California Coastal Community Must Reject CBP's AI-Powered Surveillance Tower

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is seeking permission from the California city of San Clemente to install an Anduril Industries surveillance tower on a cliff that would allow for constant monitoring of entire coastal neighborhoods.  The proposed tower is Anduril’s Sentry, part of the Autonomous Surveillance Tower (AST) program. While CBP says it will primarily […]

Continue Reading

Could warming seas bring great white sharks back to the North Sea? A 5-million-year-old shark tooth may provide clues

As the Earth shifts to climates not seen for several hundred thousand years, we may need to look at ancient environments for clues about what could happen next. Our new study of two whale fossils, with preserved fragments of shark teeth, suggests the modern descendants of these animals could once again roam the southern region […]

Continue Reading

EFF to 9th Circuit (Again): App Stores Shouldn’t Be Liable for Processing Payments for User Content

EFF filed an amicus brief for the second time in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, arguing that allowing cases against the Apple, Google, and Facebook app stores to proceed could lead to greater censorship of users’ online speech. Our brief argues that the app stores should not lose Section 230 immunity […]

Continue Reading

AI has crossed a threshold – what Claude Mythos means for the future of cybersecurity

The limit of what artificial intelligence can achieve, known as frontier AI, has crossed another threshold. AI can now plan and execute sophisticated cyber operations with minimal guidance at speeds far beyond human capability. That, at least, is the evidence from an independent test of Claude Mythos Preview, the latest and most advanced model in […]

Continue Reading

Why some countries give away free electricity and even pay consumers to use it

vfhnb12/Shutterstock In parts of Germany and Australia, a surprising thing is happening more and more often: households are being offered free electricity. This is happening at times of day when there are high levels of energy being generated from solar or wind. It is caused because sometimes more electricity is being produced than people need. […]

Continue Reading

Women in science – global study finds presence without power

Photo by Gustavo Fring via Pexels, CC BY Academia isn’t strong on gender equality. Women are under-represented throughout, in the research workforce and even more so as leaders in scientific organisations. This is true for science academies (prestigious bodies within national science systems) and scientific unions (international organisations representing disciplinary communities). Women today make up […]

Continue Reading

EFF Sues DHS and ICE For Records on Subpoenas Seeking to Unmask Online Critics

Agencies Ignored EFF’s Public-Records Requests Regarding Unlawful Efforts to Locate People Who Criticized the Government or Attended Protests. SAN FRANCISCO – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today demanding public records about their use of administrative subpoenas to try to identify their online […]

Continue Reading

Our unsung hero of science: Friedrich Miescher, the man who discovered DNA

Wellcome Collection via Wikimedia, CC BY-NC Whether through TV crime dramas or cinema blockbusters about dinosaur theme parks, DNA is a staple of modern popular culture – its double-helix structure one of science’s most iconic visualisations. Yet remarkably, the young Swiss scientist who discovered DNA in the first place is largely forgotten. Born in Basel […]

Continue Reading