All posts tagged: Project

‘Project Hail Mary’ explores space science. How plausible is it? : NPR

‘Project Hail Mary’ explores space science. How plausible is it? : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

In the film Project Hail Mary, middle school teacher Ryland Grace (played by Ryan Gosling) goes on a interstellar journey and conducts lab science in space in a quest to save humanity. Jonathan Olley/Amazon MGM Studios hide caption toggle caption Jonathan Olley/Amazon MGM Studios This story contains major spoilers. The film Project Hail Mary has just blasted past the milestone of $400 million revenue globally and is generating early Oscar buzz. And the film’s depiction of interstellar travel and extraterrestrial life has reinvigorated the genre of science fiction and brought the wonder and “amaze! amaze!” of science into people’s consciousness. So how much of that science is really plausible? In the film, middle school teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) is recruited to help save Earth because of his history as a cell biologist with some iconoclastic ideas about life in the universe. During an emergency mission to a distant solar system, he must figure out how to stop a cosmic microbe from devouring Earth’s sun. In the wake of the simultaneous excitement over the ARTEMIS …

ABC conjecture: The secret project to settle controversial maths proof with a computer

ABC conjecture: The secret project to settle controversial maths proof with a computer

Published by skeptic

In 2012, Shinichi Mochizuki published a paper claiming to provide a proof for the ABC conjecture in number theory Newscom/Alamy One of the most bitterly contested proofs in modern mathematics may be on the verge of being untangled. Two projects, both aiming to use a computer program to cast new light on the controversy, are now up and running – with one having operated in secret for more than two years already. The developments are a positive sign that the row might find a solution, say mathematicians. The saga began in 2012 when Shinichi Mochizuki at Kyoto University, Japan, claimed to have proved a famous idea called the ABC conjecture, posting a 500-page proof online. The conjecture is simple to state, concerning prime numbers involved in solutions to the equation a + b = c and how these numbers relate to each other. But solving it requires deep insights into the nature of how addition and multiplication interact. The answer also has far-reaching implications for other mathematical disciplines. Mochizuki’s proof was a mathematical bombshell, but …

UK backs £86.5m hydrogen electrolyser project in South Yorkshire

UK backs £86.5m hydrogen electrolyser project in South Yorkshire

Published by skeptic

The UK has moved to reinforce its domestic clean energy capabilities with a significant investment in hydrogen technology, centred in South Yorkshire. The funding package is expected to generate more than 400 jobs and position the region at the forefront of European hydrogen production infrastructure. At the heart of the announcement is a £40m commitment from Great British Energy, paired with a government grant in principle worth £46.5m. The funding will support ITM Power’s expansion plans, a Sheffield-based firm specialising in hydrogen electrolyser systems. Commenting on the investment, UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: “This investment is the government’s clean energy mission in action – rebuilding our energy security with clean homegrown power and good industrial jobs for South Yorkshire. “Communities have long been calling out for a new generation of good industrial jobs, and with these plans, we answer that call, helping to create an economy in which there is no need to leave your hometown just to find a decent job. “Thanks to this government’s commitment to clean energy, a generation of young people in our industrial …

Fremantle Unveils First Native AI Project: ‘Art Awakens’

Fremantle Unveils First Native AI Project: ‘Art Awakens’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Indie production giant Fremantle today unveiled Art Awakens, the first native AI production from Fremantle’s new AI production label Imaginae Studios. The short-form educational TV series uses generative AI to take viewers into the inner worlds of history’s most iconic paintings. Over six episodes, the series literally dives into the some of the best-known masterpieces of the past five centuries, from Jan van Eyck’s “The Arnolfini Portrait” to “Whistler’s Mother” from James McNeill Whistler; from Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” to Hokusai’s “The Great Wave”; and “The Scream” by Edvard Munch to Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.” Each episode uses AI technology to animate the original artwork, creating a world inside the painting to explore the emotional and narrative history behind each masterpiece. Imagine created the series in collaboration with award-winning Spanish AI filmmaker Hilario Abad. James Duffen, CEO of Imaginae Studios, said the project shows how generative AI can be “applied with taste, craft and cultural sensitivity” to tell stories “that were previously impossible” while remaining rooted in artistic craft and cultural integrity. Andrea Scrosati, …

Combo Heat Waves/Droughts Will Affect Billions A Year By 2100, Researchers Project

Combo Heat Waves/Droughts Will Affect Billions A Year By 2100, Researchers Project

Published by Sam Flores

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterWEDNESDAY, April 8, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Extreme heat waves combined with bone-dry droughts will occur five times more often by century’s end under current climate policies, a new study says. These dangerous heat wave/drought combos are already more common and will continue to increase as climate change affects the globe, researchers reported April 7 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “Heat and drought amplify each other,” increasing the risk of wildfires, lost crops and heat-related deaths, lead researcher Di Cai, a climate scientist at the Ocean University of China, said in a news release. “In compound hot-dry extremes, they lead to water restrictions and unstable food prices,” Cai said. “For outdoor workers, it is dangerous.” For the new study, researchers analyzed 152 different simulations based on eight climate models. They defined hot-dry events as days with a temperature in the top 10% and at least moderate drought. There were roughly four hot-dry events a year between 2001 and 2020, twice as many as during the pre-industrial period from 1850 to …

Anthropic says its most powerful AI cyber model is too dangerous to release publicly — so it built Project Glasswing

Anthropic says its most powerful AI cyber model is too dangerous to release publicly — so it built Project Glasswing

Published by skeptic

Anthropic on Tuesday announced Project Glasswing, a sweeping cybersecurity initiative that pairs an unreleased frontier AI model — Claude Mythos Preview — with a coalition of twelve major technology and finance companies in an effort to find and patch software vulnerabilities across the world’s most critical infrastructure before adversaries can exploit them. The launch partners include Amazon Web Services, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorganChase, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Palo Alto Networks. Anthropic says it has also extended access to more than 40 additional organizations that build or maintain critical software, and is committing up to $100 million in usage credits for Claude Mythos Preview across the effort, along with $4 million in direct donations to open-source security organizations. The announcement arrives at a moment of extraordinary momentum — and extraordinary scrutiny — for the San Francisco-based AI startup. Anthropic disclosed on Sunday that its annualized revenue run rate has surpassed $30 billion, up from approximately $9 billion at the end of 2025, and the number of business customers each spending over $1 …

Intel signs on to Elon Musk’s Terafab chips project

Intel signs on to Elon Musk’s Terafab chips project

Published by skeptic

Intel will join SpaceX and Tesla in an effort to build a new U.S. semiconductor factory in Texas, although the scope of its contributions are unclear. “Our ability to design, fabricate, and package ultra-high-performance chips at scale will help accelerate Terafab’s aim to produce 1 TW/year of compute to power future advances in AI and robotics,” Intel said in a corporate post on X. Intel hasn’t shared any more information. Elon Musk announced in March a team-up between the two tech companies he leads to develop chips for AI compute, satellites, and SpaceX’s mooted space data center and to support the possibility of autonomous Tesla vehicles and robots. However, building a chip fab is one of the most difficult and expensive corporate infrastructure projects out there, typically requiring years of time and more than $20 billion to create a facility with a huge clean room for thousands of ultra-precise machines to carve silicon. It wasn’t obvious how SpaceX and Tesla, two companies with no experience in the sector, could team up to execute the project …

Apple, Google, and Microsoft join Anthropic’s Project Glasswing to defend world’s most critical software

Apple, Google, and Microsoft join Anthropic’s Project Glasswing to defend world’s most critical software

Published by skeptic

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET ZDNET’s key takeaways AI found thousands of hidden bugs in critical systems. Tech rivals unite to secure shared infrastructure risks. Cyberattack timelines shrink from months to minutes. Today, a group of the world’s biggest tech companies is announcing what is essentially an AI-driven cybersecurity Manhattan Project.  As the Cyberwarfare Advisor for the International Association of Counterterrorism & Security Professionals and part of the FBI’s InfraGard Artificial Intelligence Threat and Mitigation Cross-Sector Council, I’ve spent decades profiling global threats, from lecturing at the National Defense University to leading nationwide cyberattack simulations. But the arrival of a new frontier AI from Anthropic represents a paradigm shift that even the most prepared infrastructure specialists are scrambling to navigate. There is a lot to unpack from this announcement, but before I go into the published details, I’m going to try to read between the lines. That’s because the mere existence of this announcement means there’s a lot that remains unsaid. The fact that all of these companies are working together has to be indicative of …

German quantum repeater project advances quantum internet

German quantum repeater project advances quantum internet

Published by skeptic

A new German research initiative is targeting one of the most critical bottlenecks in next-generation secure communications: the quantum repeater. Backed by nearly €12.4m in federal funding, the project brings together leading academic institutions to accelerate development of technologies needed for scalable quantum networks and, ultimately, a functional quantum internet. The project, titled Technologien und Demonstratoren für Quantenrepeater (TD.QR), began in January 2026 and is scheduled to run for 14 months. Its core objective is to refine and validate key components that enable quantum signals to travel long distances without degradation, an essential requirement for any practical quantum communication infrastructure. Quantum repeater as a strategic technology Quantum communication has become a focal point in advanced cybersecurity research due to its potential to enable theoretically secure data transmission. Unlike classical systems, quantum networks rely on entanglement and quantum states, which are highly sensitive to loss and noise. This makes long-distance transmission a major technical challenge. The quantum repeater addresses this limitation by extending the range of quantum signals across fibre-optic networks. It does so by enabling entanglement …

Artemis II astronauts say they watched Ryan Gosling’s Project Hail Mary before heading to Moon

Artemis II astronauts say they watched Ryan Gosling’s Project Hail Mary before heading to Moon

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter The Artemis II crew managed to find time to watch Ryan Gosling’s new film Project Hail Mary before they set out on their historic trip to the Moon. “We were all really lucky. We got to watch Project Hail Mary when we were in quarantine,” astronaut Jeremy Hansen told SpaceQ on Sunday. “That was a real treat that they sent us a link to view that at home with our families, getting us ready to go on our own space adventure.” Project Hail Mary stars Gosling as Ryland Grace, a science teacher tasked with travelling to space to save the world. The science fiction film, which also stars Sandra Hüller and Lionel Boyce, recently overtook the latest Avatar instalment to become the highest-grossing Hollywood film of the year. “I would just say to Ryan that art imitates science and vice versa, …