Long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam writes: No more burning fossil fuels, playing with fissile material, damming rivers, erecting wind mills, or making solar panels. All of our energy needs could potentially be supplied by the angular kinetic energy of the Earth — and because of the mass of the planet, doing so would slow its rotation down by a mere 7ms per century. [Which is similar to speed changes caused by... Read more ›
68
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Mercury News: After a year of fastidious planning, a microscopic sample of the ultra-rare radioactive element berkelium arrived at a Berkeley Lab. With just 48 hours to experiment before it would become unusable, a group of nearly 20 researchers focused intently on creating a brand-new molecule. Using a chemical glove box, a polycarbonate glass box with protruding gloves that shields substances from... Read more ›
36
The Washington Post reports that after months of polar darkness, the extent of sea ice blanketing the Arctic this winter "fell to the lowest level on record, researchers announced this week... the smallest maximum extent in the 47-year satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. "Since then, the ice has already begun to melt again." "Sea ice is acting like the old canary in the coal... Read more ›
157
An anonymous reader shared this report from BleepingComputer: Three security bypasses have been discovered in Ubuntu Linux's unprivileged user namespace restrictions, which could be enable a local attacker to exploit vulnerabilities in kernel components. The issues allow local unprivileged users to create user namespaces with full administrative capabilities and impact Ubuntu versions 23.10, where unprivileged user namespaces restrictions are enabled, and 24.04 which has them active by default... Ubunt Read more ›
9
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: The first clinical trial of a therapy bot that uses generative AI suggests it was as effective as human therapy for participants with depression, anxiety, or risk for developing eating disorders. Even so, it doesn't give a go-ahead to the dozens of companies hyping such technologies while operating in a regulatory gray area. A team led by psychiatric researchers and... Read more ›
76
Despite recent test failures, NASA has added SpaceX's Starship to its Launch Services Program contract, allowing it to compete for future science missions once it achieves a successful orbital flight. Florida Today reports: NASA announced the addition Friday to its current launch provider contract with SpaceX, which covers the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. This opens the possibility of Starship flying future NASA science missions -- that is once Starship... Read more ›
26
A new study warns that toxic Martian dust contains fine particles and harmful substances like silica and metals that pose serious health risks to astronauts, making missions to Mars more dangerous than previously thought. The Guardian reports: During Apollo missions to the moon, astronauts suffered from exposure to lunar dust. It clung to spacesuits and seeped into the lunar landers, causing coughing, runny eyes and irritated throats. Studies showed that... Read more ›
21
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: A concert on Monday night at New York's Radio City Music Hall was a special occasion for Frank Miller: his parents' wedding anniversary. He didn't end up seeing the show -- and before he could even get past security, he was informed that he was in fact banned for life from the venue and all other properties owned by Madison Square... Read more ›
12
New research suggests that Prototaxites, once believed to be a giant fungus, may actually represent an entirely extinct and previously unknown branch of complex life, distinct from fungi, plants, animals, and protists. Live Science reports: The researchers studied the fossilized remains of one Prototaxites species named Prototaxites taiti, found preserved in the Rhynie chert, a sedimentary deposit of exceptionally well-preserved fossils of early land plants and animals in Scotland. This... Read more ›
0
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) says banks no longer need prior approval before engaging in crypto-related activities, such as holding digital currency assets or partnering with companies in the industry. Axios reports: After publishing a general caution against banks participating in the industry just two years ago, the FDIC is the latest Trump administration regulator to change its tune entirely amid the president's warm embrace of crypto. "With today's... Read more ›
0
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Imagine working with special cameras that capture light your eyes can't even see -- ultraviolet rays that cause sunburn, infrared heat signatures that reveal hidden writing, or specific wavelengths that plants use for photosynthesis. Or perhaps using a special camera designed to distinguish the subtle visible differences that make paint colors appear just right under specific lighting. Scientists and engineers do... Read more ›
3
Longtime Slashdot reader frank_adrian314159 writes: According to an article in Wired, Elon Musk has appointed a team of technologists from DOGE to "rewrite the code that runs the SSA in months." This codebase has over 60 million lines of COBOL and handles record keeping for all American workers and payments for all Social Security recipients. Given that the code has to track the byzantine regulations dealing with Social Security, it's... Read more ›
135
A breach of legacy Cerner servers at Oracle Health exposed patient data from multiple U.S. hospitals and healthcare organizations, with threat actors using compromised customer credentials to steal the data before it had been migrated to Oracle Cloud. Despite confirming the breach privately, Oracle Health has yet to publicly acknowledge the incident. BleepingComputer reports: Oracle Health, formerly known as Cerner, is a healthcare software-as-a-service (SaaS) company offering Electronic Health Records... Read more ›
6
Elon Musk says its xAI company has acquired the social media platform X in an all-stock transaction. "The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45 billion less $12 billion debt)," said Musk. He writes on X: Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at unprecedented speed and scale.... Read more ›
162
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Trevor Milton, the founder of electric vehicle start-up Nikola who was sentenced to prison last year, was pardoned by Donald Trump late on Thursday, the White House confirmed on Friday. The pardon of Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for exaggerating the potential of his technology, could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution that prosecutors... Read more ›
81
An anonymous reader shares a report: New data recently released by the Environmental Protection Agency indicate that more than 158 million people across the U.S. have drinking water contaminated by toxic "forever chemicals," scientifically known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). "Drinking water is a major source of PFAS exposure. The sheer number of contaminated sites shows that these chemicals are likely present in most of the U.S. water supply,"... Read more ›
40
Smart TV platforms are increasingly monitoring what appears on users' screens through Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology, building detailed viewer profiles for targeted advertising. Roku, which transitioned from a hardware company to an advertising powerhouse, reported $3.5 billion in annual ad revenue for 2024 -- representing 85% of its total income. The company has aggressively acquired ACR-related firms, with Roku-owned technology winning an Emmy in 2023 for advancements in the... Read more ›
175
Stanford University researchers have proposed creating "bodyoids" -- ethically sourced human bodies grown from stem cells without neural components for consciousness or pain sensation -- to revolutionize medical research and address organ shortages. In a new opinion piece published in MIT Technology Review, scientists Carsten T. Charlesworth, Henry T. Greely, and Hiromitsu Nakauchi argue that recent advances in biotechnology make this concept increasingly plausible. The approach would combine pluripotent st Read more ›
0
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amnesty International published a new report this week detailing attempted hacks against two Serbian journalists, allegedly carried out with NSO Group's spyware Pegasus. The two journalists, who work for the Serbia-based Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), received suspicious text messages including a link -- basically a phishing attack, according to the nonprofit. In one case, Amnesty said its researchers were able to click on... Read more ›
48
An anonymous reader shares a report: A former director of data science at the UK prime minister's office has told MPs that people working with data in government are not typically technical and would be unlikely to get a similar job in the private sector. In a hearing designed to illuminate the challenges facing the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as it strives to become the digital centre... Read more ›
17
Most popular sources
Business Insider
|
33% 7 |
Wired
|
24% 23 |
Gizmodo
|
19% 11 |
Vox
|
4% 4 |
MacRumors
|
3% 3 |
| View sources » | |
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01.04.2025 03:00
Last update: 02:51 EDT.
News rating updated: 09:51.
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