Sci-Tech news

• Longtime GM Design Chief Ed Welburn to Retire After 44 Years

  07-04-2016 19:20
  Ed Welburn, General Motors' longtime head of automotive design and the first African-American to lead global design for any automaker, is retiring after 44 years with the company
  
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• The moon’s new crater is 728 feet wide and a once-in-a-century find

  17-09-2026 21:19 via popsci.com
  
  The moon may look desolate and calm, but a lot happens on that dusty landscape. With zero atmosphere, space rocks of all sizes regularly bombard the lunar surface. Most of the debris is microscopic, but astronomers estimate around 140 coffee table-sized asteroids and comets also slam into our moon every year. When they do, the impact is powerful enough to produce a 30-foot-wide crater.Every so often, however, a monstrous visitor arrives. And based on observations from NASA’s Lunar Reconnai
  
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• Stripe Is Building the Toll Road for the Machine Economy

  17-09-2026 20:36 via technocracy.news
  
  Most Americans know Stripe as the checkout box on a website. That picture is five years out of date.
  Stripe reports that businesses on its platform generated $1.9 trillion in total volume in 2025, up 34 percent in a single year. By the company’s own reckoning, that is roughly 1.6 percent of global GDP. It claims 90 percent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and 80 percent of the Nasdaq 100 as customers.
  A private company, owned by insiders and venture funds and answerable to no public sha
  
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• What Happens When A.I. Stops Doing What Humans Want?

  17-09-2026 20:35 via nytimes.com
  “Alignment” is the science of teaching A.I. to do what is in line with human preferences, ethics and judgment. But, at times, the systems have gone rogue.
  
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• Garbage trucks analyze thousands of homes with AI-powered cameras

  17-09-2026 20:34 via popsci.com
  
  Garbage trucks now do more than just pick up tossed-out food scraps and junk. They also snitch on people with unkempt lawns. In at least four states (California, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas), some city-run sanitation vehicles are being outfitted with AI-equipped cameras from a company called City Detect. The cameras quietly snap photos of residents’ yards and run the images through software that flags tall grass, litter, graffiti, or other more serious code violations like collapsi
  
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• Mathematician debunks the Parthenon’s famous optical illusions

  17-09-2026 18:01 via popsci.com
  
  The Parthenon is undeniably one of history’s most renowned architectural feats,but one detail of its structural genius is a total hoax. For over 2,000 years, scholars and admirers have alleged that the ancient Greek building’s nearly imperceptible curves were specifically crafted to compensate for optical illusions that would otherwise ruin the structure’s clean lines.But recent analysis says otherwise. After a detailed investigation and complex computational modeling, Universi
  
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• Dog brains act surprisingly human when told ‘no’

  17-09-2026 17:03 via popsci.com
  
  Sit, stay, roll over, come, fetch, and no. All common commands that responsible dog owners use to train and communicate with their pets. When a dog hears the word “no” there is potentially much more going on inside their minds than just stopping an unwanted (and sometimes dangerous) behavior. When dogs restrain their behavior, their brains show a pattern that looks remarkably like human self-control. These new findings are detailed in a study published in the journal Animal Cognition
  
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• Bill Gates: Calls For GLOBALIST Crackdown On AI

  17-09-2026 16:05 via technocracy.news
  
  Bill Gates has used existential threats to further his kingdom, time after time. First, he said global warming was going to kill us all, polar ice caps would melt, and the seas would rise. Then he pointed to the food crisis and said we are going to starve. Then came COVID, and he said the virus is going to kill us all. Now, now AI will go rogue and literally wipe humanity off the planet. Why does anybody take him seriously? At 70, Gates should be thinking about his own existential threat. &
  
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• In 1963, a plane flew to space. Why couldn’t we go farther?

  17-09-2026 15:03 via popsci.com
  
  In 1926, when Albert Scott Crossfield was five years old, a priest came to his home to administer the last rites. Suffering from an advanced case of pneumonia that had scarred his lungs and attacked his heart, the young Crossfield was drifting in and out of a coma when his parents summoned Father Skiperelli. They feared their son would not make it through the night. Despite his delirium, Crossfield distinctly remembered Father “Skip” noting how the pictures of airplanes plastere
  
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• The Indian and Pacific Oceans Are Falling Out of Sync

  17-09-2026 01:31 via scitechdaily.com
  For centuries, climate changes in the Indian Ocean closely followed the Pacific, but that relationship is now weakening. Over the past 400 years, climate conditions in the tropical Indian Ocean generally changed along with those in the Pacific. In other words, shifts in Pacific climate have historically had a strong influence on what happens in [...]
  
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• Two DNA Molecules Should Repel. Instead, They “Zip” Together

  17-09-2026 00:56 via scitechdaily.com
  Scientists have revealed how tiny metal ions help DNA molecules overcome electrical repulsion and “zip” together with striking precision. DNA molecules carry the same negative charge, so they would normally be expected to push apart. Inside living cells, however, DNA must sometimes come together for processes such as genetic recombination, gene silencing and cancer development. [...]
  
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• The Story of How Wolves Became Dogs Is Stranger Than We Thought

  17-09-2026 00:21 via scitechdaily.com
  For 15,000 years, humans and dogs have been changing together, creating one of evolution’s most remarkable partnerships. Dogs have long been known as “man’s best friend,” and archaeology suggests that bond reaches deep into prehistory. Dogs have been discovered buried beside humans in graves dating back 14,000 years. They also appear in ancient artwork from [...]
  
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• Microscopic Footage of Lung Cells Wins Annual Nikon Video Award

  16-09-2026 23:12 via nytimes.com
  Nikon’s 2026 Small World in Motion competition showcased the best microscopic footage of the year, usually invisible to the human eye.
  
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• Sunken WWI sub is leaking TNT into the North Sea

  16-09-2026 22:06 via popsci.com
  
  A World War I submarine that sank nearly 110 years ago has been leaking explosive pollutants into the North Sea for decades. What’s more, ocean researchers say the problem may worsen over time—not only near the German vessel itself, but at thousands of similar shipwrecks.On April 19, 1917, Germany’s UC-30 submarine was attempting to return home due to engine problems when it struck a British mine near the Danish island of Rømø. All 27 crew members perished, and th
  
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• Harvard Scientists Use Tiny Sound Waves To Protect Quantum Information

  16-09-2026 21:16 via scitechdaily.com
  The same tiny vibrations that carry quantum information across a chip could also keep that information from fading away. Quantum technologies face a persistent problem: qubits are extraordinarily sensitive to disturbances from their surroundings. Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have now protected a qubit using mechanical [...]
  
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• Silver Nanocatalysts Have a Surprising Double Life

  16-09-2026 20:41 via scitechdaily.com
  Tiny silver catalysts work differently when solid oxide cells generate electricity and when they produce hydrogen, revealing a potential route to more efficient clean energy systems. Solid oxide cells can generate electricity or use electricity to split water and produce hydrogen. Silver nanocatalysts, tiny silver particles that speed up chemical reactions, can improve their performance [...]
  
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• Einstein’s Gravity Just Passed a Strange New Quantum Test

  16-09-2026 20:06 via scitechdaily.com
  An experiment comparing falling and stationary rubidium atomic waves found a quantum phase difference consistent with Einstein’s equivalence principle. A rubidium atom can behave as a wave that researchers can split between two paths. This allows the same atom to effectively follow both paths at once, without being broken into pieces. Physicists have now used [...]
  
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• Tyrannosaurus rex was warm-blooded, new study confirms

  16-09-2026 20:00 via popsci.com
  
  Contrary to the assumptions of early paleontologists, most dinosaurs weren’t lumbering slowpokes. Centuries of evolutionary reevaluation now indicates the ancestors of present-day birds didn’t simply keep a steady pace—many of them boasted impressive speed. These active lifestyles also forced scientists to reconsider another anatomical detail. Once thought universally cold-blooded, a lot of dinosaurs eventually evolved warmer blood.Thanks to recent technological breakthroughs,
  
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• DOA: CLARITY Act Torched By Senate Vote, Technocrats Are Livid But Not Deterred

  16-09-2026 18:48 via technocracy.news
  
  Failure of the CLARITY Act does not stop the tokenization train, but it will slow it down. The SEC and CFTC will now write the rules by exemption, no-action letter, and enforcement discretion. The GENIUS Act provided the settlement layer in 2025, and the banks have already caved to tokenization. The stock markets are already being tokenized. Get ready for my new book, CRUCIBLE OF TOKENS, to figure out what this means to you, so you can take evasive action. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.The Senate
  
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• Amazon Says Cloud Infrastructure In Bahrain, UAE ‘Beyond Saving’

  16-09-2026 18:13 via technocracy.news
  
  Amazon Web Services (AWS) is on the ropes in the Middle East with a collection of wreckage from bombed-out data centers in the UAE and Bahrain. AWS reported, “The damage to our infrastructure spanned multiple Availability Zones and exceeded what our regional and multi-AZ services are designed to withstand.” Phrases like “damaged beyond hope of recovery,” “the region went dark,” and “exhausted every option for recovering whatever was left behind” hi
  
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• Medieval Russian talisman depicts Christian warrior saint and Medusa

  16-09-2026 18:01 via popsci.com
  
  Archaeologists recently discovered a rare Russian medallion that depicts a dramatic cultural clash between medieval Christianity and ancient Greek mythology. Excavated about 400 miles southeast of St. Petersburg near the town of Staraya, the 11th century pendant appears to showcase a warrior saint on its face with the snake-topped head of Medusa on the back. According to archaeologists, the copper-alloy medallion stems from an era in Russia that often straddled the line between regional medieval
  
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• UAE Moves To ‘War-Proof’ Its AI Data Centers

  16-09-2026 17:50 via technocracy.news
  
  “War is hell” when all of a sudden it dawns on you that your AI data center might be bombed into oblivion. UAE is perilously close to Iran, so its data centers are getting hit. The UAE is a leader in AI and FinTech (Financial Technology) in the Middle East, and wants to be the hinge pin of the global trade routes passing through the region. No AI data centers = no global trade. ⁃ Patrick Wood Editor.The UAE is redrawing its plans for a five-gigawatt artificial intelligence (AI)
  
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• Researchers Uncover a Hidden Trigger Behind Chronic Inflammation

  16-09-2026 17:01 via scitechdaily.com
  The findings offer new insights that could help guide the development of future therapies. A protein called human resistin may help flip on one of the immune system’s most powerful inflammatory switches. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine found that resistin can activate a pathway involved in chronic inflammation, a process linked to conditions including cardiovascular [...]
  
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• Bald eagles Shadow and Kaydee share sticks and ‘beaky kisses’

  16-09-2026 16:44 via popsci.com
  
  The bald eagle nest in Big Bear Valley is seeing a flurry of activity lately. Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV) cameras have captured Shadow and Kaydee tending to the nest with stick deliveries and even spotted a few ‘beaky kisses’ exchanged in recent weeks.Late summer is typically a quieter time on the nest with parent eagles spending “vacation time” elsewhere in the valley after their chicks have fledged. This summer, we’ve seen Shadow repeatedly visit the nest h
  
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• Bird Flu’s Dairy Cow Disguise Finally Explained

  16-09-2026 16:26 via scitechdaily.com
  The study reveals the biology behind why the disease appeared so different after spreading to cows and offers a framework for recognizing new forms of the disease more quickly. H5N1 bird flu caused severe infections in cows’ udders while largely sparing their lungs when it began spreading among U.S. dairy cattle in early 2024. That [...]
  
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• Bamboo skewer safely removed from a bird’s cloaca in New York

  16-09-2026 15:52 via popsci.com
  
  Take a closer look at this great black-backed gull (Larus marinus) and you’ll soon notice something that does not belong there. The female bird has a bamboo skewer lodged in her cloaca, the rear openings birds use to excrete and reproduce.The bird was found with a piece of trash stuck in her cloaca. Image: Sweetbriar Nature Center 
  She was spotted in August on Cedar Beach on Long Island New York’s southern shore, and trying to catch her proved to be a bit of a wild seagull chase
  
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• Amazon’s early Prime Day deals are live and these 146 are the best

  16-09-2026 15:52 via popsci.com
  
  It feels like Amazon’s summer Prime Day sale was just a few days ago, but it’s already time for another round. The fall Big Deal Days sale runs October 6th and 7th, but you can save right now. Prime members get first crack at part of this wave, so a free 30-day Prime trial will carry you through the sale itself if you are not signed up. We rechecked every price on this page against the live listing this morning, and a handful of the openers have already rolled back to full price, so
  
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• Hair Loss on Ozempic May Have a Surprising Genetic Explanation

  16-09-2026 15:51 via scitechdaily.com
  Hair thinning reported with Ozempic-like drugs may not be explained by rapid weight loss alone, as a new genetic study points to the GLP-1 pathway itself. Hair thinning reported by people taking drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound has often been attributed to the rapid weight loss these medications can produce. A new genetic [...]
  
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• Lewis and Clark’s mercury-laced poop helped archaeologists trace their expedition

  16-09-2026 14:58 via popsci.com
  
  The Corps of Discovery Expedition set out in 1804, directed by President Thomas Jefferson to survey the United States’ newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. The exploration forms a core piece of early U.S. history. Picture a scene from the journey: It’s a cool morning, the silence punctuated by birdsong and the rustle of the breeze through the cottonwood trees. To one side, Commander William Clark, his rifle leaning against a plum tree and his rucksack nearby, squats over a latrine pit,
  
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• Federal Reserve Poised to Raise Interest Rates: What to Know

  16-09-2026 13:32 via today.com
  With inflation and consumer prices on the rise, Wednesday’s meeting of the Federal Reserve is being closely watched to see what the board will signal about interest rates, now and into the future. NBC’s Brian Cheung joins TODAY to break down how the Fed is expected to raise interest rates for the first time since 2023 and for the first time under newly minted chairman Kevin Warsh.
  
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