×

Submission + - It Sounds Like NASA's Moon Rocket Might Be Getting Canceled (futurism.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: NASA has squandered $27 billion on the SLS moon rocket — $6B over budget and 5 years late. The SLS isn't reusable so even if they finished it — it is already obsolete. It is clear to everyone that the boondoggle has failed but the newest plan is to find a way to blame Trump.

There is a big desire for big changes.

Submission + - Once Worth $7.3 Billion, Grubhub Sells for Just $650 Million (cnn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Europe’s biggest meal delivery firm, Just Eat Takeaway, said on Wednesday it had struck a deal to sell its U.S. unit Grubhub to Wonder for $650 million, sending its shares soaring 20% in early trading. The Amsterdam-listed company had been looking to offload Chicago-based Grubhub since as early as 2022, after acquiring it in 2020 in a $7.3 billion deal amid a pandemic-driven boom in delivery services — a process that was hampered by slowing growth, high taxes and a question of fee caps in New York City.

“Just Eat Takeaway is at last putting an end to its disastrous U.S. journey,” Bryan Garnier analyst Clement Genelot said, noting the group had destroyed more than $7 billion in shareholder value there. Grubhub’s enterprise value of $650 million includes $500 million of senior notes and $150 million cash, Wonder said in a statement. Wonder is a food-delivery startup led by former Walmart executive Marc Lore.

Submission + - The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at auction (apnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The purchase was backed by relatives of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax, the families announced.

Submission + - Grok names Musk 'one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X' (fortune.com) 2

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: Fortune reports that X user Gary Koepnick asked [Grok], "Who personally spreads the most disinformation on X?" and the service did not hesitate in pointing a finger at its creator.

"Based on various analyses, social media sentiment, and reports, Elon Musk has been identified as one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X since he acquired the platform," it wrote, later adding "Musk has made numerous posts that have been criticized for promoting or endorsing misinformation, especially related to political events, elections, health issues like COVID-19, and conspiracy theories. His endorsements or interactions with content from controversial figures or accounts with a history of spreading misinformation have also contributed to this perception."

The AI also pointed out that because of Musk's large number of followers and high visibility, any misinformation he posts is immediately amplified and gains legitimacy among his followers.

This, it said, "can have real-world consequences, especially during significant events like elections."

Grok did note that the definition of misinformation is somewhat subjective and often depends on the ideological stance of the reader. And it added, late in its answer, that there are many actors, bots and more that spread misinformation.

Submission + - RFK Jr nominated for Head of HHS (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: HHS included the CDC and FDA

Kennedy ran as independent candidate while attacking Covid-era lockdown rules, and has referred to vaccines as unproven and dangerous

Submission + - Meet Evo, the DNA-trained AI that creates genomes from scratch (science.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: What if, rather than scouring the internet, ChatGPT could search all of the DNA on Earth? That future just got a bit closer with Evo, an AI model reported today in Science. The program--trained on billions of lines of genetic sequences--can design new proteins and even whole genomes.

Previous AIs could only interpret and predict relatively short sections of DNA, and they could only work with groups of nucleotides—the A, C, G, T alphabet of DNA—not individual nucleotides.

To take things to the next level, researchers trained Evo on 300 billion nucleotides of sequence information. In a first test, Evo bested other AI models on predicting the impact of mutations on protein performance. The then team had Evo design new versions of the CRISPR genome editor; the best designs were as good at cutting DNA as a commercial version. And in what study author Brian Hie, a computational biologist at Stanford University, calls the "most futuristic and crazy" part of the study, the researchers asked Evo to generate DNA sequences that are long enough to serve as genomes for bacteria--a step toward AI-designed synthetic genomes.

Much of the work on AI occurs in secret at companies. But the researchers have released Evo publicly so that other researchers can use it, and Hie says the team has no plans to commercialize its creation. "For now, I see this as a research project."

Submission + - The Onion buys Alex Jones's Infowars (bbc.com)

Submitted by skam240
skam240 writes: "Satirical news publication The Onion has bought Infowars, the media organisation headed by right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, for an undisclosed price at a court-ordered auction.

The Onion said that the bid was secured with the backing of families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, who won a $1.5bn (£1.18bn) defamation lawsuit against Jones for spreading false rumours about the massacre."

Slashdot Top Deals