Google DeepMind released Gemma 4 on Easter weekend, and the local AI community responded like it was Christmas. The family spans four sizes – E2B, E4B, 26B A4B (MoE), and 31B dense – with the… Read more: Google’s Best Open Model Yet Has a Memory Problem

Corporations are rapidly embracing AI to churn out mountains of code.  Outwardly, this is presented as a revolution in productivity. But a behind the scenes look in The New York Times paints a slightly different,… Read more: The Effects of AI-Generated Code Tearing Through Corporations Is Actually Kind of Funny

Researchers have uncovered why a rare blood clotting disorder can occur after certain COVID-19 vaccines or adenovirus infections. The immune system can mistakenly target a normal blood protein (PF4) after confusing it with a viral… Read more: Scientists finally crack mystery of rare COVID vaccine blood clots

Losing your sense of smell might signal Alzheimer’s far earlier than expected. Scientists found that immune cells in the brain actively destroy smell-related nerve fibers after detecting abnormal signals on their surfaces. This damage begins… Read more: Your nose could detect Alzheimer’s years before symptoms begin

Scientists have achieved the unthinkable by stabilizing a highly reactive molecule in water, confirming a decades-old theory about vitamin B1’s role in the body. The breakthrough not only solves a scientific mystery but could revolutionize… Read more: A 67-year-old “crazy” theory about vitamin B1 has finally been proven

Scientists searching for air pollution clues stumbled onto something unexpected: toxic MCCPs drifting through the air for the first time in the Western Hemisphere. The likely source—fertilizer made from sewage sludge—points to a hidden route… Read more: Unusual airborne toxin detected in the U.S. for the first time

A major study suggests that when you eat could play a key role in staying lean. People who fast longer overnight and start their day with an early breakfast were more likely to have a… Read more: Two simple eating habits linked to lower weight, study finds

Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that were ritually sacrificed, kicked out of the galaxy, taxonomically revised, and wore many hats. First, scientists shed light on human sacrifice and cousin… Read more: The Oldest Octopus Fossil Ever Isn’t An Octopus At All, Scientists Discover

Last month, Axios was forced to issue a bizarre correction for a blog post about a growing maternal health crisis in the United States. The story quoted new poll findings by a company called Aaru,… Read more: Foolish Pollsters Are Now Just Asking AI What Voters Would Say in Response to Questions and Publishing It at Face Value

Fraudulent music streams have long been a scourge for the industry, but experts say generative AI has supercharged it Jason Moran, a renowned jazz composer and pianist, got a strange call from a friend last… Read more: ‘It has your name on it, but I don’t think it’s you’: how AI is impersonating musicians on Spotify

Huzzah! A mass psychosis inducing machine is making money out the wazoo by bombarding users with highly-targeted corporate messages. According to a new Axios scoop, OpenAI has already generated $100 million in annual recurring revenue… Read more: OpenAI Says It’s Already Made $100 Million by Stuffing ChatGPT With Ads

AI models from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic lost money betting on soccer matches over a Premier League season, in a new study suggesting even the most advanced systems struggle to analyze the real world over… Read more: AI models are terrible at betting on soccer—especially xAI Grok

Since the onset of the AI chatbot boom, tech companies, insurance industry mouthpieces, and healthcare administrators have spun a yarn that introducing AI to healthcare is a surefire way to lower costs for patients. Mario… Read more: AI Is Causing Healthcare Costs to Surge

Plus: Iran’s internet blackout hits the 1,000-hour mark, cryptocurrency scams result in a record amount of money stolen from Americans, and more.

With consumers roundly panning generative AI slop wherever it’s found, tech companies have set their sights on a more captive audience as a source of revenue: the world’s boardrooms and cubicle farms. But the office,… Read more: There’s a Mass Rebellion Against AI in the Workplace

A new study by economists at Goldman Sachs has discovered something that should come as no surprise to most workers: losing your job to new technology can seriously mess up your life in ways that… Read more: People Who Lose Their Job to AI Are in for a World of Pain, Goldman Sachs Report Finds

From AI-generated images to restricted satellite data, the systems used to verify what’s real online are struggling to keep up.

The Artemis era well and truly began Friday evening when a shiny spacecraft that had traveled 700,000 miles around the Moon, carrying four astronauts, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.… Read more: The Artemis II mission has ended. Where does NASA go from here?

Slamming into the atmosphere at more than 30 times the speed of sound, NASA’s Orion spacecraft blazed a trail over the Pacific Ocean on Friday, returning home with four astronauts and safely capping humanity’s first… Read more: Four astronauts are back home after a daring ride around the Moon

Several Californians sued Sutter Health and MemorialCare this week over allegations that an AI transcription tool was used to record them without their consent, in violation of state and federal law. The proposed class-action lawsuit,… Read more: Californians sue over AI tool that records doctor visits

North America wouldn’t look much like it currently does without a tectonic plate that has largely been lost to the Earth’s geological history. The Farallon plate, which has since largely vanished underneath North America, helped… Read more: New paper argues history, not mantle plume, powers Yellowstone

Samsung is reportedly considering a $4 billion chip packaging and testing project in Vietnam, deepening the country’s role in the global semiconductor supply chain. The post Samsung Eyes Vietnam for $4B Semiconductor Packaging Project appeared… Read more: Samsung Eyes Vietnam for $4B Semiconductor Packaging Project

As AI companies warn of mass automation and the end of work as we know it, ChatGPT maker OpenAI has published a sweeping policy paper outlining its vision of who should call the shots once… Read more: OpenAI Says Not to Worry About UBI, Because It Has Another Idea

The Trump administration has stepped up an effort to unmask a Reddit user who criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After failing to obtain information through a summons issued to Reddit, the government reportedly issued… Read more: Report: US demands Reddit unmask ICE critic, summons firm to grand jury

Formula 1 is enjoying something of an unexpected break right now. The war in the Middle East saw the cancellation of F1 races that were due to be held this month in Bahrain and Saudi… Read more: F1 moves a step closer to fixing its 2026 hybrid problem

Alibaba launches a new AI data center powered by 10,000 homegrown chips, signaling a major push toward self-reliance amid US export restrictions. The post Alibaba Launches AI Data Center Powered by 10,000 Homegrown Chips appeared… Read more: Alibaba Launches AI Data Center Powered by 10,000 Homegrown Chips

These days, it seems like every tech company and their corporate parent is looking to squeeze AI tools and features into their products, whether they’re wanted or not. So when files with names and functions… Read more: What leaked “SteamGPT” files could mean for the PC gaming platform’s use of AI

Pohlsepia mazonensis, a visually underwhelming fossil from Illinois, fundamentally broke our understanding of cephalopod evolution. Described in 2000 and hailed as the oldest known octopus in the fossil record, the specimen dated back to the… Read more: Oldest octopus fossil found to not be an octopus 

Over the years, YouTube has evolved from a source of Rickrolls and cat videos to a platform for some of the Internet’s most popular streaming content. Today, it costs more than ever to see that… Read more: YouTube increases Premium price again, says 90-second unskippable ads are a bug

Mixing corn starch and water in appropriate amounts produces a slurry that is liquid when stirred slowly but hardens when you punch it—a substance colorfully dubbed “oobleck.” (The name derives from a 1949 Dr. Seuss… Read more: “Oobleck” still holds some surprises

San Francisco police say they’ve arrested a suspect who allegedly attacked the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and then made threats outside the company’s headquarters. At around 3:43 am on Friday, officers responded to… Read more: Someone Just Threw a Molotov Cocktail At Sam Altman’s House

Microsoft says it hears the complaints people have about the current state of Windows, and it wants to fix them. One of those fixes is another overhaul for its Windows Insider Program, the public beta… Read more: Microsoft’s “commitment to Windows quality” starts with overhaul of beta program

The new AI model is being heralded—and feared—as a hacker’s superweapon. Experts say its arrival is a wake-up call for developers who have long made security an afterthought.

Suspect arrested but not identified and has allegedly made similar threats to OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters A person tossed a molotov cocktail at the home of Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, before the sun rose on… Read more: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s home targeted with molotov cocktail

Last week, the New York Times published a laudatory profile of a startup called Medvi, which is basically an AI-powered marketing wrapper for telehealth providers and compounding pharmacies that sells GLP-1 weight loss drugs. The… Read more: New York Times Makes Substantial Changes to Article That Glazed a Sleazy AI Startup: “Our Piece Should Have Included That Information”

An attacker allegedly threw a molotov cocktail at the OpenAI CEO’s residence before making threats outside of the startup’s headquarters.

Onix is launching a “Substack of bots,” where digital twins of health and wellness influencers dispense advice 24/7. And maybe hawk their products.

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 gun violence and chatbots and acceptance of… Read more: Behind the Blog: Smoking the Whole Carton

Claude Mythos’s apparent superhuman hacking abilities are alarming experts as the Trump administration remains blinded by hostility In June 2024, a cyber-attack on a pathology services company caused chaos across London’s hospitals. More than 10,000… Read more: Anthropic’s new AI tool has implications for us all – whether we want it or not

Google is rolling out notebooks in Gemini, giving users a new way to organize chats, files, and instructions into AI-powered project hubs. The post Google Brings NotebookLM to Gemini for Easy Project Organization appeared first… Read more: Google Brings NotebookLM to Gemini for Easy Project Organization

Minutes after President Donald Trump announced that he would not wipe out “a whole civilization” on Tuesday evening, a team of self-described young Iranian activists jumped into action. Members of the group known as Explosive… Read more: Pro-Iran Explosive Media trolls Trump with AI-generated Lego cartoons

Death, taxes, and the gravitationally bound return of the Artemis II mission on Friday evening. These are the only certainties in life. Even if the four astronauts on board the Orion spacecraft discovered a serious… Read more: Here’s what to expect from the fiery, 14-minute return of Artemis II

I’ve been dreaming about the future of software development for a while now. And I’ll admit, my vision might sound like a nightmare to some of you. But hear me out. Picture this: You write… Read more: Rapid prototyping with GenAI: From idea to interactive PoC in days

A mysterious glow of gamma rays at the center of the Milky Way has long hinted at dark matter, but the lack of similar signals in smaller dwarf galaxies has cast doubt on that idea.… Read more: Scientists think dark matter might come in two forms

A new chip design from UC San Diego could make data centers far more energy-efficient by rethinking how power is converted for GPUs. By combining vibrating piezoelectric components with a clever circuit layout, the system… Read more: This new chip could slash data center energy waste

Perovskite solar cells shouldn’t work as well as they do—but they do. Scientists have now discovered that defects inside the material actually help, creating networks that separate and guide electric charges efficiently. Using a novel… Read more: These cheap solar cells work better because they’re flawed

A strange new kind of superconductivity has been uncovered in uranium ditelluride (UTe2), where electricity flows with zero resistance—but only under extremely strong magnetic fields that should normally destroy it. Even more surprising, the superconductivity… Read more: This superconductivity dies then comes back to life

Scientists have proposed a surprising new way to detect gravitational waves—by observing how they change the light emitted by atoms. These waves can subtly shift photon frequencies in different directions, leaving behind a detectable signature.… Read more: Gravitational waves may be hidden in the light atoms emit

A common eye-health nutrient, zeaxanthin, may also help the body fight cancer more effectively. Scientists discovered it strengthens T cells and enhances the impact of immunotherapy treatments. Found in everyday vegetables and supplements, it’s safe,… Read more: A common nutrient could supercharge cancer treatment

Alzheimer’s isn’t just one problem—it’s a tangled mix of biology, aging, and overall health. That’s why drugs targeting a single factor have fallen short, even as new treatments show modest benefits. Scientists are now pushing… Read more: Scientists say we’ve been treating Alzheimer’s all wrong

Will artificial intelligence save us or destroy us? According to a growing band of thriller scriptwriters, we should be very afraid indeed Maybe the “H” in Line Of Duty will turn out to stand for… Read more: ‘There’s no shortage of terrifying technology’: how AI became TV drama’s new go-to villain

Two developments recently have quietly revealed a deeper shift in AI. One model exists behind closed doors, deployed to a small group tasked with securing critical systems. Another arrives openly, building software over hours-long sessions… Read more: Is AI splitting into two worlds?

To protect enterprise margins, business leaders must invest in robust AI governance to securely manage AI infrastructure. When evaluating enterprise software adoption, a recurring pattern dictates how technology matures across industries. As Rob Thomas, SVP… Read more: IBM: How robust AI governance protects enterprise margins

Late last year, news emerged that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta would be shedding its open source roots to instead work on a closed model like the vast majority of its competitors. Now we’ve finally gotten a… Read more: First AI Model From Zuckerberg’s Wildly Expensive Superintelligence Lab Flops Compared to Virtually All Rivals

For the most part, economists have been one of the few groups of professionals who’ve roundly rejected the AI Kool-Aid. Consensus of the worst-case scenario seemed to center on the idea that AI could upend… Read more: Economists Starting to Admit They May Have Been Wrong About AI Never Replacing Human Jobs

Welcome to Edition 8.36 of the Rocket Report! Thank you for your indulgence of our missing the report last week, as we focused on the launch and progress of the Artemis II mission. And we… Read more: Rocket Report: Chinese version of Falcon 9 fails; Artemis depends on rapid heavy lift

Brady Frey did not realize that his daughter lied about her age when she set up her Discord account. He only found out after her account got hacked and he got trapped in a spiraling… Read more: Dad stuck in support nightmare after teen lied about age on Discord

New AI-powered recommendations enable enterprises to train fraud scoring on their own data for more accurate detection Fingerprint, a leader in device intelligence for fraud prevention, today announced the addition of AI-powered recommendations to its… Read more: Fingerprint Unveils AI-Enhanced Suspect Score

For something called machine learning, we spend surprisingly little time asking whether machines actually learn. That isn’t a throwaway line. It’s the central tension behind a recent paper, and it cuts closer to home than… Read more: AI doesn’t actually learn. Here’s the problem

Videos of fake relationship guru podcasters are reinforcing gender tropes and racking up millions of views, all the while driving sales to AI influencer schools.

Meta’s Muse Spark model offers to analyze users’ health data, including lab results. Beyond the obvious privacy risks, it’s not a capable stand-in for a real doctor.

Next-generation AI assistants being developed in the Apple ecosystem and by chipmakers like Qualcomm, but early reports suggest they are being designed with limits in place. Tom’s Guide has described early versions of these assistants… Read more: Why companies like Apple are building AI agents with limits

New platform provides systems-of-systems infrastructure, enabling organizations to understand what’s happening inside their AI deployments Secure, turnkey infrastructure built for data sovereignty, keeping mid-size organizations’ data fully in their control while avoiding vendor lock-in Data… Read more: UltiSim announced the launch of Data Fusion Plane

The open-source AI movement has never lacked for options. Mistral, Falcon, and a growing field of open-weight models have been available to developers for years. But when Meta threw its weight behind Llama, something shifted.… Read more: Meta has a competitive AI model but loses its open-source identity

Reports say Fed chair Jerome Powell among attenders at meeting in Washington The US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, summoned major American bank chiefs to a meeting in Washington this week amid concerns over the cyber… Read more: US summoned bank bosses to discuss cyber risks posed by Anthropic’s latest AI model

Every organisation needs guardrails that channel them away from human fallibility and collectively minimise the harm they can do Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app… Read more: AI products are reaching further into our lives. Does it matter who controls the companies behind them? | Van Badham

Self-help hacks such as ‘cooking from scratch’ or ‘meeting your friends’ may seem ridiculous. But there’s something deeply human at the heart of this trend Does life, of late, feel just too easy? Are you… Read more: I baulked at the idea of ‘friction-maxxing’. But there’s more to it than meets the eye | Gaby Hinsliff

Apart from pesky issues with the spacecraft’s toilet and waste disposal system, most of the Artemis II mission has proceeded like clockwork. NASA has made few changes to the flight plan since the launch of… Read more: Orion helium leak no threat to Artemis II reentry, but will require redesign

The ChatGPT-maker testified in favor of an Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable—even in cases where their products cause “critical harm.”

Company claims law regulating AI systems, set to go into effect in June, infringes on its first amendment rights Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, has filed a lawsuit against the state of Colorado over… Read more: Elon Musk’s xAI sues Colorado over new rules for artificial intelligence

As expected, anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has significantly rewritten the charter for a federal vaccine advisory panel. The edits give him more power to appoint his like-minded allies as federal advisors, shift… Read more: RFK Jr. rewrites CDC panel’s charter, opening door to anti-vaccine quacks

The AI company Anthropic released a 244-page “system card” (PDF) this week describing its newest model, Claude Mythos. The model is “our most capable frontier model to date,” the company says, and supposedly is so… Read more: AI on the couch: Anthropic gives Claude 20 hours of psychiatry

Last week, the New York Times published a rapturous profile of a drug marketing company called Medvi, which the paper declared to be the first one-ish man venture on track to surpass one billion dollars… Read more: AI-Powered Drug Marketer Medvi Responds After Allegations About Fake Doctors and Patients

In the 1970s, the late Jane Goodall observed a community of chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania, breaking into two factions; the males in one group ended up killing all the males in the rival group over… Read more: Ugandan chimps split into two factions, then killed rivals

Amid customer dissatisfaction around Broadcom’s VMware takeover, rivals have been trying to lure customers from the leading virtualization firm. One of VMware’s biggest competitors, Nutanix, claims to have swiped tens of thousands of VMware customers.… Read more: “Negative” views of Broadcom driving thousands of VMware migrations, rival says

Almost as soon as researchers started exploring the capabilities of the CRISPR/Cas9 system, they recognized its potential use in targeted gene editing. But the intervening decades have seen slow progress as people worked to determine… Read more: Clinical trial shows gene editing works for β-Thalassaemia, too

Expert said federal law bars officials from taking actions in their jobs that benefit their own financial interests A high-profile US defense department official who oversees the agency’s artificial intelligence efforts made a profit of… Read more: US defense official overseeing AI reaped millions selling xAI stock after Pentagon entered agreement with company

What makes work valuable? Michal Masny, the NC Ethics of Technology Postdoctoral Fellow in the MIT Department of Philosophy, investigates the role work plays in our lives and its impact on our well-being.  Masny sees numerous… Read more: A philosophy of work

On the home stretch of their nine-day mission, the four astronauts flying aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft are just beginning to reflect on their experience of flying beyond the Moon. Their memories of Monday’s encounter with… Read more: The gravity of their experience hasn’t quite set in for the Artemis II astronauts

A federal appeals court refused to halt the Trump administration’s efforts to blacklist Anthropic yesterday, denying the company’s emergency motion for a stay. But the court granted the US-based AI firm’s request to expedite the… Read more: Trump-appointed judges refuse to block Trump blacklisting of Anthropic AI tech

Muse Spark shipped Wednesday. It’s the first model out of Meta Superintelligence Labs, built over nine months under Alexandr Wang after Zuckerberg spent $14.3 billion on a 49% stake in Scale AI and brought Wang… Read more: Meta traded its biggest community asset for a commerce engine

New brand reflects belief that technology can do more than just work, it can elevate anything SoftServe, a digital engineering and technology services company specializing in AI, data, and cloud solutions, today announced the launch… Read more: SoftServe Launches New Brand Identity: ‘Technology Elevated’

Black Forest Labs has long punched above its weight in the AI image generation space. Its next move? Powering physical AI.

🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. Scientists have observed an extremely rare chimpanzee “civil war,” a conflict… Read more: World’s Largest Group of Chimps Waging Deadly ‘Civil War,’ Scientists Discover

Under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been blocked from publishing a scientifically vetted study finding significant health benefits from this season’s COVID-19 vaccines, according… Read more: CDC study shows COVID shot benefits; Trump official blocks release

An Ohio man became the first person convicted under the Take It Down Act after pleading guilty to creating and sharing both real and AI-generated explicit images of at least 10 victims without their consent.… Read more: First man convicted under Take It Down Act kept making AI nudes after arrest

A corporal in the Pennsylvania state police yesterday pleaded guilty to a mind-boggling set of crimes that include going through his co-workers’ underwear, possessing a stolen gun, having child sexual abuse material on his hard… Read more: Police corporal created AI porn from driver’s license pics

Muse Spark was competitive with models from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic in language, but lagged in coding Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Meta on Wednesday… Read more: Meta debuts new AI model in first test of costly ‘superintelligence’ team

Google News has started showing Polymarket bets alongside actual news articles, often appearing as large blocks that contain links to numerous gambling opportunities on the service. The bets often appear in the “For you” section… Read more: Google News Now Prominently Featuring Polymarket Bets Alongside Actual Journalism

Among the requirements of Volkswagen’s Dieselgate settlement with the Department of Justice back in 2016 was to start building electric vehicles locally at the company’s factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee. That was a reality by 2021,… Read more: Volkswagen ends ID.4 production in Tennessee to build Atlas SUV

In February, Oklahoma native Darren Blanchard attended a city council meeting in Claremore with the plan to speak out against a proposed datacenter in the community. When he went a few seconds over his allotted… Read more: Farmer Arrested for Speaking Too Long at Datacenter Town Hall Vows to Fight

GoPro is cutting nearly 23% of its workforce amid declining revenue, signaling a cost-cutting shift… not AI-driven layoffs like others. The post GoPro Is Cutting Nearly a Quarter of Its Workforce (and AI Isn’t the… Read more: GoPro Is Cutting Nearly a Quarter of Its Workforce (and AI Isn’t the Reason)

SiMa.ai, a leader in Physical AI, today announced a strategic investment from Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), strengthening its ability to scale production-ready, high-performance Physical AI solutions for real-world intelligent systems. The investment deepens the companies’… Read more: SiMa.ai Secures Micron Investment to Scale Physical AI

LGI Healthcare Solutions announces the appointment of Luc Gagnon as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), a strategic move that strengthens its ability to support healthcare organizations as they navigate complex technology and transformation challenges. Luc brings… Read more: LGI Healthcare Solutions appoints Luc Gagnon as Chief Technology Officer

At one time, the US electricity grid ran mostly on coal. But coal-fired power plants have steadily been decommissioned. Power producers found the plants were too expensive to operate and carried risks tied to toxic… Read more: Trump’s emergency orders pushing coal power are “illegal” as well as dumb

One of life’s abiding mysteries—at least to this writer—has been Tesla’s enduring success over recent years despite offering so few choices for customers. With the death of the low-volume and antiquated Models S and X… Read more: First, Tesla canceled the Model 2—now it’s working on a new small EV

Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock Not long ago, if you needed a speech polished, a document translated or a logo designed, you would probably have hired a freelancer online. Millions of people did exactly that. They went to platforms… Read more: The more commodified your job, the more likely AI can do it – lessons from online freelancing

AI agents hold the promise of automatically moving data between systems and triggering decisions, but in some cases, they can act without a clear record of what, when, and why they undertook their tasks. That… Read more: Agentic AI’s governance challenges under the EU AI Act in 2026

Scientists are uncovering a surprising connection between autism and ADHD that goes deeper than labels. Instead of diagnoses, it’s the severity of autism-like traits that seems to shape how the brain is wired—even in children… Read more: Brain study reveals hidden link between autism and ADHD

Since the beginning of the Iran war, the group Explosive Media has released over a dozen viral videos mocking Trump and the US.