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Ana Corina Sosa (second from left), receives the Nobel Peace Prize for her mother, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, from the Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Jorgen Watne Frydnes next to a photo of Machado, in Oslo on Wednesday. OSLO - Democracies must be prepared to fight for freedom in order to survive, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado said on Wednesday, in a speech delivered by her daughter during a ceremony Machado could not attend. The Venezuelan opposition leader said that the prize held profound significance, not only for her country but for the world. "It reminds the world that democracy is essential to peace," she said, via her daughter Ana Corina Sosa Machado. "And the most important, the lesson Venezuelans can share with the world, is a lesson forged on a long and difficult path: If we want democracy, we must be prepared to fight for freedom."

McDonald's pulls AI Christmas ad after backlash McDonald's has taken down a Christmas advert made with Artificial Intelligence (AI) following online backlash. The 45-second advert was produced with generative AI clips and released publicly on McDonald's Netherlands YouTube channel on 6 December. Viewers on social media denounced the use of AI in the film, with one commenter calling it the most god-awful ad I've seen this year . On 9 December McDonald's Netherlands removed the video, adding in a statement to BBC News that the moment served as an important learning as the company explored the effective use of AI. The advert was created for McDonald's by Dutch company TBWA\Neboko and US production company The Sweetshop.

We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. At, we've published our prestigious Best of What's New list since 1988. For 153 years, we've celebrated the science and technology that shapes our everyday lives and launches humanity forward. Innovation doesn't follow a straight path, and the detours, stumbles, and dead ends force great minds to pioneer change. Looking back at the early days of our Best of What's New lists, we see technologies that now seem quaint or have been completely forgotten, but we also see the roots of future greatness. Our list this year is the culmination of countless hours of debate, hands-on testing, and expert conversations. This is the Best of What's New 2025. From the most detailed movie of the night sky ever made to the first commercial soft landing on the moon, this year has been an inflection point for exploring and understanding the vast expanse above our heads. We also saw breakthroughs in small changes to commercial airliners that improve efficiency, as well as a new type of rocket engine that might be the future of extremely high speed air travel, plus the closest view of Mercury we've ever seen! Vera C. Rubin Observatory by U.S. National Science Foundation & Department of Energy: World's largest digital camera to conduct 10-year survey of the night sky Prepare to see space like never before. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a groundbreaking US-funded project that will capture the most detailed, dynamic map of the night sky ever made. Using the world's largest digital camera, it will capture a time-lapse of the entire sky every few nights to reveal billions of objects and catch fast-changing events like supernovae and near-Earth asteroids. Its massive dataset will help scientists better understand dark matter, dark energy, and the structure of the universe while also improving planetary defense. The 3,200-megapixel Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera is the size of a small car and twice as heavy, tipping the scales at 6,000 pounds. The sensor's huge number of megapixels is equivalent to 260 modern cell phone sensors. The camera is so powerful, it could snap a clear image of a golf ball from 15 miles away. By making its data widely available, the observatory will also open new doors for discovery for researchers, students, and citizen scientists around the world. Deployed on Boeing 787-9 aircraft starting in January, the coating uses tiny, sharkskin-like grooves called riblets to guide airflow smoothly along the aircraft's surface.

Nissan Motor CEO Ivan Espinosa (left) Wayve Technologies CEO Alex Kendall shake hands at a signing ceremony for a collaboration agreement between the two companies in Tokyo on Wednesday. While fully driverless cars remain some way off, the two companies said in a joint statement that their tie-up would help develop systems in real-world conditions. The AI systems made by Wayve, which last year said it had raised more than $1 billion, do not rely on preprogrammed maps but can navigate in real time. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

'It Was Nuts': The Extreme Tests that Show Why Hail Is a Multibillion-Dollar Problem The costs of a hail damage have ballooned over the past two decades, prompting researchers to resort to extreme measures to understand how these storms destroy buildings. The scars left on houses look like shotgun blasts, sometimes. In the aftermath of major storms, Andrew Shick, owner and chief executive of Illinois-based firm Roofing USA, has driven through suburbs blasted by hail and been left stunned by the damage. Earlier this year, he visited a farm complex in western Illinois where roofs, even sturdy metal ones, were left pockmarked and perforated after 3-inch balls of ice fell from the sky. "It was nuts," he recalls.

Scientists Thought Parkinson's Was in Our Genes. New ideas about chronic illness could revolutionize treatment, if we take the research seriously. Amy Lindberg spent 26 years in the Navy and she still walked like it--with intention, like her chin had someplace to be. But around 2017, her right foot stopped following orders. Lindberg and her husband Brad were five years into their retirement. After moving 10 times for Uncle Sam, they'd bought their dream house near the North Carolina coast. They had a backyard that spilled out onto wetlands. From the kitchen, you could see cranes hunting. They kept bees and played pickleball and watched their children grow. But now Lindberg's right foot was out of rhythm. She worked hard to ignore it, but she couldn't disregard the tremors.

Ghislaine Maxwell's ultimate humiliation: Epstein's sex trafficker girlfriend poses in outrageous outfits and exposes herself in dozens of photos released from the billionaire paedophile's files Silent Trump flees growing storm over Epstein'cover-up' as he jets off for holidays without ANY comment How you can ease the agony of carpal tunnel syndrome. The'change of pace' sex move that sends ANY woman wild. Here's the precise moment to deploy it and what to do with your eyes. Corey Feldman walks back claim that Corey Haim'molested' him after late star's mother slammed his comments Emily in Paris cast left'aghast' and'walking on eggshells' as off-camera drama becomes overwhelming... and whispers swirl about a CURSE Truth about THIS photo of Karoline Leavitt's face... and why if she was non-binary and disabled, Vanity Fair would never have done this: KENNEDY After 27 years as a TV anchor I was suddenly pulled off screens. My boss's explanation was a brutal lesson in loyalty I was dead for 105 minutes and learned exactly how you get into heaven... then Jesus spoke six words into my mind and sent me back Jake Paul's jaw is broken in Anthony Joshua battering: YouTuber-turned-boxer rushes to hospital I was falsely accused of being the Brown University shooter... America's great divide laid bare as Wall Street splurges record bonuses on outrageously lavish homes while the rest of the country struggles Andrew's fury at anyone who doesn't bow and scrape.

Chemical products such as medicines, plastics, soap, and paint are still often based on fossil raw materials. This is not sustainable, so there is an urgent need for ways to make a'materials transition' to products made from bio-based raw materials. To achieve results more quickly and efficiently, researchers at Radboud University in the Big Chemistry programme are using robots and AI. The material transition from fossil-based to bio-based (where raw materials are based on materials of biological origin) is a major challenge. Raw materials for products must be replaced without changing the quality of those products.

Australia's vast savannas are changing, and AI is showing us how Australia has the largest intact savannas on Earth . Savannas are an ever-changing mosaic of ecosystems - from the sparse grasslands to dense woodlands, forests and wetlands. They stretch from Cape York Peninsula in Queensland to the Kimberley in Western Australia, making up almost 25 per cent of Australia's landmass . Anticipating how savannas will change in the years ahead is crucial to help inform our decisions about land management and policy that reflect the region's cultural, environmental and economic values. To do this, our team created an artificial intelligence (AI) tool we've called Themeda, a name inspired by Themeda triandra, an iconic Australian native species known as'kangaroo grass' (as well as an acronym for Thematic Mapping of Ecosystem Dynamics).