Latest News

Last updated 27 Feb, 07:20 PM

BBC News

Starmer vows to fight on after historic Green by-election win - The result - in a seat Labour has held for nearly 100 years - heaps further pressure on the PM's position.

Henry Zeffman: Green victory shows insurgent parties are here to stay - The party's historic win in Gorton and Denton by-election is clearest sign yet of changing political landscape.

Soham killer Huntley still in hospital after attack using makeshift weapon - Huntley, who is serving a life sentence for murdering two schoolgirls, has significant head trauma, the BBC understands.

Private schools lose legal challenge over VAT changes - A group of low-fee paying private schools have challenged the government's removal of the VAT exemption.

'We were bullied for years before our son was killed' - The parents of 14-year-old Ibrahima Seck say they were being harassed and bullied for years.

The Register

Oak Ridge spawns institute to curb AI datacenter power surge - Lab aims to link power, cooling, and workload management to ease strain on the US grid Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is hoping to turn its technical expertise to the problem of growing electricity demand from AI datacenters.…

Microsoft HoloLens finds second home in the military after failing battlefield tests - Let’s hope air cargo checks don’t trigger the same headaches The US Army's attempt to turn Microsoft HoloLens headsets into battlefield kit may have failed, but the AR goggles aren't going into the garbage. Instead, they're being repurposed for remote cargo inspection support.…

Harvard boffins finally crack the mystery of squeaky sneakers - Are they shoe-ins for an award? Hard to say It is a sound evocative of high school: the characteristic squeak of sneakers on a basketball court. UK readers may, however, be familiar with the same sound from their trainers while playing badminton.…

Lovable-hosted app littered with basic flaws exposed 18K users, researcher claims - Who's to blame – the vibey platforms or the humans who ignore security warnings? Vibe-coding platform Lovable has been accused of hosting apps riddled with vulnerabilities after saying users are responsible for addressing security issues flagged before publishing.…

Ransomware payments cratered in 2025, but attacks surged to record highs - Smaller crews piled in as old names splintered and rebranded Ransomware payments cratered in 2025, but it seems like the cybercrooks launching the attacks didn't get the memo.…

New Scientist - Home

NASA’s Artemis moon exploration programme is getting a major makeover - As it faces yet another set of delays, NASA’s Artemis programme is being shaken up, delaying an actual moon landing in favour of smaller, faster steps forward

Frailty can be eased with an infusion of stem cells from young people - Frailty can typically only be lessened through lifestyle changes, but a stem cell therapy seems to target the underlying causes of the condition, boosting the mobility of frail older people

Human brain cells on a chip learned to play Doom in a week - Neuron-powered computer chips can now be easily programmed to play a first-person shooter game, bringing biological computers a step closer to useful applications

Ocean geoengineering trial finds no evidence of harm to marine life - Pouring 65,000 litres of sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine removed up to 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere without harming wildlife, according to the researchers behind an ocean alkalinity enhancement test

How worried should you be about an asteroid smashing into Earth? - The dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid, but does that mean we risk suffering the same fate - and should you be worried about the possibility? Leah Crane sets the matter straight

Hacker News

A better streams API is possible for JavaScript - Comments

Allocating on the Stack - Comments

We gave terabytes of CI logs to an LLM - Comments

Modeling Cycles of Grift with Evolutionary Game Theory - Comments

Tenth Circuit: 4th Amendment Doesn't Support Broad Search of Protesters' Devices - Comments

Slashdot

Nasa Announces Artemis III Mission No Longer Aims To Send Humans To Moon - Nasa announced on Friday radical changes to its delayed Artemis III mission to land humans back on the moon, as the US space agency grapples with technical glitches and criticism that it is trying to do too much too soon. From a report: The abrupt shift in strategy was laid out by the space agency's recently confirmed administrator, Jared Isaacman. Announcing the changes on Friday, he said that Nasa would introduce at least one new moon flight before attempting to put humans back on the lunar surface for the first time in more than half a century, in 2028. The new, more incremental approach would give the Nasa team a chance to test flight and refine its technology. As part of the changes, the Artemis II mission to fly humans around the moon this year, without landing, would also be pushed back from its latest scheduled launch on 6 March to 1 April at the earliest. "Everybody agrees this is the only way forward," Isaacman told reporters at a news conference. "I know this is how Nasa changed the world, and this is how Nasa is going to do it again." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Chinese Official's Use of ChatGPT Accidentally Revealed a Global Intimidation Operation - A sprawling Chinese influence operation -- accidentally revealed by a Chinese law enforcement official's use of ChatGPT -- focused on intimidating Chinese dissidents abroad, including by impersonating US immigration officials, according to a new report from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. From a report: The Chinese law enforcement official used ChatGPT like a diary to document the alleged covert campaign of suppression, OpenAI said. In one instance, Chinese operators allegedly disguised themselves as US immigration officials to warn a US-based Chinese dissident that their public statements had supposedly broken the law, according to the ChatGPT user. In another case, they describe an effort to use forged documents from a US county court to try to get a Chinese dissident's social media account taken down. The report offers one of the most vivid examples yet of how authoritarian regimes can use AI tools to document their censorship efforts. The influence operation appeared to involve hundreds of Chinese operators and thousands of fake online accounts on various social media platforms, according to OpenAI. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Metacritic Will Kick Out Media Attempting To Submit AI Generated Reviews - An anonymous reader shares a report: While some see AI as a tool to be used, its specific use and how it is deployed responsibly is being heavily debated online across a wide range of industries. In terms of journalistic content, and in this particular instance, reviews, review aggregator Metacritic has taken a firm stance on content published and submitted to their platform, that have been generated by artificial intelligence in some way. In a statement by co-founder Marc Doyle, sent to Gamereactor, he says this: "Metacritic has been a reputable review source for a quarter century and has maintained a rigorous vetting process when adding new publications to our slate of critics. However, in certain instances such as a publication being sold or a writing staff having turned over, problems can arise such as plagiarism, theft, or other forms of fraud including AI-generated reviews. Metacritic's policy is to never include an AI-generated critic review on Metacritic and if we discover that one has been posted, we'll remove it immediately and sever ties with that publication indefinitely pending a thorough investigation." So, what is this about specifically? Well, it's probably a sound guess, that this pertains to Videogamer's review of Resident Evil 9: Requiem, which was removed from the platform after a barrage of comments accusing the review of being AI-written, and for the author of being made up. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sam Altman Says OpenAI Shares Anthropic's Red Lines in Pentagon Fight - An anonymous reader shares a report: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a memo to staff that he will draw the same red lines that sparked a high-stakes fight between rival Anthropic and the Pentagon: no AI for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons. If other leading firms like Google follow suit, this could massively complicate the Pentagon's efforts to replace Anthropic's Claude, which was the first model integrated into the military's most sensitive work. It would also be the first time the nation's top AI leaders have taken a collective stand about how the U.S. government can and can't use their technology. Altman made clear he still wants to strike a deal with the Pentagon that would allow ChatGPT to be used for sensitive military contexts. Despite the show of solidarity, such a deal could see OpenAI replace Anthropic if the Pentagon follows through with its plan to declare the latter a "supply chain risk." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Netflix Ditches deal for Warner Bros. Discovery After Paramount's Offer is Deemed Superior - Netflix is walking away from a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming assets after the WBD board on Thursday deemed a revised bid by Paramount Skydance to be a superior offer. From a report: Earlier this week, Paramount raised its bid to buy the entirety of WBD to $31 per share, up from $30 per share, all cash. It was the latest amendment to Paramount's multiple offers in recent months -- and since moving forward with a hostile bid to buy the company -- and it's now unseated a deal between WBD and Netflix to sell the legacy media company's studio and streaming businesses for $27.75 per share. Last week, Netflix granted WBD a seven-day waiver to reengage with Paramount, resulting in the higher bid. Paramount's offer is for the entirety of WBD, including its pay-TV networks, such as CNN, TBS and TNT. Netflix had four business days to make changes to its own proposal in light of Paramount's superior bid, the WBD board said in a statement Thursday. Instead, the decision by the streaming giant to walk away puts a pin in a drawn-out saga that saw amended offers from both bidders. Read more of this story at Slashdot.