Latest News
Last updated 21 Feb, 06:13 PM
BBC News
MPs to discuss inquiry into trade envoy role after Andrew arrest - A cross-party committee will also look into the appointment and accountability of UK trade envoys.
UK should send non-combat troops to Ukraine now, former PM Johnson tells BBC - Troops should be deployed to peaceful parts of the country in non-fighting roles, he said.
'It's ruined my life': Hundreds tell BBC how medication triggered gambling and other addictions - More than 250 people contacted us describing impulsive behaviour side effects from prescription drugs.
Palestinian Authority in dire straits as Israel's hold on West Bank deepens - More than 30 years after its creation, there are increasing warnings that the PA is close to collapse.
Watch: Baby monkey Punch cuddles soft toy after being abandoned by mother - A young Japanese macaque at the Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan went viral, after videos showed him playing with a soft toy that zookeepers gave him for comfort.
The Register
Government upgrades drones, deploys joystick tweakers to catch illegal dumpers - Electronic eyes are watching from above, ready to catch dumpers of smashed up couches in the act The UK government is pulling together an elite squad of drone operators to crack down on the scourge of fly tippers and unauthorized dumpers across this ever less green and pleasant land.…
Ofcom's grumble-o-meter lights up for EE, TalkTalk, Vodafone - Q3 figures show the trio drawing the most broadband complaints per 100,000 customers The UK's telecoms regulator has named and shamed the companies it receives the most customer complaints about, with certain brands cropping up more than others.…
SerpApi says Google is the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to scraping - 'The DMCA was not designed to create walled gardens for tech giants' SerpApi, a Texas-based web scraping company, has asked a California court to dismiss Google's claim that that it bypassed digital locks to gather copyrighted content in Google Search results.…
The idea of using a Raspberry Pi to run OpenClaw makes no sense - The micro-computer maker’s shares surged this week after an X post tied the AI agent to Pi demand opinion Beloved British single-board computer maker Raspberry Pi has achieved meme stock stardom, as its share price surged 90 percent over the course of a couple of days earlier this week. It's settled since, but it’s still up more than 30 percent on the week.…
PayPal app code error leaked personal info and a 'few' unauthorized transactions - About 100 customers affected PayPal has notified about 100 customers that their personal information was exposed online during a code change gone awry, and in a few of these cases, people saw unauthorized transactions on their accounts.…
New Scientist - Home
The untold story of our remarkable hands and how they made us human - The evolution of human hands is one of the most important – and overlooked – stories of our origin. Now, new fossil evidence is revealing their pivotal role
What to read this week: The Laws of Thought by Tom Griffiths - In the ChatGPT era, a war over the nature of intelligence is playing out. Chris Stokel-Walker explores a Princeton professor's engaging take
Fish-based pet food may expose cats and dogs to forever chemicals - A survey of 100 commercial foods for dogs and cats revealed that PFAS chemicals appear in numerous brands and types, with fish-based products among those with the highest levels
Your BMI can't tell you much about your health – here's what can - People classed as “overweight” according to BMI can be perfectly healthy. But there are better measures of fat, and physicians are finally using them
Nobel prizewinner Omar Yaghi says his invention will change the world - Chemist Omar Yaghi invented materials called MOFs, a few grams of which have the surface area of a football field. He explains why he thinks these super-sponges will define the next century
Hacker News
What Not to Write on Your Security Clearance Form - Comments
I Verified My LinkedIn Identity. Here's What I Handed Over - Comments
How far back in time can you understand English? - Comments
Keep Android Open - Comments
macOS's Little-Known Command-Line Sandboxing Tool (2025) - Comments
Slashdot
Researchers Discover Ancient Bacteria Strain That Resists 10 Modern Antibiotics - CNN reports on a 13,000-year-old glacier in a Romanian cave, where scientists say a bacterial strain they thawed and analyzed "is resistant to 10 modern antibiotics used to treat diseases such as urinary tract infections and tuberculosis." But there's no evidence the bacteria is harmful to humans, CNN notes, and "The scientists said the insights they have gained from the work may help in the fight against modern superbugs that can't be treated by commonly used antibiotics." Analysis of the Psychrobacter SC65A.3 genome revealed 11 genes that are potentially able to kill or stop the growth of other bacteria, fungi and viruses... Matthew Holland, a postdoctoral researcher in medicinal chemistry at the UK's University of Oxford, said that researchers were searching in new and extreme environments, such as ice caves and the seafloor, for biomolecules that could be developed into new antibiotic drugs. He was not involved in the new study. "The team in Romania found this particular bug had resistance to 10 reasonably advanced synthetic antibiotics and that in itself is interesting," he said. "But what they report as well is that it secreted molecules that were able to kill a variety of already resistant, harmful bacteria. "So the hope is that can we look at the molecules it makes and see if there's the possibility within those molecules to make new antibiotics." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Is 'Brain Rot' Real? How Too Much Time Online Can Affect Your Mind. - Can being "very online" really affect our brains, asks the Washington Post: Research suggests that scrolling through short videos on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube Shorts is affecting our attention, memory and mental health. A recent meta-analysis of the scientific literature found that increased use of short-form video was linked with poorer cognition and increased anxiety... In a 2025 study published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, researchers looked at longitudinal data from more than 7,000 children across the country and found that more screen use was associated with reduced cortical thickness in certain areas of the brain. The cortex, which is the outer layer that sits on top of our more primitive brain structures, allows for higher-level thinking, memory and decision-making. "We really need it for things like inhibitory control or not being so impulsive," said Mitch Prinstein, a senior science adviser to the American Psychological Association and professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the study. The cortex is also important for controlling addictive behaviors. "Those seem to be the areas being affected by the reduced cortical thickness," he said, explaining that impulsivity can prompt us to seek dopamine hits from social media. In the study, more screen time was also associated with more attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms... But not all screen time is created equal. A recent study removed social media from kids' devices but let them use their phones for as long as they wanted. The result? Kids spent just as long on their phones but didn't have the same harmful effects. "It's what you're doing on the screen that matters," Prinstein said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
How Python's Security Response Team Keeps Python Users Safe - This week the Python Software Foundation explained how they keep Python secure. A new blog post recognizes the volunteers and paid Python Software Foundation staff on the Python Security Response Team (PSRT), who "triage and coordinate vulnerability reports and remediations keeping all Python users safe." Just last year the PSRT published 16 vulnerability advisories for CPython and pip, the most in a single year to date! And the PSRT usually can't do this work alone, PSRT coordinators are encouraged to involve maintainers and experts on the projects and submodules. By involving the experts directly in the remediation process ensures fixes adhere to existing API conventions and threat-models, are maintainable long-term, and have minimal impact on existing use-cases. Sometimes the PSRT even coordinates with other open source projects to avoid catching the Python ecosystem off-guard by publishing a vulnerability advisory that affects multiple other projects. The most recent example of this is PyPI's ZIP archive differential attack mitigation. This work deserves recognition and celebration just like contributions to source code and documentation. [Security Developer-in-Residence Seth Larson and PSF Infrastructure Engineer Jacob Coffee] are developing further improvements to workflows involving "GitHub Security Advisories" to record the reporter, coordinator, and remediation developers and reviewers to CVE and OSV records to properly thank everyone involved in the otherwise private contribution to open source projects. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Hazardous Substances Found In All Headphones Tested By ToxFREE Project - An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: You wear them at work, you wear them at play, you wear them to relax. You may even get sweaty in them at the gym. But an investigation into headphones has found every single pair tested contained substances hazardous to human health, including chemicals that can cause cancer, neurodevelopmental problems and the feminization of males. [...] Researchers say that while individual doses from particular sources may be low, a "cocktail effect" of daily, multi-source exposure nevertheless poses potentially severe long-term risks to health. [...] Researchers bought 81 pairs of in-ear and over-ear headphones, either on the market in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Austria, or from the online marketplaces Shein and Temu, and took them for laboratory analysis, testing for a range of harmful chemicals. "Hazardous substances were detected in every product tested," they said. Bisphenol A (BPA) appeared in 98% of samples, and its substitute, bisphenol S (BPS), was found in more than three-quarters. Synthetic chemicals used to stiffen plastic, BPA and BPS mimic the action of oestrogen inside organisms, causing a range of adverse effects including the feminization of males, early onset puberty in girls, and cancer. Previous studies have shown that bisphenols can migrate from synthetic materials into sweat, and that they can be absorbed through the skin. "Given the prolonged skin contact associated with headphone use, dermal exposure represents a relevant pathway, and it is reasonable to assume that similar migration of BPA and its substitutes may occur from headphone components directly to the user's skin," the researchers said. Also found in the headphones tested were phthalates, potent reproductive toxins that can impair fertility; chlorinated paraffins, which have been linked to liver and kidney damage; and brominated and organophosphate flame retardants, which have similar endocrine disrupting properties to bisphenols. Most were, however, found in only trace quantities. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
OpenAI's First ChatGPT Gadget Could Be a Smart Speaker With a Camera - OpenAI is reportedly developing its first consumer hardware product: a $200-$300 smart speaker with a built-in camera capable of recognizing "items on a nearby table or conversations people are having in the vicinity." It's also said to feature Face ID-style authentication for purchases. The Verge reports: In addition to the smart speaker, OpenAI is "possibly" working on smart glasses and a smart lamp, The Information reports. (Apple may also be working on a smart lamp.) But OpenAI's glasses might not hit mass production until 2028, and while OpenAI has made prototypes of gadgets like the smart lamp, The Information says it's "unclear" if they'll be released and that OpenAI's devices plans are in early stages. Read more of this story at Slashdot.