All posts filed under: Science

Anthropic Offers Mythos Upgrade for Cyber Partners and a ‘Safe’ Version for the Rest of You

Anthropic Offers Mythos Upgrade for Cyber Partners and a ‘Safe’ Version for the Rest of You

Published by skeptic

Anthropic released two new AI models called Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 on Tuesday, which the company says have greater capabilities than the Mythos Preview model it released in April to a limited set of tech industry partners. Anthropic has said the initial, limited release stemmed from concerns that the model’s capabilities could be exploited by bad actors to develop hacking tools that could catch defenders off guard. Anthropic is currently only releasing Claude Mythos 5 to a limited set of industry partners, many of which received access to Mythos Preview, and the company says it is collaborating with the US government on the rollout. Claude Fable 5, which is being publicly released, uses the same underlying model as Mythos 5, but will have “guardrails” in place at launch, the company said Tuesday, that will block the model from answering many user questions related to cybersecurity, biology, and chemistry. These requests will instead be rerouted to an older AI model, Claude Opus 4.8. If Anthropic suspects a user is trying to conduct distillation—training …

Nasa names Artemis III crew, but a rocket explosion has thrown US Moon plans into turmoil

Nasa names Artemis III crew, but a rocket explosion has thrown US Moon plans into turmoil

Published by skeptic

Nasa has named the crew of its next Artemis mission, which it promised would be an “extraordinary demonstration of what is possible”. Artemis is the ambitious American-led effort to the return humans to the lunar surface by 2028. However, the Artemis III mission will not travel to the Moon. Instead, the Orion spacecraft will stay in low Earth orbit and aim to dock with lunar landing vehicles launched separately by one or two space companies. Nasa astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas and Italian European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano will carry out the mission in late 2027. There are two potential landers that could fly on their separate mission to then rendezvous with the Orion spacecraft; one made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the other by Jeff Bezos’ firm Blue Origin. They will carry astronauts down to the Moon’s surface on subsequent missions. However, the timetable for Artemis III and the first mission to return astronauts to the lunar surface (Artemis IV) has been thrown into doubt by the recent explosion of …

Frozen squirrel scat preserves ancient DNA from hundreds of species

Frozen squirrel scat preserves ancient DNA from hundreds of species

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Arctic ground squirrels gather food from a wide variety of sources and store it in burrows Government of Yukon A rich and complex ecosystem stretching back 700,000 years that included woolly mammoths, bison, horses and big cats has been unveiled thanks to DNA preserved in frozen faeces. Arctic ground squirrels (Urocitellus parryii) are rodents about 40 centimetres long, found in cold regions of both North America and Siberia. These areas were joined by a land bridge in the past, with the whole region being known as Beringia. “The squirrels hibernate for about eight months of the year and in the four months that they’re conscious, they really need to get out there and eat and bring as many resources as they can back to their burrow,” says Tyler Murchie at the Hakai Institute in Campbell River, Canada. This means their burrows often contain a wealth of faecal pellets and food caches, which makes the animals like “natural archivists”, says Murchie. To see what might be stored in this archive, he and his colleagues looked at preserved …

First Hydrogen advances robotics acquisition and launches humanoid robotics strategy

First Hydrogen advances robotics acquisition and launches humanoid robotics strategy

Published by skeptic

The Company believes the proposed transaction will position First Hydrogen at the convergence of several high-growth sectors, including robotics, clean energy, hydrogen, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence and advanced mobility. Robotics market driven by automation and AI adoption The global robotics sector is experiencing rapid expansion as businesses increasingly adopt automation to address labour shortages, improve productivity and deploy AI-enabled systems. Demand for advanced robotic platforms continues to grow across industrial, commercial and mobility applications. At the core of these systems are actuation, gearbox and motor technologies, which enable controlled movement, precision, load handling, durability and energy efficiency. These components are essential for the performance and reliability of modern robotic systems. Extensive intellectual property portfolio supports commercial applications The robotics technology company involved in the transaction owns or licenses 26 issued patents and 10 pending patents, along with related intellectual property covering robotics technologies, actuation gearboxes and high-performance motors. Its technologies have been tested and successfully deployed by robotics, automotive and packaging companies worldwide. The company’s actuators combine human-like dexterity with machine precision, converting electrical energy …

Rivian R2 2026: Specs, Price, Availability

Rivian R2 2026: Specs, Price, Availability

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The Premium model follows in late 2026 at $53,990. Same 87.9-kilo-watt-hour battery, same 330-mile range, but with 450 hp, 537 pound-foot of torque, and a 4.6-second zero-to-60 time. Still dual-motor AWD. Then the Standard Long Range model lands in early 2027 at $48,490 with a single-motor rear-wheel drive, 350 hp, and zero-to-60 in 5.9 seconds. Rivian estimates up to 345 miles on a single charge, which indeed makes it the farthest in the lineup, but only by 15 miles. That all-important Standard model with the attractive $45,000 price ($10,000 less than a base Volvo EX40, and $5,000 less than Tesla Model Y Premium AWD) comes last, in late 2027, with a drop in range to about 275 miles. All four trims have a native North American Charging Standard (NACS) connector with access to Tesla’s Supercharger network and a claimed 10-to-80-percent charge time of 29 minutes. But here’s the trouble: The initial R2s will not be technically as good as the models coming six months later or so. Why? Rivian’s new, fancy RAP1 processor, a custom …

JWST’s Little Red Dots could be black hole feeding bursts

JWST’s Little Red Dots could be black hole feeding bursts

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A new theoretical study suggests that Little Red Dots observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could be black holes in rare, short-lived – but extremely volatile – nuclear bursts. A paper by Yangyao Chen of Nanjing University and Houjun Mo of the University of Massachusetts reexamined a phenomena that has intrigued scientists since the JWST’s debut. Astronomers have observed nearly 350 faintly-red objects that are particularly unusual for their apparent lack of x-ray, radio and infrared emission. They have a V-shaped spectrum, being bright in ultraviolet and optical light, but dim in between, as well as the broad emission lines associated with black hole activity. Current theories posed that that the Little Red Dots – or LRDs – are primordial galaxies, or non-metallic primordial stars(also known as Population III stars), or even quasi-stars. The majority seem to have been formed 600 million years after the Big Bang, or 13.2 to 12.2 billion years ago. Chen and Mo created a galaxy formation model built on the ΛCDM cosmological framework reported in a previous study. …

Amazon Ember Artline Review: A Stylish Art Television

Amazon Ember Artline Review: A Stylish Art Television

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One unique feature is a free “moving artwork” functionality. Imagine a static painting where a portion of the art, such as a river or mist over a mountain, is moving slightly. It’s calming and beautiful. At least dozens are available, but I’m not able to add my own. The TCL NXTVISION also features paintings in a slowly moving video format, but the video art on the Ember Artline looks more realistic. In particular, I was blown away by some of the subtle clips, including one scene that shows the sun passing over a mountain range in extreme hi-def. Another unique feature is Match the Room. It uses a photo where the TV is situated, then generates AI images that fit within the space’s color scheme. Having my TV display art that fits the aesthetic of my family room’s brown walls and dark blue couch made me feel like an interior designer. Then there’s the Omnisense feature, which claims to know when you leave the room. At that point, it turns off the art display, then …

The Untold Story of the Google Buses That Took Over San Francisco

The Untold Story of the Google Buses That Took Over San Francisco

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Activists in San Francisco’s Mission District weren’t giving up easily. David Campos had taken the baton from Chris Daly as the city Supervisor leading the anti-gentrification advocates, who were anchored in a handful of nonprofit community groups. During the springtime festivities for Cinco de Mayo in 2015, Campos called for a moratorium on all new housing construction in the Mission, saying it was the only way to give the district “a fighting chance.” The idea that new apartment buildings would push rents higher was—and is—a source of endless exasperation for housing advocates. Scott Wiener, who’d taken a more centrist path than Campos, was now on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors and led the charge against the Mission moratorium, which was voted down twice. It was too drastic a step even for the progressive-leaning Board. But development in the district slowed dramatically in the face of all the political resistance: a proposed 10-story apartment building dubbed “the Monster in the Mission” by activists had become a symbol of the fight and was ultimately abandoned. (As of …

Imagination is not just replaying what we’ve seen and heard

Imagination is not just replaying what we’ve seen and heard

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brain scan: A technique to view structures inside the brain, typically with X-rays or a magnetic resonance imaging (or MRI) machine. With MRI technology — especially the type known as functional MRI (or fMRI) — the activity of different brain regions can be viewed during an event, such as viewing pictures, computing sums or listening to music. component: Something that is part of something else (such as pieces that go on an electronic circuit board or ingredients that go into a cookie recipe). default mode: A network of brain regions — one which becomes active when people daydream or try to understand what motivates the actions of others. MRI: Short for magnetic resonance imaging. It’s an imaging technique to visualize soft, internal organs, like the brain, muscles, heart and cancerous tumors. MRI uses strong magnetic fields to record the activity of individual atoms. network: A group of interconnected people or things. neuron: The main cell type of the nervous system — the brain, spinal column and nerves. These specialized cells transmit information by producing, receiving …