in medio stat virtus (virtue stands in the middle, not at the extremes)
SUSTAINABILITY
More than 300 people died in floods in northern Afghanistan; More than 1,000 houses were destroyed. The United Nations World Food Program sent aid to the region. DETAIL
According to the new Banking on Climate Chaos Fossil Fuel Finance Report 2024, the largest banks in the world have given $6.9 trillion in fossil fuel funding to the industry since the 2016 Paris Agreement. The goal of the Paris Agreement — signed by 196 countries — is to limit human-caused global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by lowering carbon dioxide emissions. However, contrary to their pledges, private interests in many countries have kept funding the operations of fossil fuel companies, which have continued to expand, reported The Guardian. DETAIL
EU markets regulator the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) announced today the release of its finalized guidelines for the use of ESG and sustainability-related terms in investment fund names, including investment thresholds required for sustainable investment funds, and the establishment of a transition category for investments that are not yet green, but are on a positive trajectory towards achieving environmental sustainability goals. DETAIL
Carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere 10 times faster than it has in the last 50,000 years, according to a new study led by researchers from University of St. Andrews and Oregon State University. The findings shed light on periods of abrupt climate change in the planet’s history while offering new understanding of the impacts of today’s climate crisis. DETAIL
Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis has signed new legislation that makes climate change a lesser priority in the state and will see it largely disappear from state statutes, reports the Associated Press. DETAIL
High temperatures in Mexico last week led to several deaths, including that of a 60-year-old man who died at home from heat stroke in the northern state of San Luis Potosí, Excélsior reports. The newspaper notes that "these cases have highlighted the vulnerability of elderly and low-income people to extreme heatwaves". In a separate article, the outlet reports that the extreme heat also killed birds, such as yellow-headed parrots and red-crowned amazons, across two states, including San Luis Potosí, where temperatures exceeded 50C. DETAIL
A herd of 170 bison reintroduced to Romania’s Țarcu mountains could help store CO2 emissions equivalent to removing 43,000 US cars from the road for a year, research has found, demonstrating how the animals can help mitigate some effects of the climate crisis. DETAIL
Microsoft has said it will spend more than $50 billion this year to expand its data centers in order to support its growing use of generative AI, which requires far more compute power and consumes more electricity than most software. DETAIL
HEALTH
A new synthetic compound, cresomycin, turns out to kill many strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. DETAIL
Genetic analysis of 50,000-year-old Neanderthal skeletons has uncovered the remnants of three viruses related to modern human pathogens, and the researchers think they could be recreated. DETAIL
Surgeons could use a ChatGPT-like interface to instruct a robot to carry out small tasks, such as suturing wounds and dilating blood vessels. Surgical robots have been in use for decades, but these are normally controlled entirely by a human. Researchers are now developing autonomous versions that can perform parts of an operation without human assistance, but these can be difficult for people to work with because of a lack of fine control. DETAIL
DIGITAL / TECHNOLOGY / SCIENCE / AI
OpenAI is launching GPT-4o, an iteration of the GPT-4 model that powers its hallmark product, ChatGPT. The updated model “is much faster” and improves “capabilities across text, vision, and audio,” OpenAI CTO Mira Murati said in a livestream announcement on Monday. It’ll be free for all users, and paid users will continue to “have up to five times the capacity limits” of free users, Murati added. DETAIL
U.S. officials flagged concerns over China's "misuse" of artificial intelligence in their first formal bilateral talks on the issue, the White House said on Wednesday, as the superpowers seek to avoid confrontation over the fast-developing technology. DETAIL
Italian companies could increase the added value they create by about 50 billion euros ($54.30 billion) by 2030 with the generalised use of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), according to a study by Accenture published on Wednesday. The research was presented at an annual meeting in Rome of the Leonardo Committee, a business group promoting "Made in Italy". The group is unrelated to the Leonardo defence and aerospace group. DETAIL
Silicon Valley firm Cerebras Systems on Wednesday said it will supply a supercomputing system to Aleph Alpha, a German technology startup that will use it to develop artificial intelligence for the German Armed Forces. DETAIL
A solar flare measured at X8.7 on the strength scale just emerged from AR 3664, the sunspot region responsible for last weekend's solar storms that sparked vivid auroras. That's the most powerful solar flare of the current cycle, absolutely the most powerful since 2017, and comfortably within the top 20 solar flares ever.
Following Open AI's Sora, Google introduced its new generative AI video model, Veo, at its I/O developer event yesterday. According to the information shared; Veo can produce high-quality videos longer than one minute at 1080p resolution. The videos produced can have a wide variety of visual and cinematic styles.
Google's new artificial intelligence model focusing on education: LearnLM. Created to support students, LearnLM also combines with other services such as Google Search, Android, YouTube and the Gemini chatbot. DETAIL
A strange area around black holes called the “plunging region” has been spotted for the first time. This area, where matter stops circling a black hole and falls straight in, was predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, but has never been observed before. DETAIL
ENERGY / TRANSPORTATION
The Biden administration plans to set new tariffs on electric vehicle (EV) imports from China of up to 100 percent, along with import taxes on other products. The tariffs follow a review of former President Donald Trump’s more than $300 billion in import taxes imposed on China in 2018, reported The New York Times. It is anticipated that most of Trump’s levies will continue, with increases in sectors subsidized by Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. DETAIL
The World Bank and Türkiye signed a $1 billion agreement to develop renewable energy applications. The agreement is within the scope of supporting the National Energy Plan; It will help establish and expand Turkey's regulated solar energy market and pilot a battery storage program. DETAIL
CYBERSECURITY
The Real World, a learning platform from the controversial social media personality Andrew Tate, has leaked nearly a million users and over 22 million messages. DETAIL
Where do people go if they want to hack you? The zero-day market video may interest you.
The FBI's battle to take down BreachForums (cybercrime site) once and for all continues. The FBI and DOJ seized the cybercrime forum's site and took over a Telegram channel belonging to its latest admin Wednesday, according to screenshots of BreachForums' domain and corresponding Telegram channel. DETAIL
HUMAN / CURIOSITY
A new analysis of Beethoven's hair has shown the composer experienced lead poisoning toward the end of his life. He died at age 56 in 1827. Tests revealed incredibly elevated levels of lead, as well as arsenic and mercury, in two of his locks, likely from drinking wine that was sweetened with lead. Researchers don't believe lead poisoning would have been enough to kill him, but it could have contributed to the composer's well-known gastrointestinal issues and deafness. DETAIL
An investigation has been launched against Peruvian President Dina Boluarte on the grounds that she disbanded a special police force investigating her detained brother. DETAIL
Many of the pyramids of ancient Egypt were built along a now extinct branch of the river Nile, geological surveys have revealed. This could explain why these pyramids, including the famed Great Pyramid of Giza, are clustered in a thin strip of arid, inhospitable land. “Since ancient times, the Nile has provided sustenance to Egyptian settlements, and it functions as the main water corridor that allowed for the transportation of goods and building materials in the past,” says Tim Ralph at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. DETAIL