Category: Technology

Bumblebees die in extreme heat, but there are other reasons too. Jay-Dee/Shutterstock You may be spotting bodies of dead bumblebees lying across pavements near you in the summer months. There are several reasons for this, some to do with the weather and some very much due to humans. Bumblebees are social, living in colonies that […]

Last May, EFF reported that a sheriff’s office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion. ALPRs are promoted as tools for keeping communities safe by finding missing persons and locating stolen vehicles, but this case showed how ALPRS […]

Users are always seeking more control over their social networking experience to make it better, whether to improve privacy or enhance flexibility. Interoperability between social networking platforms like Facebook and TikTok has so many benefits that solve those issues.   Say you’re on multiple platforms because you have friends you follow on different networks, but you’ve […]

kirkchai benjarusameeros/Shutterstock High above the rainforest floor, tiny ponds form in the leaves of plants perched on tree branches. Frogs breed in these ponds, alongside insects, microbes and even tiny crustaceans, creating miniature ecosystems suspended high in the canopy. These are the bromeliads – the remarkable plant family that also gave us air plants, the […]

Young shoots of corn. malshkoff/Shutterstock To people, salt is a kitchen staple. But to crops, too much of it can be devastating. Across coastal regions and irrigated agricultural land, salt is accumulating in soils, making it harder for plants to absorb water and reducing harvests. Scientists estimate that around half of the world’s irrigated farmland […]

British trees are struggling to survive in heatwaves. Forests like these are likely to be affected. Billy Stock/Shutterstock If you visit the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, on the edge of London, you will see a brightly painted skeleton of a dead oak tree. The tree, known as the climate changed oak, succumbed in the […]

Google owes its existence to the open web, but today, its technological “innovations” have much to do with locking users into a “walled garden.” The latest of these is “reCAPTCHA Mobile Verification,” an experimental initiative that will let companies block users if they are running independent, “de-googled” versions of Android. These “indie Android” versions are […]

For several decades, Iran has devoted substantial financial, institutional and political resources to military expansion. It has invested heavily in supporting its regional partners, as well as in pursuing geopolitical influence across the Middle East. Previously, the Islamic Republic has shown few signs of swivelling its resources toward fixing its ever expanding environmental problems. And […]

The fastest serve so far at this year’s Wimbledon tennis championships was struck by the Argentinian Thiago Agustín Tirante on the opening day. His serve of almost 148mph (238km/h) was still some way under the Wimbledon record of 153mph, set by Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in 2025. And despite Tirante giving his opponent less than […]

This blog post is part 1 of a 2-part series. The second part will set out recommendations for companies and policymakers. Six years ago—one month into a global pandemic—we argued that the automated moderation processes many platforms were rapidly adopting should be highly transparent, easily appealable, and temporary. We warned that “protocols adopted in times […]