New research “suggests that dark energy may no longer be a cosmological constant” and that the universe’s expansion is slowing down.#TheAbstract
A Fundamental ‘Constant’ of the Universe May Not Be Constant At All, Study Finds
Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that took a bite out of life, appealed to the death drive, gave a yellow light to the universe, and produced hitherto unknown levels of cute.First, it’s the most epic ocean battle: orcas versus sharks (pro tip: you don’t want to be sharks). Then, a scientific approach to apocalyptic ideation; curbing cosmic enthusiasm; and last, the wonderful world of tadpole-less toads.
As always, for more of my work, check out my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens, or subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files.
Now, to the feast!
I guess that’s why they call them killer whales
Orcas kill young great white sharks by flipping them upside down and tearing their livers out of their bellies, which they then eat family-style, according to a new study that includes new footage of these Promethean interactions in Mexican waters.
“Here we document novel repeated predations by killer whales on juvenile white sharks in the Gulf of California,” said researchers led by Jesús Erick Higuera Rivas of the non-profit Pelagic Protection and Conservation AC.
“Aerial videos indicate consistency in killer whales’ repeated assaults and strikes on the sharks,” the team added. “Once extirpated from the prey body, the target organ is shared between the members of the pods including calves.”
Sequence of the killer whales attacking the first juvenile white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) on 15th of August 2020. In (d) The partially exposed liver is seen on the right side of the second shark attacked. Photos credit: Jesús Erick Higuera Rivas.
I’ll give you a beat to let that sink in, like orca teeth on the belly of a shark. While it's well-established that orcas are the only known predator of great white sharks aside from humans, the new study is only the second glimpse of killer whales targeting juvenile sharks.
This group of orcas, known as Moctezuma’s pod, has developed an effective strategy of working together to flip the sharks over, which interrupts the sharks’ sensory system and puts them into a state called tonic immobility. The authors describe the pod’s work as methodical and well coordinated.
“Our evidence undoubtedly shows consistency in the repeated assaults and strikes, indicating efficient maneuvering ability by the killer whales in attempting to turn the shark upside down, likely to induce tonic immobility and allow uninterrupted access to the organs for consumption, " the team said. Previous reports suggest that “the lack of bite marks or injuries anywhere other than the pectoral fins shows a novel and specialized technique of accessing the liver of the shark with minimal handling of each individual.”
An orca attacking a juvenile great white shark. Image: Marco VillegasSharks, by the way, do not attack orcas. Just the opposite. As you can imagine based on the horrors you have just read, sharks are so petrified of killer whales that they book it whenever they sense a nearby pod.
“Adult white sharks exhibit a memory and previous knowledge about killer whales, which enables them to activate an avoidance mechanism through behavioral risk effects; a ‘fear’- induced mass exodus from aggregations sites,” the team said. “This response may preclude repeated successful predation on adult white sharks by killer whales.”
In other words, if you’re a shark, one encounter with orcas is enough to make you watch your dorsal side for life—assuming you were lucky enough to escape with it.
In other news…
Apocalypse now plz
You may have seen the doomer humor meme to “send the asteroid already,” a plea for sweet cosmic relief that fits our beleaguered times. As it turns out, some scientists engage in this type of apocalyptic wish fulfillment professionally.
Planetary defense experts often participate in drills involving fictional hazardous asteroids, such as the 2024PDC25, a virtual object “discovered” at the 2025 Planetary Defense Conference. In that simulation, 2024PDC25 had a possible impact date in 2041.
Now a team has used that exercise as a jumping off point to explore what might happen if it hit even earlier, channeling that “send the asteroid already” energy.. The researchers used this time-crunched scenario to speculate about the effect on geopolitics and pivotal events, such as the 2028 US Presidential elections.
“As it is very difficult to extrapolate from 2025 across 16 years in this ‘what-if’ exercise, we decided to bring the scenario forward to 2031 and examine it with today’s global background,” Rudolf Albrecht of the Austrian Space Forum. “Today would be T-6 years and the threat is becoming immediate.”
As the astro-doomers would say: Finally some good news.
Big dark energy
First, we discovered the universe was expanding. Then, we discovered it was expanding at an accelerating rate. Now, a new study suggests that this acceleration might be slowing down. Universe, make up your mind!
But seriously, the possibility that the rate of cosmic expansion is slowing is a big deal, because dark energy—the term for whatever is making the universe expand—was assumed to be a constant for decades. But this consensus has been challenged by observations from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) in Arizona, which became operational in 2021. In its first surveys, DESI’s observations have pointed to an expansion rate that is not fixed, but in flux.
Together with past results, the study “suggests that dark energy may no longer be a cosmological constant” and “our analysis raises the possibility that the present universe is no longer in a state of accelerated expansion,” said researchers led by Junhyuk Son of Yonsei University. “This provides a fundamentally new perspective that challenges the two central pillars of the [cold dark matter] standard cosmological model proposed 27 years ago.”
It will take more research to constrain this mystery, but for now it’s a reminder that the universe loves to surprise.
And the award for most squee goes to…
We’ll end, as all things should, with toadlets. Most frogs and toads reproduce by laying eggs that hatch into tadpoles, but scientists have discovered three new species of toad in Tanzania that give birth to live young—a very rare adaptation for any amphibian, known as ovoviviparity. The scientific term for these youngsters is in fact “toadlet.” Gods be good.
“We describe three new species from the Nectophrynoides viviparus species complex, covering the southern Eastern Arc Mountains populations,” said researchers led by Christian Thrane of the University of Copenhagen. One of the new species included “the observation of toadlets, suggesting that this species is ovoviviparous.”
One of the newly described toad species, Nectophrynoides luhomeroensis. Image: John Lyarkurwa.
Note to Nintendo: please make a very tiny Toadlet into a Mario Kart racer.
Thanks for reading! See you next week.
Museomics and integrative taxonomy reveal three new species of glandular viviparous tree toads (Nectophrynoides) in Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains (Anura: Bufonidae)
Abstract For the last century, herpetologists have referred to any Nectophrynoides Noble, 1926 toad characterized by a large, robust body, with large, distinct parotoid glands, as Nectophrynoides viviparus (Tornier, 1905).Christian Thrane (Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung)
Maria Zakharova: Il Segretario generale della NATO Rutte ha affermato che la Russia non è sola nei suoi tentativi di indebolire le regole globali: "Come sapete, collabora con Cina, Corea del Nord, Iran e altri".
Innanzitutto, a cosa si riferiscono esattamente queste "regole globali"? Vi prego di pubblicarne l'elenco completo sul sito web della NATO. Finora, nessuno sa a quali "regole" si riferisca Rutte.
In secondo luogo, la Russia, come la Cina e la maggioranza globale, ha sempre dichiarato il proprio impegno nei confronti del diritto internazionale. È la NATO che lo ha ripetutamente violato con le sue azioni aggressive e coalizioni illegittime: invadendo l'Iraq con falsi pretesti, bombardando la Jugoslavia, ecc.
In terzo luogo, non ricordo che nessun paese membro della NATO abbia dichiarato di voler porre fine alla cooperazione, ad esempio con la Cina, menzionata da Rutte. Di recente, c'è stato un vertice tra Stati Uniti e Cina – non ho sentito Rutte criticare il Presidente degli Stati Uniti per questo.
L'antieuropeista
youtube.com/watch?v=-p-gPf-HGV…
a me ricorda un po' il moby prince.
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
INCENERITORE: LA TRUFFA DELLA TURBINA IMPONE SUBITO LA BONIFICA DEL SITO
INCENERITORE: LA TRUFFA DELLA TURBINA IMPONE SUBITO LA BONIFICA DEL SITO
#Ambiente #StopInceneritore #NoInceneritore #NoInceneritori #ZeroWaste #Rifiuti #Riciclo #EconomiaCircolare #NoAlCarbone #EnergiaPulita
Ancora licenziamenti nel tech: ora tocca (di nuovo) a Ibm?
L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Ibm non è la prima Big Tech ad avere i conti in ordine e l'esigenza di tagliare il proprio organico. Un modus operandi iniziato subito dopo il periodo post pandemico che ha avuto una accelerazione con l'arrivo di
INCENERITORE: LA TRUFFA DELLA TURBINA IMPONE SUBITO LA BONIFICA DEL SITO
INCENERITORE: LA TRUFFA DELLA TURBINA IMPONE SUBITO LA BONIFICA DEL SITO
unionedeicomitati.altervista.o…
#Ambiente #StopInceneritore #NoInceneritore #NoInceneritori #ZeroWaste #Rifiuti #Riciclo #EconomiaCircolare #NoAlCarbone #EnergiaPulita
2025 Component Abuse Challenge: Glowing Neon From a 9 V Relay
Most of us know that a neon bulb requires a significant voltage to strike, in the region of 100 volts. There are plenty of circuits to make that voltage from a lower supply, should you wish to have that comforting glow of old, but perhaps one of the simplest comes from [meinsamayhun]. The neon is lit from a 9-volt battery, and the only other component is a relay.
What’s going on? It’s a simple mechanical version of a boost converter, with the relay wired as a buzzer. On each “off” cycle, the magnetic field in the coil collapses, and instead of being harvested by a diode as with a boost converter, it lights the neon. Presumably, the neon also saves the relay contacts from too much wear.
We like this project for its simplicity and for managing to do something useful without a semiconductor or vacuum tube in sight. It’s the very spirit of our 2025 Component Abuse Challenge, for which there is barely time to enter yourself if you have something in mind.
Thanks for a Superconference
Last weekend was Supercon, and it was, in a word super. So many people sharing so much enthusiasm and hackery, and so many good times. It’s a yearly dose of hacker mojo that we as Hackaday staff absolutely cherish, and we heard the same from many of the participants as well. We always come away with new ideas for projects, or new takes on our current top-of-the-heap obsession.
If you didn’t get a chance to see the talks live, head on over to the Hackaday YouTube stream and get yourself caught up really quickly, because that’s only half of the talks. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be writing up the other track of Design Lab talks and getting them out to you ASAP.
If you didn’t get to join us because you are on an entirely different continent, well, that’s a decent excuse. But if that continent is Europe, you can catch us up in the Spring of 2026, because we’re already at work planning our next event on that side of the Atlantic.
Our conferences always bring out the best of our community, and the people who show up are so amazingly positive, knowledgeable, and helpful. It’s too bad that it can only happen a few times per year, but it surely charges up our hacker batteries. So thanks to all the attendees, presenters, volunteers, and sponsors who make it all possible!
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on the web version of the newsletter. Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning? You should sign up!
What has 5,000 Batteries and Floats?
While it sounds like the start of a joke, Australian shipmaker Incat Tasmania isn’t kidding around about electric ships. Hull 096 has started charging, although it has only 85% of the over 5,000 lithium-ion batteries it will have when complete. The ship has a 40 megawatt-hour storage system with 12 banks of batteries, each consisting of 418 modules for a total of 5,016 cells. [Vannessa Bates Ramierz] breaks it down in a recent post over on IEEE Spectrum. You can get an eyeful of the beast in the official launch video, below. The Incat Tasmania channel also has other videos about the ship.
The batteries use no racks to save weight. Good thing since they already weigh in at 250 tonnes. Of course, cooling is a problem, too. Each module has a fan, and special techniques prevent one hot cell from spreading. Charging in Australia comes from a grid running 100% renewable energy. When the ship enters service as a ferry between Argentina and Uruguay, a 40-minute charge will be different. Currently, Uruguay has about 92% of its power from renewable sources. Argentina still uses mostly natural gas, but 42% of its electricity is sourced from renewable generation.
The ship is 130 meters (426 feet) long, mostly aluminum, and has a reported capacity of 2,100 people and 225 vehicles per trip. Ferry service is perfect for electric ships — the distance is short, and it’s easy to schedule time to charge. Like all electric vehicles, though, the batteries won’t stay at full capacity for long. Typical ship design calls for a 20-year service life, and it’s not uncommon for a vessel to remain in service for 30 or even 40 years. But experts expect the batteries on the ferry will need to be replaced every 5 to 10 years.
While electric ferries may become common, we don’t expect to see electric cargo ships plying the ocean soon. Diesel is hard to beat for compact storage and high energy density. There are a few examples of cargo ships using electric, though. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t build your own electric watercraft.
youtube.com/embed/5GVwLNH_Qus?…
Sam Altman “Spero che a causa della tecnologia non accadano cose brutte”
Le ultime dichiarazioni di Sam Altman, CEO di OpenAI, in merito al progresso dell’intelligenza artificiale (IA) non sono molto incoraggianti, in quanto ha recentemente affermato di essere preoccupato per “l’impatto dell’IA sui posti di lavoro”e ha anche chiarito che non saremo al sicuro nemmeno in un bunker “se l’IA sfugge al controllo” .
Ma non è tutto, perché in una recente intervista l’AD di OpenAI ha dichiarato senza mezzi termini che dovremmo preoccuparci del futuro che l’intelligenza artificiale ci porterà: “Penso che succederà qualcosa di brutto con l’intelligenza artificiale”.
Come riporta un articolo di Investopedia, un mese fa Sam Altman ha partecipato a un’intervista per il videopodcast a16z della società di venture capital Andreessen Horowitz e ha colto l’occasione per dire che si aspetta che accadano cose brutte a causa dell’intelligenza artificiale: “Spero che a causa della tecnologia non accadano cose davvero brutte”.
youtube.com/embed/JfE1Wun9xkk?…
Come potete vedere nell’intervista qui sotto, Altman si riferiva a Sora, uno strumento di generazione video lanciato a fine settembre da OpenAI che è rapidamente diventato l’app più scaricata sull’App Store negli Stati Uniti. Ciò ha portato a un’ondata di deepfake creati da questo modello, che hanno inondato i social media con video con personaggi come Martin Luther King Jr. e altri personaggi pubblici come lo stesso Altman.
In effetti, Altman è apparso in questi video mentre compiva varie attività criminali, come potete vedere in questa Instagram Story. Ma non è tutto, poiché Altman ha anche affermato che strumenti come Sora necessitano di controlli per impedire che questa tecnologia venga utilizzata per scopi dannosi: “Molto presto il mondo dovrà vedersela con incredibili modelli video in grado di fingere chiunque o di mostrare qualsiasi cosa si voglia”.
Allo stesso modo, il creatore di ChatGPT ha affermato che, invece di perfezionare questo tipo di tecnologia a porte chiuse, la società e l’intelligenza artificiale dovrebbero collaborare per “co-evolversi” e “non si può semplicemente lasciare tutto alla fine“.
Secondo Altman, ciò che dovremmo fare è offrire alle persone un’esposizione precoce a questo tipo di tecnologia, in modo che le comunità possano creare norme e barriere prima che questi strumenti diventino ancora più potenti. Afferma inoltre che, se lo faremo, saremo meglio preparati quando arriveranno modelli di generazione video basati sull’intelligenza artificiale ancora più avanzati di quelli attuali.
L’avvertimento di Sam Altman non si riferiva solo ai video falsi, ma anche al fatto che molti di noi tendono a “esternalizzare” le proprie decisioni ad algoritmi che poche persone comprendono: “Penso ancora che ci saranno momenti strani o spaventosi.”
Inoltre, Altman ha anche spiegato che il fatto che l’intelligenza artificiale non abbia ancora causato un evento catastrofico “non significa che non lo farà mai” e che “miliardi di persone che parlano allo stesso cervello” potrebbero finire per creare “strane cose su scala sociale” .
“Credo che come società svilupperemo delle barriere attorno a questo fenomeno” ha detto. Infine, sebbene si tratti di qualcosa che ci riguarda tutti, Altman si oppone a una regolamentazione rigida di questa tecnologia perché afferma che “la maggior parte delle regolamentazioni probabilmente presenta molti svantaggi” e che l’ideale sarebbe condurre “test di sicurezza molto accurati” con questi nuovi modelli che ha definito “estremamente sovrumani” .
L'articolo Sam Altman “Spero che a causa della tecnologia non accadano cose brutte” proviene da Red Hot Cyber.
Il nuovo obiettivo di Microsoft per l’intelligenza artificiale? La medicina!
Il colosso della tecnologia ha annunciato la creazione di un nuovo team di sviluppo per un’intelligenza artificiale “sovrumana” che supererà in accuratezza gli esperti umani nelle diagnosi mediche. Il team sarà guidato da Mustafa Suleiman, responsabile dell’intelligenza artificiale dell’azienda.
Microsoft ha annunciato la creazione di un nuovo team chiamato MAI Superintelligence Team, che mira a sviluppare un’intelligenza artificiale “sovrumana” specializzata nella diagnostica medica. Lo riporta Reuters. Il progetto è guidato da Mustafa Suleiman, ex co-fondatore di DeepMind e Inflection AI.
Secondo Suleiman, il nuovo team non mira a sviluppare un’intelligenza generale (AGI) in grado di svolgere qualsiasi compito umano, ma piuttosto a concentrarsi su “modelli esperti” che raggiungeranno livelli di accuratezza sovrumani in aree specifiche, principalmente la diagnosi medica. Questo, afferma, è un primo passo verso lo sviluppo di capacità di intelligenza artificiale che rileveranno le malattie prima degli esseri umani e potranno prolungare la durata e la qualità della vita dei pazienti.
Ha affermato che Microsoft ha un piano concreto e chiaro per sviluppare entro due o tre anni un sistema di intelligenza artificiale che supererà in accuratezza gli esperti umani nelle diagnosi mediche. Suleiman ha osservato che l’azienda intende investire risorse significative nel processo, aggiungendo che il successo segnerebbe una svolta storica nel campo della salute globale.
Secondo le stime di mercato, Microsoft integrerà i frutti della nuova iniziativa nei suoi servizi cloud Azure Health Data Services e nelle collaborazioni esistenti con istituti medici negli Stati Uniti e in Europa. L’obiettivo immediato è migliorare l’accuratezza delle diagnosi basate su immagini, delle analisi genetiche e della lettura dei riepiloghi delle visite mediche, riducendo al contempo gli errori umani e accelerando le decisioni cliniche.
Oltre all’entusiasmo, la mossa solleva interrogativi normativi ed etici sul grado di fiducia nei sistemi che raggiungono un’accuratezza e una sicurezza “sovrumane” in caso di errore medico.
Suleiman ha sottolineato che Microsoft eviterà sviluppi che rappresentino un rischio esistenziale e si concentrerà su soluzioni sicure per uso medico
L'articolo Il nuovo obiettivo di Microsoft per l’intelligenza artificiale? La medicina! proviene da Red Hot Cyber.
proposta del segretario della CGIL Maurizio Landini di introdurre un “contributo di solidarietà” dell’1,3 per cento sui patrimoni netti superiori a 2 milioni di euro".
Considerato che il più scalcagnato dei lavoratori italiani paga il 23% di tasse sull'unica cosa che ha, ovvero il reddito, una proposta del genere mi sembra fin troppo timida.
Perché si riparla di una tassa patrimoniale - Il Post
https://www.ilpost.it/2025/11/09/tassa-patrimoniale/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypubPubblicato su News @news-ilPost
Perché si riparla di una tassa patrimoniale
L’ha proposta di nuovo la CGIL per chiedere più soldi alle persone più ricche e finanziare la spesa pubblicaIl Post
L’impegno delle Forze armate tra onore e riconoscenza
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Il ministro della difesa Guido Crosetto, in una intervista alla Rivista Aeronautica, che celebra i 100 anni di vita, ha evidenziato che “il personale della Difesa resta la nostra risorsa più preziosa. Donne e uomini che operano spesso in contesti difficili con professionalità, umanità, spirito di servizio, e
Bilancio e palle
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
L'articolo Bilancio e palle proviene da Fondazione Luigi Einaudi.
freezonemagazine.com/articoli/…
Il ragazzo il Blues lo parla chiaro… Stavo iniziando a scrivere di tutt’altro quando, nella esasperante, nebbiosa, quotidianità post-moderna fatta di quotidiane post-minchiate si è fatto largo, come una Ricola data a un bronchitico, D.Keyran Harrell giovane Bluesman (26 anni, aprile 1999, Ruston Louisiana) vestito di fine broccato. Planato in salotto da un dispositivo a […]
L'articolo D.K. Harrell
Il
Non solo un lavoro di qualità, ma anche prospettive di qualità
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Stiamo tornando a far rallentare il mondo. Ma l’ultimo periodo, per noi, non è stato per niente semplice. Ci siamo scontrati con la difficoltà di portare avanti un’attività giornalistica indipendente e renderla al contempo sostenibile. Nonostante i nostri buoni propositi, la mancanza di risorse
Una foto con il busto di Mussolini: l’inchiesta di Report che imbarazza Colosimo
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/11/una-fot…
Alcuni quotidiani anticipano oggi quello che dovremmo vedere nella puntata di Report. Tra i tanti titoli ci ha colpito l’annuncio che ci
Penjing: l’arte cinese che trasforma la natura in un racconto in miniatura (e che non è un bonsai)
Penjing: l’arte cinese dei paesaggi in miniatura. Cos’è, differenze con il bonsai, stili e come iniziare a crearne uno a casa.Marco Crisciotti (GreenMe.it)
Una panoramica delle potenze militari nel mondo
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
Il sito web militare statunitense Global Firepower ha recentemente pubblicato la sua classifica della potenza militare mondiale per il 2025, con i primi dieci classificati come segue: Stati Uniti d’America, Russia, Repubblica Popolare della Cina, India, Repubblica di Corea (sud), Regno Unito, Francia, Giappone, Turchia e
Quel momento in cui capisci che realizzare il tuo sogno è impossibile.
Non so se vi è mai capitato di avere un sogno, sperare di poterlo realizzare, e poi desiderare che si avveri, ogni giorno più intensamente.
A me è capitato tante volte, e altrettante volte i sogni si sono infranti. Alcuni erano anche molto grandi, e la delusione è stata tanta quando è successo. Forse sono una persona che si crea troppe aspettative; chissà.
Ma quando il mio sogno è diventato quello di non provare più dolore e malessere, allora la questione è cambiata: era GIUSTO che io realizzassi quel sogno. Pensavo che ci sarei riuscito facilmente, e non solo mi sembrava che una qualche giustizia divina me lo avrebbe concesso, ma addirittura che sarebbe stato più semplice riuscirci, più che per tutti gli altri sogni che avevo coltivato.
Non è stato così.
Il sogno di vivere a Tenerife si è sbriciolato velocemente dal 2020 in poi, quando ho iniziato a capire che quel posto, l'unico in cui io stia davvero bene, non era più vivibile. Troppe persone ci si sono trasferite, troppi turisti continuano ad andarci, rendendolo di fatto un luogo inospitale.
Riuscite ad immaginare come mi sentivo ritornando a Tenerife, dopo che avevo capito che anche a El Hierro non avrei potuto vivere?
Cercavo di non rovinarmi quei pochi giorni di permanenza amara, in cui tutto ciò che vedevo - e sentivo - somigliava ad una preziosa torta, che i miei occhi di bambino non potevano vedere, ma non toccare.
Eppure, l'isola è riuscita ad insegnarmi qualcosa.
Di nuovo.
Il racconto è in questo episodio del podcast.
Tenerife: l'isola perfetta, dove non posso vivere.
Nel quinto episodio del podcast in cui cerco una nuova casa, eccomi di nuovo a Tenerife, l'isola dove mi sarei dovuto trasferire ma che nel frattempo è diventata "inospitale".
Ogni volta che la vedo è una fitta al cuore, ma anche stavolta mi ha insegnato qualcosa di importante.
Buon ascolto.
L’intelligenza artificiale migliorerà le app di incontri o le peggiorerà? Report Economist
L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Tinder, Hinge e Bumble startmag.it/innovazione/intell…
Non spegniamo le luci su Gaza
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/11/non-spe…
Notizie sempre più scarne. L’informazione toglie spazio a Gaza e alla Cisgiordania con poche eccezioni, per esempio quelle di Avvenire e Il Manifesto. Ma il dramma che si è consumato a Gaza durante i bombardamenti israeliani non si è esaurito, purtroppo, con la fragile pace americana.
This week, we discuss archiving to get around paywalls, hating on smart glasses, and more.#BehindTheBlog
Behind the Blog: Paywall Jumping and Smart Glasses
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss archiving to get around paywalls, hating on smart glasses, and more.JASON: I was going to try to twist myself into knots attempting to explain the throughline between my articles this week, and about how I’ve been thinking about the news and our coverage more broadly. This was going to be something about trying to promote analog media and distinctly human ways of communicating (like film photography), while highlighting the very bad economic and political incentives pushing us toward fundamentally dehumanizing, anti-human methods of communicating. Like fully automated, highly customized and targeted AI ads, automated library software, and I guess whatever Nancy Pelosi has been doing with her stock portfolio. But then I remembered that I blogged about the FBI’s subpoena against archive.is, a website I feel very ambivalent about and one that is the subject of perhaps my most cringe blog of all time.
So let’s revisit that cringe blog, which was called “Dear GamerGate: Please Stop Stealing Our Shit.” I wrote this article in 2014, which was fully 11 years ago, which is alarming to me. First things first: They were not stealing from me they were stealing from VICE, a company that I did not actually experience financial gains from related to people reading articles; it was good if people read my articles and traffic was very important, and getting traffic over time led to me getting raises and promotions and stuff, but the company made very, very clear that we did not “own” the articles and therefore they were not “mine” in the way that they are now. With that out of the way, the reporting and general reason for the article was I think good but the tone of it is kind of wildly off, and, as I mentioned, over the course of many years I have now come to regard archive.is as sort of an integral archiving tool. If you are unfamiliar with archive.is, it’s a site that takes snapshots of any URL and creates a new link for them which, notably, does not go to the original website. Archive.is is extremely well known for bypassing the paywalls on many sites, 404 Media sometimes but not usually among them.
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X and TikTok accounts are dedicated to posting AI-generated videos of women being strangled.#News #AI #Sora
OpenAI’s Sora 2 Floods Social Media With Videos of Women Being Strangled
Social media accounts on TikTok and X are posting AI-generated videos of women and girls being strangled, showing yet another example of generative AI companies failing to prevent users from creating media that violates their own policies against violent content.One account on X has been posting dozens of AI-generated strangulation videos starting in mid-October. The videos are usually 10 seconds long and mostly feature a “teenage girl” being strangled, crying, and struggling to resist until her eyes close and she falls to the ground. Some titles for the videos include: “A Teenage Girl Cheerleader Was Strangled As She Was Distressed,” “Prep School Girls Were Strangled By The Murderer!” and “man strangled a high school cheerleader with a purse strap which is crazy.”
Many of the videos posted by this X account in October include the watermark for Sora 2, Open AI’s video generator, which was made available to the public on September 30. Other videos, including most videos that were posted by the account in November, do not include a watermark but are clearly AI generated. We don’t know if these videos were generated with Sora 2 and had their watermark removed, which is trivial to do, or created with another AI video generator.
The X account is small, with only 17 followers and a few hundred views on each post. A TikTok account with a similar username that was posting similar AI-generated choking videos had more than a thousand followers and regularly got thousands of views. Both accounts started posting the AI-generated videos in October. Prior to that, the accounts were posting clips of scenes, mostly from real Korean dramas, in which women are being strangled. I first learned about the X account from a 404 Media reader, who told me X declined to remove the account after they reported it.
“According to our Community Guidelines, we don't allow hate speech, hateful behavior, or promotion of hateful ideologies,” a TikTok spokesperson told me in an email. The TikTok account was also removed after I reached out for comment. “That includes content that attacks people based on protected attributes like race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.”
X did not respond to a request for comment.
OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment, but its policies state that “graphic violence or content promoting violence” may be removed from the Sora Feed, where users can see what other users are generating. In our testing, Sora immediately generated a video for the prompt “man choking woman” which looked similar to the videos posted to TikTok and X. When Sora finished generating those videos it sent us notifications like “Your choke scene just went live, brace for chaos,” and “Yikes, intense choke scene, watch responsibly.” Sora declined to generate a video for the prompt “man choking woman with belt,” saying “This content may violate our content policies.”
Safe and consensual choking is common in adult entertainment, be it various forms of BDSM or more niche fetishes focusing on choking specifically, and that content is easy to find wherever adult entertainment is available. Choking scenes are also common social media and more mainstream horror movies and TV shows. The UK government recently announced that it will soon make it illegal to publish or possess pornographic depictions of strangulation of suffocation.
It’s not surprising, then, that when generative AI tools are made available to the public some people generate choking videos and violent content as well. In September, I reported about an AI-generated YouTube channel that exclusively posted videos of women being shot. Those videos were generated with Google’s Veo AI-video generator, despite it being against the company’s policies. Google said it took action against the user who was posting those videos.
Sora 2 had to make several changes to its guardrails since it launched after people used it to make videos of popular cartoon characters depicted as Nazis and other forms of copyright infringement.
Pornography depicting strangulation to become criminal offence in the UK
Legal requirement to be placed on tech platforms to prevent users from seeing such ‘choking’ materialRobyn Vinter (The Guardian)
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Early humans crafted the same tools for hundreds of thousands of years, offering an unprecedented glimpse of a continuous tradition that may push back the origins of technology.#TheAbstract
Advanced 2.5 Million-Year-Old Tools May Rewrite Human History
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Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.After a decade-long excavation at a remote site in Kenya, scientists have unearthed evidence that our early human relatives continuously fashioned the same tools across thousands of generations, hinting that sophisticated tool use may have originated much earlier than previously known, according to a new study in Nature Communications.
The discovery of nearly 1,300 artifacts—with ages that span 2.44 to 2.75 million years old—reveals that the influential Oldowan tool-making tradition existed across at least 300,000 years of turbulent environmental shifts. The wealth of new tools from Kenya’s Namorotukunan site suggest that their makers adapted to major environmental changes in part by passing technological knowledge down through the ages.
“The question was: did they generally just reinvent the [Oldowan tradition] over and over again? That made a lot of sense when you had a record that was kind of sporadic,” said David R. Braun, a professor of anthropology at the George Washington University who led the study, in a call with 404 Media.
“But the fact that we see so much similarity between 2.4 and 2.75 [million years ago] suggests that this is generally something that they do,” he continued. “Some of it may be passed down through social learning, like observation of others doing it. There’s some kind of tradition that continues on for this timeframe that would argue against this idea of just constantly reinventing the wheel.”
Oldowan tools, which date back at least 2.75 million years, are distinct from earlier traditions in part because hominins, the broader family to which humans belong, specifically sought out high-quality materials such as chert and quartz to craft sharp-edged cutting and digging tools. This advancement allowed them to butcher large animals, like hippos, and possibly dig for underground food sources.
When Braun and his colleagues began excavating at Namorotukunan in 2013, they found many artifacts made of chalcedony, a fine-grained rock that is typically associated with much later tool-making traditions. To the team’s surprise, the rocks were dated to periods as early as 2.75 million years ago, making them among the oldest artifacts in the Oldowan record.
“Even though Oldowan technology is really just hitting one rock against the other, there's good and bad ways of doing it,” Braun explained. “So even though it's pretty simple, what they seem to be figuring out is where to hit the rock, and which angles to select. They seem to be getting a grip on that—not as well as later in time—but they're definitely getting an understanding at this timeframe.”
Some of the Namorotukunan tools. Image: Koobi Fora Research and Training Program
The excavation was difficult as it takes several days just to reach the remote offroad site, while much of the work involved tiptoing along steep outcrops. Braun joked that their auto mechanic lined up all the vehicle shocks that had been broken during the drive each season, as a testament to the challenge.But by the time the project finally concluded in 2022, the researchers had established that Oldowan tools were made at this site over the course of 300,000 years. During this span, the landscape of Namorotukunan shifted from lush humid forests to arid desert shrubland and back again. Despite these destabilizing shifts in their climate and biome, the hominins that made these tools endured in part because this technology opened up new food sources to them, such as the carcasses of large animals.
“The whole landscape really shifts,” Braun said. “But hominins are able to basically ameliorate those rapid changes in the amount of rainfall and the vegetation around by using tools to adapt to what’s happening.”
“That's a human superpower—it’s that ability we have to keep this information stored in our collective heads, so that when new challenges show up, there's somebody in our group that remembers how to deal with this particular adaptation,” he added.
It’s not clear exactly which species of hominin made the tools at Namorotukunan; it may have been early members of our own genus Homo, or other relatives, like Australopithecus afarensis, that later went extinct. Regardless, the discovery of such a long-lived and continuous assemblage may hint that the origins of these tools are much older than we currently know.
“I think that we're going to start to find tool use much earlier” perhaps “going back five, six, or seven million years,” Braun said. “That’s total speculation. I've got no evidence that that's the case. But judging from what primates do, I don't really understand why we wouldn't see it.”
To that end, the researchers plan to continue excavating these bygone landscapes to search for more artifacts and hominin remains that could shed light on the identity of these tool makers, probing the origins of these early technologies that eventually led to humanity’s dominance on the planet.
“It's possible that this tool use is so diverse and so different from our expectations that we have blinders on,” Braun concluded. “We have to open our search for what tool use looks like, and then we might start to see that they're actually doing a lot more of it than we thought they were.”
Early Oldowan technology thrived during Pliocene environmental change in the Turkana Basin, Kenya - Nature Communications
Here, the authors present archaeology of the Namorotukunan site in Kenya’s Turkana Basin that demonstrates adaptive shifts in hominin tool-making behaviour spanning 300,000 years and increasing environmental variability.Nature
Protecting Minors Online: Can Age Verification Truly Make the Internet Safer?
The drive to protect minors online has been gaining momentum in recent years and is now making its mark in global policy circles. This shift, strongly supported by public sentiment, has also reached the European Union.
In a recent development, Members of the European Parliament, as part of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, approved a report raising serious concerns about the shortcomings of major online platforms in safeguarding minors. With 32 votes in favour, the Committee highlighted growing worries over issues such as online addiction, mental health impacts, and children’s exposure to illegal or harmful digital content.
What Is In The Report
The report discusses the creation of frameworks and systems to support age verification and protect children’s rights and privacy online. This calls for a significant push to incorporate safety measures as an integral part of the system’s design, within a social responsibility framework, to make the internet a safe environment for minors.
MEPs have proposed sixteen years as the minimum age for children to access social media, video-sharing platforms, and AI-based chat companions. Children below sixteen can access the above-mentioned platforms with parental permission. However, a proposal has been put forth demanding that an absolute minimum age of thirteen be set. This indicates that children under 13 cannot access or use social media platforms, even with parental permission.
In Short:
- Under 13 years of age: Not allowed on social media
- 13-15 years of age: Allowed with parents’ approval
- 16 years and above: Can use freely, no consent required
MEPs recommended stricter actions against non-compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA). Stricter actions range from holding the senior executives of the platforms responsible for breaches of security affecting minors to imposing huge fines.
The recommendations include banning addictive design features and engagement-driven algorithms, removing gambling-style elements in games, and ending the monetisation of minors as influencers. They also call for tighter control over AI tools that create fake or explicit content and stronger rules against manipulative chatbots.
What Do Reports And Research Say?
The operative smoothness and convenience introduced by the digital and technological advancements over the last two decades have changed how the world works and communicates. The internet provides a level field for everyone to connect, learn, and make an impact. However, the privacy of internet users and the access to and control over data are points of contention and a constant topic of debate. With an increasing percentage of minor users globally, the magnitude of risks has been multiplied. Lack or limited awareness of understanding of digital boundaries and the deceptive nature of the online environment make minors more susceptible to the dangers. Exposure to inappropriate content, cyberbullying, financial scams, identity theft, and manipulation through social media or gaming platforms are a few risks to begin with. Their curiosity to explore beyond boundaries often makes minors easy targets for online predators.
Recent studies have made the following observations (the studies are EU-relevant):
- According to the Internet Watch Foundation Annual Data & Insights / 2024 (reported 2025 releases), Record levels of child sexual abuse imagery were discovered in 2024; IWF actioned 291,273 reports and found 62% of identified child sexual abuse webpages were hosted in EU countries.
- WeProtect Global Alliance Global Threat Assessment 2023 (relevant to the EU) reported an 87% increase in child sexual abuse material since 2019. Rapid grooming on social gaming platforms and emerging threats from AI-generated sexual abuse material are the new patterns of online exploitation.
- According to WHO/Europe HBSC Volume on Bullying & Peer Violence (2024), one in six school-aged children (around 15-16%) experienced cyberbullying in 2022, a rise from previous survey rounds.
These reports indicate the alarming situation regarding minors’ safety and reflect the urgency with which the Committee is advancing its recommendations. Voting is due on the 23rd-24th of November, 2025.
While these reports underline the scale of the threat, they also raise an important question: are current solutions, like age verification, truly effective?
How Foolproof Is Age Verification As A Measure?
The primary concern in promoting age verification as a defence mechanism against cybercrime is the authenticity of those verification processes and whether they are robust enough to eliminate unethical practices targeting users. For instance, if the respondent (user) provides inaccurate information during the age verification process, are there any mechanisms in place to verify its accuracy?
Additionally, implementing age verification for children is next to impossible without violating the rights to privacy and free speech of adults, raising the question of who shall have access to and control over users’ data – Government bodies or big tech companies. Has “maintenance of anonymity” while providing data been given enough thought in drafting these policies? This is a matter of concern.
According to EDRI, a leading European Digital Rights NGO, deploying age verification as a measure to tackle multiple forms of cybercrime against minors is not a new policy. Reportedly, social media platforms were made to adopt similar measures in 2009. However, the problem still exists. Age verification as a countermeasure to cybercrime against minors is a superficial fix. Do the Commission’s safety guidelines address the root cause of the problem – a toxic online environment – is an important question to answer.
EDRI’s Key arguments:
- Age verification is not a solution to problems of toxic platform design, such as addictive features and manipulative algorithms.
- It restricts children’s rights to access information and express themselves, rather than empowering them.
- It can exclude or discriminate against users without digital IDs or access to verification tools.
- Lawmakers are focusing on exclusion instead of systemic reform — creating safer, fairer online spaces for everyone.
- True protection lies in platform accountability and ethical design, not mass surveillance or one-size-fits-all age gates.
Read the complete article here:
https://edri.org/our-work/age-verification-gains-traction-eu-risks-failing-to-address-the-root-causes-of-online-harm/ | https://archive.ph/wip/LIMUI: Protecting Minors Online: Can Age Verification Truly Make the Internet Safer?
Before floating any policy into the periphery of execution, weighing the positive and negative user experiences is pivotal, because a blanket policy based on age brackets might make it ineffective at mitigating the risks of an unsafe online space. Here, educating and empowering both parents and children with digital literacy can have a more profound and meaningful impact rather than simply regulating age brackets. Change always comes with informed choices.
Sulle droghe abbiamo un piano: Possibile alla contro-conferenza nazionale sulle droghe
Possibile è presente alla Controconferenza nazionale “Sulle droghe abbiamo un piano” con Giulia Marro, Consigliera Regionale del Piemonte, e Domenico Sperone, assessore del Comune di Canale.
La controconferenza si svolge a Roma in parallelo alla conferenza governativa che si è aperta all’Eur.
È stata promossa dalla Rete nazionale per la riforma delle politiche sulle droghe, dopo che il governo ha rifiutato ogni confronto con la società civile e gli enti locali. L’impostazione della conferenza ufficiale rimane ancorata a un modello repressivo e datato, ancora legato allo slogan “un mondo senza droghe”, lontano dalle conoscenze scientifiche e dalle esperienze sviluppate a livello internazionale.
L’iniziativa propone un piano alternativo per le politiche sulle droghe, basato su salute pubblica, diritti umani e riduzione del danno, in linea con le raccomandazioni ONU e con le pratiche già adottate in diversi Paesi.
Nella prima giornata, il 6 novembre, si sono alternati interventi di esperti e rappresentanti di reti internazionali, tra cui Susanna Ronconi (Forum Droghe), Saner Mahmood (Alto Commissariato ONU per i Diritti Umani), Marie Nougier (International Drug Policy Consortium), Adria Cots Fernández (Apertura Politiche Droghe) ed Eligia Parodi (rete EuroPUD, persone che usano droghe).
È emerso un messaggio chiaro: le politiche punitive non riducono i consumi né migliorano la salute pubblica, ma producono esclusione e stigma. Sempre più paesi — tra cui Portogallo, Spagna e Svizzera — stanno invece seguendo la via della depenalizzazione e dell’investimento in servizi di riduzione del danno.
I lavori si sono articolati in tre panel:
1. Politiche e diritti umani, con un’analisi dei cambiamenti globali e delle nuove risoluzioni ONU;
2. Riduzione del danno come politica complessiva, con esperienze europee e latinoamericane che integrano salute, inclusione e giustizia sociale;
3. Psichedelici per uso medico, dedicato alla libertà di ricerca e ai trattamenti innovativi.
La controconferenza ha sottolineato anche il ruolo delle città e delle amministrazioni locali, che in molti casi sono il primo livello istituzionale capace di attuare politiche concrete e basate sui diritti.
Per Possibile, questo appuntamento rappresenta uno spazio politico necessario per costruire politiche sulle droghe efficaci e umane, fondate su salute, evidenze scientifiche e rispetto della dignità delle persone, superando definitivamente l’approccio repressivo e ideologico che continua a dominare il dibattito nazionale.
L'articolo Sulle droghe abbiamo un piano: Possibile alla contro-conferenza nazionale sulle droghe proviene da Possibile.
Il progetto sociale, dell'Associazione Italiana Editori (AIE) per la creazione e il potenziamento delle biblioteche scolastiche, quest’anno si svolge da oggi al 16 novembre con 4,2 milioni di studenti coinvolti, 29.
Ministero dell'Istruzione
🎉#ioleggoperché compie dieci anni! Il progetto sociale, dell'Associazione Italiana Editori (AIE) per la creazione e il potenziamento delle biblioteche scolastiche, quest’anno si svolge da oggi al 16 novembre con 4,2 milioni di studenti coinvolti, 29.Telegram
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in reply to Nabil Hunt • •Hello and welcome to poliverso.org
Friendica is a somewhat unique software: a little more difficult to use than Mastodon, but infinitely richer in features.
I noticed that your first test post was written in English. That's not a problem, but I remind you that poliverso.org is a server dedicated to an audience that communicates primarily in Italian, so it would be appropriate for most of your posts to be in that language.
If you prefer to continue communicating in English, you can search for other Friendica servers at this link:
friendica.fediverse.observer/l…
Best regards and have a good Sunday