All posts tagged: Orb

A ‘Golden Orb’ on the Ocean Floor Came From a Mysterious Animal

A ‘Golden Orb’ on the Ocean Floor Came From a Mysterious Animal

This species can reach 30 centimeters in diameter and live between 1,600 and 4,000 meters deep. Its biology baffles specialists because it does not quite fit the rules that define anemones and corals. Since its discovery, scientists have struggled to classify it, and its evolutionary origin remains uncertain. Relicanthus daphneae moves across the ocean floor. ‘National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) | Office of Exploration and Research (OER)’ Before the study, there was nothing linking the golden orb to the giant anemone. The report details that an initial examination found spirocytes—ultra-specialized cells that only cnidarians (the group of animals made up of anemones, corals, and jellyfish) have. This finding ruled out the possibility that it was an egg or a biofilm, as initially thought. The team then sequenced the DNA of the material to search for matches in databases. The complete mitochondrial genomes showed a 99.9 percent match to Relicanthus daphneae. The evidence pointed to the orb being part of a rare and poorly documented anemone. However, the remains did not match any known structures …

Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out What That Golden Orb Found at the Bottom of the Pacific Ocean Actually Was

Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out What That Golden Orb Found at the Bottom of the Pacific Ocean Actually Was

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech After spending two and half years pondering a “golden orb” found at the bottom of the ocean, scientists have finally figured out what in the thundering typhoons it actually is. The aureate object looked like some sort of alien relic when it was first discovered clinging to a rock over two miles underwater in the Gulf of Alaska, before collapsing into a blob resembling molten leafs of gold when it was recovered. Now, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Smithsonian Institution reveal that the baffling object is a remnant of what was once a giant anemone — though it took considerable detective work to reach that conclusion. “This turned into a special case that required focused efforts and expertise of several different individuals,” said Allen Collins, a zoologist and director of NOAA Fisheries’ National Systematics Laboratory, in a statement. “This was a complex mystery that required morphological, genetic, deep-sea and bioinformatics expertise to solve.” …

Sam Altman’s Orb Company Promoted a Bruno Mars Partnership That Doesn’t Exist

Sam Altman’s Orb Company Promoted a Bruno Mars Partnership That Doesn’t Exist

Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning startup, Tools for Humanity, announced last week that a new product called Concert Kit—designed to give verified humans a way to purchase concert tickets—would first roll out on Bruno Mars’ world tour of his latest studio album, The Romantic. However, Bruno Mars Management and Live Nation, the producer for the Romantic Tour, told WIRED in a joint statement on Tuesday that the partnership “does not exist,” and that Tools for Humanity never even approached them about working together. The confusion stemmed from a Tools for Humanity event April 17 in San Francisco, where chief product officer Tiago Sada said the company would be joining the Romantic Tour to not just provide access to tickets but also “VIP experiences for verified humans.” The statement was reiterated in a blog post published by the company, which read: “Concert Kit launches today and will roll out during the Bruno Mars World Tour featuring DJ Pee .Wee (aka Anderson .Paak), where verified humans will have exclusive access to VIP suite experiences at select stops.” A video …

Gazing Into Sam Altman’s Orb Now Proves You’re Human on Tinder

Gazing Into Sam Altman’s Orb Now Proves You’re Human on Tinder

Sam Altman’s iris-scanning, humanity-verifying World project announced at an event in San Francisco on Friday that Tinder users around the globe can now put a digital badge on their profiles signaling to potential suitors that they’re a real human, provided they’ve already stared into one of the startup’s glossy white Orbs and allowed their eyes to be scanned. The announcement follows a pilot project for Tinder verification that World previously conducted in Japan. The global Tinder expansion is one of the biggest tests yet for World, and the company’s bet that everyday consumers will be willing to sign up for biometric verification services to use internet applications. Founded in 2019 by Altman and Alex Blania, the World project was designed for a future where the internet is overrun with highly capable AI agents that make it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to tell who is really human. As companies like OpenAI—where Altman is CEO—and Anthropic push AI agents into the mainstream, the problem World was built to solve feels increasingly urgent. But World has struggled …