Latest News
Last updated 29 Jan, 09:46 AM
BBC News
What could happen if the US strikes Iran? Here are seven scenarios - From regime change to retaliation, the BBC's Frank Gardner outlines possible outcomes of US strikes on Iran.
Water bills to rise again: Use our tool to find out by how much - The average annual household bill in England and Wales will increase by £33 from April.
Border agents involved in fatal shooting of Alex Pretti placed on leave - As Trump and the Minneapolis Mayor spar over social media on immigration law enforcement, the US continues to be roiled by the killing of nurse Alex Pretti.
Watch: How Alex Pretti shooting led Trump to shift course in Minneapolis - BBC analysis editor Ros Atkins looks at why tensions have been running so high in the city - and how we got here.
Keep suspended pupils in school instead of at home, ministers say - Changes to England's school system say on-site suspensions should be used for non-violent behaviour.
The Register
Bork ventures to the Middle of Lidl - Happier days at Intel nailed to the wall of discount retailer Bork!Bork!Bork! Lidl is a well-known purveyor of inexpensive groceries, random goods via the Middle of Lidl, and now… bork.…
Microsoft investors sweat cloud giant's OpenAI exposure - All the promises in the world won't pay the GPU bills when the music stops What should have been a banner second quarter for Microsoft was met with tepid apprehension on Wall Street on Wednesday, sending its share price down by 6 percent in after-hours trading.…
Google to foist Gemini pane on Chrome users in automated browsing push - The world’s most popular browser has gained a dedicated sidebar for AI browsing Google has reworked its Chrome browser to include a new side panel for interacting with the company's Gemini model, in an effort to support AI-assisted interactions with websites.…
ServiceNow boasts about years of sweat equity that went into making its AI agents smarter - 80 billion workflows makes a difference Though some recent studies cast doubt on the ability of AI agents to complete complex tasks, ServiceNow boasts that its bots are better, because they can rely on 20 years and 80 billion workflows worth of experience. The underlying model, they say, is just a small part of the product.…
Ransomware crims forced to take off-RAMP as FBI seizes forum - Cybercrime solved. The end Ransomware crims have just lost one of their best business platforms. US law enforcement has seized the notorious RAMP cybercrime forum's dark web and clearnet domains.…
New Scientist - Home
Engaging look at friction shows how it keeps our world rubbing along - How much do you know about friction? Jennifer R. Vail's charming, if sometimes technical, "biography" of the force showcases its amazing and largely overlooked role in everything from climate change to dark matter, says Karmela Padavic-Callaghan
Think of a card, any card – but make it science - Feedback has been informed about a "global telepathy study" which is currently taking place, but isn't entirely convinced about its merits
This virus infects most of us – but why do only some get very ill? - The ubiquitous Epstein-Barr virus is increasingly being linked to conditions like multiple sclerosis and lupus. But why do only some people who catch it develop these complications? The answer may lie in our genetics
Ancient humans were seafaring far earlier than we realised - Thousands of years before the invention of compasses or sails, prehistoric peoples crossed oceans to reach remote lands like Malta and Australia. Doing so meant striking out in unknowable conditions. What do such crossings tell us about ancient minds?
Huge fossil bonanza preserves 512-million-year-old ecosystem - A treasure trove of Cambrian fossils has been discovered in southern China, providing a window on marine life shortly after Earth’s first mass extinction event
Hacker News
Europe's next-generation weather satellite sends back first images - Comments
Render Mermaid diagrams as SVGs or ASCII art - Comments
We can't send mail farther than 500 miles (2002) - Comments
Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app - Comments
Maine’s ‘Lobster Lady’ who fished for nearly a century dies aged 105 - Comments
Slashdot
Brandon Sanderson's Literary Fantasy Universe 'Cosmere' Picked Up by Apple TV - Apple TV+ has landed the screen rights to Cosmere, the sprawling literary universe created by Brandon Sanderson. "The first titles being eyed for adaptation are the Mistborn series, for features, and The Stormlight Archive series, for television," reports the Hollywood Reporter. From the report: The deal is rare one, coming after a competitive situation which saw Sanderson meet with most of the studio heads in town. It gives the author rarefied control over the screen translations, according to sources. Sanderson will be the architect of the universe; will write, produce and consult; and will have approvals. That's a level of involvement that not even J.K. Rowling or George R.R. Martin enjoys. Sanderson's literary success and fan following helped pave the way for such a deal. One of the most prolific and beloved fantasy authors working today, he has sold over 50 million copies of his books worldwide, collectively across his series. [...] While the Cosmere books are set in various worlds and eras, the underlying premise concerns a being named Adolnasium who is killed by a group of conspirators. The being's power is broken into 16 shards, which are then spread out throughout many worlds by the conspirators, spreading many kinds of magic across the universe. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Extremophile Molds Are Invading Art Museums - Scientific American's Elizabeth Anne Brown recently "polled the great art houses of Europe" about whether they'd had any recent experiences with mold in their collections. Despite the stigma that keeps many institutions silent, she found that extremophile "xerophilic" molds are quietly spreading through museums and archives, thriving in low-humidity, tightly sealed storage and damaging everything from textiles and wood to manuscripts and stone. An anonymous Slashdot reader shares an excerpt from the article: Mold is a perennial scourge in museums that can disfigure and destroy art and artifacts. [...] Consequently, mold is spoken of in whispers in the museum world. Curators fear that even rumors of an infestation can hurt their institution's funding and blacklist them from traveling exhibitions. When an infestation does occur, it's generally kept secret. The contract conservation teams that museums hire to remediate invasive mold often must vow confidentiality before they're even allowed to see the damage. But a handful of researchers, from in-house conservators to university mycologists, are beginning to compare notes about the fungal infestations they've tackled in museum storage depots, monastery archives, crypts and cathedrals. A disquieting revelation has emerged from these discussions: there's a class of molds that flourish in low humidity, long believed to be a sanctuary from decay. By trying so hard to protect artifacts, we've accidentally created the "perfect conditions for [these molds] to grow," says Flavia Pinzari, a mycologist at the Council of National Research of Italy. "All the rules for conservation never considered these species." These molds -- called xerophiles -- can survive in dry, hostile environments such as volcano calderas and scorching deserts, and to the chagrin of curators across the world, they seem to have developed a taste for cultural heritage. They devour the organic material that abounds in museums -- from fabric canvases and wood furniture to tapestries. They can also eke out a living on marble statues and stained-glass windows by eating micronutrients in the dust that accumulates on their surfaces. And global warming seems to be helping them spread. Most frustrating for curators, these xerophilic molds are undetectable by conventional means. But now, armed with new methods, several research teams are solving art history cold cases and explaining mysterious new infestations... The xerophiles' body count is rising: bruiselike stains on Leonardo da Vinci's most famous self-portrait, housed in Turin. Brown blotches on the walls of King Tut's burial chamber in Luxor. Pockmarks on the face of a saint in an 11th-century fresco in Kyiv. It's not enough to find and identify the mold. Investigators are racing to determine the limits of xerophilic life and figure out which pieces of our cultural heritage are at the highest risk of infestation before the ravenous microbes set in. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Fully Electric Vehicle Sales In EU Overtake Petrol For First Time In December - Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from Reuters: Fully electric car sales in December overtook petrol for the first time in the European Union, even as policymakers proposed to loosen emissions regulations, data showed on Tuesday. U.S. battery-electric brand Tesla continued to lose market share to competitors including China's BYD and Europe's best-selling group Volkswagen, data from the European auto lobby ACEA showed. Car sales throughout Europe sustained a sixth straight month of year-on-year growth, with overall registrations, a proxy for sales, hitting their highest volumes in five years in Europe in 2025, though they remained well below pre-pandemic levels. [...] December registrations of battery electric, plug-in hybrid and hybrid electric cars were up 51%, 36.7% and 5.8%, respectively, to account collectively for 67% of the bloc's registrations, up from 57.8% in December 2024. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Kernel Community Drafts a Plan For Replacing Linus Torvalds - The Linux kernel community has formalized a continuity plan for the day Linus Torvalds eventually steps aside, defining how the process would work to replace him as the top-level maintainer. ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports: The new "plan for a plan," drafted by longtime kernel contributor Dan Williams, was discussed at the latest Linux Kernel Maintainer Summit in Tokyo, where he introduced it as "an uplifting subject tied to our eventual march toward death." Torvalds added, in our conversation, that "part of the reason it came up this time around was that my previous contract with Linux Foundation ended Q3 last year, and people on the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board had been aware of that. Of course, they were also aware that we'd renewed the contract, but it meant that it had been discussed." The plan stops short of naming a single heir. Instead, it creates an explicit process for selecting one or more maintainers to take over the top-level Linux repository in a worst-case or orderly-transition scenario, including convening a conclave to weigh options and maximize long-term project health. One maintainer in Tokyo jokingly suggested that the group, like the conclave that selects a new pope, be locked in a room and that a puff of white smoke be sent out when a decision was reached. The document frames this as a way to protect against the classic "bus factor" problem. That is, what happens to a project if its leader is hit by a bus? Torvalds' central role today means the project currently assumes a bus-factor of one, where a single person's exit could, in theory, destabilize merges and final releases. In practice, as Torvalds and other top maintainers have discussed, the job of top penguin would almost certainly currently go to Greg Kroah-Hartman, the stable-branch Linux kernel maintainer. Responding to the suggestion that the backup replacement would be Greg KH, Torvalds said: "But the thing is, Greg hasn't always been Greg. Before Greg, there was Andrew Morton and Alan Cox. After Greg, there will be Shannon and Steve. The real issue is you have to have a person or a group of people that the development community can trust, and part of trust is fundamentally about having been around for long enough that people know how you work, but long enough does not mean to be 30 years." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
French Lawmakers Vote To Ban Social Media Use By Under-15s - French lawmakers have voted to ban social media access for children under 15 and prohibit mobile phones in high schools, positioning France as the second country after Australia to impose sweeping age-based digital restrictions. The Guardian reports: The lower national assembly adopted the text by a vote of 130 to 21 in a lengthy overnight session from Monday to Tuesday. It will now go to the Senate, France's upper house, ahead of becoming law. Macron hailed the vote as a "major step" to protect French children and teenagers in a post on X. The legislation, which also provides for a ban on mobile phones in high schools, would make France the second country to take such a step following Australia's ban for under-16s in December. [...] "The emotions of our children and teenagers are not for sale or to be manipulated, either by American platforms or Chinese algorithms," Macron said in a video broadcast on Saturday. Authorities want the measures to be enforced from the start of the 2026 school year for new accounts. Former prime minister Gabriel Attal, who leads Macron's Renaissance party in the lower house, said he hoped the Senate would pass the bill by mid-February so that the ban could come into force on September 1. He added that "social media platforms will then have until December 31 to deactivate existing accounts" that do not comply with the age limit. [...] The draft bill excludes online encyclopedias and educational platforms. An effective age verification system would have to come into force for the ban to become reality. Work on such a system is under way at the European level. Read more of this story at Slashdot.