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Chilling audio from Apollo 12 crew unsealed as Trump releases explosive new batch of UFO files: Live updates

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Tragic way Kyle Busch was found unresponsive revealed after NASCAR great's sudden death at 41 This quiet announcement from Prince William was missed by most... but this is why royal insiders tell me it spells disaster for Harry and Meghan's future: RICHARD EDEN Dangerous truth about melatonin side effects... the astonishing dose you SHOULD be taking... and a new natural grocery store alternative hailed by doctors Dirty secret Hollywood's Cool Girls don't want you to know. Kyle Busch's eerie premonition on illness just days before NASCAR great's death at 41 - as devastated family reveal their'pain and shock' 'You never went to space': Watch the awkward moment a conspiracy theorist confronts NASA's Artemis II crew - telling them to'stop acting' CIA Nostradamus warned Trump about Iran... now he's calling the President's doctors. Police probe Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor over'sex offences': Stunning update on investigation of former prince as officers appeal for potential'victim survivors' to come forward How Meryl Streep's husband really feels about her secret relationship with Martin Short: Their years of agony... his hard red line... and why she won't divorce him The Olympic gold medalist risking it all to smash sport's biggest taboo: 'It's super forbidden... but we're just openly doing it' Former CDC director Robert Redfield warns Ebola outbreak could spark a new'significant pandemic' Heartbreaking video shows trans student, 19, washing her clothes in college laundry room unaware that stranger who'd just walked in had selected her to be murdered Fears for Ariana Grande: Insiders lift the lid on Ethan Slater's costly sacrifice... her private nightmares... and what's really keeping them apart Aussie model turns heads with embarrassing Photoshop fail: 'OMG, this is insane!' Mom-of-two abandons home in Pennsylvania to live on board CRUISE SHIP year-round - and her kids have'zero concept' their life isn't normal White man charged after he was filmed screaming at black female neighbor and using the phrase'You people' Astonishing secret list of elite Hollywood liberals conspiring to elect Spencer Pratt revealed to KENNEDY by her LA moles. The Trump administration released another trove of UFO files today containing the 46 classified videos requested by lawmakers earlier this year. In one file, audio from a medical debrief can be heard after Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon and Alan Bean described seeing mysterious flashes and streaks of light in the dark while trying to sleep.


Conspiracy Thinking Is Flourishing. Some of Our Most Popular Franchises Aren't Helping.

Slate

Gaming may be turning players into conspiracy theorists, but so is everything else. For nearly 20 years, the video games have presented themselves as sprawling works of historical fiction. They cast players as noble assassins during big inflection points in history--the French Revolution, Ptolemaic Egypt, the end of Japan's Sengoku era--and give them freedom to romp around stunning re-creations of these eras, interacting with historical figures along the way. You can do secret missions for Cleopatra, you can get Socrates out of a jam after he pisses a mob off, that sort of thing. They're extremely popular to the point of being taken for granted, the way a ubiquitous CBS procedural might be.


The Download: how to fix a tractor, and living among conspiracy theorists

MIT Technology Review

You live in a house you designed and built yourself. You rely on the sun for power, heat your home with a woodstove, and farm your own fish and vegetables. This is the life of Marcin Jakubowski, the 53-year-old founder of Open Source Ecology, an open collaborative of engineers, producers, and builders developing what they call the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). It's a set of 50 machines--everything from a tractor to an oven to a circuit maker--that are capable of building civilization from scratch and can be reconfigured however you see fit. It's all part of his ethos that life-changing technology should be available to all, not controlled by a select few. What it's like to find yourself in the middle of a conspiracy theory Last week, we held a subscribers-only Roundtables discussion exploring how to cope in this new age of conspiracy theories.


The Download: AI to measure pain, and how to deal with conspiracy theorists

MIT Technology Review

Researchers around the world are racing to turn pain--medicine's most subjective vital sign--into something a camera or sensor can score as reliably as blood pressure. The push has already produced PainChek--a smartphone app that scans people's faces for tiny muscle movements and uses artificial intelligence to output a pain score--which has been cleared by regulators on three continents and has logged more than 10 million pain assessments. Other startups are beginning to make similar inroads. The way we assess pain may finally be shifting, but when algorithms measure our suffering, does that change the way we treat it? This story is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review magazine, which is full of fascinating stories about our bodies. Someone I know became a conspiracy theorist seemingly overnight.


No, SNAP Benefits Aren't Mostly Used by Immigrants

WIRED

No, SNAP Benefits Aren't Mostly Used by Immigrants SNAP benefits are set to run out on Saturday. Far-right influencers and extremists are incorrectly claiming that immigrants are the main recipients of food stamps. A shopper carries a basket inside a grocery store in the Bronx borough of New York City on Oct. 24, 2025. As roughly 42 million Americans face the loss of food stamps this weekend, far-right influencers, extremists, and conspiracy theorists are using the crisis to push racist disinformation about who receives these benefits. As a result of the government shutdown, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will not be funded as of November 1, according to a message on the website of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the program.


Are you a Flat Earther? You're probably ARROGANT: People who believe in conspiracy theories are 'massively overconfident', study finds

Daily Mail - Science & tech

When it comes to conspiracy theories, there are some pretty extreme ones out there. While some people insist the Earth is flat, others are certain the world is secretly ruled by reptilian humanoids. Now, a study has revealed that people who believe in these concepts are likely to be hugely overconfident. And it could go some way to explaining why it's impossible to try and change their minds. Analysis of eight studies has found a consistent pattern among people who believe in conspiracy theories – they tend to be overconfident in their cognitive abilities and significantly overestimate how much others agree with them.


How an AI 'debunkbot' can change a conspiracy theorist's mind

Popular Science

In 2024, online conspiracy theories can feel almost impossible to avoid. Podcasters, prominent public figures, and leading political figures have breathed oxygen into once fringe ideas of collusion and deception. Nationwide, nearly half of adults surveyed by the polling firm YouGov said they believe there is a secret group of people that control world events. Nearly a third (29%) believe voting machines were manipulated to alter votes in the 2020 presidential election. A surprising amount of Americans think the Earth is flat.


Chatbots can persuade conspiracy theorists their view might be wrong

New Scientist

Large language model chatbots like those powering ChatGPT can reduce people's beliefs in conspiracy theories by debating with them. And the approach they employ could even teach people better ways of interacting with conspiracy theorists. Although past research suggests that the level of beliefs in conspiracy theories in the population hasn't changed substantially in the US or in six surveyed European countries over about a decade, those who subscribe to such ideas have persistent, dogged faith in those beliefs.…


The Anatomy of Conspirators: Unveiling Traits using a Comprehensive Twitter Dataset

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

The discourse around conspiracy theories is currently thriving amidst the rampant misinformation in online environments. Research in this field has been focused on detecting conspiracy theories on social media, often relying on limited datasets. In this study, we present a novel methodology for constructing a Twitter dataset that encompasses accounts engaged in conspiracy-related activities throughout the year 2022. Our approach centers on data collection that is independent of specific conspiracy theories and information operations. Additionally, our dataset includes a control group comprising randomly selected users who can be fairly compared to the individuals involved in conspiracy activities. This comprehensive collection effort yielded a total of 15K accounts and 37M tweets extracted from their timelines. We conduct a comparative analysis of the two groups across three dimensions: topics, profiles, and behavioral characteristics. The results indicate that conspiracy and control users exhibit similarity in terms of their profile metadata characteristics. However, they diverge significantly in terms of behavior and activity, particularly regarding the discussed topics, the terminology used, and their stance on trending subjects. In addition, we find no significant disparity in the presence of bot users between the two groups. Finally, we develop a classifier to identify conspiracy users using features borrowed from bot, troll and linguistic literature. The results demonstrate a high accuracy level (with an F1 score of 0.94), enabling us to uncover the most discriminating features associated with conspiracy-related accounts.


YouTube demotes flat-earthers, conspiracy theorists

The Japan Times

SAN FRANCISCO - YouTube said Friday it will stop recommending specious videos such as those claiming the Earth is flat or promoting bogus theories about the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The global video streaming service planned to modify its viewing recommendation system gradually, starting in the United States and later expanding to other countries. Google-owned YouTube, part of the Alphabet holding, said it is scrutinizing how to reduce the spread of content that comes close to but doesn't quite cross the line of violating its community guidelines. "To that end, we'll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways," YouTube said in a blog post. "Such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11."