Latest News
Last updated 21 Feb, 08:14 PM
BBC News
Trump says he will increase his new global tariffs to 15% - After most of his tariffs were outlawed on Friday, Trump announced new global tariffs of 10% - which he says he has now increased to 15%.
Iran students stage first anti-government protests since deadly crackdown - The student protesters honoured thousands of those killed when nationwide mass protests were put down last month.
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.
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.
'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.
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
I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over - Comments
What not to write on your security clearance form (1988) - Comments
Personal Statement of a CIA Analyst - Comments
Canvas_ity: A tiny, single-header <canvas>-like 2D rasterizer for C++ - Comments
Inputlag.science – Repository of knowledge about input lag in gaming - Comments
Slashdot
T2 Linux Restores XAA In Xorg, Making 2D Graphics Fast Again - Berlin-based T2 Linux developer René Rebe (long-time Slashdot reader ReneR) is announcing that their Xorg display server has now restored its XAA acceleration architecture, "bringing fixed-function hardware 2D acceleration back to many older graphics cards that upstream left in software-rendered mode." Older fixed-function GPUs now regain smooth window movement, low CPU usage, and proper 24-bit bpp framebuffer support (also restored in T2). Tested hardware includes ATi Mach-64 and Rage-128, SiS, Trident, Cirrus, Matrox (Millennium/G450), Permedia2, Tseng ET6000 and even the Sun Creator/Elite 3D. The result: vintage and retro systems and classic high-end Unix workstations that are fast and responsive again. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Salvation Army Opens a Digital Thrift Store On Roblox - Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: The Salvation Army has launched what it calls the world's first digital thrift store inside Roblox, an experience named Thrift Score that lets players browse virtual racks and buy digital fashion for their avatars. While I understand the strategy of meeting Gen Z and Gen Alpha where they already spend time and money, I feel uneasy about turning something that, in the real world, often serves low income families in genuine need into a gamified aesthetic inside a video game, even if proceeds support rehabilitation and community programs, because a thrift store is not just a quirky brand concept but a lifeline for many people, and packaging that reality as entertainment creates a strange disconnect that is hard to ignore. "To be clear, proceeds from Thrift Score are intended to support The Salvation Armyâ(TM)s programs nationwide..." this article points out. "If it drives awareness and funds programs that help people in need, that is a win. But if it turns thrifting into just another cosmetic skin in a digital marketplace, then we should at least be willing to say that it feels off." Read more of this story at 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.