Plus: Anthropic's AI was coopted by Chinese hackers ChatGPT maker OpenAI has built an experimental large language model that is far easier to understand than typical models. It's a big deal, because today's LLMs are black boxes: Nobody fully understands how they do what they do. Building a model that is more transparent sheds light on how LLMs work in general, helping researchers figure out why models hallucinate, why they go off the rails, and just how far we should trust them with critical tasks. Google DeepMind has built a new video-game-playing agent called SIMA 2 that can navigate and solve problems in 3D virtual worlds. The company claims it's a big step toward more general-purpose agents and better real-world robots. The company first demoed SIMA (which stands for "scalable instructable multiworld agent") last year.

Advanced in organs on chips, digital twins, and AI are ushering in a new era of research and drug development. Earlier this week, the UK's science minister announced an ambitious plan: to phase out animal testing. Testing potential skin irritants on animals will be stopped by the end of next year, according to a strategy released on Tuesday . By 2027, researchers are "expected to end" tests of the strength of Botox on mice. And drug tests in dogs and nonhuman primates will be reduced by 2030. The news follows similar moves by other countries.

Trump boasts Republicans'broke' Chuck Schumer during shutdown slugfest amid growing calls from the far-left to remove minority leader Camp Mystic accused of neglect in'self-created disaster' after 25 young campers die in flood Gavin Newsom just let slip the Democrats' dirty secret that could totally destroy them... and Trump is loving it: MARK HALPERIN You think you look so youthful and trendy. But these are the brutal facts about your shoes, hats, jumpers and denim. You're being lied to - this is the truth I'm a heart surgeon... here is what you must NEVER do after turning 40 Paris Jackson reveals she has a HOLE in her nose from drug abuse... after celebrating five years of sobriety Warren Buffett's final farewell: the billionaire who once fingerprinted nuns says he's'going quiet' Shamed Allison Mack's husband revealed as former neo-Nazi Kim Kardashian flaunts her famous curves in daring cut-out gown at All's Fair premiere in Brazil as she's seen for first time since failing the bar exam Timothee Chalamet has DUMPED Kylie Jenner, insiders claim... and reveal brutal new way he is humiliating her Trump dismisses economic anxiety with'fake' polls and reveals reason 600,000 Chinese students are in US Was ANOTHER person inside the house with'Foxy Knoxy' when Meredith Kercher was killed 18 years ago? That's the sensational new claim of the Italian prosecutor who put the American student in jail, DAVID JONES reveals Disgraceful lies of'everyday' mom exposed after she chased down ICE agents in her Ford Mustang then cried wolf Millennial socialist who still lives off parents' money is set to become next Seattle mayor Netflix's historical drama Death By Lightning branded woke after fans spot bizarre detail... can you see it? Revealed: MAGA Trump-supporting influencer and friend are subject of police photo appeal over alleged'assault and racial abuse' in London AMANDA PLATELL: It's time the royals stripped Beatrice and Eugenie of their titles.

Dr. Marty Makary pointed out the Biden administration's decision to skip key committee meetings when authorizing vaccines in response to a top Democrat's question. FIRST ON FOX -- The Food and Drug Administration is phasing out an animal testing requirement for antibody therapies and other drugs in favor of testing on materials that mimic human organs, the FDA announced on Thursday. "For too long, drug manufacturers have performed additional animal testing of drugs that have data in broad human use internationally. This initiative marks a paradigm shift in drug evaluation and holds promise to accelerate cures and meaningful treatments for Americans while reducing animal use," FDA Commissioner Martin A. Makary, said in comment provided to Fox News Digital. "By leveraging AI-based computational modeling, human organ model-based lab testing, and real-world human data, we can get safer treatments to patients faster and more reliably, while also reducing R&D costs and drug prices. It is a win-win for public health and ethics."

His lab uses mice for some protocols, but animal studies are notoriously bad at identifying human treatments. Around 95% of the drugs developed through animal research fail in people. Researchers have documented this translation gap since at least 1962. "All these pharmaceutical companies know the animal models stink," says Don Ingber, founder of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard and a leading advocate for organs on chips. "The FDA knows they stink."

The Environmental Protection Agency has scrapped a plan to phase out mammal testing for studying chemical toxicity, Science reports. In 2019, the regulatory agency vowed to completely phase out animal testing for toxicology studies by 2035 in favor of non-animal "test subjects" programmed into computer models. The call to challenge the status quo was controversial from the start -- it not only was going to impact thousands of studies and experiments, but many scientists argued that computer models were nowhere near ready to replace animals as test subjects. In a letter written by a group of public health officials, the experts urged the EPA's head Michael Regan to reconsider the ban because computational models, in their opinion, were "not yet developed to the point" where they could be relied on for risk assessments. In order for the new ban to have taken effect, the EPA said there needed to be "scientific confidence" that non-animal models could soundly replace critters like mice and rabbits in labs.

Fresh allegations of potential securities fraud have been leveled at Elon Musk over statements he recently made regarding the deaths of primates used for research at Neuralink, his biotech startup. Letters sent this afternoon to top officials at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by a medical ethics group call on the agency to investigate Musk's claims that monkeys who died during trials at the company were terminally ill and did not die as a result of Neuralink implants. They claim, based on veterinary records, that complications with the implant procedures led to their deaths. Musk first acknowledged the deaths of the macaques on September 10 in a reply to a user on his social networking app X (formerly Twitter). He denied that any of the deaths were "a result of a Neuralink implant" and said the researchers had taken care to select subjects who were already "close to death."

A researcher preparing to perform an intraperitoneal injection on mice.Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket/Getty This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Animal testing has long been necessary for a drug to gain approval by the US Food and Drug Administration--but it may be on its way out. A new law seeks to replace some lab animal use with high-tech alternatives. The FDA Modernization Act 2.0, signed by President Biden at the end of December with widespread bipartisan support, ends a 1938 federal mandate that experimental drugs must be tested on animals before they are used in human clinical trials. While the law doesn't ban animal testing, it allows drugmakers to use other methods, such as microfluidic chips and miniature tissue models, which use human cells to mimic certain organ functions and structures.

Elon Musk's Neuralink is under federal investigation for animal-welfare violations amid staff complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths, according to a Reuters review of documents and sources familiar with the investigation and company operations who spoke to Reuters. Neuralink, a medical devices company, is developing a brain implant it hopes will help paralyzed people walk again and cure other neurological ailments. The federal probe, which has not been previously reported, was opened in recent months by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Inspector General at the request of a federal prosecutor, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. It comes amid growing employee dissent about Neuralink's animal testing, including complaints that pressure from CEO Musk to accelerate development has resulted in botched experiments, according to a Reuters review of dozens of Neuralink documents and interviews with more than 20 current and former employees. Elon Musk's Neuralink is facing a probe amid reports of botched animal testing according to Reuters In all, the company has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys, following experiments since 2018, according to records reviewed by Reuters and sources with direct knowledge of the company's animal-testing operations.

Elon Musk's Neuralink is under federal investigation for animal-welfare violations amid staff complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths, according to a Reuters review of documents and sources familiar with the investigation and company operations who spoke to Reuters. Neuralink, a medical devices company, is developing a brain implant it hopes will help paralyzed people walk again and cure other neurological ailments. The federal probe, which has not been previously reported, was opened in recent months by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Inspector General at the request of a federal prosecutor, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. It comes amid growing employee dissent about Neuralink's animal testing, including complaints that pressure from CEO Musk to accelerate development has resulted in botched experiments, according to a Reuters review of dozens of Neuralink documents and interviews with more than 20 current and former employees. In all, the company has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys, following experiments since 2018, according to records reviewed by Reuters and sources with direct knowledge of the company's animal-testing operations.