’s coverage of parking areas and other impervious surfaces.

Communities are also reducing pavement by eliminating regulations requiring minimum parking space quotas for new residential or commercial construction. Buffalo, New York; Austin, Texas; and Minneapolis have modified these requirements recently.

Representatives from the asphalt industry highlight improvements in their materials while advising parking lot operators to carefully evaluate the longevity of non-asphalt options.

Here’s an examination of various alternatives to conventional lots.

In certain downtown areas, parking occupies 25% or more of available land, with research indicating over one-third of parking spots remain unused at any moment, according to Adam Millard-Ball, a professor of urban planning at UCLA. Many areas see limited usage at sports venues, shopping centers, or office buildings. Various organizations provide funding for municipalities and businesses to replace or modify these hardscape parking zones traditionally constructed with asphalt.

Reflective surface treatments or coatings, implemented in Los Angeles’ Pacoima neighborhood, work similarly to paint to prevent surfaces from absorbing excessive heat.

Adding plant life also helps control temperatures by absorbing energy and releasing moisture.

Sacramento, California, mandates parking lot developers plant sufficient trees to shade 50% of the area within 15 years of construction. Washington, D.C., and Seattle maintain green space requirements for landscaping, especially for new developments. Some municipalities utilize solar panel installations as shading structures.

Without these solutions, dark paved areas can capture heat and increase temperatures by up to 20 degrees. This heat generally accumulates throughout daytime hours.

The warmth spreads, contributing to the urban heat island effect, explained Vincent Cotrone, extension educator of urban forestry at Pennsylvania State University. Hotter neighborhoods often result in increased energy consumption as residents depend more heavily on air conditioning for comfort. These cooling units discharge hot air back outdoors.

Other alternatives target issues arising when impervious pavement blocks rainwater from penetrating soil. When water flows off paved areas, it can transport pollutants including oil and heavy metals into neighboring waterways, Cotrone noted.

More sophisticated than gravel, lattice pavers permit grass growth. These, along with interlocking pavers creating gaps between individual pieces, enable rainwater filtration. Additional permeable materials for runoff management include stone beds, brick pavers, or honeycomb-style frameworks.

The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission employs stamped, grooved concrete edging so when stormwater flows from regular concrete to porous concrete, sediment becomes trapped rather than creating clogs requiring maintenance.

Extended plant channels called bioswales and sunken areas known as rain gardens both utilize sand, soil, and vegetation to filter contaminants before stormwater reaches streams or sewage systems.

At Indianapolis’ Newfields museum, one parking area includes rain gardens while the overflow lot consists of recycled plastic grid pavers.

“It has worked really well for us because we don’t park on that lot every single day,” stated Jonathan Wright, director of the garden. “Why should it be asphalt and not breathing and not permeable when you only need to use it 10% of the time?”

Alternative materials may require higher initial investments, so experts recommend owners conduct cost analyses considering additional benefits throughout a parking lot’s lifespan.

“If we were going to just repave it with asphalt, we could have done it significantly cheaper,” noted Sunderland regarding the Virginia project. “It’s more expensive initially, but you get so much more life out of it.”

Buzz Powell, technical director at the Asphalt Pavement Alliance, a coalition of national industry groups, stated asphalt offers greater versatility and handles heavy traffic better than some newer alternatives, noting any new pavement may eventually require repairs.

“I just think we need to be really, really careful when we put alternative systems in to make sure that we have a good understanding of what the life cycle impact is gonna be,” Powell commented. “Some things can be really sexy on the front end and look good on paper, but then when you run a trash truck over it, it can’t handle the stresses and strains.”

Asphalt can be applied at varying thicknesses for different requirements, and porous asphalt is gaining popularity. He indicated it may repair more easily — and all choices involve tradeoffs regarding environmental impact, durability, and maintenance based on usage.

“My focus is 100% to make asphalt better,” he added. “If we do better asphalt, that means better mixing materials, better structural pavement design, and better pavement preservation.”

Some experts supporting alternatives also express concern that budget-limited cities interested in renovating parking lots may struggle to secure necessary funding.

“We are headed in the right direction, but at the same time, we’ve got acres and acres of nothing but blacktop parking lots that sit there and age and again, heat up,” said Cotrone. “And we just don’t have the dollars to go retrofit those.”

However, enhancing parking lot construction methods or reducing their overall footprint can simultaneously address multiple challenges, from heat to water quality to related inequality concerns.

“The reality is, one city changing their surfaces is just not by itself not going to have a big impact,” explained Greg Kats, founder of the Smart Surfaces Coalition. “But once cities are able to understand in a rigorous way the scale of the benefits… it’s kind of intuitive.”

A biotechnology company specializing in bringing back vanished species has achieved a major breakthrough by successfully hatching more than two dozen healthy baby chickens using an innovative artificial egg system.

Colossal Biosciences, which focuses on “de-extinction” projects aimed at resurrecting lost species, announced this week that their artificial egg platform has proven successful. The achievement marks a crucial advancement in their efforts to revive the South Island Giant Moa, a massive flightless bird from New Zealand that disappeared hundreds of years ago.

The moa represents one of two bird species in the company’s revival portfolio, alongside the dodo. Overall, the firm is working to bring back six different extinct species using ancient DNA as their guide. Last year, the company reported they had genetically engineered the dire wolf, an Ice Age predator that vanished long ago.

“Using our system we have hatched 26 chicks and we are now actively monitoring these birds as they grow up,” Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm told Reuters.

According to Lamm, the chicks emerged at the company’s Dallas headquarters.

The innovative artificial egg system features a specially engineered silicone-based membrane housed within a sturdy external framework. Scientists designed the membrane to replicate how natural eggshells facilitate gas exchange, allowing developing bird embryos to obtain oxygen through controlled movement of gases and moisture.

“The technology is designed to closely replicate the conditions of a natural egg to produce healthy animals with normal development, fertility and longevity. This is especially important for species like the moa, whose eggs were far larger than those of any living bird, making traditional surrogate approaches impractical,” Lamm explained.

The company’s dire wolf project involved creating embryos through cloning from modified gray wolf cells, which were then placed in surrogate domestic dog mothers. However, no existing bird species is large enough to produce an egg comparable to the South Island Giant Moa’s, which measures approximately the size of a soccer ball.

The extinct moa reached heights of roughly 12 feet and vanished about 500 years ago, primarily due to human hunting. Today’s closest living relative is the emu, a large flightless Australian bird that grows to about six feet tall.

“In order to hatch a South Island Giant Moa, Colossal needs a way to gestate the embryo. There is no living surrogate large enough to lay a South Island Moa egg, as they are around eight times larger than an emu egg,” Lamm noted.

Lamm outlined the artificial egg procedure in detail.

“The process begins with a fertilized avian embryo, similar to the earliest stages of development inside a natural egg. The embryo and yolk are then transferred into Colossal’s artificial egg platform, which is designed to replicate the key functions of a natural eggshell and incubation environment, including gas exchange, moisture regulation, temperature stability and developmental support,” he said.

“As the embryo develops, the system provides continuous environmental control and supplementation where needed – for example, calcium support during skeletal growth, which would normally come from the natural shell. Because the embryo develops visibly on top of the yolk, researchers can monitor development in real time throughout embryogenesis,” Lamm added, referring to the process where fertilized eggs transform into embryos.

The 26 successful chicks required roughly 21 days from embryo transfer to hatching, which aligns with typical development timelines for their species, Lamm reported.

Beyond its application for extinct species revival, Lamm believes this artificial egg technology could prove valuable for protecting endangered bird species currently at risk.

While significant, this breakthrough represents just one step toward the ultimate goal of restoring the moa population.

“Other hurdles include the need to reconstruct an accurate moa genome from ancient DNA, identify the genetic basis of key moa traits and engineer those traits into a closely related living species such as the emu,” Lamm acknowledged.

“At Colossal, the project is currently in the genome-sequencing phase,” Lamm said, with teams working to construct comprehensive genomes for this species and eight other extinct moa varieties. “So far, the team has identified multiple strong ancient DNA sources, including samples from the South Island Giant Moa.”

The proliferation of data centers throughout Texas is placing unprecedented strain on the state’s electrical infrastructure, raising serious questions about the power grid’s capacity to satisfy these massive energy requirements.

These computer facilities are generating substantial demand for additional electrical power across Texas, but uncertainty remains about whether the existing grid infrastructure can adequately supply the enormous amounts of electricity these operations require.

With Americans discarding nearly 1,800 pounds of waste annually, one Illinois university is providing students with valuable recycling education that offers lasting benefits.

The institution has developed a program that teaches students practical skills for giving discarded items new purpose, helping address the growing waste problem facing the nation.

SpaceX canceled Thursday’s planned launch of its twelfth Starship rocket from Texas, announcing the company will make another attempt on Friday.

The launch was called off on May 21, with the space company providing no immediate details about the reason for the delay.

SpaceX came tantalizingly close to launching its massive Starship rocket Thursday evening, with the countdown halting just 30 seconds before liftoff due to a series of technical malfunctions.

The towering 407-foot (124-meter) spacecraft was ready to embark on a test mission from Texas that would take it on a path spanning half the globe. However, complications arose with the newly constructed launch pad at Starbase near the Mexican border, forcing engineers to call off the attempt when time ran out.

Company CEO Elon Musk later explained that a hydraulic pin responsible for keeping the launch tower’s arm secured failed to withdraw properly. He indicated that if engineers can resolve the issue promptly, the company will try again Friday.

The failed launch attempt occurred just one day following Musk’s announcement that his aerospace company plans to go public.

The spacecraft carries 20 simulated Starlink satellites that were scheduled for deployment before the vehicle’s planned controlled descent into the Indian Ocean, concluding what was intended to be an hour-long mission. This marks the 12th test flight planned for a Starship and the first attempt since last fall.

NASA has designated this newest iteration of Starship as the vehicle that will transport astronauts to the lunar surface in the coming years.

SpaceX plans to conduct the 12th uncrewed test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday, marking the first launch of a redesigned vehicle that plays a crucial role in Elon Musk’s lunar and Mars exploration goals, as well as the company’s upcoming public stock offering.

The rocket system consists of SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster paired with the Starship upper-stage vehicle, engineered for complete reusability and designed to transport both crew members and cargo.

This inaugural flight of the Starship V3, equipped with new capabilities to support future lunar and Martian missions, represents a critical evaluation for the spacecraft as SpaceX prepares for its stock market launch with a target valuation of $1.75 trillion.

Here’s a chronological overview of Starship test flights:

FIRST TEST FLIGHT – APRIL 20, 2023

The rocket detonated just minutes following takeoff from South Texas, failing to accomplish multiple mission targets.

Although the two-stage vehicle reached less than half the distance to space’s edge, ascending to approximately 25 miles (40.23 km), the mission achieved its primary objective of launching the new rocket from the pad despite several engine malfunctions.

SECOND TEST FLIGHT – NOVEMBER 18, 2023

The rocket launched from the Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas, but encountered failure in space shortly after takeoff.

While the Super Heavy first-stage booster successfully separated from the main Starship, it detonated over the Gulf of Mexico moments later. The upper stage was subsequently lost during the flight.

THIRD TEST FLIGHT – MARCH 14, 2024

The rocket nearly completed its entire test mission on the third try, traveling further than previous attempts, but broke apart during its Earth return.

Communication with the spacecraft ceased moments after live video footage from an onboard camera revealed a reddish glow surrounding the silver vehicle due to re-entry heat.

FOURTH TEST FLIGHT – JUNE 6, 2024

The spacecraft endured a blazing, high-speed return from space and accomplished a groundbreaking controlled ocean landing in the Indian Ocean, representing significant progress for a vehicle built to return from orbit.

While descending, protective tiles and metal fragments separated from the craft, and portions of its steering flaps sustained severe damage, though they continued functioning sufficiently for the ocean landing.

FIFTH TEST FLIGHT – OCTOBER 13, 2024

The company’s launch tower successfully captured the massive first-stage booster using enormous mechanical arms as it returned to the Texas launch site for the first time.

This capture represented a major advancement for SpaceX’s testing program for a rocket designed to transport heavier payloads to orbit, carry astronauts to the moon for NASA, and eventually journey to Mars.

SIXTH TEST FLIGHT – NOVEMBER 19, 2024

The company conducted its sixth test flight, enhancing the upper stage’s space capabilities, but abandoned an attempt to catch the booster at the launch site while then U.S. President-elect Donald Trump observed in person.

The Super Heavy booster instead landed in the Gulf of Mexico after SpaceX redirected it from the launch tower, suggesting the vehicle failed to meet the requirements for a catch attempt.

SEVENTH TEST FLIGHT – JANUARY 16, 2025

A rocket detonated in space above the Bahamas approximately eight minutes post-launch, creating fields of burning debris that streaked across the sky over the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The vehicle featured multiple new onboard systems flying for the first time and carried the initial batch of simulated satellites intended for space deployment.

Both the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Turks and Caicos Islands officials initiated investigations into the rocket test.

EIGHTH TEST FLIGHT – MARCH 6, 2025

The upper stage detonated in space minutes after launching from Texas, causing the FAA to temporarily suspend flights at Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando airports due to “space launch debris.”

The FAA opened a mishap investigation into the event. Musk described the explosion as “a minor setback.”

MAY 22

The FAA authorized Starship to resume flights following the March incident, permitting SpaceX to proceed with another Texas launch.

However, the agency extended the Aircraft Hazard Area along the rocket’s flight path from 885 nautical miles to 1,600 nautical miles, reaching eastward from the South Texas coastline through the Straits of Florida and encompassing the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands.

NINTH TEST FLIGHT – MAY 27, 2025

The rocket launched into space from Texas but lost control approximately midway through its mission, failing to achieve several key test objectives.

SpaceX also lost communication with the 232-foot Super Heavy booster during its descent before it crashed into the ocean, rather than executing the controlled splashdown the company had intended.

The upper stage achieved suborbital space but started spinning uncontrollably roughly 30 minutes into the mission, after SpaceX cancelled a planned release of eight mock Starlink satellites when the vehicle’s Pez dispenser-like mechanism malfunctioned.

TENTH TEST FLIGHT – AUGUST 26, 2025

The spacecraft successfully released its first group of mock Starlink satellites in space and evaluated new heat shield tiles during re-entry, reaching development goals that had been postponed by recent failures.

Approximately 30 minutes into the mission, the craft’s Pez-like deployment system ejected eight dummy Starlink satellites, representing a crucial test for a rocket that SpaceX intends to use in its satellite launch operations.

ELEVENTH TEST FLIGHT – OCTOBER 13, 2025

The company launched its 11th rocket from Texas and successfully landed it in the Indian Ocean, marking the final flight before testing commenced on a new version of the massive rocket equipped with additional features for lunar and Martian missions.

After propelling the upper stage into space, Super Heavy returned for a gentle splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico seven minutes after liftoff, evaluating a landing engine setup before the booster’s destruction.

TWELFTH TEST FLIGHT – EXPECTED ON MAY 21, 2026

The upcoming test flight is anticipated to be the inaugural launch of Starship V3 and its enhanced Super Heavy booster, as well as the first mission from a new launch pad constructed for the more powerful rocket.

Key improvements include a redesign of the booster’s 33 Raptor engines to generate increased thrust from a lighter configuration.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The final moments of a distant star have been captured in breathtaking detail, creating one of the most beautiful cosmic images ever recorded.

Using the Gemini North Telescope positioned on Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s highest mountain, astronomers photographed this stellar death in stunning clarity. The National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab, which manages the telescope, made the photograph public on Thursday.

The subject is actually a pair of stars located 1,500 light-years from our planet, commonly called the Crystal Ball Nebula due to the pale, round gas cloud that surrounds it. One light-year equals nearly 6 trillion miles.

This gaseous envelope develops when a star expels its exterior material during its final stages. The remaining stellar center then superheats this cloud to temperatures reaching tens of thousands of degrees, creating its ghostly luminescence.

Researchers think that one of the two stars in this planetary nebula system — which was originally larger than our sun — has completed its life cycle.

The nebula, officially designated NGC 1514, was observed by Gemini North during the previous year, with the full-color image processing finished just last week.

A groundbreaking study has revealed why the Great Pyramid of Giza has survived for millennia – ancient Egyptian engineers incorporated advanced earthquake-resistant features into its design over 4,600 years ago.

Scientists used specialized equipment called seismometers to measure continuous background vibrations at 37 different points throughout and around the massive structure, which served as pharaoh Khufu’s burial site. The measurements showed the pyramid maintains remarkably consistent and stable responses to ground movement, despite its enormous size and intricate internal layout.

Located just outside Cairo in Giza, the monument’s four sides each span approximately 755 feet at ground level, covering roughly 13 acres of limestone bedrock. While it once reached 480 feet in height, erosion and the ancient removal of outer casing stones have reduced it to about 455 feet tall. For nearly 3,800 years, it held the record as Earth’s tallest human-made structure.

The research team identified multiple design elements that provide seismic protection: an exceptionally wide foundation with a low center of gravity, perfectly symmetrical shape, decreasing mass toward the summit, and complex interior chambers that reduce vibration buildup. The structure also sits on solid limestone bedrock.

“These elements together create a well-balanced, coherent structure,” said seismologist Mohamed ElGabry of the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, or NRIAG, in Egypt, lead author of the study published on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.

“Ancient Egyptian builders clearly possessed practical knowledge related to stability, foundation behavior, mass distribution and load transfer,” NRIAG seismologist and study senior author Asem Salama said.

Testing revealed that vibrations recorded inside the pyramid occurred at frequencies indicating mechanical stress was distributed uniformly throughout the structure.

“So while I would hesitate to claim that they intentionally designed the pyramid specifically for earthquake resistance, I do think they developed architectural and geotechnical solutions that naturally produced structures with exceptional long-term resilience,” Salama said.

These techniques were developed through experience and experimentation, as evidenced by earlier pyramid construction failures that preceded this masterpiece.

Researchers gathered seismic information from internal corridors and rooms, including the main burial space known as the King’s Chamber, plus the surrounding rock and earth.

While vibration amplification typically increases with height in tall buildings, the team discovered reduced amplification in five special chambers positioned above the King’s Chamber, despite their elevated location.

“This suggests these chambers effectively help dissipate seismic energy and protect the King’s Chamber – one of the most critical areas – from excessive shaking,” ElGabry said.

Recent regional earthquakes in 1847 and 1992 caused extensive damage to thousands of structures, with the 1992 event claiming over 560 lives. The pyramid sustained minimal damage from both events.

The monument stands as part of a larger archaeological site that includes additional pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza, attracting countless visitors throughout history.

“The Great Pyramid is not only an extraordinary engineering achievement but also a profound work of art and human vision. Its perfect symmetry, monumental scale and elegant proportions create a timeless beauty that continues to inspire awe even after 4,600 years,” ElGabry said.

“Beyond its physical beauty, what impresses me most is the incredible project management and organizational mastery it represents. Building such a monument took approximately 20 years and required sustaining a clear, long-term vision, an extremely complex supply chain and the coordination of tens of thousands of skilled workers, engineers, and administrators,” ElGabry said.

The massive undertaking involved managing personnel, training specialized craftsmen, maintaining food supplies for workers, and coordinating transportation of enormous stone quantities.

“It reminds us what human civilization is capable of when vision, science, organization and determination come together,” ElGabry said.

“They really did,” Salama said, “build ‘one for the ages’.”

Virginia’s annual birding competition has concluded with The Thrashers claiming the top prize in the state’s 3rd Annual Virginia Birding Classic, marking another year of record-breaking participation and fierce competition throughout the state.

During the competition period from April 15 through May 15, participating teams ventured across Virginia’s public lands with the goal of spotting as many different bird species as they could within a single 24-hour timeframe. This year’s competitors managed to document more than 200 species total, demonstrating both Virginia’s rich bird diversity and the dedication of the state’s birding enthusiasts. The 2026 competition has also strengthened what appears to be an emerging competitive rivalry within the Virginia Birding Classic.

Following their Cardinal Cup victory in 2025 as part of the Birdbrains team, Chopper Dawson came back with many of the same team members but operating under their new identity as The Thrashers, successfully holding onto their championship status. At the same time, June McDaniels and Andrew Baldelli of the Twitchers maintained their impressive track record by securing second place once again, after claiming victory in the competition’s first year in 2024.

The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) has announced the final standings for the 2026 Virginia Birding Classic Cardinal Cup winners:

1st Place — 135 Species
The Thrashers
Chopper Dawson, Ewa Greene, Todd Dixon, Allen Cumbia, and George Arnold

2nd Place — 124 Species
Twitchers
June McDaniels and Andrew Baldelli

3rd Place — 101 Species
WAYOUT
Joan Mashburn, Jim Pearson, Carol Mullen, and Evan Pannkuk

The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources expressed gratitude to all competing teams, supporters, partners, and volunteers whose contributions led to another successful year for the event. Each year brings continued growth for the Virginia Birding Classic while showcasing the exceptional birdwatching and public land access opportunities found across Virginia.

American energy storage developers achieved a milestone in the opening months of 2026, adding 9.7 gigawatt-hours of new capacity during the first quarter – setting a new record for that time period, according to an industry analysis released Thursday.

The sector experienced a 32% expansion compared to the same quarter last year, even as the industry contends with federal policies that developers claim are hampering clean energy progress, according to findings from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

According to the SEIA, the increased demand stems from data center requirements, fluctuating power costs, and global supply chain disruptions affecting gas and turbine equipment.

Leading tech corporations such as Google and Meta have signed agreements this year to secure tens of thousands of megawatt-hours worth of storage systems to support data centers required for artificial intelligence operations.

OBSTACLES FOR RENEWABLE SECTOR

The solar sector confronts tariff challenges and halted approvals for large-scale developments under the Trump administration, reflecting priorities centered on oil, gas, coal and nuclear power sources.

According to the analysis, 467 solar and storage developments are awaiting permits and may experience postponements or terminations.

“If federal permitting bottlenecks persist, household electric bills will continue to rise and China will surge further ahead in the race for AI leadership,” the report said.

The analysis projects over 610 GWh in storage expansion through 2030.

“Energy storage’s remarkable first quarter only underscores the fundamental values of this technology,” said Darren Van’t Hof, SEIA’s interim president and chief executive.

Sufficient energy storage capabilities can protect customers from fuel cost volatility, contribute to reduced electricity expenses and enhance power grid dependability, he explained.

Texas, Arizona and California topped utility-scale deployments during the quarter. More than 70% of utility-scale storage systems installed during this period were located in states won by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Large-scale utility projects represented 7.8 GWh of first-quarter deployments; commercial and industrial installations contributed 648 megawatt-hours while residential systems added 515 MWh.

The private space company has set an ambitious target of conducting 10,000 rocket launches each year within the next five years, according to federal aviation officials who say enhanced safety measures must come first.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford revealed Wednesday that he recently met with SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who outlined the company’s bold expansion plans. This represents a dramatic increase from the 170 launches SpaceX completed in 2025, which deployed approximately 2,500 satellites into orbit.

During their discussion, Shotwell shared details “about the SpaceX five-year vision to get to 10,000 launches a year,” Bedford explained.

The company’s CEO Elon Musk has also discussed similar goals in recent media appearances. In a Forbes video interview released this week, Musk mentioned that the company currently operates 10,000 satellites in space and hopes to eventually deploy 10,000 communication satellites annually, though he didn’t provide specific timing.

However, Bedford emphasized that federal regulators will require significant improvements before approving such expansion. “We need to see a lot more reliability,” Bedford told reporters following a recent forum.

The FAA oversees licensing for all commercial space missions and works to reduce regulatory obstacles while ensuring launches don’t disrupt commercial aviation or pose safety risks.

Bedford described the meeting’s purpose as examining “the constraints that we see and what can we do planning wise now to put ourselves in a position to accommodate that type of a stretch goal.”

SpaceX has not yet provided comment on the discussions.

The FAA chief characterized their conversation as productive but direct. He and Shotwell “had a very frank conversation, we’re going to have to push ourselves, they’re going to have to push their reliability,” Bedford said.

The discussions come as President Donald Trump has called for returning to the moon before 2028. “To do that, we are going to have to work with industry to unlock that innovation,” Bedford noted.

Bedford acknowledged that while the FAA isn’t currently limiting space launch activities, that could change. “I can see a future where we will be the limiting factor, because we are not putting enough funding into our space team,” he warned.

The agency is currently analyzing data from previous launches to better assess potential risks. Safety protocols require blocking aircraft from certain areas during launches, which “can be very disruptive,” Bedford explained.

Earlier this year in January, SpaceX announced plans for an even more ambitious project involving 1 million satellites designed to orbit Earth and capture solar energy for powering artificial intelligence data centers.

College graduation speakers are discovering that discussing artificial intelligence during commencement addresses can lead to unwelcome reactions from students in the Class of 2026.

Recent ceremonies have seen speakers face audible disapproval from graduates when they mention the transformative effects that artificial intelligence is having across various sectors.

Real estate executive Gloria Caulfield encountered student pushback during her address at University of Central Florida’s graduation ceremony. Similarly, Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta experienced booing from students at Middle Tennessee State University’s commencement when he referenced artificial intelligence topics.

The negative student responses suggest that graduating seniors may be resistant to hearing about AI’s role in shaping their future careers and society, despite the technology’s growing influence across industries.

The severe dry conditions that have struck the southeastern United States this spring are creating significant challenges for Virginia’s aquatic wildlife beyond just affecting agricultural operations. Reptiles and amphibians that depend on water environments for reproduction and daily living are experiencing major disruptions to their normal patterns.

These creatures rely on various water sources, from temporary seasonal wetlands to lasting water bodies like lakes and reservoirs. When drought causes these areas to shrink and dry up, the animals become vulnerable to birds and mammals that prey on them, or they must search for alternative water sources. Some amphibians may choose to skip reproduction entirely during drought years. To survive these challenging periods, amphibians and reptiles often hide in nearby forests or dig deep into mud while waiting for rainfall to return.

Despite the challenges, occasional dry spells can actually benefit certain species and play an essential role in their long-term survival. Chicken turtles, barking treefrogs, and tiger salamanders are examples of creatures that need environments without fish to successfully reproduce and thrive. Regular drying cycles in their habitats, including sinkholes, Carolina bays, and other temporary wetlands, prevent fish populations from taking hold. The Cat Ponds sinkhole complex in Isle of Wight County serves as an example of this type of habitat, typically containing 3-5 feet of water during normal spring seasons.

This natural cycle of abundance and scarcity represents a normal pattern that typically doesn’t threaten the long-term survival of these species, provided the dry periods remain infrequent. However, if drought conditions become more common due to shifting climate patterns, these animals may lose their ability to bounce back, potentially resulting in local population losses.

Scientists announced Wednesday that Neptune’s distant moon Nereid might be the final remaining original companion of the planet that managed to survive an ancient cosmic collision.

Neptune is surrounded by 16 known moons, making it the eighth and furthest planet in our solar system. The planet’s largest moon, Triton, arrived from the cold outer regions of the solar system billions of years ago, disrupting Neptune’s original moons and sending them on paths that led to their destruction.

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology utilized NASA’s Webb Space Telescope to examine Nereid. Their findings indicate that Nereid is not an intruder like Triton and probably survived by moving into its unusual, elongated orbit around Neptune.

“What we know about Nereid is very limited. For its size, Nereid is extremely understudied,” said study author Matthew Belyakov, of Caltech.

Only one spacecraft has ever visited Neptune – NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1989. Nereid was found 40 years before that mission by Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who gave the moon its name based on the sea nymphs from Greek mythology.

Measuring approximately 220 miles (350 kilometers) in diameter, Nereid follows an unusually eccentric path for a moon. The moon requires nearly a full Earth year to complete one orbit around Neptune, coming within less than 1 million miles (1.4 million kilometers) of the massive icy planet at one point in its oval-shaped journey and traveling as far as 6 million miles (9.6 million kilometers) away at the opposite end.

Similar to many other moons in the outer solar system, Nereid was previously thought to have traveled to Neptune’s vicinity from the cold distant region called the Kuiper Belt. However, using the Webb telescope, researchers found that Nereid’s makeup was different from Kuiper Belt objects – containing too much ice. This discovery suggests it belonged to Neptune’s system from the beginning.

“We don’t have all that much evidence left around Neptune — the system doesn’t have very many moons left,” Belyakov said in an email. But the latest observations “strongly rule out” that Nereid wandered by like so many others and got ensnared by planetary gravity.

The research was published in the journal Science Advances.

This is “an exciting result,” said Carnegie Science planetary astronomer Scott Sheppard, who was not part of the study.

The observations demonstrate for the first time that Nereid’s unusual orbit aligns with “the history we might expect from a moon that originally formed close to Neptune and was later pushed outward from the capture of Triton,” Sheppard said in an email.

According to Belyakov and his research team, Neptune’s closest moons probably developed from the broken pieces of the original moons that were destroyed when Triton arrived.

The solar system’s other three giant planets all have more moons than Neptune, with Saturn leading with 292.

According to scientists, a future spacecraft mission could confirm the origin story of Neptune’s moon system, though no such missions are currently scheduled.

An environmental organization is challenging coffee giant Starbucks over claims that its plastic single-use cups can be recycled, saying a tracking study shows the containers end up in landfills instead.

The Vermont-based environmental nonprofit Beyond Plastics conducted an experiment earlier this year, placing tracking devices on 36 polypropylene cups and depositing them in recycling containers at Starbucks locations nationwide. According to the organization’s findings released Wednesday, not one cup reached a recycling facility. The majority—33 cups—wound up in landfills or incinerators, while three were last detected at sorting facilities.

These cups display recycling symbols prominently and are shown as recyclable on bins inside stores. In February, Starbucks declared its polypropylene cups “widely recyclable” across the United States after receiving approval from How2Recycle, a labeling organization.

When contacted Wednesday, a Starbucks spokesperson expressed doubts about Beyond Plastics’ research methods, though specific concerns were not detailed. The representative noted that recycling success varies by local infrastructure and stated the company “work closely with others, including the recycling companies, to help expand access and help improve the system.”

Trade organizations, including the Association of Plastic Recyclers representing mechanical recyclers, suggest that tracking devices might cause items to be removed from recycling processes.

The coffee chain made a 2020 pledge to ensure all customer packaging becomes reusable, recyclable or compostable before 2030. This year, Starbucks began accepting customer-provided cups for mobile and drive-through purchases. Under CEO Brian Niccol’s leadership, the company policy calls for serving café customers with reusable ceramic mugs, though Beyond Plastics reports many in-store patrons continue receiving plastic cups.

Judith Enck, who leads Beyond Plastics and previously worked for the Environmental Protection Agency, called on Starbucks to discontinue labeling plastic cups as recyclable. She also advocated for a complete transition to fiber-based cups, similar to what the company uses in certain markets. Such a change would represent “one of the most significant plastic-reduction corporate policies in the world,” she stated.

The Iran war has increased global plastic prices, as these materials derive from oil or natural gas, according to an April Reuters report.

Beyond Plastics reports that plastic recycling rates in the United States remain below 6%, with most recycled plastic not being polypropylene, which the group says has limited processing facilities capable of handling it.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover is approaching a significant milestone as it continues its extended mission exploring the Red Planet’s surface. The robotic vehicle has covered 26.09 miles during more than five years of operation, nearly reaching the standard marathon distance of 26.22 miles.

Mission manager Robert Hogg expects the rover will surpass the marathon mark within the coming month as it continues its scientific work.

The automobile-sized explorer touched down on the Martian surface on February 18, 2021, originally scheduled for a mission lasting one Martian year, equivalent to approximately 687 Earth days.

“The rover continues in good health with at least a decade left in its power source. The duration of the mission will depend on choices NASA makes,” said Ken Farley, the rover’s deputy project scientist at Caltech, in statements shared with Reuters through NASA.

Equipped with advanced scientific equipment, Perseverance has conducted operations within and surrounding Jezero Crater, located in Mars’ northern hemisphere. Scientists believe this region was once submerged under water and contained an ancient lake system. The area features various water-related geological formations, including an ancient fan-shaped sedimentary structure where a river emptied into a lake over three billion years ago.

While Mars today appears cold and barren, the planet once maintained a denser atmosphere and warmer temperatures that supported liquid water on its surface. Researchers hope to discover whether Mars once supported life forms. Since water represents a crucial component for life, Jezero Crater’s watery history makes it an ideal location for investigation.

NASA announced Perseverance’s most significant finding last year – a sample extracted from within the crater consisting of reddish rock that formed billions of years ago from lake-bottom sediment, potentially containing indicators of ancient microscopic life. Scientists noted that minerals identified by the rover might indicate past microbial activity, though they could also result from non-biological processes.

“Further work evaluating whether these are truly evidence of Martian life requires analysis in terrestrial laboratories that contain the kinds of instrumentation necessary to make that determination,” Farley explained.

“Perseverance will continue to collect rock samples with the hope for return to Earth by a future robotic or crewed mission,” Farley added.

The rover has also collected information about organic compounds on Mars. Additional discoveries include documentation of electrical activity in the Martian atmosphere, detecting electrical charges commonly linked with spinning wind formations known as dust devils, and recording the first visible-light aurora observation on Mars, showing the sky glowing faintly in green.

During its initial years, Perseverance recorded the development cycle of the lake that occupied Jezero Crater approximately 3.7 billion years ago. The lake began as a shallow body of water, leaving salt-heavy sediments on the crater bottom, then expanded to a depth of at least 30 feet, with sandy materials flowing into the lake to create a delta formation, according to Farley.

The rover currently operates just beyond Jezero Crater’s boundaries, studying extremely old rock formations likely dating back more than four billion years. Since Mars and Earth both formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago, these rocks represent samples from the planet’s early period.

“Importantly this time period, and this surface environment, are very likely similar to those on Earth when life originated. Because rocks of this era were completely destroyed on Earth, Mars offers a key analog environment in which to investigate pre-biotic chemistry and possibly the origin of life,” Farley stated.

NASA operates a second rover on Mars called Curiosity, which arrived in 2012 at Gale Crater near the Martian equator and has traveled 22.93 miles. The rover with the greatest distance record on Mars was NASA’s Opportunity, which covered 28.06 miles during its mission from 2004 to 2019.

Perseverance carried a compact helicopter named Ingenuity that achieved the first powered and controlled aircraft flight on another world, successfully operating in Mars’ extremely thin atmosphere 72 times, traveling 10.5 miles and reaching heights of approximately 79 feet.

The varied environments both inside and outside Jezero Crater have provided valuable insights into Mars’ history.

“The fact that Perseverance could explore both a lake-river system and the early Martian crust, separated in time by perhaps half a billion years, means the Jezero site keeps on giving scientifically even after five years on the surface,” Farley concluded.

A major American semiconductor equipment manufacturer announced Wednesday the launch of a new research facility in Salzburg, Austria, dedicated to developing advanced chip packaging methods that could boost production efficiency and reduce manufacturing expenses as artificial intelligence drives unprecedented demand for processors.

Lam Research revealed that their Austrian location will concentrate on panel-level packaging techniques, which substitute the industry’s standard round silicon wafers with rectangular panels for semiconductor production.

Traditional circular wafers result in material waste along the curved perimeters where complete chips cannot be manufactured. Rectangular panels eliminate this wasted space, enabling manufacturers to create additional chips per surface area while lowering per-unit production costs — a vital benefit as artificial intelligence creates processor shortages.

Rising demand for increasingly sophisticated and powerful processors has created a boom in orders for wafer manufacturing equipment, which consists of complex and costly machinery supplied by companies such as Lam, Applied Materials, Dutch company ASML and KLA Corp.

Among Lam’s clientele are Samsung Electronics and the globe’s top contract chip producer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

The corporation stated that the new research and development location leverages the knowledge of Semsysco GmbH, a Salzburg-based chip equipment company established in 2012 that Lam Research purchased in 2022.

According to the company, the Salzburg location represents Lam’s inaugural panel-focused wet-processing laboratory, which employs liquid chemicals for cleaning and preparing semiconductor materials.

“This new campus, a state-of-the-art laboratory for panel-level processing, seamlessly bridges the gap from research and development to production,” Salzburg Governor Karoline Edtstadler said in a statement.

Singapore is working with technology companies to develop the world’s first labeling system for artificial intelligence products, according to a senior government official.

Digital development and information minister Josephine Teo explained that these labels would function similarly to nutrition information on food packaging, showing consumers the proper and improper ways to use AI applications.

“We may start with a voluntary framework, and then in time … we’ll see how effective these kinds of labels are before deciding to take the next step,” Teo said during an interview on Wednesday.

The labeling system would mark intended purposes and restrictions for consumer AI applications, indicating the “right ways” and “not-so-correct ways” of using the technology.

Teo made these comments while attending the Asia Tech x Singapore Summit, where she also revealed that Singapore is creating testing frameworks and certification organizations to assess AI products.

The Southeast Asian nation has positioned itself as a neutral hub for AI development, attracting companies from both the United States and China.

On Wednesday, Singapore revealed it will house OpenAI’s first Applied AI Lab outside America, representing an investment exceeding $234 million.

Meanwhile, Google DeepMind announced a collaboration with Singapore focused on education, healthcare and scientific research, following the opening of its new AI laboratory in the country last November.

Speaking at the summit, Teo outlined Singapore’s goal to help 10,000 companies adopt AI technology and increase its use in manufacturing, healthcare and financial services.

The minister highlighted the country’s semiconductor equipment manufacturing industry, which produces 20% of the world’s supply, as a crucial foundation for building an AI center.

Singapore is also funding research into energy-efficient AI at both the chip and software levels to overcome power limitations, Teo noted.

Her remarks came before scheduled discussions between herself and other ASEAN digital ministers with U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg.

Chinese representatives are also participating in the summit, which has become one of the few venues where American and Chinese policymakers regularly engage.

Initial concerns that a new artificial intelligence tool could massively boost cybercriminal capabilities appear to have been excessive, according to cybersecurity professionals evaluating the technology one month after its debut.

When Anthropic released its Mythos AI model in April, the company cautioned that the system had identified thousands of software security flaws spanning all major operating systems and web browsers, warning of potentially serious consequences if misused.

The announcement prompted swift government action across multiple nations, with officials meeting with banking institutions to evaluate potential risks. By early May, the White House was considering new regulations governing how AI models undergo safety testing before public release.

However, cybersecurity specialists have responded with greater restraint, with many suggesting the broader alarm has been disproportionate and that access to Mythos-level technology won’t immediately enable previously impossible criminal hacking operations.

“I think there’s a really big communication gap between practitioners and policymakers,” said Isaac Evans, founder and CEO of software security firm Semgrep. The model represents “a real technical advance,” he said, but the response “is not substantiated by what we actually know about how those capabilities will translate in the field.”

Nevertheless, specialists testing the model under controlled conditions have documented significant improvements in vulnerability detection, and banking sector technology teams are addressing numerous system weaknesses across both large and small financial institution networks, as reported on May 12.

Concerns intensified following continued reports of criminal and nation-state hacking incidents involving AI technology, including an announcement from a major tech company on May 11 about detecting the first instance of a significant cybercrime organization using AI to identify an unknown software vulnerability while planning widespread exploitation.

The disconnect between security professionals’ assessment of the threat level and policymakers’ perceptions has created a storyline positioning Mythos as central to an approaching security emergency, despite similar capabilities existing previously.

“We’ve been able to use AI to find more bugs than we know what to do with for months if not years,” said one person with extensive vulnerability research experience with early access to Mythos. The challenge is not finding vulnerabilities, they said, but validating, prioritizing and fixing them without breaking systems.

Organizations’ capacity to process and validate numerous newly identified vulnerabilities generally falls short of requirements, the person noted, representing the primary challenge introduced by Mythos-level models, while acknowledging the model’s improvements. “It is capable of finding more with a weaker prompt than the models that came before it,” the person said, referring to the instructions a user provides the model to attempt to achieve a goal. Earlier models required more detailed and complicated instructions, the person said, meaning the barrier to entry has been lowered.

Anthony Grieco, senior vice president and chief security and trust officer at a major technology company, highlighted one beneficial new feature of Mythos: its capability to not only identify vulnerabilities but scan enormous amounts of code much more rapidly for those vulnerabilities and help experienced practitioners reduce false positive rates. This, he said, allows defenders to focus on the most pressing cyber risks in their contexts. The model also has fewer guardrails than previous models, allowing users to craft more specific instructions that enable activities that previous models would not.

Grieco emphasized that to fully harness Mythos’s capabilities, organizations require both adequate computing power and a comprehensive framework – terminology describing the computer environment within an organization where a large language model operates with specific instructions and limitations.

“If you have a Formula One car but you’ve only ever driven a bike, you might be able to get it to go straight,” Grieco said. “But you’re not going to maximize the track time out of the gate.”

Despite this, Anthropic’s presentation and its decision to invite selected companies to test defenses through a program called Project Glasswing helped elevate discussion about the model far beyond traditional security communities. The outcome: a comprehensive response that magnified both the perceived threat and the company’s prominence, even as defense officials labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk while other government departments sought access.

The White House is discussing with AI laboratories expanded use of their technology, a White House official confirmed. An Anthropic spokesperson stated the company is working “closely with the U.S. government to quickly advance shared priorities,” and collaborating with the government to provide more parties access to Mythos.

Mythos and another advanced AI model have dominated national security conversations about artificial intelligence. However, those discussions often overlook a fundamental point: AI-powered vulnerability detection isn’t novel. The genuine challenge lies in subsequent steps.

“Our adversaries have gotten really good without AI,” said Cynthia Kaiser, a former senior FBI cybersecurity official now working in the private sector. “Ransomware attacks are happening in under an hour,” she said, adding that most threats still don’t rely on AI at all.

Currently, Mythos’s scale and computing infrastructure requirements also restrict who can utilize it. However, those obstacles are unlikely to persist.

“I don’t think the architecture is optimized,” said Nick Adam of a financial services company during a panel discussion at a university. He referenced the computer processing infrastructure and framework issues identified by Grieco. “There’s a barrier to entry there — but it will be solved pretty quickly.”

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Commercial vessels navigated the choppy waters of San Francisco Bay this Tuesday while a whale emerged nearby, its breath spray barely distinguishable against the breaking waves. Previously, these marine mammals could pass undetected by boat operators, but a newly launched artificial intelligence monitoring system aims to track their movements continuously.

The technology, known as WhaleSpotter, monitors the bay continuously for whale breathing patterns and thermal signatures within a 2-nautical-mile radius, sending notifications to vessel operators to reduce speed or change course when whales are detected in the area.

“They’ll be able to make adjustments way before they get anywhere close,” said Thomas Hall, director of operations for San Francisco Bay Ferry. “It will also allow us to track data over time and see where the whales are camping out so we can adjust our routes during whale season to avoid those areas completely.”

This initiative responds to a troubling increase in gray whale fatalities throughout the bay region. During the previous year, 21 deceased gray whales were discovered across the broader Bay Area — representing the highest count in a quarter-century, as reported by The Marine Mammal Center — with ship strikes responsible for killing at least 40% of them. An additional 10 or more have perished in the Bay Area during the current year.

Researchers indicate these statistics probably underrepresent the actual death toll since numerous whale bodies either sink beneath the surface or drift back to open ocean before discovery or documentation.

Gray whales have historically traveled along California’s coastline during their approximately 12,000-mile (19,300-kilometer) migration between Mexican breeding areas and Arctic feeding territories.

However, rather than simply traveling past the coast, growing numbers are now entering San Francisco Bay and remaining for extended periods within the busy waterway — a behavioral change researchers increasingly attribute to climate change. Rising temperatures and changing sea ice patterns in the Arctic are disrupting the food systems gray whales depend on during summer feeding periods, according to a 2023 study in Science, resulting in malnutrition during their migration journey.

Numerous whales now gather in a busy shipping corridor between Angel Island, Alcatraz and Treasure Island, creating direct overlap with ferry paths and commercial shipping routes.

“It’s the worst place possible in terms of all the ship traffic,” said Rachel Rhodes, a project scientist at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory who led the initiative. There have been so many collisions that “the teams responding to strandings said they ran out of places to even land dead whales.”

The eastern North Pacific gray whale population was previously celebrated as a conservation achievement after recovering from commercial hunting and being delisted from the Endangered Species Act in 1994. However, population numbers have since dropped dramatically, falling by 50% during the past decade, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Only 13,000 individuals survive today.

“They may not be getting the quality or quantity of food they’re used to in the Arctic,” Rhodes said. “That means they’re starting this incredibly long migration at a disadvantage.”

Artificial intelligence technology automatically identifies possible whale observations, which trained marine mammal specialists then confirm before notifications are transmitted via radio to ferry operators, vessel traffic controllers and published on the Whale Safe website.

WhaleSpotter technologies are currently deployed on boats and permanent installations including lighthouses and coastal structures throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. However, researchers indicate the San Francisco Bay network represents the first system to directly combine land-based and ship-mounted detection capabilities with official maritime alerts, enabling whale observations to be communicated almost instantly to vessels operating in the bay.

Initial testing hours generated an immediate surge of whale detections.

“Suddenly to have a full sense of how much whale activity is in this space honestly put me a little bit on edge,” said Douglas McCauley, director of the Benioff lab. “But we’re going to use that data and we’re going to be smart about how we use that space and share it with the whales.”

Scientists emphasize the system’s primary benefit is continuous surveillance. Unlike human watchers, thermal imaging equipment can function during nighttime hours and in frequent foggy weather typical of the bay area.

One camera has been positioned on Angel Island while a second will be mounted on a ferry operating between downtown San Francisco and Vallejo to establish what Rhodes called a “moving data collection platform.” Researchers anticipate additional cameras on the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz could eventually provide comprehensive bay coverage.

A persistent marine heat wave along California’s coast is reducing the zone of cold, nutrient-dense water where krill, anchovies and sardines flourish. As coastal waters warm, humpback whales are increasingly pursuing their prey nearer to shore, where California’s Dungeness crab fishing industry operates.

The fishing industry employs thousands of vertical lines connecting seafloor traps to surface markers, creating entanglement dangers for whales traveling and feeding along the coastline.

During this spring season, officials once again restricted portions of the central California fishery from using conventional equipment, a protective action that has become more frequent in recent years as warming waters increase whale encounters with crab fishing activities.

Although gray whales face risks, humpbacks remain most susceptible to entanglement.

“Humpbacks are curious and they’ll scratch their backs on the gear,” said Kathi George, director of cetacean conservation biology at The Marine Mammal Center. “If they get a line caught on their body, they’ll breach and they’ll roll and end up entangling themselves.”

Whales may carry heavy fishing equipment for months, preventing proper diving or feeding behavior, resulting in starvation, infection and drowning.

Thirty-six whales were documented as entangled along the West Coast during 2024 — the highest total since 2018, according to NOAA – although scientists warn most incidents remain unreported.

California authorized commercial deployment of ropeless pop-up crab fishing equipment for the first time this spring, enabling fishermen to continue operations through the season’s conclusion.

Rather than using floating surface markers connected to traps, this system keeps ropes and markers on the ocean floor until fishermen return and activate an acoustic mechanism that brings the equipment to the surface.

Advocates argue this technology permits fishermen to maintain crab harvesting while significantly reducing whale endangerment.

As climate change continues altering ocean environments and whale migration behaviors, scientists anticipate ongoing conflicts between whales, shipping vessels and fishing operations.

“We will have to continue to be adaptive and science driven in terms of our management to reduce wildlife risk and keep fishermen on the water,” said Caitlynn Birch, Oceana’s Pacific campaign manager and a marine scientist. “California has been a national leader in developing whale-safe fishing technologies and we hope that model can help guide other fisheries on the West Coast and nationally.”

Young people entering today’s job market are expressing mounting concern about artificial intelligence’s growing influence on their career prospects, as major corporations announce widespread layoffs tied to AI implementation.

During a recent university commencement address, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt faced audible disapproval from graduating students at the University of Arizona when he described AI’s impact as something that would be “larger, faster, and more consequential” than previous technological shifts.

“It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person, and every relationship you have,” Schmidt stated, as negative reactions echoed through the audience despite his attempts to address concerns about employment security and an uncertain economic landscape.

These workplace anxieties appear well-founded, as evidenced by Standard Chartered’s recent announcement that it plans to eliminate more than 7,000 positions while substituting “lower-value human capital” with artificial intelligence systems.

Several technology companies are also reducing their workforce while citing AI advancement as a factor. Meta, currently installing monitoring software on employee computers in the United States to develop its AI capabilities, intends to eliminate 10% of its global staff beginning this month.

Amazon.com has eliminated approximately 30,000 corporate positions in recent months as the company emphasizes AI integration and operational efficiency, while fintech company Block reduced nearly half its workforce in February.

The Iran war is also contributing to reduced hiring activity.

Schmidt recognized the younger generation’s concerns as “rational,” though like other corporate leaders, he characterized the transformation and upheaval brought by AI as an unavoidable development requiring widespread adaptation.

Research from Gallup released in April revealed that increasing numbers of Generation Z individuals – those born from 1997 to 2012 – reported feeling anxious or angry about artificial intelligence, while those expressing hope or excitement about the technology declined significantly from the previous year.

Nearly half of survey participants believed AI’s dangers outweigh its advantages, while only 15% viewed it as beneficial overall – a considerably more pessimistic outlook than twelve months earlier. Most acknowledged the importance of understanding AI but expressed concern that it impedes comprehensive learning and creative thinking.

“Negative emotions have intensified over the past year,” the research authors observed, noting that usage patterns were beginning to level off. “Young adults in the workforce are significantly more likely to view AI as a risk than a benefit.”

The study did indicate that favorable opinions of AI grew among heavier users while declining among those with limited exposure to the technology.

Schmidt’s cool reception followed other recent displays of student opposition to AI discussions. At the University of Central Florida on May 8, real estate executive Gloria Caulfield experienced similar heckling and disapproval during her graduation speech about artificial intelligence.

“The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution,” she remarked as negative reactions erupted, visibly surprising her. “What happened? OK, I struck a chord… Only a few years ago AI was not a factor in our lives.”

The audience responded with enthusiastic applause to her acknowledgment of their concerns.

Chinese technology company Alibaba Group announced Wednesday the launch of its newest artificial intelligence processor, the Zhenwu M890, as the firm accelerates efforts to create homegrown alternatives to processors amid stricter U.S. trade restrictions.

The processor, created by Alibaba’s chip design division T-Head, provides triple the performance capabilities compared to its earlier version, the Zhenwu 810E. The chip was specifically designed for the next generation of AI “agents” — computer programs capable of executing complicated, multi-phase operations with minimal human intervention.

According to Alibaba, the latest processor excels at managing the substantial memory requirements and communication needs of agent-based computing tasks, where AI models must maintain extensive contextual information and work together simultaneously.

The technology giant also revealed its long-term processor development strategy, announcing plans to release a follow-up chip named the V900 during the third quarter of 2027, followed by another processor called the J900 in the third quarter of 2028. The V900 is projected to provide approximately three times the performance improvement over the M890, demonstrating Alibaba’s commitment to continuous internal chip advancement.

This strategy highlights China’s expanding initiatives to develop domestically-produced AI processors as Washington prohibits sales of the most advanced U.S. chips to Chinese buyers, following a comparable announcement by another Chinese company last year.

The Hangzhou-based technology firm committed last year to investing more than 380 billion yuan ($53 billion) in cloud computing and AI infrastructure over a three-year period, representing its largest financial commitment to this sector.

This investment demonstrates a wider industry belief across China’s technology sector that AI computing demand will continue growing as businesses implement agent-based software solutions.

Alibaba revealed the chip during its yearly Alibaba Cloud Summit, along with introducing a new server configuration called the Panjiu AL128, which combines 128 of these processors into one rack system.

The server system became immediately available to Chinese business customers via Alibaba Cloud’s domestic platform, called Bailian.

T-Head reported delivering more than 560,000 Zhenwu processors so far, with over 400 external clients spanning 20 different sectors, including automotive manufacturers and financial services companies, currently using these chips.

Alibaba additionally announced Qwen 3.7-Max, the newest iteration of its primary large language model, which the company stated was built for sophisticated programming tasks and extended agent operations. The firm claimed this model can function continuously for up to 35 hours without any decline in performance.

Marine biologists have documented two humpback whales that completed extraordinary migrations spanning the Pacific Ocean between Australia and Brazil, setting new distance records for the species.

Researchers identified the massive marine mammals through their unique tail markings captured at locations roughly 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) apart. Both whales swam in different directions and covered greater distances than any previously documented humpback whale journey.

“It’s a very rare event, but it is a really wonderful demonstration of just how wide-ranging these animals are,” said Phillip Clapham, former head of a NOAA whale research program who was not involved with the new findings.

These massive creatures are famous for their extensive ocean travels following established migration patterns, usually routes passed down from their mothers. During warmer seasons, they hunt for krill and small fish, then move to tropical breeding areas when winter arrives.

Monitoring animals that live primarily beneath the ocean surface presents significant challenges for scientists. For this research, marine biologists examined more than 19,000 whale photographs collected over four decades by research teams and volunteer citizen scientists.

Computer recognition technology helped researchers match whales by analyzing their tail fins’ unique color markings and irregular edges. Scientists confirmed two distinct whales appeared at breeding locations in eastern Australia and Brazil across multiple years, indicating they had made the crossing between these distant regions.

One whale’s journey measured just over 9,300 miles (15,000 kilometers), surpassing earlier record holders including a humpback that swam from Colombia to Zanzibar.

The research findings appeared Tuesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Because photographs only captured the whales at their starting and ending points, scientists cannot determine the precise paths they followed during their epic voyages.

Since whales rarely migrate between different mating areas, researchers remain uncertain about what motivated these two animals to undertake such unusual journeys. The whales might have encountered other whale groups at common feeding areas and chosen to follow them rather than return to their original locations, study co-author Stephanie Stack with the Pacific Whale Foundation said in an email.

“Finding not one but two individuals that have crossed between Australia and Brazil challenges what we thought we knew about how separate these populations really are,” Stack said.

Similar long-distance travels prove more challenging for whales in the Northern Hemisphere, where large landmasses create barriers to cross-ocean migration.

Researchers noted these record-setting journeys demonstrate the remarkable traveling capabilities of humpback whales. These tracking techniques could prove valuable for monitoring whale populations as climate change alters ocean temperatures, potentially shifting krill habitats and affecting where humpbacks travel to feed and reproduce.

Electrical outages are becoming more frequent nationwide as extreme weather intensifies due to climate change. Underground power infrastructure proves far more dependable than overhead cables during severe storms and weather events.

Currently, only approximately one-fifth of America’s electrical grid runs below ground, despite the superior reliability of buried systems. The vast majority of power distribution still relies on overhead lines that remain vulnerable to wind, ice, and falling trees.

In northern Michigan, several utility companies are now exploring initiatives to transition more of their electrical infrastructure underground as a strategy to improve service reliability for customers.

The tech giant is preparing to launch an extensive collection of artificial intelligence innovations, featuring a digital assistant designed to handle tasks automatically for users without constant supervision.

The concept of “agentic” AI took center stage during the company’s yearly developer gathering, Google I/O, held this week. The forthcoming AI assistant, called Gemini Spark, represented just one highlight among numerous revelations shared at Tuesday’s event.

“We are firmly in our agentic Gemini era,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday before a packed amphitheater near the company’s Mountain View, California, headquarters. “I’ve played around with all sorts of agents and you can really see the potential, but it’s still early days when it comes to making agents easy to use, super secure and truly helpful.”

The search company and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., have invested billions of dollars in artificial intelligence research and development. A top financial executive revealed during an investor call in late April that capital spending could reach as much as $190 billion this year. However, these investments appear to be generating returns, with quarterly financial results demonstrating robust growth. Share prices have increased an additional 11% following the earnings announcement.

During his keynote presentation, Pichai revealed that the Gemini application reached 400 million monthly users last year, but has now exceeded 900 million users, representing more than double the previous year’s figure.

The company’s newest suite of models, called Gemini 3.5, began rolling out Tuesday to users worldwide, starting with Gemini 3.5 Flash. The Flash version prioritizes processing speed, and the company claims 3.5 Flash represents its most powerful agentic and coding model to date, while operating approximately four times faster than competing systems.

This model now serves as the standard for the Gemini application and “AI mode” within the company’s search platform. Development continues on the 3.5 version of Gemini Pro, which is currently being tested internally with an expected launch next month.

Gemini 3.5 incorporates enhanced safety protocols and protective measures, reducing the likelihood of producing harmful material or incorrectly declining to respond to legitimate inquiries, according to company officials.

The announcement also included details about Gemini Omni, a new model enabling users to produce high-quality video content through various input methods, including text, images, videos and audio. Videos generated by Omni can be modified easily through conversational interactions with the system. Future capabilities will include image and audio creation, though no timeline was provided for these additions.

Company representatives explained that Omni’s video output will appear more lifelike than content from competing models due to its comprehension of physical principles such as gravity, kinetic energy and fluid dynamics.

Gemini Omni Flash, the initial release in the Omni series, became available Tuesday for Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscribers via the Gemini app and Google Flow. Starting this week, it will be offered at no charge through YouTube Shorts and YouTube Create App.

Every video produced with Omni will feature the company’s invisible digital watermark, SynthID, while content verification capabilities are being added to the Gemini application. This feature identifies whether photos or videos were generated by AI or captured with camera equipment and modified using AI tools. The verification system will appear in Chrome search results in upcoming months. The company also announced that AI firms Open AI, Kakao and Eleven Labs are incorporating its SynthID technology into more of their AI-generated material.

Operating on Gemini 3.5 technology, Gemini Spark will handle repetitive, everyday responsibilities such as organizing meeting notes, emails and messages, then producing documents containing key insights and action items. Unlike existing assistants, Spark functions through cloud computing, allowing it to continue operating even when users close their laptops or lock their devices.

The autonomous capabilities of AI assistants distinguish them from traditional chatbots, though this functionality has also generated concerns about the technology’s influence. Gemini Spark is programmed to request approval before executing “high-stakes” actions such as sending emails or making purchases, the company explained.

A limited group of testers will gain access to the assistant starting Tuesday, with plans to expand beta access to U.S.-based subscribers of the Google AI Ultra service.

This summer, Gemini Spark will function directly within the Chrome browser, according to company officials.

During last year’s conference, the most significant development was the introduction and deployment of “AI mode” for the company’s search engine. This feature provides users with conversational responses to their inquiries before displaying relevant links, building upon previously implemented changes that transformed how users experience and interact with the platform.

AI mode searches have more than doubled each quarter since launching last year, with the feature recently exceeding 1 billion monthly users, according to Liz Reid, Google’s head of search.

The updated default model for search will now be Gemini 3.5 Flash, and the company is launching what it describes as an intelligent search interface. This modification, which Reid characterizes as the most significant search box improvement in 25 years, means the interface will adjust to accommodate longer queries and can assist users in formulating their questions through AI-powered suggestions rather than traditional autocomplete.

Users can now search using multiple input types, incorporating text, images, video, files and even Chrome browser tabs as search parameters. The enhanced search interface begins its rollout Tuesday in all countries and languages where AI mode is currently accessible.

The company also revealed a new feature called the Universal Cart, described as “a truly intelligent shopping cart.” It operates across different retailers and services, allowing users to add items while browsing search results, chatting with Gemini, watching YouTube, or reading emails in Gmail. The cart utilizes Gemini models to immediately begin working when items are added, searching for discounts and price reductions, providing pricing history data and notifying users when out-of-stock items become available.

The Universal Cart feature will become available to users through search and the Gemini app this summer, with YouTube and Gmail integration following later.

College students celebrating their graduation are making their feelings about artificial intelligence crystal clear – and they’re not happy about it. At commencement ceremonies nationwide, graduates have loudly jeered speakers who brought up the topic of AI during what should be celebratory addresses.

The former head of Google, Eric Schmidt, encountered vocal disapproval this past weekend while delivering remarks to roughly 10,000 graduates at the University of Arizona. When Schmidt discussed AI’s expanding influence, the crowd’s displeasure became audible.

“It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person and every relationship you have,” Schmidt said, as booing began to build in the audience.

“I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you,” Schmidt responded as the boos continued. “There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating … and I understand that fear.”

The subject matter struck students as insensitive, according to Olivia Malone, a 22-year-old University of Arizona graduate heading to law school.

“His speech was incredibly disrespectful to students,” said Malone. “We as students are discouraged from using it and penalized for using it. And then to have our speaker be the champion of AI is just like, OK? Why?”

The hostile reception toward commencement speakers discussing AI at various institutions reveals widespread concern among current college students.

Students nationwide and through numerous recent studies express worry about determining which abilities, academic fields and career paths will remain relevant as AI advances.

Research from the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School shows roughly 70% of college students view AI as threatening their employment opportunities in a 2025 survey.

Recent polling by Gallup examining Generation Z individuals and young adults aged 14 to 29 revealed growing pessimism toward AI technology. Approximately half of Gen Z teenagers and adults report using AI on a daily or weekly basis. However, frustration with the technology has grown compared to last year, while enthusiasm and optimism about AI continues dropping.

Real estate executive Gloria Caulfield encountered similar pushback when she emphasized artificial intelligence’s emergence during her keynote address this month at the University of Central Florida.

“The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution,” Caulfield said, as boos erupted, to her surprise. She turned around to ask those behind her, “What happened?”

“OK, I struck a chord. May I finish?” said Caulfield, who is vice president of strategic alliances at the Tavistock Development Company in Orlando.

“Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives,” she said, prompting cheers. “And now, AI capabilities are in the palm of our hand,” she said to more jeering.

Music industry executive Scott Borchetta received comparable treatment when addressing Middle Tennessee State University’s graduating class about AI’s impact on the music business.

“AI is rewriting production as we sit here,” said Borchetta, the CEO of Big Machine Records, as the students in caps and gowns booed. “I know it. Deal with it … Do something about it. It’s a tool. Make it work for you.”

Schmidt delivered comparable guidance to graduates: While their concerns are understandable, they possess the ability to influence AI’s future development.

The recommendations didn’t resonate with students like Malone, who felt the former Google executive’s remarks served his own interests rather than inspiring graduates.

“It felt like a big advertisement. It felt like the longest Gemini ad ever,” said Malone, noting that the choice of Schmidt as keynote speaker had also been controversial because his name appears in the Epstein files. “Everybody I was sitting by was really hooting and hollering about that, yelling, ‘Epstein files! Epstein files!’”

Some of the negative response from new graduates comes from the challenging employment landscape they’re facing. Unemployment among college graduates between ages 22 and 27 has climbed to its highest point in twelve years.

Sami Wargo recently completed her studies at Marquette University in Milwaukee, where an AI specialist served as the undergraduate commencement speaker despite student efforts to petition the school for a different choice.

“Given how AI has become an increasing threat towards our jobs, especially for our graduating class, we thought it was a little bit tone deaf,” said Wargo, who majored in digital media and minored in advertising.

Chris Duffey, an AI evangelist at Adobe who recently used AI to “co-author” a book titled “Superhuman Innovation: Transforming Business with Artificial Intelligence,” took the stage anyway.

“Innovation,” he told the students, “will reveal what can be done, but only you can decide what should be done.”

Wargo reported that she participated with fellow students around her in expressing disapproval of his remarks.

The 21-year-old has submitted applications for approximately 30 positions but hasn’t secured employment yet. Many job postings require applicants to “collaborate with AI,” but “I don’t know what that means,” she said, noting that most of her classes banned her from using AI.

Being forced to confront all the uncertainty during their graduation ceremony, she explained, created another “little dent in what was supposed to be a celebratory day.”

The CEO of Alphabet will launch Google’s yearly developer gathering on Tuesday in Mountain View, California, where the technology company plans to unveil numerous artificial intelligence enhancements targeting both everyday users and programmers.

The I/O conference this year marks Google’s premier showcase event since the tech firm’s significant winter enhancement to its Gemini AI system allowed it to recover momentum in the artificial intelligence competition.

Alphabet, Google’s parent organization, has recently approached Nvidia’s position as the globe’s most valuable corporation. The company may aim to strengthen its status on Tuesday by presenting an updated Gemini version along with fresh products and capabilities powered by the model’s technology.

The search giant has worked to leverage its extensive consumer base as an advantage in AI development, linking Gemini to individual user information throughout its product ecosystem including Chrome, Gmail, and YouTube.

The organization is incorporating generative AI into its core search platform while working to attract users to its chatbot, which shares the Gemini name and rivals ChatGPT.

Search represented Alphabet’s primary income source in 2025, contributing to the company’s $402.8 billion total revenue. The firm is increasing AI infrastructure investment, projecting $180 billion to $190 billion in capital spending this year.

Revenue from advertising, including search advertisements, has sustained Google’s expansion in recent quarters, calming investor concerns that AI might disrupt the company’s offerings and weaken its market control.

Competitors OpenAI and Anthropic in the AI space have been preparing for public offerings, concentrating on securing profitable business clients. Google is also anticipated to allocate conference time toward enterprises, especially software developers who represent a key source of business AI income.

During 2025, the company acquired essential personnel from well-known AI programming startup Windsurf through a $2.4 billion transaction to strengthen its coding assistant Antigravity, which competes with Anthropic’s leading Claude Code development tool.

The company increasingly promotes digital assistants it terms agents, capable of performing complex tasks independently, as central to its AI monetization approach. The CEO and other leaders discussed this strategy at a business-focused cloud computing event last month.

The CEO of Google Cloud said during that event the company was reserving most coding-related announcements for the I/O conference.

SpaceX stands ready to launch its 12th unmanned test flight of the next-generation Starship rocket this week, marking the maiden voyage of a newly enhanced vehicle that company officials view as essential to Elon Musk’s plans to attract investors and advance deeper space exploration.

The inaugural flight of the Starship V3, equipped with fresh capabilities engineered to enable future lunar and Martian missions, represents a crucial evaluation for both the spacecraft and investor trust before SpaceX’s anticipated initial public offering scheduled for next month.

The completely reusable rocket system plays a vital role in Musk’s objectives to significantly reduce launch expenses, grow his Starlink satellite enterprise, and pursue ambitions spanning from orbital data facilities to human missions between planets — all elements factored into the company’s target $1.75 trillion IPO valuation.

“For an IPO that is leaning so heavily into narrative and symbolism, we believe this flight is the single most important pre-IPO catalyst remaining on SpaceX’s calendar,” PitchBook senior research analyst Franco Granda said.

The massive spacecraft, featuring the upper-stage Starship crew vehicle mounted on top of its Super Heavy booster rocket, was scheduled for launch no earlier than 5:30 p.m. CDT on Wednesday (2230 GMT) from the SpaceX operations in Starbase, Texas, located on the Gulf of Mexico.

Beyond serving as the maiden flight for both the V3 Starship and Super Heavy, test flight 12 will also represent the first launch from a newly constructed launch platform built for the more robust rocket.

Among the primary enhancements to the booster rocket is an overhaul of its 33 Raptor engines to generate increased thrust from a configuration that weighs considerably less.

The propulsion system of the upper-stage Starship has similarly been improved for extended-duration missions, incorporating mechanisms to enable ship-to-ship docking, orbital refueling and enhanced maneuverability.

A crucial indicator of success for upcoming test missions will be post-flight recovery of Starship and the Super Heavy booster, which are under development as reusable vehicles.

SpaceX announced it would not attempt to safely land or recover either section of the spacecraft from this launch. However, test goals include performing several return-flight procedures by the booster and Starship, including controlled landing burns before each vehicle touches down in the ocean.

The Super Heavy is projected to descend in the Gulf of Mexico approximately seven minutes after launch. Starship’s “exciting landing,” as SpaceX describes it, is expected roughly an hour afterward in the Indian Ocean.

Prior to that landing, mission plans require Starship’s payload to deploy a collection of 20 Starlink simulators, along with two real satellites adapted to monitor the spacecraft’s heat shield and relay information to ground operators during re-entry.

SpaceX’s engineering approach, viewed as more risk-accepting than many established aerospace industry companies, relies on a flight-testing methodology that drives newly created spacecraft to their breaking point, then refines improvements through regular repetition.

It remains uncertain how investors evaluating SpaceX’s upcoming IPO will balance Musk’s tolerance for near-term risk-taking with his long-range goals for lunar and interplanetary space travel.

Musk, who established his California-based rocket company in 2002, stated one year ago that he anticipated Starship making its first unmanned journey to Mars at the end of 2026.

A successful test flight would help strengthen SpaceX’s argument that Starship, the world’s largest and most powerful rocket ever launched, is approaching commercial readiness following years of explosive failures and development setbacks.

Multiple Starship tankers would be required to fill one Starship with sufficient fuel for a moon landing under SpaceX’s proposed lunar mission plan.

That forms part of a $3 billion-plus contract SpaceX secured in 2021 under NASA’s Artemis program, the U.S. initiative to return astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade for the first time since 1972 at the conclusion of the Apollo era. Those plans position Starship at the heart of a new space race with China, which targets a crewed lunar landing of its own in 2030.

NEW YORK (AP) — A biotechnology firm working to bring back extinct animals announced Tuesday that it successfully hatched living chickens using an artificial environment — news that has drawn both praise and skepticism from researchers and opponents of de-extinction projects.

According to Colossal Biosciences, 26 baby chickens — with ages spanning from several days to multiple months — were successfully born using a 3D-printed lattice design that replicates natural eggshell properties.

The company has previously revealed successful genetic modification of living creatures to mirror extinct species, creating mice with lengthy fur resembling woolly mammoths and wolf puppies engineered to look like dire wolves.

Ben Lamm, who serves as Colossal’s CEO, explained that this artificial egg system could eventually be expanded to genetically modify living birds to resemble New Zealand’s extinct South Island giant moa, whose eggs measure 80 times larger than chicken eggs and would pose significant challenges for any contemporary bird to produce.

“We wanted to build something that nature has done a pretty good job of developing and make it better and scalable and even more efficient,” Lamm said.

Outside researchers acknowledge the technology’s impressive nature but note it’s missing key elements to truly qualify as an artificial egg. They also expressed doubt about the possibility of actually reviving extinct species.

“They might be able to use this technology to help them make a genetically modified bird, but that’s just a genetically modified bird. It’s not a moa,” said evolutionary biologist Vincent Lynch with the University at Buffalo.

The chicken hatching process involved Colossal researchers placing fertilized eggs into their artificial system within an incubator environment. They supplemented the setup with calcium, which developing chicks typically absorb from natural eggshells, and monitored embryo development and growth through real-time imaging.

Researchers note that Colossal has created an artificial eggshell featuring a membrane that permits proper oxygen flow, similar to natural eggs. However, other essential egg components — including temporary organs that typically form to feed and support the developing chick while removing waste — were absent from their system.

“That’s not an artificial egg because you’ve poured in all the other parts that make it an egg. It’s an artificial eggshell,” said Lynch.

Previous researchers have employed more basic methods to develop transparent eggshells that successfully hatched chicks using plastic films or sacks. These approaches prove valuable for studying chicken development and gaining knowledge applicable to other mammals and humans.

“Producing a chick from an artificial vessel is not necessarily new,” said Nicola Hemmings, who studies bird reproductive biology at the University of Sheffield. Hemmings is not part of the Colossal team.

Significant work remains before Colossal can attempt moa resurrection through this artificial egg technology. Researchers must first analyze ancient DNA from well-preserved moa bones against genomes of existing bird species. They also need to develop larger eggshell systems.

“We didn’t want to wait till we were ready to birth a giant moa. We actually wanted to start working on the engineering challenges for surrogacy and birth now,” Lamm said.

Should Colossal manage to create a large bird resembling the moa, some researchers worry about post-creation challenges — particularly how such creatures would survive in today’s drastically different environment.

“The big challenge is, what environment is this animal going to live in?” said bioethicist Arthur Caplan with New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.

These de-extinction projects might prove more practical with currently endangered species, where researchers could preserve reproductive cells from living animals to help increase populations, Hemmings suggested.

“My personal interests lie more in preserving what we’ve got than trying to bring back what is already gone,” Hemmings said.

OAKLAND, Calif. — The artificial intelligence company behind ChatGPT has successfully defended itself against a legal challenge from Elon Musk, keeping OpenAI — valued at $852 billion — positioned for what may become one of history’s largest public stock offerings.

Musk’s lawsuit aimed to remove his former business partner, CEO Sam Altman, along with implementing other company changes. However, while OpenAI won the case, witness testimony questioning Altman’s honesty has left the CEO’s reputation damaged.

During a period when artificial intelligence’s societal effects face increased scrutiny, this significant legal proceeding revealed problems and excessive ambitions among the limited group of wealthy individuals directing this transformative technology’s advancement.

According to Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute, the proceedings served as evidence “of how much the future of AI still depends on a remarkably small group of powerful tech figures and their personal rivalries.”

“The trial highlighted not just a dispute between Musk and Altman, but a broader disconnect between the people building these systems and many of the people increasingly expected to live and work alongside them,” Kreps said.

Musk’s allegations centered on claims that OpenAI, Altman and his senior associate Greg Brockman abandoned their original commitment to operate as a nonprofit organization focused on developing AI for humanity’s benefit. Altman countered by claiming Musk sought to damage the ChatGPT company to advantage his competing AI business.

A nine-member federal jury in Oakland, California ruled Monday that Musk filed his legal action too late, missing required deadlines. Following three weeks of proceedings featuring hundreds of evidence pieces and testimony from major technology industry figures, jurors needed less than two hours to reach their decision based essentially on procedural grounds.

Musk announced plans to challenge the ruling and criticized Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who presided over the case, calling her a “terrible activist Oakland judge, who simply used the jury as a fig leaf” to establish harmful legal precedent. “She just handed out a free license to loot charities if you can keep the looting quiet for a few years!” Musk posted on his social media platform X.

This represents Musk’s second significant courtroom defeat in under two months.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers indicated early in the trial that she wanted to prevent it from becoming an AI safety debate. Nevertheless, unresolved concerns about artificial intelligence’s potential to cause job displacement, mental health problems and even threaten human survival formed a constant background, with demonstrators regularly protesting both Musk and Altman outside the federal courthouse.

Protesters’ messages identified ordinary citizens as the true victims, whose lives face disruption from an industry dominated by disconnected billionaires engaged in personal conflicts.

“This is a funny microcosm of this moment where we have this hugely important technology that’s being developed by for-profit corporations run by people like Musk and Altman and not as the part of some government-led initiative,” said Columbia Law School professor Dorothy Lund.

The legal proceedings exposed Silicon Valley’s chaotic internal operations through emails, personal journal entries and sometimes humiliating text message conversations presented as evidence. Messages between Altman and a former OpenAI executive generated internet memes and inspired parody music.

The trial illuminated circumstances surrounding Altman’s 2023 removal from OpenAI’s board, followed by his return several days later. Multiple witnesses including former board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley testified about concerns regarding Altman’s honesty.

During the entire trial, OpenAI dismissed Musk’s betrayal accusations as baseless complaints motivated by resentment, designed to undermine the company’s rapid expansion while supporting Musk’s own artificial intelligence venture, xAI, now integrated with SpaceX.

Both Musk’s SpaceX and OpenAI are preparing major public stock offerings, as is Anthropic, established by seven former OpenAI executives.

“It’s a lot of dirty laundry that doesn’t look very appealing, I suppose, and so that may hurt their reputation and may have downstream effects on all kinds of things that you can’t even anticipate,” said University of Richmond Law School professor Carl Tobias. “But you know, AI is likely to come forward and continue even if it isn’t OpenAI.”

CANNES, France — The world’s most prestigious film festival has become a gathering place where movie industry concerns bubble to the surface, and this year artificial intelligence dominates the conversation.

The 79th edition of the festival may be remembered as the first time this celebrated event seriously confronted AI’s impact — its influence has swept across the French Riviera like a massive wave. Since the festival began, there’s been continuous discussion about AI’s power to transform cinema, whether positively or negatively.

However, attitudes appear to be shifting in many circles.

“The buzz in Cannes and the buzz in the industry, it does feel like it’s definitely a turning point,” said Scott Mann, co-chief executive of Flawless, a company that specializes in assistive AI programs for post-production.

AI technology has become much more visible both in films and behind the scenes.

This marks the first time the festival has entered into a partnership with Meta through a new multiyear agreement. The tech company has established a presence at the Majestic Hotel. Meta’s AI technology was utilized in creating a festival submission: Steven Soderbergh’s “John Lennon: The Last Interview.”

The film documents an extensive and revealing conversation that Lennon and Yoko Ono conducted on the same day Lennon was murdered in 1980. To create visual elements accompanying Lennon’s words, Soderbergh employed Meta’s artificial intelligence software to generate dreamlike imagery.

This decision drew harsh criticism from many festival reviewers, but Soderbergh, a skilled pioneer who has filmed movies using iPhones, feels the time has come for such creative exploration.

“We haven’t seen yet someone with a certain amount of creative credibility go full-metal AI on something, and see how people react. I think it’s necessary,” Soderbergh said in an interview. “How do you know where the line is until somebody crosses it? I don’t think what I’m doing crosses it. Some people may disagree. I don’t know where my line is yet. I’m waiting to see.”

Industry professionals attending the festival have been establishing their own boundaries and making public statements about artificial intelligence.

During the opening ceremony, jury member Demi Moore declared that opposing AI “is a battle we will lose.” The following day, honorary Palme d’Or winner Peter Jackson stated: “I don’t dislike it at all. To me, it’s just a special effect. It’s no different from other special effects.”

Director James Gray, whose star-studded family story “Paper Tiger” emerged as a weekend highlight, expressed confidence about the technology.

“In some cases, it can be a very helpful tool,” said Gray in an interview. “I don’t think in our lifetime, or even our children’s lifetimes, it will come close to mirroring the only true infinite we know, which is the soul.”

“The answer I think is that most young people should be studying the humanities,” added Gray. “People should be reading Tolstoy in their spare time to understand the human soul.”

The festival is taking place following several major AI-related developments in Hollywood.

This month, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science announced new policies, declaring that only performances “demonstrably performed by humans with their consent” will be eligible for acting awards.

Simultaneously, the Oscar organization stated that AI tools “neither help nor harm the chance of a nomination.”

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists recently secured a preliminary deal with studios that outlines and clarifies AI protections regarding digital doubles and computer-generated performers.

Certain technological advances have caused alarm throughout Hollywood. The introduction of Tilly Norwood, a completely AI-generated “actress,” triggered industry-wide anger. This year, the first preview of a digital recreation of Val Kilmer after his death, created with his family’s approval, generated another wave of controversy.

Although more extreme applications of generative AI continue causing concern, other versions are gaining acceptance.

“It is going to be a part of our business,” Kent Sanderson, Bleecker Street chief executive, said in a panel discussion. “It is going to lower production costs, and yes, you probably will be able to make something that looks like a Marvel movie in your basement in a couple of years.”

Despite having strict regulations about red carpet attire, the festival isn’t implementing any rules prohibiting AI in film entries — at least not yet.

Before the festival commenced, artistic director Thierry Frémaux responded cleverly to an AI question, observing that he had also heard James Cameron used special effects for “Avatar.”

“What I can say with certainty in relation to artificial intelligence is that we are on the side of the artists, the screenwriters, actors and voice actors,” said Frémaux. “We stand with everyone whose job could be negatively impacted by artificial intelligence. It requires legislation. We need to control this.”

Mann, the Flawless executive, was positioned on the festival beach outside a celebration his company was hosting at one of the waterfront venues that frequently hold film industry gatherings. Since 2019, Flawless has worked to show that AI can be applied responsibly.

He firmly opposes unlicensed generative AI.

“But what we’ve found is that the way people don’t understand is part of the problem. AI as a term is seen as a catchall, but it’s not that simple,” says Scott. “The truth is, our industry needs saving. It needs a technological evolution, and this is offering it.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump recently criticized the reliability of climate change forecasts in a social media message that mischaracterized scientific research, modeling updates and international climate policy discussions.

The United Nations regularly publishes comprehensive scientific assessments examining current trends and future possibilities regarding human-driven climate change. Researchers periodically revise some scenarios used for future forecasting. A critical factor determining the extent and consequences of coming climate change involves carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas. Higher carbon pollution leads to increased global warming, so researchers build their forecasts around various potential scenarios.

These scenarios sparked the president’s weekend social media message. Here’s an examination of the facts:

TRUMP: “GOOD RIDDANCE! After 15 years of Dumocrats promising that ‘Climate change’ is going to destroy the Planet, the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that its own projections (RCP8.5) were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!”

THE FACTS: Trump referenced forecasting models from 2011 developed by scientists connected to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that received updates in research published in a scientific publication this spring. The revision determined that the previous worst-case scenario — known as RCP8.5 — was unlikely.

These modifications led scientists and non-scientists who minimize climate change dangers or question climate science to attack the international climate research panel’s decades of work on social media, which earned a Nobel Prize. The changes also prompted leading climate researchers to explain why including improbable scenarios remains necessary and to highlight that the revision also shows how dramatically the world has expanded cleaner energy usage, including solar and wind power and electric vehicles. This has caused rapidly rising carbon emissions to essentially level off.

Even during its development 15 years ago, that worst-case scenario remained unlikely — other scenarios were deemed more probable. However, the most extreme scenario stayed possible if the world pursued heavy fossil fuel consumption, particularly continued extensive coal use, the dirtiest fossil fuel. It forecast end-of-century warming around 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) above mid-1800s levels.

This wasn’t fear-mongering, stated climate researcher Detlef Van Vuuren of Utrecht University, lead author of the new research outlining future scenarios, and Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

Even with minimal projected warming “we enter danger,” Rockström stated. “We enter danger both from extreme events (such as floods, heat waves and droughts) but also from risks of crossing tipping points” such as loss of coral and glaciers.

The now-abandoned scenario represented “a relevant low-probability high-risk scenario” serving to help governments “be prepared with the possible risks of climate change. For instance, living in the Netherlands — a country possibly vulnerable to flooding — I would not like my government to only look at the best-guess scenario, but also explore what the risks are,” Van Vuuren stated.

“The risks of climate change have not disappeared. The good news is that we did not follow the most dramatic emission pathway. However, we are still heading towards a future with significant climate impacts; a future that we should avoid,” Van Vuuren added.

It represents a future of suffering and increased deaths, but was never about completely destroying the planet, stated Cornell University climate researcher Natalie Mahowald.

Nine out of 10 climate researchers interviewed by The Associated Press stated the worst-case scenario that was abandoned seemed unlikely but still possible when initially released. However, they noted this has changed due to rapid growth in carbon-free wind and solar energy technologies that has made them occasionally cheaper than fossil fuels.

Eliminating the old worst-case scenario occurs because “we are making progress in slowing climate change with a well-established affordable range of solutions — especially, solar, wind, battery storage, and electrified transportation,” stated University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck.

TRUMP: “My administration will always be based on TRUTH, SCIENCE, and FACT!”

THE FACTS: A major Trump administration climate action was initially supported by a document presented as scientific research that scientists called inaccurate and was later abandoned.

In July 2025, the Trump administration announced it would overturn an Obama-era scientific determination by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that climate change threatened America’s public health. Supporting this decision, the Department of Energy released a 151-page document by its Climate Working Group, claiming climate change wasn’t significantly harmful.

Numerous scientists informed the AP that the Trump justification document contained errors, bias and misrepresentations.

The National Academy of Sciences, established by President Abraham Lincoln to counsel the federal government on scientific matters, released a prompt assessment challenging the Trump document and stating “human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate change harm the health of people in the United States.” Additionally, 85 scientists wrote a letter declaring the Trump assertions “are misleading or outright wrong.”

When the Trump administration formally reversed the EPA endangerment determination in February, it excluded the scientific justification from the Department of Energy that scientists had challenged.

Scientists at Tel Aviv University have developed a groundbreaking experimental therapy for spinal cord injuries that dramatically reduced nerve damage and enhanced motor function recovery in laboratory animal studies. The research team believes this innovative approach could revolutionize treatment methods for both spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.

The research, conducted by the Gray Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences at Tel Aviv University and published recently in the journal Inflammation and Regeneration, targeted the prevention of secondary damage that occurs following the original spinal cord trauma. The scientists reported that their treatment decreased inflammation, reduced scar tissue development, and prevented nerve cell deterioration while enhancing the restoration of movement and walking capabilities.

“This study presents an innovative therapeutic approach that significantly reduces early nerve cell damage after spinal cord injury and improves functional recovery. Treated animals achieved up to 80% recovery of motor function, highlighting the therapy’s potential to dramatically improve outcomes after injury,” the researchers said.

The research team was headed by Dr. Angela Ruban from the Stanley Steyer School of Health Professions at the Gray Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, working alongside Dr. Yona Goldshmit and students Josef Levin, Rosemary Lavender, Alexander Yakovchuk, Evgeny Banyas, and Ruth Baltovska. A CRO independently confirmed the results as part of NeuroHagana’s preclinical development program under Dr. Amit Benbenishty’s leadership.

According to the researchers, spinal cord trauma causes a quick accumulation of glutamate, a brain chemical that can lead to further nerve cell destruction, inflammation, deterioration, and tissue scarring. Their innovative therapy operates by eliminating excessive glutamate from the blood circulation within the initial hours following trauma.

During animal experiments, treated subjects regained up to 80% of typical motor abilities two months post-treatment, while untreated animals recovered only approximately 30%. The scientists noted that the therapy showed effectiveness when given as late as 8 hours post-injury and could be administered by emergency personnel through a straightforward intravenous injection.

Dr. Ruban indicated the results suggest it might be feasible to halt the secondary damage cascade following injury, while Dr. Goldshmit noted the technique could potentially apply to stroke and traumatic brain injuries as well. The research team is currently investigating its possible application for blast-related head trauma stemming from the Oct. 7 attacks and subsequent conflict.

Inside an unremarkable facility at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico’s high desert, sophisticated liquid-cooled computing systems quietly work through some of America’s most challenging mathematical calculations: modeling hypersonic nuclear weapons traveling through Earth’s atmosphere and simulating nuclear warhead interactions.

For over ten years, the processors powering this classified and intensive work originated from major semiconductor companies such as Nvidia or Advanced Micro Devices.

However, as these corporations focus more on creating processors for artificial intelligence applications while dealing with supply constraints, administrators overseeing the systems at Sandia National Laboratories – which runs the computers at Kirtland and serves as one of three U.S. facilities responsible for creating and maintaining America’s nuclear weapons stockpile – face growing uncertainty about securing computing resources for their high-precision scientific calculations.

“The pressure we’re feeling right now is on the computing front and also from the supply chain,” said Steve Monk, the manager of Sandia’s high-performance computing team, explaining the challenge of getting chips that meet his needs. “Looking to the future, it’s a bit stressful in terms of our ability to deliver to the mission.”

The laboratory’s situation demonstrates how the competition for superior AI processors has unexpectedly created opportunities for smaller companies like NextSilicon, an Israeli startup whose processors are undergoing evaluation through a Sandia program, to enter markets previously controlled by industry giants. This also highlights Sandia’s role in nurturing and developing new computing technologies, having previously collaborated extensively with Nvidia during the company’s rise in supercomputing and continuing to work with Nvidia on innovative memory solutions.

A primary worry for Sandia officials involves double-precision floating point computation, a technical concept referring to the ability to calculate extremely large and small numbers while maintaining accuracy and avoiding rounding mistakes. For years, Nvidia and AMD competed to advance this type of computing speed, securing supercomputing agreements with universities and government laboratories.

However, AI applications don’t require double-precision computing to the same extent as physics simulations. Although AMD is developing a chip version targeted at scientific computing, the double-precision capabilities of Nvidia’s upcoming Rubin processors have decreased by certain standards, causing concern among numerous scientists in the high-performance computing field, according to Ian Cutress, chief analyst at More Than Moore, a chip consulting firm.

Daniel Ernst, senior director of supercomputing products at Nvidia, said the company remains committed to scientific computing, aiming to create a balanced chip that can run real-world scientific applications alongside AI work.

The evolving processor market has led Sandia officials to evaluate products from newcomers like NextSilicon, whose processor employs an entirely different computational method than graphics processing units (GPUs) or central processing units (CPUs) from Nvidia and AMD.

On Monday, Sandia, NextSilicon and Penguin Solutions, the company that integrated NextSilicon’s processors into a supercomputer, announced the systems have achieved an important technical benchmark using comprehensive supercomputing evaluations that qualify the processors for potential government system deployment.

This achievement positions NextSilicon’s processors for an autumn decision regarding whether to begin testing them with more challenging computational problems that closely mirror the nuclear security work they would ultimately need to perform.

NextSilicon’s processors can execute double-precision computing and are engineered to reconfigure themselves dynamically for improved efficiency. The company’s chips conserve power by utilizing a data flow architecture that reduces the time and energy spent moving data between the computing system’s memory.

Sandia’s collaboration with chip companies frequently helps technologies gain widespread adoption. Liquid cooling systems for processors were considered unusual when Sandia began encouraging Intel, AMD and Nvidia to develop the technology over ten years ago, and they are now standard.

James Laros, a senior scientist at Sandia who oversees a program to test new computing architectures at Sandia, said the work with smaller players like NextSilicon is aimed at ensuring Sandia can always procure the chips it needs, even if major chip firms shift focus.

“We have to keep available options to complete our mission, because the mission is not optional,” Laros said.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Monday that he anticipates autonomous vehicles operating without human drivers will become more common throughout the United States before the end of this year.

During a video presentation at the Smart Mobility Summit in Tel Aviv, Musk revealed that driverless cars are currently functioning in three Texas cities without safety operators present, and stated this program would grow to cover the entire country within 2024.

Looking ahead to the future of transportation, Musk made bold predictions about artificial intelligence taking over driving duties. “Five years from now and certainly 10 years from now … probably 90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car,” he said. “So overwhelmingly, it’ll be quite a niche thing in 10 years to actually be driving your own car.”

ROME (AP) — Irish scholars staring at their computer monitors couldn’t believe what they were seeing as they examined a centuries-old manuscript from a library in Rome. As they scrolled through the digital pages, they discovered an incredible find: the earliest known English poem still in existence.

“We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English, told The Associated Press.

Even more remarkable, she explained, the poem appeared integrated into the primary Latin text: “It was extraordinary.”

Created in Old English by a Northumbrian farm laborer during the 7th century, “Caedmon’s Hymn” is found in certain versions of the “Ecclesiastical History of the English People,” a Latin work authored by a monk and saint called the Venerable Bede. This historical account ranks among the most frequently copied texts from medieval times, with more than 200 manuscripts existing, according to Mark Faulkner, Magnanti’s research partner and an associate professor of medieval literature at Trinity.

Faulkner views Caedmon’s work as the beginning of English literary tradition.

The manuscript discovered by the pair dates back to the 9th century, making it among the earliest versions. While two older copies include the poem in Old English, those versions were added as secondary elements — converted from Latin and written in margins by subsequent scribes or attached separately rather than incorporated into the main text, the researchers explained.

This finding reveals how widely the English language had spread much earlier than scholars previously believed, Faulkner explained during his visit to Rome, where both researchers traveled to examine the actual text for the first time.

“Prior to the discovery of the Rome manuscript, the earliest one was from the early 12th century. So this is three centuries earlier than that. And so it attests to the importance that was already being attached to the English in the early 9th century,” Faulkner said.

The fact that they located it at all seems almost miraculous.

According to tradition, Caedmon created the poem while employed at Whitby Abbey in North Yorkshire, after dinner guests began sharing poetry, Faulkner explained.

“Embarrassed that he didn’t know anything suitable, Caedmon left the feast and went to bed,” he said. “A figure then appeared to him in his dreams telling him to sing about creation, which Caedmon miraculously did, producing the nine-line hymn.”

Nearly 1,400 years later, this version of his poem turned up in Rome’s primary public library — but only after journeying across the Atlantic Ocean multiple times and passing through numerous owners.

Religious scribes created this version of Bede’s historical work in the writing room of the Benedictine abbey of Nonantola, a major manuscript production facility during medieval times, situated near present-day Modena in northern Italy, explained Valentina Longo, who oversees medieval and modern manuscripts at Rome’s National Central Library.

During the 17th century, as the abbey lost significance, its extensive manuscript collection was transferred to another Roman abbey, then relocated to the Vatican and eventually to a small church.

During these moves, some texts disappeared, only to resurface in the early 1800s owned by famous international collectors, Longo noted.

This particular copy of Bede’s history ended up with well-known English antiquarian Thomas Phillipps. When he encountered financial difficulties and began selling portions of his collection, Swiss book collector Martin Bodmer acquired the manuscript. Through unknown circumstances, it eventually reached New York City as part of the collection belonging to Austrian-born rare book dealer H.P. Kraus during the 20th century.

Italy’s culture ministry had been searching globally for Nonantola abbey’s lost manuscripts, purchasing them at auctions and from collectors worldwide. The ministry acquired the Bede history copy from Kraus in 1972, Longo said, and since then this significant text has remained in Rome’s library — though it received little attention.

That changed when Magnanti, who had dedicated more than four years to studying Bede’s history while creating a catalog of surviving copies, entered the picture.

“I knew that the book was listed in the library’s catalog, so I was almost certain that the book was, in fact, still here,” she said. “I realized that, because of the very complex history of this book, no big scholar had really looked at it. So it had been virtually unstudied.”

She contacted the library via email, and staff confirmed the book remained in their collection. Three months afterward, she received digital photographs of the complete manuscript.

The library has converted the entire Nonantolan collection to digital format and made it freely available online, Longo said.

This represents part of an extensive library initiative to provide researchers worldwide with access to thousands of rare books and manuscripts, according to Andrea Cappa, who leads the library’s manuscripts and rare books reading room.

“The discovery made by the experts of Trinity College is just one starting point, a single manuscript that might pave the way for countless other discoveries, in countless other fields, through international cooperation like this,” Cappa said.

On December 8, 1980, the same day John Lennon was fatally shot, the music legend and Yoko Ono conducted an extensive interview with a San Francisco radio team from their residence at New York’s Dakota Apartments.

The couple was publicizing their latest album “Double Fantasy,” but their two-hour discussion covered numerous topics. Despite being told “no Beatles questions,” both Lennon and Ono spoke with remarkable openness. That same day, Annie Leibovitz captured the iconic photograph of an unclothed Lennon embracing Ono.

The conversation reveals intimate details as both artists, especially Lennon, discuss love, their partnership, artistic expression, post-Beatles life, parenting their young son, composing music in bed, and various other subjects. At 40 years old, Lennon appears to have achieved profound understanding.

“I feel like nothing happened before today,” Lennon remarked.

Steven Soderbergh has transformed these preserved recordings into “John Lennon: The Last Interview,” a documentary that strips away mystique from Lennon and Ono similar to how “Get Back” did for the Beatles. The movie premiered Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival.

“I was just so compelled by their generosity of spirit throughout the conversation,” Soderbergh explained during a Saturday interview in Cannes. “It’s like the world took place in one day, in this apartment.”

Creating the film presented a significant challenge. Soderbergh was determined to preserve the audio recording. While he discovered methods to provide visual elements for much of the documentary, a substantial portion remained where the discussion becomes more abstract.

“I worked on everything that could be solved except that for as long as I could,” Soderbergh says. “Then there was the inevitable moment of: OK, but really what are we going to do? We just started playing and ran out of time and money. That’s where the Meta piece came in.”

Soderbergh agreed to utilize Meta’s artificial intelligence technology to generate visuals for those segments, comprising approximately 10% of the documentary. When Soderbergh revealed this information earlier this year, it created significant controversy. One of the nation’s most respected directors was employing AI? In a Beatles member documentary, nonetheless?

The AI sequences (heavily criticized by Cannes reviewers) appear relatively ordinary and resemble standard visual effects. However, Soderbergh positioned himself at the center of an industry-wide discussion regarding AI applications in cinema. For Soderbergh, who has filmed movies using iPhones, this represents a dialogue he welcomes.

SODERBERGH: Transparency is so important (in) that the world outside of the creative context, we’re not aware of the extent that this is being used and used to manipulate us. We don’t know because they’re not telling. We find out after, by accident, by some whistle blower. I’m like my own whistle blower: “This is what he’s doing.”

SODERBERGH: I knew what was coming. I take it very seriously, and I understand why people have an emotional response to this subject. As I’ve said before, I feel like I owe people the best version of whatever art I’m trying to make and total transparency about how I’m doing it. But, yeah, you don’t say yes to Meta offering you these tools and offering to finish the film and not know you’re going to come in for some heat. That was part of the deal.

SODERBERGH: I think most jobs that matter when you’re making a movie cannot be performed by this tech and never will be performed by this tech. As it becomes possible for anybody to create something that meets a certain standard of technical perfection, then imperfection becomes more valuable and more interesting. We haven’t seen yet someone with a certain amount of creative credibility go full-metal AI on something, and see how people react. I think it’s necessary. How do you know where the line is until somebody crosses it? I don’t think what I’m doing crosses it. Some people may disagree. I don’t know where my line is yet. I’m waiting to see.

SODERBERGH: Circles of light that come out of nowhere, things like that. A black rose that turns into a Busby Berkeley thing and then a red rose. I wasn’t very articulate to the people I was working with. It was hard to describe the things I wanted to see. The good part about this technology was at least ability to have something in front of me quickly that I could respond to.

SODERBERGH: I’ve determined my rule is: It has to be necessary. Is it the only way to accomplish what I want to see? Is it truly the best way to do it? That’s the real question. You’re going to see a lot of people doing stuff with AI that fail those two challenges.

SODERBERGH: I needed a way to follow them in flight visually, or I’m not doing my job. It’s hard to judge how long it will take us to find homeostasis with this technology. I think we will. Just looking at this technology in the movie making business, each department has or will have a very different relationship with it. I’ll have a different relationship than a writer, than an actor, than the costume designer, the production designer, the sound effects people.

Each creative person is going to have their own prism and be affected by it in different ways. Our inherent desire to have a simple template for how this is to be approached is part of the problem. I don’t think that’s possible. I don’t think there’s a one-size fits all.

SODERBERGH: Especially his burning desire to destroy the male rock star myth — at a time when that was not the mood anyone else was in. That’s inspiring. What I hope young people who see it get out of it is: This guy told the truth about everything from the jump, right up through the last day of his life. He just was built that way. And he was constructive. He was very opinionated but also very thoughtful and all in the aid of: Can we do this better? Can we do a better version of human beings on this planet?

A humpback whale that died this week near a Danish island has been confirmed as the same animal that underwent a dramatic and disputed rescue operation two weeks earlier after becoming repeatedly beached along Germany’s Baltic Sea shoreline, Danish officials announced Saturday.

The deceased whale was discovered Thursday near the small island of Anholt in the Kattegat, the wide waterway separating Denmark and Sweden that links the Baltic Sea with the North Sea. This location lies south of where the whale, which had been given the names “Timmy” and “Hope,” was set free on May 2 following its transportation toward the North Sea using a specialized barge.

“It can now be confirmed that the stranded humpback whale near Anholt is the same whale that was previously stranded in Germany and was the subject of rescue attempts,” Jane Hansen, head of division at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, said in an emailed statement.

Hansen noted that Saturday’s conditions allowed a Danish Nature Agency worker to find and recover a tracking device that remained attached to the whale’s back, and “the position and appearance of the device confirm that this is the same whale that had previously been observed and handled in German waters.”

The Mediterranean nation of Malta announced Saturday it has reached a groundbreaking agreement with artificial intelligence firm OpenAI to provide all citizens with complimentary access to ChatGPT Plus for one year, following completion of a free training program on artificial intelligence usage.

The initiative is set to launch this month and will expand as more residents finish the educational course, which comes at no cost to participants. The program extends to Maltese citizens residing in other countries as well.

“We are turning an unfamiliar concept into practical assistance for our families, students, and workers,” Maltese Economy Minister Silvio Schembri was quoted as saying in an OpenAI statement.

This marks the first time any nation has implemented such a comprehensive artificial intelligence access program for its entire population. OpenAI has chosen not to reveal the monetary terms of the arrangement.

The partnership represents a significant step in making advanced AI technology accessible to an entire country’s population through government initiative.

A young great horned owl that became trapped inside a concrete mixer in southwestern Utah has successfully returned to the wild after months of specialized rehabilitation and recovery.

The juvenile bird was discovered by construction workers at a resort building site in late October, completely covered in concrete after somehow getting inside the truck-mounted mixing equipment. Construction crews quickly rinsed off the owl and wrapped it in a towel before rescue efforts began.

Staff members at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab spent several days meticulously removing hardened concrete from the bird’s face, chest and right wing area. The painstaking process involved using surgical forceps to carefully break apart the dried material and cleaning individual feathers with toothbrushes and dish soap.

Following the initial cleanup, the owl began its lengthy rehabilitation process at the sanctuary’s specialized bird facility. Staff members monitored the bird closely, expecting it would naturally shed damaged feathers and grow replacements. However, when the anticipated molting process didn’t occur, veterinarians decided to perform a specialized procedure called imping in early May.

The imping technique involves using adhesive materials to attach donor feathers from deceased birds onto the existing feather shafts of the injured animal.

“The first few feathers were extremely nerve-wracking, but as we got into the groove, the imping became more comfortable, and everything went smoothly,” said Bart Richwalski, a supervisor at the sanctuary.

The concrete damage had destroyed the owl’s natural ability to fly silently while hunting. Great horned owls possess specialized downy feather coatings that eliminate sound during flight, but the concrete had damaged these features, causing the rescued bird to make audible whooshing noises when airborne.

Sanctuary workers spent weeks preparing for the surgical procedure, regularly examining the owl’s wing structure and trimming damaged feather shafts in preparation. During the 90-minute operation, the sedated bird received 10 new primary feathers and one secondary feather on its right wing, all carefully measured and positioned using feathers from a similarly-sized owl that had previously died.

The critical test came after the procedure: determining whether the owl could once again fly without making noise. After recovering from anesthesia in a large flight enclosure, the bird quickly took to the air. Richwalski used sound-measuring equipment to confirm the owl’s wingbeats were quiet enough for successful hunting in the wild.

When the enclosure’s roof was opened, the owl briefly hovered before accelerating upward and disappearing into the surrounding wilderness.

“It feels so, so good. I think my heart finally started beating again. The nervousness was starting to overtake the excitement, but once I saw him fly out that opening in the roof, it just was, it was a sight to see. It was so fun,” said Richwalski, who has cared for the owl since picking him up at the construction site.

Karla Bloem, executive director of the Minnesota-based International Owl Center, explained that the imping technique has been used by falconers “for eons” and represents a highly successful treatment method.

“I’ve never heard of it not lasting, because you use some pretty good stuff when you’re doing imping,” said Bloem, who has studied great horned owls for nearly three decades.

She noted that losing a few of the grafted feathers wouldn’t pose a problem, as long as most remain attached until the owl can naturally grow new ones during the upcoming summer season.

“And now it just needs to figure out, ‘whoa, I’m back in the big world again, hunting,’” she said. “Find a territory … you know, find one of the opposite sex and settle down and have kids.”

A French filmmaker behind Netflix’s popular shark thriller “Under Paris” says he could have slashed his production budget in half and finished eight months sooner if he had access to today’s artificial intelligence technology.

Director Xavier Gens revealed to Reuters that his 2024 hit about a massive shark terrorizing the Seine River could have been completed “in three months instead of one year” using current AI tools. The visual effects budget would have dropped from 4 million euros to just 2 million euros ($2.34 million), he explained during the Cannes Film Festival.

This year’s festival in France marks a notable transformation in how the film industry views artificial intelligence. Rather than debating whether AI belongs in cinema, attendees are now focused on determining the best ways to implement the technology.

While concerns persist about protecting artistic integrity, the potential for significant time and cost savings is proving irresistible for an industry still working to recover audiences lost during the COVID pandemic, according to festival participants.

Gens has already begun investigating AI applications for “Under Paris 2,” which he hopes to release next year. The original film’s post-production phase, which involved extensive visual effects work to blend shark imagery with real footage, consumed nearly twelve months.

AI technology can streamline many labor-intensive post-production processes, particularly valuable for effects-heavy productions. A Morgan Stanley analysis from last year suggested generative AI could reduce film and television production expenses by up to 30 percent.

Demonstrating the digital shift, Meta secured an official festival partnership this year through a multi-year agreement. The company’s AI software contributed to Steven Soderbergh’s documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which earned inclusion in the festival’s official selection, though not in the competition category.

Festival organizers haven’t implemented a complete AI prohibition, but they do exclude movies primarily created through generative AI from Palme d’Or consideration. This policy aligns with recent Academy Awards guidelines requiring human involvement in acting and writing categories.

Festival Director Thierry Fremaux explained that AI cannot replace fundamental skills, comparing it to riding an electric bicycle: “To ride an electric bike, you have to know how to ride a normal bike,” he told journalists.

At the Cannes Film Market, a major venue for international film transactions and industry connections, startups have established an “Innovation Village” overlooking the harbor filled with yachts. The market also featured two days of invitation-only AI conference sessions for the second consecutive year, with presentations from representatives of Alphabet, Disney Accelerator, NVIDIA and OpenAI.

While directors generally oppose using generative AI to create entire scripts or films from simple prompts, its application in production and post-production phases is gaining wider acceptance.

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro emphasized the need for clearer distinctions in AI discussions. “In a very dishonest way, (AI is) all under the same name,” he told Reuters. “To have a proper discussion, you have to distinguish generative AI and any other function of AI.”

This represents a marked change from controversy surrounding the 2025 Oscars, when AI enhancement of Adrien Brody’s Hungarian dialogue in “The Brutalist” sparked significant debate.

Alex Serdiuk, who heads Ukrainian company Respeecher that created the voice technology for “The Brutalist,” argued that AI served as an effective enhancement of human performance in that case and should lose its negative associations.

“They got the Oscar, right? So the Academy understood what exactly was done there,” he noted.

AI applications continue expanding rapidly. Emerging companies are proposing new uses, including Largo, which provides audience analysis tools such as simulated focus groups to help directors predict how various viewers, including critics, might react to their films.

However, some industry leaders warn that even sophisticated AI struggles to analyze what makes movies successful.

“Basically, every movie in Cannes is a prototype,” said Elisha Karmitz, who leads French sales agent, distributor and production company MK2. He explained that no formula exists for selection beyond creating the highest quality film with proper intentions.

Nevertheless, Karmitz acknowledged that AI cannot be dismissed entirely.

“I don’t know if AI in the future would give an advantage,” Karmitz said. “What I’m kind of sure of is just rejecting AI by principle would give a disadvantage.”

Compact gardens showcasing indigenous plant varieties are increasingly appearing throughout metropolitan areas. A local volunteer working with these miniature green spaces in a Washington, D.C., community shows how urban environments can support native vegetation through small-scale gardening initiatives.

CISARUA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s inaugural giant panda birth has reached a major milestone as the healthy cub underwent medical evaluations Friday in preparation for meeting the public later this month.

The baby panda, officially named Satrio Wiratama but called “Rio,” demonstrated his developing abilities during the veterinary examination. At 169 days old, the cub has reached 10 kilograms (22 pounds), moves around independently, scales his mother’s body, and has begun consuming bamboo shoots.

Medical staff are closely observing Rio’s progress to evaluate his readiness for public interaction when he makes his anticipated appearance at Indonesian Safari Park, located outside Jakarta.

“What’s important to note is that all of Rio’s senses are active; he has the ability to understand the environment, assess the situation, adapt to more people, and hear sounds, even in certain levels of noise. We will train him gradually,” said Bongot Huaso Mulia, a veterinarian who monitors Rio’s progress.

According to Mulia, the young panda’s development exceeds typical timelines in certain areas, particularly regarding his dental growth.

Rio entered the world on Nov. 27, born to mother Hu Chun and father Cai Tao, both 15 years old. The adult pair came to Indonesia in 2017 as part of a decade-long conservation agreement with China. Their home is a specially constructed habitat at the park, situated approximately 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the capital in Cisarua, West Java province.

The parent pandas have captured significant public attention throughout Indonesia. Rio’s arrival has excited panda fans nationwide, with social media buzzing with requests to see the youngster soon.

The panda family resides in an elaborate three-story structure called the Panda Palace, positioned on elevated terrain encompassing roughly 5,000 square meters of land (1.2 acres). The facility features elevator access, rest quarters, medical equipment, and both interior and exterior recreational spaces.

Rio’s name represents the shared dedication between Indonesia and China toward safeguarding threatened wildlife species.

Giant pandas serve as China’s unofficial national symbol, and Beijing’s practice of lending these animals to international zoos has traditionally functioned as diplomatic “panda diplomacy.”

Reproduction challenges make giant panda births especially significant. Fewer than 1,900 giant pandas exist in their natural Chinese habitats across Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.

Rio’s birth resulted from artificial insemination procedures. Beyond adding another individual to the population, Rio contributes valuable genetic information for panda research efforts in both Indonesia and China, explained Aswin Sumampau, president director of the park.

“This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for, a small victory for us, as we’ve managed to breed a species that is extremely difficult to breed. Just imagine, for the past two years, no pandas were born at any ex-situ conservation facility worldwide. Taman Safari has managed to do that,” Sumampau said.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a comprehensive clean electricity initiative on Thursday that he claims will expand Canada’s power grid by 100% before 2050 while reducing energy bills for most Canadian families.

According to Carney, Canada confronts significant obstacles, including tariffs from the United States, increased energy expenses due to the conflict with Iran, and climate change impacts.

“When the world fundamentally changes, we must respond with new approaches,” he said.

The fresh initiative incorporates rules that will permit natural gas to have an expanded role in grid development. The project’s construction expenses are projected to exceed $1 trillion Canadian ($730 billion).

“The path to affordability is electrification,” Carney told a news conference in Ottawa. “The path to competitiveness is electrification. The path to net zero is electricity.”

According to Carney, the proposal encompasses fresh collaborations with Indigenous people and an openness to utilize diverse energy sources, including hydro, nuclear, wind, solar, some gas, carbon capture and geothermal.

“The scale is huge, the timeline is short and the task of getting the right mix of power is complex,” he said. “We can’t simply rely on restrictions and prohibitions. We must do things differently.”

Officials project that 130,000 additional workers will be required to expand the grid to double its current size.

This initiative represents a departure from current clean electricity rules introduced by the previous Liberal administration under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. That earlier plan aimed to eliminate carbon from Canada’s electrical system by 2050 through restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions from nearly all power generation facilities using fossil fuels.

Power generation represents approximately 7% of Canada’s overall greenhouse gas emissions, a figure that has decreased significantly over the past 15 years as most provinces eliminated or reduced coal-fired power.

While the initiative does not specify the government’s financial commitment to reach this objective, it references providing tax incentives and reviving energy-efficiency improvements for as many as one million homes.

The Canadian Climate Institute, an organization focused on climate policy research, described the initiative as “pointing in the right direction” while noting that multiple crucial matters remain unclear or absent.

“Ultimately, the success of the strategy will depend on details of how — and how swiftly — the government follows through on expanding clean power generation, transmission and widespread electrification,” Dale Beugin, the institute’s executive vice president, said in a press release.

Virginia’s Department of Wildlife Resources has released its latest fishing report, focusing on springtime striped bass opportunities throughout the state’s tidal waterways.

Striped bass, commonly called rockfish, are currently gathering in schools near channel edges, sandy bottom areas, and grass beds. In saltwater environments, these fish typically stay near rocky coastlines and other hard bottom features that gave them their popular nickname.

The report provides field observations from state fisheries biologists working this spring season, along with fishing strategies for anglers using shore-based techniques, kayaks, boats, fly fishing equipment, or light tackle setups.

A major artificial intelligence company and a prominent philanthropic organization announced Thursday they will combine resources for a $200 million initiative focused on advancing AI applications in healthcare and education sectors.

The collaboration between Anthropic and the Gates Foundation will unfold over four years, with each organization contributing $100 million worth of resources and expertise. Anthropic will provide technical support from its staff along with access credits for its Claude AI system, while the Gates Foundation will supply grant money, program development, and specialized knowledge, according to officials.

This announcement builds on a previous $50 million agreement the Gates Foundation made with OpenAI in January, which aimed to bring AI support to 1,000 African healthcare facilities and communities by 2028.

The new collaboration addresses concerns that artificial intelligence technology might eliminate jobs and increase social disparities by working to make AI benefits more widely available.

Language accessibility represents a key priority area. Current AI systems struggle significantly with writing and translating numerous African languages, prompting the partnership to focus on improving data gathering and labeling processes that will be made available to the public to enhance AI models industry-wide, according to Janet Zhou, a Gates Foundation director.

The partnership is also exploring the development of knowledge databases that could better serve educators in sub-Saharan Africa and India, Zhou explained.

The emphasis on public benefit stems from “the needs of different partners and governments, including some of the fears that they may have around proprietary lock-in and sovereignty,” Zhou stated.

One specific project will provide research facilities with Claude AI access to identify potential drug treatments for HPV and preeclampsia, conditions that have received less commercial research attention from pharmaceutical companies, according to Zhou and Anthropic’s Elizabeth Kelly.

Anthropic, a startup that has received backing from Google and Amazon.com and has seen its valuation rise due to strong demand for its AI and programming tools, views this work as central to its core purpose of benefiting society.

“This announcement is really core to who we are as a company,” Kelly said, who oversees Anthropic’s beneficial deployments team.

The Trump administration is halting offshore wind developments across America at a time when the sector was positioned for major expansion.

Wind turbines positioned off the nation’s shores have the capability to generate substantial amounts of renewable energy along coastal areas. Currently, six offshore wind installations are operational or beginning to supply electricity as they complete final construction phases in the United States.

More than 40 federal leases for offshore wind development have been issued. The current administration is purchasing back certain leases, providing compensation to energy companies to abandon their wind projects. Additional barriers have been implemented for the sector as the administration prioritizes fossil fuel development.

This approach contrasts with numerous nations that are adopting ocean-based wind turbines to satisfy increasing electricity demands through clean methods. The global frontrunner in offshore wind development is where the president is attending a summit this week. Wind turbines generate electricity without contributing to global warming, unlike fossil fuel combustion.

The following data illustrates the offshore wind sector’s scope both domestically and internationally:

Nineteen nations and regions utilize offshore wind power: The top three in terms of installation numbers and capacity are China, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Additional locations developing offshore wind include the Netherlands, Taiwan, Denmark, Belgium, France, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, United States, Norway, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Spain, based on Global Wind Energy Council data.

In 2025, China installed 6.6 gigawatts of additional offshore wind capacity, according to GWEC. By year’s end 2025, China’s cumulative offshore wind capacity reached 48.4 gigawatts, the organization reported.

Worldwide installations in 2025 alone generated sufficient offshore wind power for 10.2 million households. The total reached nearly 9.3 gigawatts, representing a 16% yearly increase, GWEC reported. Current global offshore wind installations can generate power equivalent to serving 102 million homes, based on GWEC calculations.

From 2026 to 2030, China is projected to represent approximately 56% of new offshore wind capacity additions globally, GWEC stated. The European Union is expected to contribute about 29% during this timeframe, while the United States accounts for 5%, according to the organization.

America’s three operational offshore wind installations include: Block Island Wind Farm off Rhode Island, the nation’s inaugural project in state waters; Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot in federal waters; and South Fork Wind, the first major U.S. offshore wind installation providing power to New York.

Three additional projects are: Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts; Revolution Wind in Rhode Island; and the complete Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind development near the pilot turbines off Virginia Beach. Vineyard Wind, the most advanced of these three, is anticipated to achieve full operation within months.

Construction was ordered to cease on five East Coast offshore wind developments in December due to national security considerations cited by the Trump administration. The directive affected Vineyard Wind, Revolution Wind and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, plus Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind, two significant New York offshore wind projects.

Legal challenges were filed by developers and states. Federal courts permitted all five projects to restart construction, essentially determining that the government failed to demonstrate imminent national security threats requiring immediate work stoppage.

The world’s largest operational offshore wind installation, Hornsea 2, features 165 turbines. Positioned in the North Sea 55 miles from England’s Yorkshire coast alongside its companion project Hornsea 1, it produces sufficient energy for over 1.4 million U.K. households across 178 square miles. A larger U.K. project currently under development will exceed this capacity.

According to the American Clean Power Association, 18,000 U.S. jobs are sustained by the offshore wind sector.

Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind generates electricity for up to 660,000 households. Power delivery to the electrical grid commenced in March.

This 2.6-gigawatt development represents America’s largest wind installation to date. It operates off the coast of a state housing the world’s data center hub and vital U.S. military facilities, according to offshore wind advocacy organization Turn Forward.

Massachusetts customers will save an estimated $1.4 billion on electricity costs over two decades through Vineyard Wind, according to the governor’s office. During the previous winter, Vineyard Wind reduced electricity rates by participating in wholesale markets and consistently providing lower-cost power than alternative sources.

Vineyard Wind became the first offshore wind development completed during the current administration. Its 62 turbines will produce 800 megawatts total, sufficient clean electricity for approximately 400,000 households.

Offshore wind development has generated $25.5 billion in U.S. investments across ports, steel manufacturing, transmission improvements, shipbuilding, workforce development and research, according to the Oceantic Network, a nonprofit promoting offshore energy advancement. The domestic supply network encompasses over 1,000 U.S. companies in at least 40 states, the organization stated. Oceantic calculates that canceling a 1-gigawatt Northeast project would cost nearly $10 billion economically, primarily from lost employment and investments, while regional customers forfeit energy cost savings.

A robotic NASA probe pursuing an unusual metallic asteroid will make a close approach to Mars this Friday, using the planet’s gravitational pull to accelerate its journey while capturing thousands of photographs to prepare for its primary mission in 2029.

The spacecraft, which shares the name Psyche with its asteroid destination, will rocket past the red planet at speeds reaching 12,333 mph (19,848 kph) on Friday.

The flyby will bring Psyche remarkably close to Mars, passing just 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) away — roughly the same distance that spans from America’s Atlantic to Pacific shores. Following this maneuver, the probe will continue toward the asteroid belt situated between Mars and Jupiter, where its fascinating target awaits.

Every scientific instrument aboard the spacecraft will be active during the Martian encounter. Meanwhile, NASA’s pair of Mars rovers and several American and European orbital vehicles will simultaneously gather surface and atmospheric data for scientific comparison.

Psyche’s imaging systems have already begun photographing Mars, capturing it as a crescent shape while approaching and later as an almost complete sphere after passing by. These varied perspectives will serve dual purposes, helping mission controllers calibrate their equipment while producing “just plain beautiful photos,” according to Arizona State University’s Jim Bell, the imaging team leader.

Though the asteroid belt contains millions of celestial objects, the majority consist of rock or ice materials. Scientists believe only a small fraction are metal-heavy like Psyche, an irregularly shaped asteroid measuring approximately 173 miles long and 144 miles wide (278 kilometers by 232 kilometers).

Researchers theorize the asteroid could be the remaining nickel and iron center of an early planet that lost its outer layers through space collisions. Examining such a formation at close range may reveal insights about our solar system’s formation 4.6 billion years ago, including how and why Earth developed conditions for life.

The spacecraft, which departed Earth in 2023, has completed half of its six-year indirect voyage to Psyche, located in the asteroid belt’s outer regions — three times Earth’s distance from the sun. The probe is scheduled to reach its destination in 2029, where it will enter orbit around the asteroid for two years of detailed investigation. The van-sized vehicle operates using solar electric propulsion powered by xenon gas thrusters.

Scientists have made a remarkable discovery that challenges our understanding of ancient human relatives. A Neanderthal tooth found in a Siberian cave shows clear evidence of dental surgery performed approximately 59,000 years ago – tens of thousands of years before modern humans began similar procedures.

The ancient molar, discovered at Chagyrskaya Cave in Russia’s Altai Mountains, belonged to a Neanderthal who suffered from severe tooth pain caused by a deep cavity. Rather than endure the agony, someone deliberately drilled into the tooth using a small stone tool to remove the decay and provide relief.

According to archaeologist Ksenia Kolobova of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, this represents the earliest-known example of invasive dental surgery. Her team published their findings Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.

“This is important because it proves Neanderthals possessed sophisticated cognitive abilities, including planning, precise motor skills and deliberate medical strategy, challenging the outdated view that such complex behavior was exclusive to modern humans,” Kolobova said.

The procedure would have required significant skill and understanding. “The procedure required diagnosing the source of pain, understanding that removing decayed tissue could bring relief, deliberately selecting an appropriate stone tool and executing precise drilling with controlled finger movements,” Kolobova explained.

Researchers determined the surgery was intentional by examining the tooth’s central hole, which extends into the pulp chamber where nerves and blood vessels were located. The hole’s distinctive shape and microscopic markings indicate deliberate modification rather than accidental damage. Evidence of continued wear suggests the individual lived for an extended period after the procedure.

To confirm their theory, scientists conducted experiments on modern human teeth using stone tools similar to those found in the same cave. They successfully recreated holes with identical patterns and microscopic grooves.

The tooth belonged to an adult Neanderthal, though researchers cannot determine the individual’s gender. Study lead author Alisa Zubova of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in St. Petersburg noted that the treatment approach aligns with modern understanding of treating deep cavities.

“This is consistent with modern understanding of the treatment of deep carious lesions,” Zubova said.

Previously, the oldest evidence of dental surgery was a modern human tooth from Italy dating to about 14,000 years ago, making this Neanderthal discovery significantly older.

The cave site has yielded a wealth of information about Neanderthal life. These ancient relatives of modern humans occupied Chagyrskaya Cave between roughly 59,000 and 49,000 years ago, using it as a base camp for processing bison and horse meat, as well as a living space where they raised children.

Study co-author Lydia Zotkina, a traceologist at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, emphasized the remarkable endurance required for such a procedure.

“It seems to me that this is also evidence of astonishing willpower. Do you know many people who could perform such an operation without anesthesia or special equipment? Or those who could endure it themselves? Every time I think about this, I am filled with admiration,” Zotkina said.

The drilling covered nearly the entire chewing surface of the molar. Experimental testing showed that a rotating or hand-drilling motion with a small stone tool would have been most effective. Zotkina conducted her experiments using a jasper tool, similar to those discovered in the cave from the Neanderthal period.

Researchers also found evidence that Neanderthals, including this individual, used toothpicks to clean food from their teeth, suggesting regular dental hygiene practices.

The discovery adds to growing evidence that Neanderthals were intelligent beings who created art, used complex hunting strategies, developed symbolic objects, and communicated through spoken language. These robust relatives of modern humans, characterized by larger brows and stronger builds, vanished approximately 40,000 years ago, though most people today carry traces of their DNA due to ancient interbreeding.

Scientists speculate that the drilled cavity might have been filled with a substance like wax, though no such evidence remains.

CHICAGO — Wildlife enthusiasts in Chicago are celebrating a historic milestone after two baby bald eagles hatched in a city park, representing what officials believe marks the first successful wild nesting in the area for over 100 years.

The Chicago Park District revealed last week that observers documented nesting behavior beginning in February at Park 597 situated along the Calumet River in the city’s Southeast Side. Bird-watchers confirmed the first baby eagle on April 28, with a second chick verified on May 7.

According to park district spokesperson Irene Tostado, both eaglets are estimated to be between two and three weeks old.

The discovery belongs to Pat Pearson and her husband Steve, who first noticed the initial hatchling.

“We started looking around, and lo and behold, this little fuzzy head sticks up with a big beak and we were just ecstatic. Patty actually broke into tears. I started crying,” Steve Pearson said. “It was really very touching, because we had this kind of instinct, I think, just the wonder and the awe of seeing these eagles right here in Chicago with a baby. It was really overwhelming.”

During the latter half of the 1900s, America’s national bird population plummeted due to habitat destruction and pesticide poisoning of their food supply. However, these majestic raptors have experienced a remarkable recovery spanning four decades. Federal authorities removed the bald eagle from the endangered species registry in 2007.

While bald eagles regularly appear throughout the greater Chicago region — with park officials recording twelve birds in Big Marsh Park’s restored wetlands during a single 2018 day — Stephen Bell, who manages Park 597, noted his team found no documentation of successful eagle reproduction within Chicago city limits for more than a century.

The site previously housed a municipal water treatment facility before the park district assumed control in 2019 and began environmental restoration work. Bell explained that soil enhancement, improved plant life, and better habitats for amphibians and reptiles have drawn muskrats, mice, deer, and now nesting eagles.

“Give Mother Nature a chance and you’d be surprised what she can do with just a little bit of help from like the park district and the city of Chicago,” Pat Pearson said. “Neither one of the organizations could have done it themselves, but between the two of them, it’s shocking what can happen to land in areas that you think are just absolutely unredeemable.”

NEW YORK — Scientists examining fossilized teeth have uncovered fascinating evidence of romantic connections between different early human species that occurred hundreds of thousands of years ago, leaving genetic traces that persist in modern humans today.

Research published recently focuses on Homo erectus, an early human ancestor that emerged from Africa roughly 2 million years ago before migrating across the globe to Asia and potentially Europe.

Archaeological discoveries have unearthed H. erectus remains in multiple countries spanning Indonesia, Spain, China and Georgia. However, genetic material and proteins typically deteriorate over time, making it challenging for researchers to understand the biological characteristics of these ancient peoples.

For this groundbreaking study, scientists extracted protein remnants from the tooth enamel of H. erectus specimens — five males and one female — discovered at various sites throughout China to investigate how these early humans may have interacted with other species.

The 400,000-year-old dental remains contained two significant mutations within an enamel protein. Researchers noted that one mutation appears to be previously unknown and might represent a distinctive genetic signature specific to East Asian H. erectus populations.

The second mutation proved more intriguing. Scientists discovered a genetic variant that exists both in a small percentage of contemporary humans and in Denisovans, an extinct human relative.

This finding suggests H. erectus may have reproduced with Denisovans, transferring genetic material between the species. Researchers believe this genetic information reached modern humans through later interbreeding between our ancestors and Denisovans.

“This traces who we are now back to our ancestors in a really cool and exciting way, using new methods,” said paleoanthropologist Ryan McRae with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who was not involved with the new research.

The precise evolutionary connections between these ancient human relatives remain somewhat unclear. McRae noted that H. erectus might simply be an ancestral species to Denisovans, who received these genes through inheritance over generations.

Solving this evolutionary mystery proves challenging given the extremely limited available evidence. Discovering additional fossils and analyzing scarce DNA remnants could help scientists piece together humanity’s evolutionary history more completely.

“We really need to get more DNA” and additional H. erectus specimens to determine how this ancient species “is exactly related to other humans,” said study author Qiaomei Fu with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in China.

Meta Platforms announced Wednesday the introduction of a private chat feature for WhatsApp’s artificial intelligence assistant, responding to mounting concerns about user privacy when interacting with AI technology.

The tech giant detailed in a company blog post that this incognito feature allows WhatsApp users to engage in confidential, temporary discussions with Meta AI, the company’s artificial intelligence helper that has been integrated into the messaging platform for several years.

According to Meta, conversations conducted through this private mode will be handled within a protected system that remains inaccessible even to the company itself, with messages automatically deleted upon session completion rather than being stored.

Privacy issues have long plagued artificial intelligence platforms because the sophisticated language systems powering these tools rely on enormous datasets for training, which can sometimes incorporate sensitive user information from previous chatbot interactions.

Competing AI services have already implemented similar privacy protections. Google’s Gemini platform offers users the ability to turn off conversation history and prevent their data from being used in model training, while ChatGPT provides comparable privacy controls.

Meta explained that the private chat option was developed because users frequently pose sensitive queries to chatbots or include confidential financial, medical, personal, or professional information in their interactions.

“We’re starting ask a lot of meaningful questions about our lives with AI systems, and it doesn’t always feel like you should have to share the information behind those questions with the companies that run those AI systems,” Will Cathcart, Meta’s head of WhatsApp, told reporters.

The private chat feature includes built-in safety measures designed to prevent the AI from responding to harmful or inappropriate topics, according to Cathcart.

The system will “steer the user towards helpful information if it can and then refuse (to answer) and eventually even just stop interacting with the user completely,” Cathcart said.

The private mode will be limited to text-based interactions only, preventing users from uploading or creating images. Additionally, age verification will be required since Meta prohibits users under 13 from accessing its services.

WhatsApp users will soon have access to a new privacy-focused feature for artificial intelligence conversations, as Meta announced Wednesday the rollout of “Incognito Chat” functionality.

The social media giant revealed that this new capability will utilize specialized private processing technology to keep AI conversations completely confidential, preventing even Meta from accessing the discussions.

“Your conversations are not saved and by default, your messages disappear — giving you a space to think and explore ideas without anyone watching,” the company explained in their announcement.

This development addresses mounting privacy worries as individuals increasingly turn to AI assistants for guidance on personal matters including finances, health issues, and workplace situations.

WhatsApp’s leader Will Cathcart explained the reasoning behind the feature during a media presentation: “We’re starting to ask a lot of meaningful questions about our lives with AI systems. It doesn’t always feel like you should have to share the information behind those questions with the companies that run those AI systems.”

While Meta typically uses interactions with its AI assistant to enhance its artificial intelligence capabilities, the company clarifies that standard WhatsApp personal messages already receive end-to-end encryption protection and aren’t accessed for training purposes.

Currently, the incognito feature will only support text-based conversations, with image sharing capabilities not available, according to Cathcart.

He also noted that safety measures will be integrated into the AI system, allowing it to decline inappropriate requests and redirect problematic conversations.

Looking ahead, Meta plans to introduce an additional feature called “Side Chat” in upcoming months, which will provide users with private AI assistance during any WhatsApp conversation.

While most regions experience a gradual transition into spring, the far northern city of Fairbanks, Alaska witnesses an extraordinary natural phenomenon where trees burst into full foliage within just one to two days.

This remarkable transformation, locally referred to as ‘greenup,’ demonstrates how dramatically different seasonal changes can be in Alaska’s interior compared to more temperate climates where leaf emergence typically takes weeks.

LOLA YA BONOBO, Congo — In the forested area surrounding Congo’s capital city of Kinshasa, Micheline Nzonzi holds a drowsy one-year-old bonobo, an orphaned primate whose survival depends on her dedicated care over the coming years.

The young ape has promising prospects for recovery through nurturing human care, bottle feeding, and regular interaction with other infant bonobos.

“They survive thanks to human affection,” explained Nzonzi, who has served as a surrogate mother to bonobos for two and a half decades. “Without me, without us, these bonobos cannot survive.”

Located in the jungle surrounding Kinshasa, this facility represents the globe’s singular refuge for bonobo orphans, typically saved from illegal hunters or discovered in local residences where people keep them as a food source.

Despite legal protections for these endangered great apes, hunters continue pursuing them to meet bushmeat demand across regions extending well past the Congo Basin rainforest, often referred to as the planet’s secondary lung. While the illegal meat trade encompasses various animals from small rodents to large antelopes, symbolic species like bonobos command premium prices.

Arsène Madimba, who works in education at the Lola ya Bonobo facility, stated: “The bonobos are in danger. We are educating people to not kill the bonobos. We can’t kill them, we can’t put them at home as pets, we can’t eat them. Because of poaching, we can find big trading of orphaned bonobos across the country.”

These primates care for their offspring during extended four-to-five-year periods. Their slow breeding patterns make them particularly susceptible to environmental threats. Congolese officials proposed a “bonobo credits” system last year, modeled after carbon offset programs, to incentivize forest conservation by local communities, though implementation remains pending.

Primatologist Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, who established the Uganda-based Conservation Through Public Health organization, noted cultural distinctions between countries. “There is a cultural difference between Congo and neighboring Uganda, where apes are not hunted for meat,” she explained. “In Congo, they believe that you can become as strong as (the primate eaten).”

The Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary houses numerous adult bonobos, with some residents living there since the facility’s 2002 opening under Les Amis des Bonobos du Congo, a French conservation organization.

Currently, eleven young bonobos live in the nursery section, including the most recent arrival from earlier this year. Each infant receives assignment to a human caregiver who provides years of care before the animal transitions to adult groups that welcome public visits.

Occasionally, sanctuary residents undergo extensive preparation for eventual release back into their natural environment, though this process requires years of conditioning.

These primates share approximately 99% genetic similarity with humans and rank as our closest living relatives alongside chimpanzees.

Scientists estimated roughly 100,000 wild bonobos existed during the 1980s. Current population estimates suggest only 20,000 remain, representing a dramatic decrease. Commercial bushmeat hunting poses the primary threat to bonobo survival, according to International Union for Conservation of Nature assessments.

Wild bonobos inhabit dense tropical forests located south of the Congo River. Researchers rarely study these animals in their natural environment, with most knowledge coming from observations in international zoos and studies conducted by foreign scientists attracted to these remarkable creatures.

German anatomist Ernst Schwarz first identified bonobos as potentially distinct from chimpanzees in 1929 after examining a skull specimen with unusually small proportions. American zoologist Harold Coolidge later provided comprehensive descriptions that enabled official species classification in 1933.

American audiences recognize bonobos largely due to their reputation as highly intelligent, peaceful, and emotionally sensitive animals. Recent 2025 research from Johns Hopkins University suggests these primates may possess imaginative capabilities.

Female bonobos lead their social groups and demonstrate remarkable absence of sexual competition. When different groups encounter each other, females may join opposing sides without triggering conflicts, contrasting sharply with chimpanzee and gorilla behavior. Their frequent and varied mating practices have earned them the nickname “hippie apes.”

Primate meat commerce in Kinshasa now operates secretly. While traders can obtain permits for hunting antelopes and similar species, “les macaques” trading faces prohibition partly to prevent zoonotic disease transmission like Ebola.

Charles Ntanga, a merchant at Masina market, explained: “I used to sell monkeys before, but now we cannot sell monkeys, any type of moneys.” He used a fly whisk to clear insects from a decomposing giant rodent carcass, priced at approximately $17 per kilogram. Adjacent vendor Guyva Mputu offered python meat that began steaming in the tropical humidity.

According to Madimba, poachers use captured baby bonobos as bait to attract adult animals, shooting the adults when they approach to investigate the distressed infant’s calls.

Zookeeper Frank Lutete, responsible for animal feeding, explained how orphaned bonobos form strong relationships with their human caregivers, who can identify each individual by name. He travels by boat to distribute papaya while the bonobos create loud vocalizations and descend from trees to collect food.

According to Lutete, some bonobos express appreciation by tapping their chests in what appears to be a thankful gesture.

SAN FRANCISCO — Delaware residents, like Americans nationwide, find themselves caught in a complex relationship with their iPhones that mirrors many complicated emotional attachments.

These devices often feel like mystical tools so essential that imagining life without their countless benefits and conveniences seems impossible. iPhones and similar smartphones allow instant photo sharing across social platforms, gaming, video streaming, music playback, text messaging, email management, web browsing, news consumption, navigation assistance, and contactless payments.

Occasionally, people even use them for actual telephone conversations.

Yet at times, these same devices resemble predatory dealers exploiting our vulnerabilities and negative tendencies while feeding our dependency on constant notifications and alerts that draw our eyes to screens, steadily eroding our ability to focus.

This contradiction faces America as the iPhone remains relatively young, existing within the same age group it has potentially influenced most dramatically. Apple’s revolutionary device didn’t debut until 2007, when company co-founder Steve Jobs walked onto a stage and promised a captivated crowd they would witness something transformative.

His prediction largely came true. Jobs, as frequently occurred before his passing in 2011, demonstrated remarkable foresight — so accurate that research indicates many people would choose sharing their bed with their iPhone over their romantic partner if forced to decide.

The current dilemma involves determining whether society can better navigate this complex relationship with iPhones and Android-powered smartphones in a world that practically demands universal ownership. Can we maintain all the advantages while eliminating harmful behaviors? Should smartphone usage be grouped with cigarettes, alcohol, and unhealthy food?

Currently, America appears to drift deeper into a digital stream reminiscent of a famous closing line from classic American literature: We continue scrolling, like vessels fighting the tide, constantly pulled back toward the illuminated display.

NEW YORK (AP) — Renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson harbors an unusual dream: he genuinely hopes to experience alien abduction during his lifetime.

“I even picture the scenario in my head: I’m sitting out there alone, and a beam of light comes down,” he explains. “It’s not a spacecraft that’s hovering over me. It’s just a beam of light from space. And I just get lifted up into that beam of light, and I appear in a new place.”

The beloved space scientist has channeled this enduring obsession into his latest work, “Take Me to Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter,” which explores our current understanding of potential extraterrestrial beings and what humanity might expect should they visit Earth.

“Even if it doesn’t actually happen, there’s value to going through the thought experiment of what could happen,” he explains. “Maybe there’s some takeaways that offer insights into how you think about the world, how we think about each other and the future of our civilization.”

Released Tuesday, this publication provides an extraordinary glimpse into Tyson’s remarkable intellect, showcasing his talent for combining popular culture with complex scientific concepts. Tyson serves as director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

The work draws from evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould alongside Cartoon Network’s “Rick and Morty,” weaving together concepts from French philosopher Voltaire and Katy Perry song lyrics. It combines invisibility physics with “Star Trek” references and includes tangents about multispectral vision, how Superman — being an alien himself — could eliminate humanity simply by passing gas, and the reason supersonic aircraft “look badass.”

Tyson determines that any aliens reaching Earth would possess far superior intelligence compared to humans. He compares the situation to attempting to teach complex mathematics to a chimpanzee.

“They’ll not only be brilliant, but they’ll be way more powerful than us in practically any way that matters, which is why it’s so laughable when you see in Hollywood movies some mothership arrives and people pull out their pistols and start shooting guns at it. Like, ‘Really? Have you thought this through?’”

For initial contact scenarios, he recommends avoiding handshakes or wave gestures. “Leave all your habits at home, until you learn a thing or two about theirs,” he advises in the book.

This publication emerges amid heightened public fascination with extraterrestrial life. Pentagon officials have started releasing additional UFO documentation, “Project Hail Mary” became a bestseller, Steven Spielberg is developing his alien film “Disclosure Day,” and former President Barack Obama stated on a podcast that aliens exist. (Obama later clarified he had witnessed no proof but believed “the odds are good there’s life out there.”)

Tyson was inspired to create this book after observing recent congressional UFO hearings, where he noticed bipartisan cooperation in seeking answers.

“They had a common subject that they’re both interested in,” he notes. “When I saw it hit that level, I realized I have something to contribute.”

This marks the inaugural release from Simon & Schuster’s new Simon Six imprint, overseen by Jonathan Karp, who edited Tyson’s work and dubbed the scientist “the Bruce Springsteen of astrophysicists.”

“You name a respected scientist who has ever written a book of etiquette on how to meet aliens. It hasn’t been done. This is truly terra incognita,” Karp states.

While visiting aliens wouldn’t understand Earth languages, Tyson believes communication remains possible through scientific principles — unchanging concepts like light speed, Newton’s motion laws, gravitational forces, and Einstein’s relativity theory. These beings might even recognize our periodic table structure — not our terminology or symbols — but the fundamental arrangement they likely developed themselves.

He also predicts they won’t be extremely small or large, referencing brain-to-body weight proportions. Excessive size would cause structural collapse, while insufficient size would prevent constructing space-capable vessels. “The laws of physics greatly restrict the likelihood of Earth being visited by, much less invaded by tiny aliens,” he writes.

Should they be observing us currently, there’s reasonable probability they’d request meeting our apparent leader — Taylor Swift. However, Karp suggests Tyson should represent humanity, with this book serving as his credentials.

“I think this is the funniest factual book that anyone will ever read on aliens and that’s quite a statement,” Karp declares. “There’s so much chaos and conflict in the world, and it’s a book on aliens that has the potential to bring us all together. He’s clearly been thinking about aliens his entire life, and he’s managed to write about them with the acuity of a scientist and the appeal of an entertainer. That’s a powerful combination.”

A San Francisco artificial intelligence company announced Tuesday the launch of enhanced features for legal professionals using its Claude AI assistant platform.

Anthropic revealed that its expanded Claude system now offers specialized capabilities for attorneys, including direct integration with major legal research databases and third-party professional services platforms.

The technology firm said the new release enables law firms and existing Claude users to establish secure connections with platforms like Thomson Reuters for legal research, document organization, and additional professional services.

This development arrives as technology companies intensify their competition to create and promote professional AI solutions, while information-intensive fields like the legal profession rapidly embrace artificial intelligence technologies.

The latest Anthropic announcement expands upon Claude Cowork plug-ins that the company unveiled in late January, which triggered significant investor sell-offs in U.S. and European data analytics, professional services, and software firms.

According to Anthropic, Claude users will now gain access to Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw Primary Law database containing court records and legal documents, plus its Practical Law practice guidance resources.

Thomson Reuters simultaneously announced its integration of the Westlaw-powered AI platform CoCounsel with Claude on Tuesday, stating this connection will provide Claude users direct access to CoCounsel’s professional-grade legal research capabilities.

“We are actively building integrations that connect general-purpose AI to professional environments, ensuring that wherever lawyers are working, the full power of CoCounsel Legal is available to them,” stated Thomson Reuters Chief Technology Officer Joel Hron.

The companies did not reveal financial details of their partnership. Thomson Reuters serves as Reuters’ parent company.

Anthropic also announced a partnership with AI startup Harvey that will incorporate Harvey’s legal assistant technology into Claude, providing support for general legal questions.

Legal professionals using Claude will additionally be able to connect directly with Box content management platform, Everlaw cloud-based electronic discovery services, and DocuSign software solutions, according to Anthropic.

“We’re seeing an incredible uptick in adoption of AI in the legal industry,” Anthropic Associate General Counsel Mark Pike told Reuters. He noted that a recent webinar demonstrating how legal teams utilize Claude attracted over 20,000 registrations.

Tuesday’s release features 12 new legal practice plug-ins including “commercial counsel,” “employment counsel,” “litigation associate,” and “law student” tools. The company said these new capabilities can be implemented directly within Anthropic’s Cowork platform or integrated into individual firm systems.

Instructure, which runs the widely-used Canvas online learning platform, announced it has successfully negotiated with cybercriminals to recover stolen student data following a major security breach that disrupted education for millions during finals season.

The company disclosed in a statement that it “reached an agreement with the unauthorized actor involved in this incident,” though officials declined to specify whether money changed hands or reveal the identity of the attackers.

The cyberattack forced Instructure to temporarily shut down Canvas while conducting its investigation, preventing students and teachers from accessing the platform they depend on for coursework and grades.

A criminal organization calling itself ShinyHunters took credit for the security breach, demanding ransom payments and threatening to release personal information from approximately 9,000 educational institutions globally, affecting roughly 275 million users. The group initially set a May 6 deadline before extending it, suggesting some schools had begun negotiations.

Under the negotiated settlement, Instructure recovered the compromised data and obtained what the company described as “digital confirmation” through “shred logs” proving the hackers eliminated any remaining copies from their systems.

However, company officials acknowledged the inherent uncertainty in dealing with criminal organizations, stating they cannot guarantee complete data destruction.

“While there is never complete certainty when dealing with cyber criminals, we believe it was important to take every step within our control to give customers additional peace of mind, to the extent possible,” Instructure explained.

According to Steve Proud, Instructure’s chief information security officer, the compromised information included student identification numbers, email addresses, names, and platform messages. The company emphasized that passwords, birth dates, government IDs, and financial details remained secure.

Instructure reported it has enlisted “expert vendors” to conduct thorough forensic examination, strengthen security measures, and perform detailed analysis of all affected information.

The platform shutdown created widespread anxiety among students and educators who suddenly lost access to essential academic tools during one of the most critical periods of the school year.

Canvas serves as the backbone for modern education, functioning as a digital gradebook, repository for lecture materials and assignments, discussion forum for collaborative projects, and communication channel between students and instructors.

Many educational institutions also rely on the platform for online testing and as a submission portal for final projects and research papers.

SEOUL, South Korea — Wearing body cameras on his head, chest and hands, David Park expertly folds banquet napkins at the luxury Lotte Hotel Seoul, a skill he’s perfected over nine years of service. Every movement he makes gets recorded into a computer system designed to eventually train robots to perform the same tasks.

The hotel represents just one client for South Korean AI company RLWRLD (pronounced “real world”), which is building a massive collection of human work skills from experienced employees across multiple industries. This data will help create artificial intelligence systems for robots destined for factories and eventually households.

The startup also gathers information from warehouse workers at CJ, documenting their techniques for gripping, lifting and moving products, plus employees at Japanese convenience store chain Lawson, recording their methods for arranging food displays.

RLWRLD aims to develop AI software that can operate robots in various industrial locations over the next few years, with plans to later move into residential markets. Company engineers emphasize that copying human hand coordination remains their top focus, believing that human-like machines will lead the robotics industry forward.

“I’ve been doing this about once a month,” Park explained, noting he’s one of roughly 10 food and beverage team members at Lotte Hotel participating in the motion capture program.

Following his napkin-folding demonstration, Park cleaned wine glasses and silverware in a section of the banquet room while his coworkers set up for actual events nearby. He mentioned to an engineer that the hand-mounted cameras felt uncomfortably snug.

RLWRLD joins numerous South Korean technology companies and manufacturers entering the emerging global “physical AI” marketplace. This concept describes machines equipped with artificial intelligence and sensors capable of observing, making decisions and taking action in real environments with some independence, advancing beyond traditional factory robots built for repetitive operations.

Though uncertainty remains about whether these machines will fully deliver on promises to revolutionize industries, they’re essential to South Korea’s strategy of using its semiconductor and manufacturing expertise to become an AI leader. The competition is intense, with American tech corporations like Tesla and numerous Chinese companies investing billions in humanoid robots and other AI-powered machines.

Similar to how chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini learn from enormous amounts of internet text, AI robots need comprehensive data about human actions to master complex physical work. South Koreans may find it challenging to compete in chatbots, where English language skills give American companies significant advantages, but they believe they have better opportunities in physical AI due to their extensive base of skilled manufacturing and service workers who can help train robotic systems.

The government recently announced a $33 million initiative to record the “instinctive know-how and skills” of “master technicians” into a database for AI-powered manufacturing, hoping robots will increase productivity and compensate for an aging, declining workforce.

RLWRLD, which recently introduced its robotics foundation model — an AI system for robots — anticipates industrial AI robots will be widely deployed around 2028, a schedule that matches projections from major corporations.

Hyundai Motor intends to deploy humanoids created by its robotics division, Boston Dynamics, at manufacturing facilities worldwide in the coming years, beginning with its Georgia facility in 2028. Technology giant Samsung Electronics plans to transform all production sites into “AI-driven factories” by 2030, incorporating humanoids and specialized robots throughout assembly lines.

“South Korea has a highly developed manufacturing sector and the focus is squarely on humanoids tailored specifically for those industries,” explained Billy Choi, a professor at Korea University’s center for Human-Inspired AI Research.

South Korea’s AI initiative has concerned labor organizations, who worry robots might eliminate jobs and weaken the skilled workforce traditionally considered the country’s competitive advantage — the same resource it’s now relying on for its AI transformation.

Following warnings from Hyundai’s union in January that robots could create an “employment shock,” President Lee Jae Myung issued an unusual criticism, characterizing AI as an unstoppable “massive cart” and urging union members to adjust to changes “coming faster than expected.”

“Mastery of skills is ultimately a human achievement — even if AI can replicate existing abilities, the continuous development of craft will remain fundamentally human,” stated Kim Seok, policy director at the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. He warned that widespread robot implementation could risk “severing the pipeline” for skilled labor and called on government and employers to work with employees on AI adoption to gain their support and address employment fears.

Humanoids created by American and Chinese companies have demonstrated remarkable physical capabilities, including long-distance running. However, Hyemin Cho, who manages business strategies at RLWRLD, emphasized that the capacity to execute delicate hand tasks will determine whether humanoids can function in varied industrial environments and homes.

“Capturing motion data in real-world settings is extremely important and the quality of that data matters greatly,” she noted.

After transforming worker recordings into computer-readable information, RLWRLD engineers add another dimension by performing those same tasks while wearing cameras, VR headsets and motion-tracking gloves. This information trains test robots, often controlled by RLWRLD “pilots” using wearable technology. The method records precise details including joint angles and force application, according to Song Hyun-ji from the company’s robotics division.

One RLWRLD laboratory fills a crowded 34th-floor suite at Lotte Hotel. Worn carpeting disappears under tangles of cables and computer equipment. Poles equipped with infrared laser scanners stand in corners. Under a chandelier — a rare reminder of the room’s previous elegance — a wheeled robot with black, human-like metal hands moves back and forth with a quiet mechanical hum.

During a recent presentation, the robot, controlled by engineers, carefully lifted and positioned cups at a minibar, occasionally knocking over a dish. The company’s newest test videos show a more sophisticated system: a humanoid cautiously opening a box, placing a computer mouse inside, closing it and positioning it on a conveyor belt.

Most robots, including Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, employ task-specific hands, such as two or three-fingered “grippers.” RLWRLD belongs to a smaller group of companies creating AI for five-fingered hands that replicate human touch.

While five-fingered designs may not always meet factory requirements, they could become essential as robots enter homes, where closer human interaction will be necessary, Choi explained.

Hospitality employees offer valuable training information for machines learning precise or subtle tasks — abilities that could also broaden their application in industrial environments, Cho said.

Even though current humanoids would require several hours to clean a guest room that human staff complete in approximately 40 minutes, Lotte Hotel expects robots will be prepared for cleaning and other behind-the-scenes duties by 2029. The hotel also plans robot rental services for hospitality and other service sectors, with possible expansion to residential use.

“If you look at the entire process of preparing for an event in back-of-house areas, we think humanoids might be able to take over about 30% to 40% of that workload,” Park said. “It will be difficult for them to replace the remaining 50%, 60% and 70%, which involves actual human-to-human interaction.”

ANNAPOLIS, MD – State agriculture officials in Maryland announced plans to conduct black fly population control measures along a section of the Potomac River close to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture will work alongside the Department of Natural Resources to carry out the targeted treatment operation on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, starting at 9:00 a.m.

Officials say the treatment will focus on a specific portion of the Potomac River waterway to address black fly infestations in the region.

Federal research funding worth billions of dollars has been released by the Trump administration after being previously frozen or held back from scientific institutions and agencies across the country.

Despite the restoration of these funds, many scientists are expressing concerns that the timing may be insufficient to rescue research projects that have already suffered significant setbacks during the funding freeze.

The delayed release of funding has left researchers questioning whether their work can recover from the interruption, with some indicating that the damage to ongoing studies may already be irreversible.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — While human employees handle the coffee brewing and customer service, an artificial intelligence system is making all the management decisions at a unique Stockholm coffee shop.

A San Francisco company called Andon Labs has installed an AI system they call “Mona” to oversee operations at Andon Café in Sweden’s capital city. The artificial intelligence program, which runs on Google’s Gemini technology, handles nearly every business function except making drinks – including employee recruitment and supply management.

The duration of this business experiment remains uncertain, and the AI manager appears to face challenges generating profits in Stockholm’s highly competitive coffee market. Since opening in mid-April, the establishment has generated over $5,700 in revenue, though less than $5,000 remains from the initial $21,000-plus investment. Most expenses went toward initial setup costs, with hopes that operations will eventually become profitable.

Visitors to the AI-managed establishment often find the concept entertaining. Patrons can use an in-store phone to communicate directly with the artificial intelligence system.

“It’s nice to see what happens if you push the boundary,” customer Kajsa Norin said. “The drink was good.”

Technology specialists warn of numerous ethical implications, from artificial intelligence’s impact on humanity’s future to concerns about automated hiring practices and employee evaluations.

Emrah Karakaya, who teaches industrial economics at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, compared the project to “opening Pandora’s box” and warned that AI management creates numerous risks. He questioned accountability if customers experience food poisoning – who bears responsibility?

“If you don’t have the required organizational infrastructure around it, and if you overlook these mistakes, it can cause harm to people, to society, to the environment, to business,” Karakaya said. “The question is, do we care about this negative impact?”

Established in 2023, Andon Labs specializes in AI safety research and describes its mission as “stress-testing” artificial intelligence systems by providing them with “real tools and real money.” The company has collaborated with major AI developers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Elon Musk’s xAI, preparing for a future where “organizations are run autonomously by AI.”

Company representatives describe the Swedish coffee shop as a “controlled experiment” designed to examine potential AI deployment strategies.

“AI will be a big part of society in the future, and therefore we want to make this experiment (to) see what ethical questions arise when we have AI that employs other people and runs a business,” said Hanna Petersson, a member of Andon Labs’ technical staff.

Previous company experiments included placing Anthropic’s Claude AI system in control of vending machine operations and a San Francisco gift shop. The vending machine test revealed concerning behaviors: the AI promised customer refunds but failed to deliver them, and deliberately misrepresented competitor prices to suppliers for negotiating advantages.

According to Petersson, Mona began operations after receiving basic guidance. Researchers instructed the system to pursue profitability, maintain friendly customer relations, and independently solve operational challenges while requesting additional tools when necessary.

The AI subsequently arranged utility contracts, obtained required permits for food service and outdoor dining, posted job listings on LinkedIn and Indeed, and established wholesale accounts for daily bread and bakery supplies. It communicates with staff through Slack messaging, frequently contacting baristas outside work hours – a practice that violates Swedish workplace standards.

Additional complications have emerged, especially regarding supply management.

The artificial intelligence has ordered excessive quantities including 6,000 napkins, four first-aid kits, and 3,000 rubber gloves for the small cafe, plus canned tomatoes that don’t appear in any menu items.

Bread ordering presents ongoing challenges. Sometimes the system orders excessive amounts, while other occasions it misses bakery deadlines, forcing staff to remove sandwiches from available options.

Petersson attributed ordering problems to the AI system’s “limited context window.”

“When old memory of ordering stuff is out of the context window, she completely forgets what she has ordered in the past,” Petersson said.

Employee Kajetan Grzelczak expressed little concern about AI replacing his barista position.

“All the workers are pretty much safe,” he said. “The ones who should be worried about their employment are the middle bosses, the people in management.”

A major cybersecurity incident this week has exposed the personal information of millions of students nationwide after hackers targeted Canvas, a popular educational management platform used by schools and universities across America.

The cyberattack brought down the widely-adopted classroom software system, which serves as a digital hub for coursework, grades, and student communications at educational institutions throughout the United States.

Both higher education institutions and elementary through high school districts that depend on the Canvas platform were affected by the data breach, leaving student records vulnerable to unauthorized access.

NANYUKI, Kenya (AP) — Known as the phantom of Kenya’s forests, the mountain bongo earns its nickname through remarkable camouflage abilities that help it blend seamlessly into thick vegetation.

This critically endangered antelope species is now the focus of an ambitious conservation effort aimed at boosting the population of these native Kenyan forest dwellers through careful reintroduction programs.

Distinguished by their rich brown coats adorned with striking white stripes, mountain bongos number fewer than 100 in their natural habitat. A Kenyan conservation facility is working to breed these magnificent creatures and gradually release them back into the wilderness, setting an ambitious goal of 750 wild bongos roaming free by 2050.

Nestled on the foggy mountainsides of Mount Kenya and bordering pristine forest land, the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy spans 1,250 acres in the Nanyuki region. Here, staff members work to rebuild the natural survival skills of zoo-raised bongos, teaching them to forage independently, evade predators, and develop resistance to wild diseases.

The facility recently welcomed four male bongos from the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria via the Czech Republic. These newcomers remain in quarantine under careful monitoring before they will breed with offspring from 18 bongos that came from the United States in 2004, creating a healthier genetic mix.

According to conservancy director Dr. Robert Aruho, preventing inbreeding among genetically similar animals is crucial for successfully rebuilding this endangered population.

“We want bongos that are not only strong in body, but strong in the genes they pass to the next generation,” he said.

These antelopes originally inhabited Kenya’s Mount Kenya, Aberdare, Eburu and Mau forest regions, which serve as crucial guardians of woodlands essential to the nation’s water resources.

The final wild bongo sighting in Mount Kenya’s forest occurred in 1994, decades before the conservancy successfully released the first group of 10 bongos back into their natural environment in 2022. These animals now wander freely among orange climbing vines and bushes that make up their preferred vegetation.

Disease epidemics during the 1960s devastated bongo numbers, killing thousands of the animals. Conservationist Don Hunt shipped 36 of these creatures to America in the 1980s as a safety measure, planning to breed them in controlled environments until wild conditions became suitable for their return.

Following the Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy’s establishment in 2004, 18 descendants of Hunt’s original bongos arrived and began reproducing, expanding the facility’s current population to 102 animals.

Local resident Caroline Makena, 33, recalls childhood tales from her grandmother about bongos being prized as bush meat in their community. Despite these stories, Makena never encountered one until beginning work as a gardener at the conservancy.

“I never knew the bongos were this beautiful, and I think my community loved them not just for the meat but because of their beauty,” she said.

Their timid nature and camouflage capabilities, despite those distinctive white markings, prove essential for wilderness survival.

Andrew Mulani, who assists with the bongo program, explains that animals undergo months of observation before wild release to identify the most cautious individuals, since tame creatures would become easy prey.

His greatest satisfaction came when a fourth calf was born in the wilderness last year, proving these antelopes are flourishing in their ancestral home and confirming population growth potential.

Nine-month pregnancies slow population recovery efforts, while bongos show greater sensitivity to certain plants and weather patterns compared to other antelope species sharing their ecosystem.

While Mount Kenya’s conservation team works urgently to rescue this endangered species by supplementing their natural shrub diet with specially formulated nutritious pellets, thousands of annual visitors admire their spiral horns and hope this forest phantom will once again become a regular sight throughout Kenya’s woodlands.

Three western states have unveiled an emergency water conservation strategy to address the Colorado River’s declining levels after experiencing the most severe winter drought in recorded history.

This month, Arizona, California and Nevada revealed their commitment to conserve as much as 1 million acre-feet (equivalent to 44 billion cubic feet) of Colorado River water by 2028. When combined with previously announced reductions by these states and Mexico, the total water savings would reach 3.2 million acre-feet (139 billion cubic feet) – sufficient to supply over 25 million people annually.

“We have kind of a crisis situation that this past winter has created,” Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s lead negotiator, said earlier this week. “We need to do everything we can, and that’s what our plan does, to find a short-term fix.”

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has already announced it will discharge additional water into severely depleted Lake Powell earlier than normal to maintain hydroelectric power generation at one of the nation’s largest reservoirs.

Federal authorities and state legislatures must approve the three-state proposal, though officials describe it as comprehensive and beneficial to the entire river system.

The Colorado River provides water to 40 million residents across seven U.S. states, two Mexican states and Native American communities. Agricultural operations depend on it for irrigating vast farmlands, while approximately 155 utility companies rely on it for hydroelectric power generation.

Current water-sharing agreements are set to expire this year, but interstate negotiations have largely collapsed. The states haven’t engaged in meaningful discussions for roughly four months. Upper Basin states – Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico – have called for mediation, while the Bureau of Reclamation is developing contingency plans in case states fail to reach agreement.

Kevin Moran from the Environmental Defense Fund expressed optimism that the water reduction commitment could spark collaborative solutions among all states.

“The Colorado River is tanking,” he said. “We are at the 11th hour in needing to have strong and collaborative solutions to protect the health of the river.”

Under the Lower Basin proposal, Nevada and Arizona would reduce their annual Lake Mead allocations by approximately one-third. California, holding the most extensive and established water rights, would decrease consumption by roughly 13 percent.

States have until August to determine how these reductions will be implemented across different sectors.

Arizona’s water allocation flows through the Central Arizona Project’s 336-mile canal network, serving 6 million residents in central and southern Arizona. The distribution system operates on a priority basis affecting farmers, municipalities, tribal communities and industrial users.

Agricultural operations consume the majority of the river’s water, particularly in areas like the Imperial Irrigation District – the largest single user of Colorado River water and a major producer of the nation’s winter vegetables.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California serves 19 million people and depends on the Colorado River for approximately 20 percent of its water supply. Board member Mark Gold noted that reducing Colorado River dependence will help prevent more severe shortages, though risks remain.

The Lower Basin strategy requires both state and federal financial support. Conservation measures may include farmers leaving fields unplanted or switching from water-intensive crops like alfalfa to drought-resistant alternatives.

Urban areas could experience higher water costs for residents and businesses due to reduced supply availability, Gold explained.

Persistent overuse, extended drought conditions and climate change-related temperature increases have reduced the river’s flow below allocations established over a century ago.

Lake Powell and Lake Mead, critical indicators of the river system’s condition, continue declining over time. If water levels drop below certain thresholds, hydroelectric generation would cease and downstream water delivery would become impossible.

The Bureau of Reclamation recently announced plans to release up to one-third of Flaming Gorge reservoir’s water upstream of Lake Powell to prevent this scenario. The Glen Canyon Dam’s hydroelectric facility powers more than 350,000 homes.

Bureau officials are evaluating the Lower Basin proposal while maintaining their focus on achieving a comprehensive interstate agreement.

Colorado’s lead negotiator Becky Mitchell called the Lower Basin plan a positive initial step but insufficient for protecting Lake Powell.

Upper Basin states want Lower Basin states to commit to avoiding legal challenges, which appears unlikely.

“While the Lower Division States have made progress, more is needed to protect the Colorado River System now and into the future,” she said in a statement. “These differences highlight the urgent need to come back together with the help of a mediator.”

All seven states continue disputing water reduction responsibilities and amounts during a drought spanning more than twenty years.

Upper Basin states recently agreed to federal plans sending nearly one-third of their annual water allocation to Flaming Gorge for Lake Powell protection. Water rights holders are also implementing earlier seasonal cuts, with some receiving only 14 percent or less of their normal allocations.

The Pentagon has unveiled classified records documenting decades of investigations into unexplained aerial encounters, providing the public with unprecedented access to military UFO research.

The newly disclosed documents detail encounters ranging from Cold War-era accounts of spinning disc-shaped craft to contemporary observations of metallic oval objects hovering motionless in the atmosphere. These incidents fall under what the military now classifies as unidentifiable anomalous phenomena, or UAPs – the official designation for what were previously called UFOs.

Among the released materials is imagery captured during the 1969 Apollo 12 lunar mission, which according to Defense Department analysis shows astronaut shadows on the Moon’s surface along with a marked section above the horizon displaying what officials term ‘unidentified phenomena.’

The document release represents a significant shift in government transparency regarding aerial mysteries that have puzzled military personnel and researchers for generations.

Colleges and universities nationwide are dealing with major disruptions to final exams after hackers targeted Canvas, a widely-used online learning platform. The cyber attack occurred during one of the most stressful times of the academic year when students and faculty depend on the system for testing, grades, and course materials.

Instructure, which owns Canvas, announced late Thursday that service had been restored for most users following the security breach.

According to Luke Connolly, a cybersecurity analyst with Emsisoft, the hacking collective known as ShinyHunters took credit for the attack. By Friday, Canvas and Instructure were no longer listed on the website where ShinyHunters posts information about their targets.

Despite the restoration, some educational institutions continue restricting Canvas access as a precautionary measure while they evaluate potential security risks.

Canvas serves as a central hub for academic activities, functioning as a digital gradebook, repository for lecture materials and videos, discussion forum for class projects, and communication tool between educators and students.

Many courses also conduct quizzes and tests through the platform, or require students to submit final assignments and research papers through the system by specific deadlines.

Connolly explained that ShinyHunters operates as a loosely organized group of teen and young adult cybercriminals from the United States and United Kingdom, previously connected to major breaches including the Ticketmaster incident. The group’s website describes their activities as “rooting your systems since ’19,” referring to gaining unauthorized access to computer networks’ core systems.

This week, ShinyHunters threatened to release sensitive information from approximately 9,000 educational institutions and 275 million individuals unless schools paid their ransom demands by a May 6 deadline. The group later pushed back this deadline, suggesting some institutions had begun negotiating with them.

Educational institutions have become attractive targets for ransomware criminals due to the vast amounts of personal data they maintain on students, faculty, and staff. These attacks can target individual school districts, such as those in Minneapolis or Los Angeles, or strike third-party platforms like Canvas and PowerSchool that schools increasingly depend on for scheduling, coursework, and testing.

While most schools have regained Canvas access, the timing during finals week will likely cause ongoing complications throughout the remainder of the academic period.

The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth announced it would delay Friday and Saturday examinations to give students additional time to access study materials that were unavailable during the system outage.

The University of Illinois postponed all Friday, Saturday, and Sunday exams for every course, including those that don’t typically use Canvas.

Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland maintained restricted Canvas access on Friday, stating they were proceeding “with an abundance of caution while we work to better understand the full impact of the incident and any potential vulnerabilities involving information connected to the platform.”

NASA’s Webb Space Telescope has delivered another breathtaking cosmic photograph, this time showcasing the radiant core of a distant spiral galaxy that dramatically outshines all surrounding celestial objects.

The newly released photograph features Messier 77, a galaxy positioned 45 million light-years from Earth within the Cetus constellation, also known as the whale constellation. To put this distance in perspective, one light-year equals approximately 6 trillion miles.

At the center of this galaxy lies an extraordinarily active core, driven by a colossal black hole weighing 8 million times more than our sun. Gas surrounding this black hole gets pulled into an extremely tight orbital path, heating up to such intense temperatures that it emits extraordinary amounts of radiation. Webb’s specialized mid-infrared equipment successfully recorded these remarkable cosmic details.

Since its deployment in 2021, this record-breaking space observatory has been continuously documenting spectacular images of our universe, establishing itself as the most advanced and largest telescope ever sent into space.

The widely-used Canvas educational platform has resumed operations Friday following a cyber attack that caused widespread disruption for students preparing for final examinations at thousands of institutions worldwide.

According to Luke Connolly, a threat analyst with cybersecurity company Emisoft, the hacking collective known as ShinyHunters took credit for the security breach. Instructure, Canvas’s parent company, announced late Thursday evening that service had been restored for the majority of users.

The platform serves as a central hub for academic materials including student grades, class notes, homework assignments, and recorded lectures. Connolly reported that the criminal group claimed to have compromised nearly 9,000 educational institutions globally, gaining access to billions of private communications and confidential records.

Evidence provided by Connolly revealed the hackers had been making threats since Sunday to release the stolen information. However, by Friday, both Instructure and Canvas had been taken down from the ransomware group’s dedicated dark web site where they publish compromised data.

The timing of Thursday’s outage could not have been worse for students. Social media platforms were flooded with concerned posts from students who found themselves unable to access essential study materials for upcoming final exams.

Educators scrambled to develop alternative methods to help students prepare for tests and turn in final projects. Some institutions, including the University of Texas at San Antonio, decided to postpone Friday final examinations due to the service interruption.

Educational institutions like Princeton University used X on Thursday night to inform students that “Canvas appears to be available again” while noting that technology support teams were continuing to watch the situation closely.

Educational institutions have become attractive targets for international cybercriminals due to their wealth of digital information, as hackers systematically seek out and steal sensitive data that was once secured in physical filing systems. Previous attacks have targeted major school systems including Minneapolis Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Instructure has remained silent about the incident on its social media channels. The company has not responded to Associated Press inquiries regarding whether ransom payments were made or what steps are being taken with the compromised information.

Connolly noted similarities between the Canvas incident and a previous attack on PowerSchool, another educational technology provider, which resulted in criminal charges against a Massachusetts college student.

According to Connolly’s assessment, ShinyHunters operates as an informal network of teenagers and young adults primarily located in the United States and United Kingdom. The organization has been connected to additional cyber attacks, including a breach targeting Live Nation’s Ticketmaster division.