Latest News
Last updated 18 Feb, 02:10 PM
BBC News
Lower food and fuel prices drive inflation down to 3% - The rate at which prices are rising is slowing down, which could lead to lower interest rates.
'Difficult' Russia-Ukraine peace talks end without breakthrough - The second day of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia ended after just two hours.
Met making 'initial inquiries' into Andrew protection officers - It comes after claims emerged that protection officers "turned a blind eye" during visits to Jeffrey Epstein's island.
'Just push us into the sea': The frustration of a coastal community failed by political promises - In Horden, County Durham, Westminster slogans have long been left unmet as the population has plummeted.
William says it has taken 'long time to understand my emotions' - Prince William has offered his advice to those struggling with their mental health, in a special Radio 1 panel discussion.
The Register
Your AI-generated password isn't random, it just looks that way - Seemingly complex strings are actually highly predictable, crackable within hours Generative AI tools are surprisingly poor at suggesting strong passwords, experts say.…
Tesla drops 'Autopilot' branding in California after DMV order - EV maker avoids 30-day license suspension after state ruling on self-driving claims Tesla has complied with an order by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and stopped using the term "Autopilot" in its marketing of electric vehicles, having already modified use of "Full Self-Driving" to clarify that it requires driver supervision.…
Cabinet Office probes digital ID minister over think tank's journalist investigation - Starmer orders inquiry after Labour Together commissioned dossier on reporters Josh Simons, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for the UK government's digital identity program, is being probed by the department for his actions running a Labour think tank that commissioned an investigation into journalists.…
Godot maintainers struggle with 'draining and demoralizing' AI slop submissions - GitHub itself to blame for AI slop pull requests, say devs Rémi Verschelde, a maintainer of the open source Godot game engine, is the latest to complain about the impact of "AI slop PRs [pull requests]", which he says "are becoming increasingly draining and demoralizing for Godot maintainers."…
Notepad++ declares hardened update process 'effectively unexploitable' - Miscreants will need to find another avenue for malware shenanigans Notepad++ has continued beefing up security with a release the project's author claims makes the "update process robust and effectively unexploitable."…
New Scientist - Home
Humans are the only primates with a chin – now we finally know why - Biologists have debated the reason why Homo sapiens evolved a prominent lower jaw, but this unique feature may actually be a by-product of other traits shaped by natural selection
Did a cloud-seeding start-up really increase snowfall in part of Utah? - A technology that uses a coiled wire to electrify aerosols has boosted snowfall amid a drought in the western US, according to the company developing it, but the results haven't convinced other scientists
Scientists want to put a super laser on the moon - An ultrastable laser could enable extremely precise timing and navigation on the moon, and the cold, dark craters near the lunar poles would be the ideal location for it
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
Giant viruses may be more alive than we thought - A giant virus encodes part of the protein-making toolkit of cells that gives it greater control over its amoeba host, raising questions about how it evolved and how such beings relate to living organisms
Hacker News
Terminals should generate the 256-color palette - Comments
Native FreeBSD Kerberos/LDAP with FreeIPA/IDM - Comments
Claude Sonnet 4.6 - Comments
If you’re an LLM, please read this - Comments
Asahi Linux Progress Report: Linux 6.19 - Comments
Slashdot
India Tells University To Leave AI Summit After Presenting Chinese Robot as Its Own - An anonymous reader shares a report: An Indian university has been asked to vacate its stall at the country's flagship AI summit after a staff member was caught presenting a commercially available robotic dog made in China as its own creation, two government sources said. "You need to meet Orion. This has been developed by the Centre of Excellence at Galgotias University," Neha Singh, a professor of communications, told state-run broadcaster DD News this week in remarks that have since gone viral. But social media users quickly identified the robot as the Unitree Go2, sold by China's Unitree Robotics for about $2,800 and widely used in research and education globally. The episode has drawn sharp criticism and has cast an uncomfortable spotlight on India's artificial intelligence ambitions. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Thousands of CEOs Just Admitted AI Had No Impact On Employment Or Productivity - An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: In 1987, economist and Nobel laureate Robert Solow made a stark observation about the stalling evolution of the Information Age: Following the advent of transistors, microprocessors, integrated circuits, and memory chips of the 1960s, economists and companies expected these new technologies to disrupt workplaces and result in a surge of productivity. Instead, productivity growth slowed, dropping from 2.9% from 1948 to 1973, to 1.1% after 1973. Newfangled computers were actually at times producing too much information, generating agonizingly detailed reports and printing them on reams of paper. What had promised to be a boom to workplace productivity was for several years a bust. This unexpected outcome became known as Solow's productivity paradox, thanks to the economist's observation of the phenomenon. "You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics," Solow wrote in a New York Times Book Review article in 1987. New data on how C-suite executives are -- or aren't -- using AI shows history is repeating itself, complicating the similar promises economists and Big Tech founders made about the technology's impact on the workplace and economy. Despite 374 companies in the S&P 500 mentioning AI in earnings calls -- most of which said the technology's implementation in the firm was entirely positive -- according to a Financial Times analysis from September 2024 to 2025, those positive adoptions aren't being reflected in broader productivity gains. A study published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that among 6,000 CEOs, chief financial officers, and other executives from firms who responded to various business outlook surveys in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Australia, the vast majority see little impact from AI on their operations. While about two-thirds of executives reported using AI, that usage amounted to only about 1.5 hours per week, and 25% of respondents reported not using AI in the workplace at all. Nearly 90% of firms said AI has had no impact on employment or productivity over the last three years, the research noted. However, firms' expectations of AI's workplace and economic impact remained substantial: Executives also forecast AI will increase productivity by 1.4% and increase output by 0.8% over the next three years. While firms expected a 0.7% cut to employment over this time period, individual employees surveyed saw a 0.5% increase in employment. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Single Dose of DMT Rapidly Reduces Symptoms of Major Depression - In a small double-blind clinical trial, a single intravenous dose of DMT produced rapid and clinically meaningful reductions in symptoms of major depressive disorder within a week, with effects lasting up to three months in some patients. "Unlike psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide ( LSD), whose effects can last for hours, intravenous DMT has a half-life of around five minutes," notes ScienceAlert. "Its psychedelic effects are correspondingly brief, potentially making it more practical to administer in clinical settings." From the report: "A single dose of DMT with psychotherapeutic support produced a rapid, significant reduction in depressive symptoms, sustained up to three months," writes a team led by neuroscientists David Erritzoe and Tommaso Barba of Imperial College London. [...] They recruited 34 participants with major depression and divided them into two groups of 17 for a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. In the first stage of the trial, one group received an intravenous dose of DMT, while the other received an active placebo. Neither the researchers nor the participants were informed which participants received the DMT. The doses took around 10 minutes to administer, and a therapist sat with each participant to ensure comfort and safety while the psychedelic effects were active, remaining silent throughout the treatment. The treatment was generally well tolerated. Most side effects were mild to moderate, and included nausea, temporary anxiety, and pain at the injection site. No serious adverse events related to the treatment were reported, although brief increases in heart rate and blood pressure were observed immediately after dosing. In the second, open-label stage, two weeks after the first dose, all participants were given the opportunity to receive a dose of DMT. Participants were assessed before and at intervals after each dose using the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale. Just a week after the first dose, participants who had received DMT had improved scores compared to the placebo group, and improvements were sustained during follow-up assessments. Two weeks after the first dose, the participants who received DMT scored about seven points lower, on average, than those who received a placebo. On this commonly used clinical scale, a drop of that size is generally considered a meaningful reduction in symptom severity. There was no significant difference between patients who received one or two doses of DMT, suggesting a single dose may be sufficient. These effects persisted for up to three months, and some patients remained in remission for at least six months following the treatment. The findings have been published in Nature Medicine. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Air Pollution Emerges As a Direct Risk Factor For Alzheimer's Disease - Longtime Slashdot reader walterbyrd shares a report from ABC News: In a study of nearly 28 million older Americans, long-term exposure to fine particle air pollution raised the risk of Alzheimer's disease. That link held even after researchers accounted for common conditions like high blood pressure, stroke and depression. Fine particle air pollution, known as PM2.5, consists of tiny particles in the air that come from car exhaust, power plants, wildfires, and burning fuels, according to the American Lung Association. They are small enough to travel deep into the lungs and even reach the bloodstream. The research, conducted at Emory University and published in PLOS Medicine, tracked health data over nearly two decades to explore whether air pollution harms the brain indirectly by causing high blood pressure or heart disease, which, in turn, leads to dementia. However, these "middleman" conditions accounted for less than 5% of the connection between pollution and Alzheimer's, the research found. The researchers say this suggests that over 95% of the Alzheimer's risk comes from the direct impact of breathing in dirty air, likely through inflammation or damage to brain cells. "The relationship between PM2.5 and AD [Alzheimer's disease] has been shown to be pretty much linear," said Kyle Steenland, a professor in the departments of environmental health and epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, and senior author of the study. "The reason this is particularly important is that PM2.5 is known to be associated with high blood pressure, stroke and depression -- all of which are associated with AD. So, from a prevention standpoint, simply treating these diseases will not get rid of the problem. We have to address exposure to PM2.5." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Bayer Agrees To $7.25 Billion Proposed Settlement Over Thousands of Roundup Cancer Lawsuits - An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: Agrochemical maker Bayer and attorneys for cancer patients announced a proposed $7.25 billion settlement Tuesday to resolve thousands of U.S. lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn people that its popular weedkiller Roundup could cause cancer. The proposed settlement comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments in April on Bayer's assertion that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approval of Roundup without a cancer warning should invalidate claims filed in state courts. That case would not be affected by the proposed settlement. But the settlement would eliminate some of the risk from an eventual Supreme Court ruling. Patients would be assured of receiving settlement money even if the Supreme Court rules in Bayer's favor. And Bayer would be protected from potentially larger costs if the high court rules against it. Germany-based Bayer, which acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in 2018, disputes the assertion that Roundup's key ingredient, glyphosate, can cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But the company has warned that mounting legal costs are threatening its ability to continue selling the product in U.S. agricultural markets. "Litigation uncertainly has plagued the company for years, and this settlement gives the company a road to closure," Bayer CEO Bill Anderson said Tuesday. The proposed settlement could total up to $7.25 billion over 21 years and resolve most of the remaining U.S. lawsuits surrounding the cancer-related harms of Roundup. The report notes that more than 125,000 claims have been filed since 2015, and while many have already been settled, this deal aims to cover most outstanding and future claims tied to past exposure. Individual payouts would vary widely based on exposure type, age at diagnosis, and cancer severity. Bayer can also cancel the deal if too many plaintiffs opt out. Read more of this story at Slashdot.