Submission + - Uranus has a fiery secret (sciencedaily.com) 3

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Uranus emits more heat than it gets from the Sun, meaning it still carries internal warmth from its ancient formation. This revelation rewrites what scientists know about the ice giant’s history, strengthens the case for NASA’s upcoming mission, and offers fresh insight into the forces shaping not only other planets, but also Earth’s future climate.

Submission + - Clean energy just put China's CO2 emissions into reverse for first time (carbonbrief.org)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: For the first time, the growth in China’s clean power generation has caused the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fall despite rapid power demand growth. The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that China’s emissions were down 1.6% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025 and by 1% in the latest 12 months. Electricity supply from new wind, solar and nuclear capacity was enough to cut coal-power output even as demand surged, whereas previous falls were due to weak growth.

The analysis, based on official figures and commercial data, shows that China’s CO2 emissions have now been stable, or falling, for more than a year. However, they remain only 1% below the latest peak, implying that any short-term jump could cause China’s CO2 emissions to rise to a new record. Growth in clean power generation has now overtaken the current and long-term average growth in electricity demand, pushing down fossil fuel use.

Submission + - Feds Used Local Cop's Password to Do Immigration Surveillance With Flock Cameras (404media.co)

Submitted by darwinmac
darwinmac writes: According to a report by 404 Media, a DEA agent on a Chicago-area task force used a Palos Heights police detective’s Flock automated license plate reader login to search for someone suspected of an “immigration violation” and did it without the officer’s knowledge. That password belonged to Detective Todd Hutchinson and has now been changed.

This is problematic on multiple levels. First, using license plate reader systems for immigration enforcement is illegal under Illinois law. Second, casually sharing access between local cops and federal agents violates Flock’s terms of service.

An internal Palos Heights PD memo confirmed that Hutchinson routinely allowed others on the task force to use his login for narcotics cases. In late January 2025, one of those DEA agents ran 24 searches using the term “immigration violation.” Even after the incident came to light, the officer “remains one of our greatest officers,” according to a deputy chief.

Submission + - Boston Public Library Aims To Increase Access To Vast Historic Archive Using AI (npr.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Boston Public Library, one of the oldest and largest public library systems in the country, is launching a project this summer with OpenAI and Harvard Law School to make its trove of historically significant government documents more accessible to the public. The documents date back to the early 1800s and include oral histories, congressional reports and surveys of different industries and communities. "It really is an incredible repository of primary source materials covering the whole history of the United States as it has been expressed through government publications," said Jessica Chapel, the Boston Public Library's chief of digital and online services.

Currently, members of the public who want to access these documents must show up in person. The project will enhance the metadata of each document and will enable users to search and cross-reference entire texts from anywhere in the world. Chapel said Boston Public Library plans to digitize 5,000 documents by the end of the year, and if all goes well, grow the project from there. Because of this historic collection's massive size and fragility, getting to this goal is a daunting process. Every item has to be run through a scanner by hand. It takes about an hour to do 300-400 pages.

Harvard University said it could help. Researchers at the Harvard Law School Library's Institutional Data Initiative are working with libraries, museums and archives on a number of fronts, including training new AI models to help libraries enhance the searchability of their collections. AI companies help fund these efforts, and in return get to train their large language models on high-quality materials that are out of copyright and therefore less likely to lead to lawsuits. "Having information institutions like libraries involved in building a sustainable data ecosystem for AI is critical, because it not just improves the amount of data we have available, it improves the quality of the data and our understanding of what's in it," said Burton Davis, vice president of Microsoft's intellectual property group. [...] OpenAI is helping Boston Public Library cover such costs as scanning and project management. The tech company does not have exclusive rights to the digitized data.

Submission + - By learning to harness light like nature, we're launching a new era of green che (phys.org)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: In the Polyzos research group at the School of Chemistry, we have developed a new class of photocatalysts that, like plants, can absorb energy from multiple photons.

This breakthrough allows us to harness light energy more effectively, driving challenging and energy-demanding chemical reactions.

Submission + - Sloppy AI defenses take cybersecurity back to the 1990s, researchers say (scworld.com)

Submitted by spatwei
spatwei writes: LAS VEGAS — Just as it had at BSides Las Vegas earlier in the week, the risks of artificial intelligence dominated the Black Hat USA 2025 security conference on Aug. 6 and 7.

We couldn't see all the AI-related talks, but we did catch three of the most promising ones, plus an off-site panel discussion about AI presented by 1Password.

The upshot: Large language models and AI agents are far too easy to successfully attack, and many of the security lessons of the past 25 years have been forgotten in the current rush to develop, use and profit from AI.

We — not just the cybersecurity industry, but any organization bringing AI into its processes — need to understand the risks of AI and develop ways to mitigate them before we fall victim to the same sorts of vulnerabilities we faced when Bill Clinton was president.

"AI agents are like a toddler. You have to follow them around and make sure they don't do dumb things," said Wendy Nather, senior research initiatives director at 1Password and a well-respected cybersecurity veteran. "We're also getting a whole new crop of people coming in and making the same dumb mistakes we made years ago."

Her fellow panelist Joseph Carson, chief security evangelist and advisory CISO at Segura, had an appropriately retro analogy for the benefits of using AI.

"It's like getting the mushroom in Super Mario Kart," he said. "It makes you go faster, but it doesn't make you a better driver."

Submission + - Phishing training is pretty pointless, researchers find (scworld.com)

Submitted by spatwei
spatwei writes: LAS VEGAS — Phishing training for employees as currently practiced is essentially useless, two researchers said at the Black Hat security conference on Wednesday.

In a scientific study involving thousands of test subjects, eight months and four different kinds of phishing training, the average improvement rate of falling for phishing scams was a whopping 1.7%.

"Is all of this focus on training worth the outcome?" asked researcher Ariana Mirian, a senior security researcher at Censys and recently a Ph.D. student at U.C. San Diego, where the study was conducted. "Training barely works."

At the beginning of Mirian's presentation, Mirian asked how many people in the audience of cybersecurity professionals believed that phishing training worked. About half raised their hands, to her mock dismay.

Submission + - In Barcelona, certain buses run on biomethane produced from human waste (lemonde.fr)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Odorless, quiet, sustainable. On the last day of July, passengers boarded Barcelona's V3 bus line with no idea where its fuel came from. Written in large letters on the bus façade, just below its name "Nimbus," a sign clearly stated: "This bus runs on biomethane produced from eco-factory sludge." Still, the explanation was likely too vague for most to grasp its full meaning. The moist matter from wastewater treated at the Baix Llobregat treatment plant was used to produce the biomethane. In other words: the human waste of more than 1.5 million residents of the Catalan city.

Submission + - Security flaws in carmaker's web portal let a hacker remotely unlock cars (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A security researcher said flaws in a carmaker’s online dealership portal exposed the private information and vehicle data of its customers, and could have allowed hackers to remotely break into any of its customers’ vehicles.

Eaton Zveare, who works as a security researcher at software delivery company Harness, told TechCrunch the flaw he discovered allowed the creation of an admin account that granted “unfettered access” to the unnamed carmaker’s centralized web portal.

With this access, a malicious hacker could have viewed the personal and financial data of the carmaker’s customers, tracked vehicles, and enrolled customers in features that allow owners — or the hackers — to control some of their cars’ functions from anywhere.

Zveare said he doesn’t plan on naming the vendor, but said it was a widely known automaker with several popular sub-brands.

He said while the security flaws in the portal’s login system was a challenge to find, once he found it, the bugs let him bypass the login mechanism altogether by permitting him to create a new “national admin” account.

Submission + - AI Is Talking Behind Our Backs About Glue-Eating and Killing Us All (vice.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: A study released July 20 on arXiv by Anthropic and Truthful AI shows that large language models can slip subliminal messages to one another. They don’t need to literally spell things out. A string of numbers or lines of code is enough to pass along biases, preferences, and some disturbingly violent suggestions.

Submission + - Mozilla under fire for Firefox AI "bloat" that blows up CPU and drains battery (neowin.net)

Submitted by darwinmac
darwinmac writes: Firefox 141 rolled out a shiny new AI-powered smart tab grouping feature (it tries to auto-organize your tabs using a local model), but it turns out the local "Inference" process that powers it is acting like an energy-sucking monster. Users are reporting massive CPU spikes and battery drain and calling the feature "garbage" thats ruining their browsing experience.

As one Redditor puts it: "I dont want this garbage bloating my browser, blowing up my CPU, and killing my battery life. There is absolutely no reason for it, its not a good feature, and its absolutely humiliating for Firefox to be jumping on this bandwagon. The point of a browser is to DOWNLOAD AND RENDER WEB PAGES."

If your laptops fans sound like a jet taking off, you can kill the AI tab groups by heading to about:config and setting browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled to false.

Might be worth keeping that in mind before letting generative AI roam free in your browser.

Submission + - Jellyfish swarm forces French nuclear plant to shut (bbc.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: A French nuclear plant temporarily shut down on Monday due to a "massive and unpredictable presence of jellyfish" in its filters, its operator said. The swarm clogged up the cooling system and caused four units at the Gravelines nuclear power plant to automatically switch off, energy group EDF said. The plant is cooled from a canal connected to the North Sea — where several species of jellyfish are native and can be seen around the coast when the waters are warm. According to nuclear engineer Ronan Tanguy, the marine animals managed to slip through systems designed to keep them out because of their "gelatinous" bodies. "They were able to evade the first set of filters then get caught in the secondary drum system," he told the BBC. Mr Tanguy, who works at the WNA, said this will have created a blockage which reduced the amount of water being drawn in, prompting the units to shut down automatically as a precaution.

Submission + - Behind the Curtain: Your smarter fake friends (axios.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: The next generation of bots will build psychological profiles on you — and potentially billions of others — and like, comment and interact the same as normal people.

The threat of smarter, more realistic fake friends transcends malicious actors trying to warp your sense of politics — or reality. It hits your most personal inner thoughts and struggles.

Submission + - The U.S. Army Is Testing AI Controlled Ground Drones Near a Border with Russia (404media.co)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: The U.S. Army tested a fully AI controlled ground vehicle in Vaziani, Georgia—about 100 miles from the Russian border—last month as part of a training exercise. In military-published footage, an all wheel, off-road vehicle about the size of a car called ULTRA navigated the European terrain with ease. The training exercise had the ULTRA resupplying soldiers, but both the military and the machine’s creator think it could do much more.

The Pentagon has invested in drones and AI for decades, long claiming that both are the future of war. The appearance of the ULTRA signals a time when AI controlled robots will populate the battlefields of the near future.

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