An anonymous reader quotes a report from CoinTelegraph: Paying interest on stablecoin deposits could spark a wave of bank outflows similar to the money market fund boom of the 1980s, Citi's Future of Finance head Ronit Ghose warned in a report published Monday. According to the Financial Times, Ghose compared the potential outflows caused by paying interest on stablecoins to the rise of money market funds in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Those funds ballooned from about $4 billion in 1975 to $235 billion in 1982, outpacing banks whose deposit rates were tightly regulated, Federal Reserve data showed. Withdrawals from bank accounts exceeded new deposits by $32 billion between 1981 and 1982.... [ Read it >> ]

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schwit1 shares a report from the Korea Herald: Korean Air, South Korea's flagship carrier, on Tuesday announced a sweeping $50 billion deal to purchase next-generation aircraft from Boeing and spare engines from GE Aerospace and CFM International, its largest-ever investment aimed at fueling long-term growth. The deal, signed during President Lee Jae Myung's visit to Washington, includes $36.2 billion for 103 Boeing aircraft, $690 million for 19 spare engines, and a $13 billion long-term engine maintenance contract. The fleet order spans a wide mix of models: 20 Boeing 777-9s, 25 Boeing 787-10s, 50 Boeing 737-10s, and eight Boeing 777-8F freighters. Deliveries will be phased through the end of the 2030s. Korean Air will also acquire 11 spare engines from GE Aerospace and eight from CFM International, alongside a 20-year maintenance service agreement with GE covering 28 aircraft.... [ Read it >> ]

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alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: You've probably heard it before in a meeting: 'Let's touch base offline to align our bandwidth on this workflow.' Corporate jargon like this is easy to laugh at -- but its negative impact in the office can be serious. According to a new study, using too much jargon in the workplace can hurt employees' ability to process messages, leading them to experience negative feelings and making them feel less confident. In turn, they're less likely to reach out and ask for or share information with their colleagues.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: A genetically modified pig lung transplanted into a brain-dead human patient functioned for nine days in a new achievement that reveals both the promise and significant challenges of xenotransplantation. Over the course of the experiment, the patient showed increasing signs of organ rejection before scientists at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University in China terminated the experiment, allowing the recipient to pass away. It's the first time a pig lung has been transplanted into a human patient, demonstrating a significant step forward, and giving scientists new problems to solve as they develop this emerging medical technique further. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Canada's tech job market has collapsed from its pandemic-era boom, with postings down 19% from 2020 levels. Analysts say the decline was sharper than the overall job market and worsened after ChatGPT's debut in 2022 fueled AI-driven shifts in workforce demand. The Canadian Press reports: "The Canadian tech world remains stuck in a hiring freeze," said Brendon Bernard, Indeed's senior economist. "While both the tech job market and the overall job market have definitely cooled off from their 2022 peaks, the cool off has been much sharper in tech." He thinks the fall was likely caused by the market adjusting after a pandemic boom in hiring along with recent artificial intelligence advances that have reduced tech firms' interest in expanding their workforces.... [ Read it >> ]

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Google DeepMind's new "nano banana" model (officially named Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has taken the top spot on AI image-editing leaderboards by delivering far more consistent edits than before. It's being rolled out to the Gemini app today. Ars Technica has the details: AI image editing allows you to modify images with a prompt rather than mucking around in Photoshop. Google first provided editing capabilities in Gemini earlier this year, and the model was more than competent out of the gate. But like all generative systems, the non-deterministic nature meant that elements of the image would often change in unpredictable ways. Google says nano banana (technically Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has unrivaled consistency across edits -- it can actually remember the details instead of rolling the dice every time you make a change.... [ Read it >> ]

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Dish's parent company EchoStar is selling $23 billion worth of 5G spectrum licenses to AT&T and shifting Boost Mobile onto AT&T and T-Mobile networks, effectively abandoning its bid to become the fourth major U.S. wireless carrier. The Verge reports: As part of T-Mobile's deal to acquire Sprint in 2019, the Department of Justice stipulated that another company must replace it as the fourth major wireless carrier. Dish came forward to acquire Boost Mobile from Sprint, paying $1.4 billion to purchase the budget carrier and other prepaid assets. Since then, Dish has spent billions acquiring spectrum to build out its own 5G network, which the company said was close to reaching 80 percent of the US population as of last year, in line with the Federal Communications Commission's deadline to meet certain coverage requirements.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: A German court has told Apple to stop advertising its Watches as being carbon-neutral, ruling that this was misleading and could not fly under the country's competition law. Apple has been marketing its newest smartwatches as being carbon-neutral for nearly two years now, with an array of rationales. It claims that clean energy for manufacturing, along with greener materials and shipping, lop around three-quarters off the carbon emissions for each model of the Apple Watch. The remaining emissions are offset by the purchase of carbon credits, according to Apple.... [ Read it >> ]

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BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Hosting.com has acquired Rocket.net, bringing the fast-growing managed WordPress hosting company under its corporate umbrella. The move gives hosting.com a proven SaaS platform and a strong brand in WordPress hosting, while Rocket.net gains the capital and global reach of a much larger player. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.... [ Read it >> ]

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According to The Information, Apple executives have debated acquiring Mistral AI and Perplexity to strengthen its AI capabilities. MacRumors reports: Services chief Eddy Cue is apparently the most vocal advocate of a deal to buy AI firms to bolster the company's offerings. Cue previously supported propositions of Apple acquiring Netflix and Tesla, both of which Apple CEO Tim Cook turned down. Other executives such as software chief Craig Federighi have reportedly been reluctant to acquire AI startups, believing that Apple can build its own AI technology in-house. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Before 16-year-old Adam Raine died by suicide, he had spent months consulting ChatGPT about his plans to end his life. Now, his parents are filing the first known wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI, The New York Times reports. Many consumer-facing AI chatbots are programmed to activate safety features if a user expresses intent to harm themselves or others. But research has shown that these safeguards are far from foolproof.... [ Read it >> ]

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Anthropic reached a settlement with authors in a high-stakes copyright class action that threatened the AI company with potentially billions of dollars in damages. From a report: In a Tuesday filing in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, both sides asked the court to pause all proceedings while they finalize the deal. The parties signed a binding term sheet on Aug. 25 outlining the core terms of a proposed class settlement to resolve litigation brought by authors. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The Michigan Supreme Court has drawn a firm line around digital privacy, ruling that police cannot use overly broad warrants to comb through every corner of a person's phone. From a report: In People v. Carson, the court found [PDF] that warrants for digital devices must include specific limitations, allowing access only to information directly tied to the suspected crime. Michael Carson became the focus of a theft investigation involving money allegedly taken from a neighbor's safe. Authorities secured a warrant to search his phone, but the document placed no boundaries on what could be examined. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Air pollution from oil and gas causes more than 90,000 premature deaths and sickens hundreds of thousands of people across the US each year, a new study shows, with disproportionately high impacts on communities of color. From a report: More than 10,000 annual pre-term births are attributable to fine particulate matter from oil and gas, the authors found, also linking 216,000 annual childhood-onset asthma cases to the sector's nitrogen dioxide emissions and 1,610 annual lifetime cancer cases to its hazardous air pollutants. The highest number of impacts are seen in California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, while the per-capita incidences are highest in New Jersey, Washington DC, New York, California and Maryland.... [ Read it >> ]

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Swiss researchers have determined that fermentation degree controls beer foam stability after seven years of study published in Physics of Fluids. Triple-fermented Belgian beers maintained the longest-lasting foam while single-fermented lagers produced the shortest duration. The team tested six commercial beers including Westmalle Tripel, Tripel Karmeliet, and Swiss lagers Feldschlosschen and Chopfab. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google has integrated AI-powered language learning capabilities into its Translate app through a beta feature that generates customized lessons using its Gemini AI models. The Practice button allows English speakers to learn Spanish and French while Spanish, French, and Portuguese speakers can practice English. ... [ Read it >> ]

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The Document Foundation, which operates the popular open source productivity suite LibreOffice, is positioning the suite's newest release, v25.8, as a strategic asset for digital sovereignty, targeting governments and enterprises seeking independence from foreign software vendors and cloud infrastructure. ... [ Read it >> ]

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French prosecutors have opened an investigation into the Australian video platform Kick over the death of a content creator during a live stream. From a report: Raphael Graven -- also known as Jean Pormanove -- was found dead in a residence near the city of Nice last week. He was known for videos in which he endured apparent violence and humiliation. The Paris prosecutor said the investigation would look into whether Kick knowingly broadcast "videos of deliberate attacks on personal integrity." ... [ Read it >> ]

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AT&T said Tuesday it would buy wireless licenses from EchoStar for $23 billion, after a years-long saga over what the latter would do with its vast spectrum holdings. From a report: EchoStar was reportedly under pressure from regulators and the White House to either start selling its spectrum or potentially lose it. The cash payment is almost three times the size of EchoStar's entire market capitalization. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Entry-level workers in AI-exposed occupations have seen employment drop 13% since late 2022, according to Stanford University research analyzing millions of payroll records. The decline affects software developers, customer service representatives, and administrative assistants aged 22 to 25, while employment for older workers in the same roles continued growing. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: AbbVie will buy an experimental depression drug from partner Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals for up to $1.2 billion, the companies said on Monday, seeking to access a fast-growing market for psychedelic-based treatments. The deal is the latest in the more than $20 billion AbbVie has spent on acquisitions since 2023 for drugs that can drive growth as its flagship rheumatoid arthritis treatment, Humira, lost patent protection. The companies had signed a partnership last year to develop therapies for psychiatric disorders, with privately held Gilgamesh set to receive up to $1.95 billion in option fees and milestone payments. The deals with Gilgamesh, which is also developing treatments for anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, also launch AbbVie into the race to develop psychedelic compounds for psychiatric conditions -- a potential $50 billion market, according to Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Josh Schimmer.... [ Read it >> ]

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Amazon is facing a proposed class action lawsuit alleging it misleads customers by advertising digital movies and TV shows as "purchases," when in reality buyers only receive revocable licenses that can disappear if Amazon loses distribution rights. From the Hollywood Reporter: On Friday, a proposed class action was filed in Washington federal court against Amazon over a "bait and switch" in which the company allegedly misleads consumers into believing they've purchased content when they're only getting a license to watch, which can be revoked at any time. [...] The lawsuit accuses Amazon, which didn't respond to a request for comment, of misrepresenting the nature of movie and TV transactions during the purchase process. On its website and platform, the company tells consumers they can "buy" a movie. But hidden in a footnote on the confirmation page is fine print that says, "You receive a license to the video and you agree to our terms," the complaint says.... [ Read it >> ]

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Russia's new Soyuz-5 rocket is set for a December debut as Moscow seeks to end reliance on Ukrainian technology and replace its aging Proton-M fleet. Ars Technica reports: According to the report, translated for Ars by Rob Mitchell, the debut launch of Soyuz-5 will mark the first of several demonstration flights, with full operational service not expected to begin until 2028. It will launch from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan. From an innovation standpoint, the Soyuz-5 vehicle does not stand out. It has been a decade in the making and is fully expendable, unlike a lot of newer medium-lift rockets coming online in the next several years. However, for Russia, this is an important advancement because it seeks to break some of the country's dependency on Ukraine for launch technology.... [ Read it >> ]

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Two of Japan's largest media groups are suing AI search engine Perplexity over alleged copyright infringement, joining a growing list of news publishers taking legal action against AI companies using their content. FT: Japanese media group Nikkei, which owns the Financial Times, and the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said in statements on Tuesday that they had jointly filed a lawsuit in Tokyo. The groups join a number of Western media companies taking legal action against Perplexity, which provides answers to questions with sources and citations, using large language models (LLMs) from platforms such as OpenAI and Anthropic. ... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Greenhouse gas reduction is no longer a priority for the US government, but if you're looking for a new vehicle and want to buy something with the lowest life cycle carbon emissions, you're best off looking for a compact with a small battery. That's one of the findings from a group at the University of Michigan of a comprehensive study that calculates the overall cradle-to-grave carbon impact for different types of vehicles, including factors like powertrain options, location (within the country), and use patterns. Even better, they built a tool you can use yourself. The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, compares internal combustion engine powertrains with hybrid, 35- and 50-mile range plug-in hybrids, and 200-mile, 300-mile, and 400-mile battery electric powertrains across compact and midsize sedans, small and midsize SUVs, and pickup trucks, using a life cycle assessment model developed by Argonne National Laboratory and data of model year 2025 vehicles from the Environmental Protection Agency. If you expected that a gas-powered pickup truck would have the biggest carbon footprint, you'd be right. With a driving profile of 43 percent city driving and the rest highways (no cargo), a pickup will emit about 486 g CO2e per mile. Compared to that, a compact electric sedan with a 200-mile battery has just 17 percent of the life cycle emissions and is responsible for just 81 g CO2e per mile.... [ Read it >> ]

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Farmers Insurance disclosed a breach affecting 1.1 million customers after attackers exploited Salesforce in a widespread campaign involving ShinyHunters and allied groups. According to BleepingComputer, the hackers stole personal data such as names, birth dates, driver's license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers. From the report: The company disclosed the data breach in an advisory on its website, saying that its database at a third-party vendor was breached on May 29, 2025. "On May 30, 2025, one of Farmers' third-party vendors alerted Farmers to suspicious activity involving an unauthorized actor accessing one of the vendor's databases containing Farmers customer information (the "Incident")," reads the data breach notification (PDF) on its website. "The third-party vendor had monitoring tools in place, which allowed the vendor to quickly detect the activity and take appropriate containment measures, including blocking the unauthorized actor. After learning of the activity, Farmers immediately launched a comprehensive investigation to determine the nature and scope of the Incident and notified appropriate law enforcement authorities."... [ Read it >> ]

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Mark Tyson writes via Tom's Hardware: On this day 34 years ago, an unknown computer science student from Finland announced that a new free operating system project was "starting to get ready." Linus Benedict Torvalds elaborated by explaining that the OS was "just a hobby, [it] won't be big and professional like GNU." Of course, this was the first public outing for the colossal collaborative project that is now known as Linux. Above, you can see Torvalds' first posting regarding Linux to the comp.os.minix newsgroup. The now famously caustic, cantankerous, curmudgeon seemed relatively mild, meek, and malleable in this historic Linux milestone posting.... [ Read it >> ]

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Struggling small biotech firms are pivoting into cryptocurrencies, rebranding as "crypto treasuries" or stockpiling digital assets like Ether and Litecoin as a last-ditch effort to boost share prices amid stalled funding and weak drug pipelines. Bloomberg reports: Shares of 180 Life Sciences Corp., now doing business as ETHZilla, tripled after the Peter Thiel-backed company said it had accumulated Ether tokens worth over $350 million. Less than two weeks later, the stock's gains have been erased. In July, Sonnet BioTherapeutics Holdings soared 243% in one volatile session on plans to transform into a public crypto treasury while MEI Pharma Inc. initially doubled on plans to sell shares to fund a Litecoin treasury.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AMD's X3D-series Ryzen chips have become popular with PC gamers because games in particular happen to benefit disproportionately from the chips' extra 64MB of L3 cache memory. But that extra memory occasionally comes with extra headaches. Not long after they were released earlier this year, some early adopters started having problems with their CPUs, ranging from failure to boot to actual physical scorching and burnout -- the problems were particularly common for users of the 9800X3D processor in ASRock motherboards, and one Reddit thread currently records 157 incidents of failure for that CPU model across various ASRock boards.... [ Read it >> ]

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Apple has filed a lawsuit against former Apple Watch staffer Dr. Chen Shi, alleging that he "conspired to steal Apple's trade secrets relating to Apple Watch and to disclose them to his new employers (Oppo)." The company alleges he downloaded 63 sensitive documents, attended technical meetings, and coordinated with Oppo to transfer proprietary information, though Oppo denies wrongdoing. The Verge reports: Ahead of starting his new job at Oppo, the employee, Dr. Chen Shi, attended "dozens" of meetings with technical members on the Apple Watch team to learn about their work and downloaded 63 documents "from a protected Box folder" that he loaded onto a USB drive, according to the lawsuit. Shi allegedly sent a message to Oppo saying that he was working to "collect as much information as possible" before starting his job. And he searched the internet for terms like "how to wipe out macbook" and "Can somebody see if I've opened a file on a shared drive?" from his Apple-issued MacBook before leaving the company.... [ Read it >> ]

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Nvidia has launched its Jetson AGX Thor robotics chip module, a $3,499 "robot brain" developer kit that starts shipping next month. CNBC reports: After a company uses the developer kit to prototype their robot, Nvidia will sell Thor T5000 modules that can be installed in production-ready robots. If a company needs more than 1,000 Thor chips, Nvidia will charge $2,999 per module. CEO Jensen Huang has said robotics is the company's largest growth opportunity outside of artificial intelligence, which has led to Nvidia's overall sales more than tripling in the past two years. "We do not build robots, we do not build cars, but we enable the whole industry with our infrastructure computers and the associated software," said Deepu Talla, Nvidia's vice president of robotics and edge AI, on a call with reporters Friday.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from PYMNTS: Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity has announced a new subscription program called Comet Plus that it said gives users access to premium content from trusted publishers and journalists, while providing publishers with a better compensation model. "Comet Plus transforms how publishers are compensated in the AI age," the company said in a Monday blog post. "As users demand a better internet in the age of AI, it's time for a business model to ensure that publishers and journalists benefit from their contributions to a better internet."... [ Read it >> ]

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The Federal Trade Commission is warning major U.S. tech companies against yielding to foreign government demands that weaken data security, compromise encryption, or impose censorship on their platforms. From a report: FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson signed the letter sent to large American companies like Akamai, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Cloudflare, Discord, GoDaddy, Meta, Microsoft, Signal, Snap, Slack, and X (Twitter). Ferguson stresses that weakening data security at the request of foreign governments, especially if they don't alert users about it, would constitute a violation of the FTC Act and expose companies to legal consequences. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Intel said Monday that converting $8.87 billion in federal chip subsidies into a 10% equity stake creates unprecedented complications and potential "adverse reactions" for a company deriving 76% of revenue internationally. The arrangement transforms Biden-era CHIPS Act grants into share purchases at $20.74 -- a discount to Friday's $24.80 close -- with the Department of Commerce receiving up to 433 million shares by Tuesday's expected closing. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Living through extreme heat waves can accelerate your rate of aging, according to research published Monday. From a report: Scientists analyzed 15 years' worth of health data from nearly 25,000 adults in Taiwan and found that two years of exposure to heat waves could speed up a person's so-called biological aging by eight to 12 extra days. It may not sound like a lot, but this number builds over time, said Cui Guo, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong who led the study, which was published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Google will require identity verification for all Android app developers, including those distributing apps outside the Play Store, starting September 2026 in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand before expanding globally through 2027. Developers must register through a new Android Developer Console beginning March 2026. The requirement applies to certified Android devices running Google Mobile Services. Google cited malware prevention as the primary motivation, noting sideloaded apps contain 50 times more malware than Play Store apps. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Security researchers have uncovered critical vulnerabilities in Perplexity's Comet browser that enable attackers to hijack user accounts and execute malicious code through the browser's AI summarization features. The flaws, discovered independently by Brave and Guardio Labs, exploit indirect prompt injection attacks that bypass traditional web security mechanisms when users request webpage summaries. ... [ Read it >> ]

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A group representing the world's biggest stock exchanges has called on securities regulators to clamp down on so-called tokenised stocks, arguing that the blockchain-based tokens create new risks for investors and could harm market integrity. From a report:

Crypto exchange Coinbase and broker Robinhood are among those making a push into the nascent sector that could shake up the securities investing landscape. Proponents say tokenised equities can cut trading costs, speed up settlement and facilitate around-the-clock trading. The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE), in a letter sent to three regulatory bodies last Friday, said it was concerned the tokens "mimic" equities without providing the same rights or trading safeguards.... [ Read it >> ]

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Elon Musk's AI startup xAI sued Apple and ChatGPT maker OpenAI in U.S. federal court in Texas on Monday, accusing them of illegally conspiring to thwart competition for artificial intelligence.

Musk earlier this month had threatened to sue Cupertino, California-based Apple, saying in a post on his social media platform X that "Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store."... [ Read it >> ]

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Years of aggressive capacity expansion have driven China's solar manufacturing sector into deep losses. Panel prices have hit their lowest levels since 2011 even as the country's installations more than doubled. Shanghai-listed Tongwei reported a 4.96 billion yuan ($693 million) net loss for the first half of 2025, widening from 3.13 billion yuan a year earlier, while Trina Solar swung to a 2.92 billion yuan loss from a prior-year profit. ... [ Read it >> ]

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DHL's German operations, facing the departure of one-third of support staff within five years, has automated customer service calls and begun capturing institutional knowledge through AI-conducted exit interviews. The company's voicebot now processes one million monthly calls, resolving half without human intervention, though initial deployments struggled with basic German language recognition. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Yahoo Finance interviews Peter Cappelli, a Wharton professor of management, on "the business case for employers pushing for workers to get back to the office." (Cappelli has co-written a new book with workplace strategist Ranya Nehmeh titled In Praise of the Office: The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work ...)... [ Read it >> ]

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People in Mississippi no longer have access to Bluesky. "If you access Bluesky from a Mississippi IP address, you'll see a message explaining why the app isn't available," announced a Bluesky blog post Friday.

The reason is a new Mississippi law that "requires all users to verify their ages before using common social media sites ranging from Facebook to Nextdoor," noted NPR. Bluesky wrote that their block "will remain in place while the courts decide whether the law will stand."... [ Read it >> ]

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More than 30,000 Python developers from around the world answered questions for the Python Software Foundation's annual survey — and PSF Fellow Michael Kennedy tells the Python community what they've learned in a new blog post. Some highlights:

Most still use older Python versions despite benefits of newer releases... Many of us (15%) are running on the very latest released version of Python, but more likely than not, we're using a version a year old or older (83%). [Although less than 1% are using "Python 3.5 or lower".] The survey also indicates that many of us are using Docker and containers to execute our code, which makes this 83% or higher number even more surprising... You simply choose a newer runtime, and your code runs faster. CPython has been extremely good at backward compatibility. There's rarely significant effort involved in upgrading... [He calculates some cloud users are paying up to $420,000 and $5.6M more in compute costs.] If your company realizes you are burning an extra $0.4M-$5M a year because you haven't gotten around to spending the day it takes to upgrade, that'll be a tough conversation... ... [ Read it >> ]

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"For a few dozen people in the world, the downside of living with a rare immune condition comes with a surprising superpower — the ability to fight off all viruses..." notes an announcement from Columbia University.

"At first, the condition only seemed to increase vulnerability to some bacterial infections. But as more patients were identified, its unexpected antiviral benefits became apparent."... [ Read it >> ]

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"A fierce dust storm hit the Black Rock Desert on the eve of its annual Burning Man festival," reports the San Francisco Chronicle, "causing at least four minor injuries and damaging campsites that had been set up early." [Alternate URL]

"Winds of up to 50 mph stirred up the lake bed's alkaline dust so ferociously that participants in the annual art and culture festival reported not being able to see beyond a foot... "... [ Read it >> ]

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After the Tea dating-advice app leaked information on its users, the BBC found two online maps "purporting to represent the locations of women who had signed up for Tea... showing 33,000 pins spread across the United States." The maps were hosted on Google Maps. (Notified by the BBC, Google deleted the maps, saying they violated their harassment policies.) ... [ Read it >> ]

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"The truly universal properties of languages are not independent of our physiology and cognition," argues the co-author of a new study. Instead he says their research "strengthens the idea that intonation units are a universal feature of language."

Phys.org explains:
... [ Read it >> ]

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"The ultimate test of climate projections is to compare them with what has played out..." says earth sciences professor Torbjörn Törnqvist, lead author on a new study published in the open-access journal Earth's Future (published by the American Geophysical Union).

But after "decades of observations," he says his researchers "were quite amazed how good those early projections were, especially when you think about how crude the models were back then, compared to what is available now."... [ Read it >> ]

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"Delta Air Lines Flight 1334 was flying from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale last month when smoke and flames started pouring out of a backpack," reports CNN. "The pilots declared an emergency and diverted to Fort Meyers where the 191 people onboard safely evacuated."

The culprit was a passenger's personal lithium-ion battery pack, which had been tucked away in the carry-on bag. At the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center for Advanced Aerospace in Atlantic City, New Jersey, fire safety engineers research and demonstrate just how bad it can be. "Lithium batteries can go into what's called thermal runaway," Fire Safety Branch Manager Robert Ochs, explained. "All of a sudden, it'll start to short circuit ... It will get warmer and warmer and warmer until the structure of the battery itself fails. At that point, it can eject molten electrolyte and flames and smoke and toxic gas...." ... [ Read it >> ]

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