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New Report Finds Efforts to Slow Climate Change Are Working--Just Not Fast Enough

WIRED

By virtually every key metric, efforts to fight climate change are going too slowly, according to findings by a coalition of climate groups. In some cases, things are moving in the wrong direction. An eroded iceberg is seen is seen floating near Horseshoe Island, Antarctica. In the 10 years since the signing of the Paris Agreement, the backbone of international climate action, humanity has made impressive progress. Renewable energy is increasingly cheap and reliable, while electric vehicles are becoming better every year.


Author Philip Pullman calls on government to act on AI using books for training

BBC News

Author Philip Pullman calls on government to act over'wicked' AI scraping Writers whose work has been scraped don't get compensation or recognition, something authors including Kate Mosse and Richard Osman have criticised, saying it could destroy growth in creative fields and amount to theft. Sir Philip, author of the hugely popular novels about Lyra Silvertongue, the heroine of His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust trilogies, thinks writers should be compensated. They can do what they like with my work if they pay me for it, he told the BBC's culture editor Katie Razzall. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been contacted for a response to Sir Philip's comments. Sir Philip said: As far as I know everybody's work has been stolen, scraped like a trawler... at the bottom of the sea. You name it, it's all killed.


Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,336

Al Jazeera

How successful is Ukraine's'gas war' against Russia? How will Putin travel to Hungary with an ICC arrest warrant? How much of Europe's oil still comes from Russia? A "massive" Russian attack killed four people and injured seven in the town of Novhorod-Siverskyi, in Ukraine's Chernihiv region, Governor Viacheslav Chaus wrote in a post on Telegram. Chaus said that Russian forces launched about 20 Shahed drones in the attack and that there was "a lot of destruction in the city".


ChatGPT-maker OpenAI releases browser in attempt to rival Google

BBC News

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has unveiled an artificial intelligence-powered web browser to challenge competitors like Google, which operates Chrome, the most popular browser in the world. ChatGPT Atlas does away with the address bar that is a key feature in search, with boss Sam Altman saying it was built around ChatGPT as the company made the new browser available on Tuesday on Apple's MacOS operating system. The arrival of Atlas comes as OpenAI seeks new ways to monetise its massive bet on artificial intelligence (AI) and capitalise on its growing user base. OpenAI said Atlas would also offer a paid agent mode that conducts searches on its own for users of its popular chatbot. The agent mode feature will be available only to paying ChatGPT subscribers.


The 5.30 orange juice that tells the story of why supermarket prices are sky high

BBC News

The ยฃ5.30 orange juice that tells the story of why supermarket prices are sky high There has been more than a bitter twang in the glasses at British breakfast tables. Only five years ago, a typical supermarket own-label carton of orange juice could be bought for 76p for 1 litre. One colleague was outraged to be sent a bill for ยฃ9 for a glass of hangover-busting orange juice and lemonade at an unassuming little restaurant in Kent. Asked why so much, she was told that the orange juice - albeit freshly squeezed - accounted for ยฃ5.30 of the price. Yet as costs have surged, the taste is changing too, with certain manufacturers substituting oranges for mandarins to cut costs.


Our biggest competition is screens at home, says theme park boss

BBC News

The head of global theme park giant Merlin Entertainments says its biggest competition is people choosing to stay at home on their phones and other devices. Fiona Eastwood says a day out at one of its UK attractions - which include Legoland, Thorpe Park and Alton Towers - was the perfect antidote for spiralling screen time. In a wide-ranging BBC Big Boss Interview, the chief executive reflected on challenges in the forthcoming Budget, big brand partnerships, and how its customers were responding to cost-of-living pressures. Eastwood also highlighted the importance of seasonal attractions to its customers - with Halloween now rivalling its summer season in driving profits at some attractions. Having been in the job since February, Eastwood has taken over at a time when her industry is facing challenges from a dip in consumer confidence.


Infinite folds

MIT Technology Review

But her passion is for paper--with no scissors. Today, she's a tessellation expert who teaches, invents new designs, and writes papers on the underlying math. Madonna Yoder '17 photographed in her studio Ross Mantle When Madonna Yoder '17 was eight years old, she learned how to fold a square piece of paper over and over and over again. After about 16 folds, she held a bird in her hands. The first time she pulled the tail of a flapping crane, she says, she realized: . That first piece was an origami classic, folded by kids at summer camp for generations and many people's first foray into the art form.


Engineering better care

MIT Technology Review

A capsule that could replace insulin shots. In Giovanni Traverso's lab, the focus is always on making life better for patients. Every Monday, more than a hundred members of Giovanni Traverso's Laboratory for Translational Engineering (L4TE) fill a large classroom at Brigham and Women's Hospital for their weekly lab meeting. With a social hour, food for everyone, and updates across disciplines from mechanical engineering to veterinary science, it's a place where a stem cell biologist might weigh in on a mechanical design, or an electrical engineer might spot a flaw in a drug delivery mechanism. And it's a place where everyone is united by the same goal: engineering new ways to deliver medicines and monitor the body to improve patient care. Traverso's weekly meetings bring together a mix of expertise that lab members say is unusual even in the most collaborative research spaces. But his lab--which includes its own veterinarian and a dedicated in vivo team--isn't built like most.


Should We Look on New Technologies with Awe and Dread?

The New Yorker

Should We Look on New Technologies with Awe and Dread? The technological sublime helps us grasp the power of what we're creating--but at a cost. One of the most famous cuts in cinema history, from "2001: A Space Odyssey," perfectly captures a concept known as the technological sublime. First, we see an angry ape bludgeoning one of his fellows to death with a scavenged bone; he's only just discovered that bones can be used this way, and he hurls his weapon into the air in celebration. We follow the bone upward as it tumbles against the unpolluted blue sky.


Melania Trump Used as 'Window-Dressing' in Elaborate Memecoin Fraud, Legal Filing Claims

WIRED

Melania Trump Used as'Window-Dressing' in Elaborate Memecoin Fraud, Legal Filing Claims The first lady of the United States became a pawn in an intricate memecoin scam that resulted in millions of dollars in losses, crypto investors have alleged. A cryptocurrency promoted in January by US first lady Melania Trump was part of a sophisticated fraud that "leveraged celebrity association and'borrowed fame' to sell legitimacy to unsuspecting investors," a new legal filing has alleged. In April, crypto investors brought a federal class action lawsuit against Benjamin Chow, cofounder of crypto exchange Meteora, and Hayden Davis, cofounder of crypto venture capital firm Kelsier Labs, among other defendants, accusing them of a multimillion-dollar fraud involving a single memecoin, $M3M3. Later, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, expanding the allegations to include racketeering activity. They claimed the pair had colluded to rig the market for $LIBRA, a coin promoted by Javier Milei, president of Argentina, which collapsed in value shortly after launch.