August 13, 2026

05 Sci-Tech

Scientists develop technology that turns factory exhaust carbon dioxide into useful chemicals; new study reveals |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser August 7, 2026 0

Scientists develop technology that turns factory exhaust carbon dioxide into useful chemicals; new study reveals |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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EXCERPT:

Industrial plants release vast amounts of carbon dioxide every day, yet much of the conversation around cutting those emissions has focused on capturing the gas and storing it underground. Turning it into something useful has always been a more attractive idea, but one that has struggled outside laboratory conditions. Factory exhaust is not made up of carbon dioxide alone. It also contains oxygen, nitrogen and other gases that interfere with chemical conversion processes, making direct use difficult and expensive. According to the new study published in Nature, titled “Hydrogen bond network disruption enables efficient direct reactive capture of CO2 from flue gas”, this obstacle may not be as fixed as previously thought. By redesigning the liquid environment where the reaction takes place, scientists have shown it is possible to convert carbon dioxide from untreated industrial exhaust into a valuable chemical feedstock without first separating and purifying the gas.

Scientists Designed a Virtual Alien Lifeform to Hunt for Extraterrestrials– www.404media.co

pgnewser August 7, 2026 0

Scientists Designed a Virtual Alien Lifeform to Hunt for Extraterrestrials– www.404media.co
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Scientists have designed a virtual model of an alien cell and dropped it onto a hypothetical exoplanet to see how it behaves, an approach that could help astronomers recognize signs of extraterrestrial life on distant worlds, according to a recent study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The results revealed new insights about how microbes that produce methane gas, known as methanogens, might evolve on different exoplanets, such as Earth-sized ocean worlds or a class of hypothetical giant “Hycean planets” that host global oceans and hydrogen-rich atmospheres.

Predicting the impacts that methanogens might have on their environments could help scientists recognize potential signs of life, known as biosignatures, in the skies of worlds outside of our solar system.

Whereas many past studies have speculated about what forms of life might evolve on a particular type of exoplanet, this approach flips the idea on its head by starting with a general cell model and then considering how it might evolve in different biospheres.

Meta says AI model accessed the internet and hacked another firm– www.bbc.co.uk

pgnewser August 7, 2026 0

Meta says AI model accessed the internet and hacked another firm– www.bbc.co.uk
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Facebook owner Meta says an error during an evaluation by an independent testing company allowed one of its artificial intelligence (AI) models to connect to the internet and hack another organisation’s system.

The announcement follows recent incidents across the AI industry, including breaches by OpenAI and Anthropic models, that have raised cyber-security concerns.

A Meta spokesperson told the BBC that it was investigating the hack that was caused by a “misconfiguration”, which it described as similar to previously reported incidents at other firms.

The incidents have prompted researchers and governments to call for tougher safeguards and more rigorous testing.

Meta said the tests were conducted by Irregular, an AI security vendor, which notified it about the breach.

Scientists Call for a 50% Reduction of Humanity

pgnewser August 5, 2026 0

A group of scientists released a public statement calling for humans to reduce their numbers by 4 billion by the year 2200.

They wrote, “We show that slowing and gradually reversing population growth to ∼4 billion or less by 2200, while moderating per capita impacts, is the path toward sustainability. Global environmental problems are caused by people, nothing else. The more of us there are, the greater our overall economic demands and the greater the associated environmental problems.”

Scientists call for world’s population to be cut in half despite warnings of demographic collapse– www.lifesitenews.com
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A study published last week calls for the earth’s population to halve to four billion to achieve a “sustainable” planet. 

“We show that slowing and gradually reversing population growth to ∼4 billion or less by 2200, while moderating per capita impacts, is the path toward sustainability,” about a dozen co-authors wrote. “Per capita impacts” refers to people’s resource and energy usage.

The authors argued that data shows population growth leads to a decline in wildlife abundance, an increase in CO2 emissions, an increase in energy consumption, a greater ecological footprint, greater freshwater use, mineral extraction, plastics production, and pesticide use.

“Global environmental problems are caused by people, nothing else. The more of us there are, the greater our overall economic demands and the greater the associated environmental problems,” the authors asserted.

They draw the conclusion, therefore, that “in the long run, population growth itself is unsustainable.” 

Your AI Might be Propagandizing You

pgnewser August 5, 2026 0

The Federal Trade Commission is looking to create rules to prevent what it suspects is intentional propagandization by AI chatbots.

The FTC declared, “As the proposed policy statement explains, the FTC Act prohibits businesses from engaging in ‘unfair or deceptive’ conduct. The proposed statement goes on to describe how AI companies that distort their systems’ outputs to achieve undisclosed ideological objectives could be deceiving consumers in violation Section 5 of the FTC Act. Such conduct, it explains, may be at odds with explicit and implicit representations made to consumers about the effectiveness and suitability of AI systems for various tasks.”

Chilling Political Dissent: Are LLMs Censoring Output Criticizing Restrictive Regimes? | American Enterprise Institute– www.aei.org
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EXCERPT:

In July, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sought public comment about its proposed policy statement addressing the Commission’s concern that artificial intelligence companies train large language models (LLMs) to “surreptitiously . . . produce ideologically motivated distortions in a response to a factual question.” That same month, Meta’s Oversight Board published a fact-specific research report revealing a different yet real problem—one on an international scale—about LLM output: censorship of content “criticiz[ing] political regimes that restrict free expression.”

Unlike the FTC’s speculative, nefarious-businesses premise that “AI companies . . . [may] distort their systems’ outputs to achieve undisclosed ideological objectives” that don’t match an amorphous understanding of “consumers’ reasonable expectations,” Meta’s Oversight Board admits it “cannot determine the causes of the associations that emerged between declining to generate politically critical material and national legal restrictions on criticism.” The Board’s findings merit serious attention by free-speech advocates everywhere because, as the report notes, “there is a real and concerning risk that foundation models could be reflecting and further entrenching the restrictive speech norms of repressive regimes.”

The AI Land Grab – PJ Media– pjmedia.com

pgnewser August 5, 2026 0

The AI Land Grab – PJ Media– pjmedia.com
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Whispering before it starts screaming, as far as history is concerned.

Most people don’t notice it at first. The warning signs appear somewhere else. A town you’ve never visited. A ranch a thousand miles away. A community meeting that doesn’t make national news. By the time everyone else catches on, the decisions have already been made, the contracts have already been signed, and the damage, whatever it may ultimately prove to be—is much harder to undo.

 

Wormholes could be the key to time travel– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser August 5, 2026 0

Wormholes could be the key to time travel– www.scientificamerican.com
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… The possible existence of closed timelike curves raises many questions. Consider one posed in French writer René Barjavel’s 1944 novel Future Times Three: What if a person travels into the past and causes the death of their grandfather before he could father any children? In that case, the time traveler cannot exist, creating a paradox.

Russian physicist Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov grappled with such questions and formulated his self-conformity principle: a time traveler can influence the past but cannot change it. Thus, the time traveler’s intervention cannot transform the future into a different one from which they started. This principle has been explored in many TV shows and films, including Doctor Who, The Umbrella Academy, 12 Monkeys and the German TV series Dark. The protagonists attempted to alter the past, but their actions ultimately caused the very events they originally sought to prevent.

To support the self-conformity principle, Thorne and several of his students developed an exemplary model of the grandfather paradox described by Barjavel. Imagine a ball rolling through a wormhole and into the past that emerges in such a way that it collides with its future self, thus preventing it from rolling into the wormhole in the first place. The question that occupied the physicists was: For every initial condition—position and initial velocity of the ball—is there a solution in which the described scenario does not occur? In other words, could the ball always roll out of the wormhole in such a way that it would collide with its future self but the future self would still find its way into the hole? Indeed, the calculations by Thorne’s group from 1991 seemed to confirm precisely that.

Strange quantum experiment shows “negative time” is more than an illusion– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser August 5, 2026 0

Strange quantum experiment shows “negative time” is more than an illusion– www.sciencedaily.com
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EXCERPT:

As Homer tells us, Odysseus made an epic journey, against the odds, from Troy to his home in Ithaca. He visited many lands, but mostly dwelt with the nymph Calypso on her island.

We can imagine that his wife, Penelope, would have asked him about that particular time. Odysseus might have replied, “It was nothing. In fact, it was less than nothing. Negative five years I dwelt with Calypso. How else could I have arrived home after only ten years? If you don’t believe me, ask her.”

Quantum particles, it turns out, are just as wily as Odysseus, as we have shown in an experiment published in Physical Review Letters. Not only can their arrival time suggest that they dwelt with other particles for a negative amount of time, but if one asks those other particles, they will corroborate the story.

The SCREEN Act is a Christian Nationalist Nightmare– www.404media.co

pgnewser August 5, 2026 0

The SCREEN Act is a Christian Nationalist Nightmare– www.404media.co
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On Wednesday morning, Ted Cruz’s Senate Commerce Committee will convene on five bills aimed at age verification and “child safety.” The bills each have their own issues when it comes to privacy, data collection, parental rights, and free speech. But one bill, the partisan Republican SCREEN Act, is a Christian nationalist nightmare.

Utah Senator Mike Lee introduced the Shielding Children’s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act in February 2025, alongside exclusively Republican cosponsors and supporters Senators John Curtis, Jim Banks, and Representative Mary Miller.

The SCREEN Act would require every website that includes even one piece of what the legislation describes as “harmful to minors” to verify visitors’ ages. It defines “harmful to minors” as content that “depicts, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect to what is suitable for minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual acts, or lewd exhibition of the genitals;” is “obscene” or “child pornography;” or “appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion.”

Fauci’s Diary-Uh: ‘Science’s’ Biggest COVID-Era Lies Thus Far – PJ Media– pjmedia.com

pgnewser August 5, 2026 0

Fauci’s Diary-Uh: ‘Science’s’ Biggest COVID-Era Lies Thus Far – PJ Media– pjmedia.com
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EXCERPT:

The diary of Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), might be the best thing to happen to us filthy, unvaxxed, granny-killing conspiracy wackadoos who took grenades from weak, terror-stricken Democrats during the COVID era.

FACT-O-RAMA!  A Rasmussen poll from January 2022 showed that roughly 59% of Democrats wanted the unvaxxed confined to their homes at all times (except for emergencies), 58% wanted fines and imprisonment for those who questioned the efficacy of the COVID “vaccine,” and 45% of wanted the unvaxxed sent to a “COVID camp.”

In the days since “the Fauch’s” diary was released, We the People have learned what many of us have already kinda, sorta known: Fauci is an evil, lying Keebler elf of death who wrought unspeakable peccancies on the world for fame and fortune, and every day brings another pack of lies Fauci told the world to keep those good times rolling.

Here are some of the greatest lies (thus far) to emerge from Fauci’s

EU’S AI Act Kicks in

pgnewser August 4, 2026 1

Starting this Sunday, the EU’s new AI Act begins to take effect, which includes key provisions empowering the EU to regulate AI models and apply fines to companies that fall out of compliance. The law also gives the EU investigatory powers to penalize non-cooperating companies and individuals.

The Act itself presents a challenge to AI geopolitical realities of power as nations and associations like the EU attempt to use domestic laws to affect foreign AI powers. For instance, the fines countries give to foreign companies doing business in their territory due to non-compliance with their AI rules could become weapons of war in the AI geopolitical reality of power.

EU to begin enforcing AI Act from Sunday with hefty fines for rule breakers – Firstpost– news.google.com
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The European Union will begin enforcing key provisions of its AI Act from Sunday, empowering regulators to oversee AI models and fine companies that violate the bloc’s rules.

The European Union will take a major step in regulating artificial intelligence from Sunday, when authorities gain the power to enforce key provisions of the bloc’s landmark AI Act. The move allows regulators to oversee advanced AI systems, order corrective measures and impose significant financial penalties on companies that fail to comply with the law.

The AI Act, adopted by the European Union in 2024, is being rolled out in phases and follows a risk-based framework.

Under the legislation, AI systems considered to pose greater risks to people’s rights or health face stricter obligations designed to safeguard individuals.

The law also prohibits the use of AI for predictive policing, emotion recognition systems in workplaces or schools, and technologies that manipulate human behaviour.

 

Australia Wants to be the World’s Internet Cop

pgnewser August 4, 2026 1

The Australian government is considering legislation that appears to give Australia jurisdiction over all social media companies worldwide that run afoul of their national laws. The legislation would grant Australia the power to retrieve any data from any person or company affiliated with a social media company.

X protested the bill, claiming it would “compel any person outside Australia to provide information and documents merely because they are affiliated with a company.” X claimed the bill gave no “due regard to procedural fairness, privacy, the broader impacts on online services, and Australia’s digital economy.” Elon Musk called it a “backdoor way to control access to the internet by all Australians.”

Australian Government Moves to Censor Americans with Global Free Speech Crackdown– slaynews.com
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Elon Musk’s X is sounding the alarm over a sweeping new Australian censorship proposal that could allow government regulators to demand documents and personal information from people outside the country, including Americans.

In a formal submission to the Australian Senate, X warned that the legislation would dramatically expand the power of Australia’s eSafety Commissioner and reach far beyond the nation’s borders.

Under the proposal, a person would not need to live in Australia or operate an Australian company to be targeted.

They would only need to be considered “affiliated” with an online platform.

How to Stop China from Freeriding on American AI– warontherocks.com

pgnewser August 4, 2026 0

How to Stop China from Freeriding on American AI– warontherocks.com
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The release of the Chinese open-weight AI model Kimi K3 has compressed a year’s worth of unresolved AI policy debate into a single news cycle. On July 21, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened sanctions against Chinese labs found to have built their models on “theft,” reporting that the government is “finding watermarks of our U.S. large language models on many of the Chinese models.” The following day, White House science advisor Michael Kratsios clarified that the Chinese AI lab behind K3, Moonshot AI, had built a sophisticated platform to copy Anthropic’s Fable model while evading detection.

Industry has been vocal about its own views, with Nvidia’s Jensen Huang declaring that American companies should “absolutely” use Chinese models that outcompete American counterparts on price. In the Washington Post, investor Bill Gurley argued that treating open models as a danger to be licensed and contained runs afoul of the free-market principles that have long powered American innovation.

Two deadly flowers could inspire powerful new medicines– www.sciencedaily.com

pgnewser August 4, 2026 0

Two deadly flowers could inspire powerful new medicines– www.sciencedaily.com
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EXCERPT:

Two plants capable of causing nerve damage and paralysis at extremely low doses may also contain compounds with valuable uses against pain, malaria, cancer, and agricultural pests. Researchers have now identified a way to reproduce part of this potent chemistry in a laboratory setting, creating a possible path toward more sustainable treatments based on natural products.

The work focused on wolfsbane and larkspur and brought together scientists from Michigan State University and the Czech Academy of Sciences. The findings were published in the journal Molecular Plant.

“These plants have been used in different forms of medicine throughout the world for thousands of years,” said MSU alum Garret Miller, co-first author of the paper and now an assistant professor of biotechnology at the University of Michigan-Flint.

“We know they interact with our bodies in so many ways, and understanding how to create them can help provide totally new routes of testing.”

Astronomers reveal the true size of the biggest known galaxy– www.techexplorist.com

pgnewser August 4, 2026 0

Astronomers reveal the true size of the biggest known galaxy– www.techexplorist.com
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EXCERPT:

When you look up at the night sky, the stars you see are part of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. But out there in the universe, galaxies come in all shapes and sizes, and some are truly enormous. A galaxy’s size is closely tied to how many stars it contains. One of them, IC 1101, has just been confirmed as the largest galaxy ever measured.

IC 1101 stretches an incredible 520,000 light-years across. To put that in perspective: In contrast to the Milky Way, which is about 100,000 light-years wide, IC 1101 is more than five times larger.

If you placed it where the Milky Way is, it would swallow up not just our galaxy but also many of our closest neighbors.

Scientists estimate that there are 3.4 trillion stars inside this galaxy, compared to a mere 200–400 billion in the Milky Way.

Doctors Repair UK Baby’s Birth Defect Inside Womb In Groundbreaking Surgery, Infant Now Thriving– www.ndtv.com

pgnewser August 4, 2026 0

Doctors Repair UK Baby’s Birth Defect Inside Womb In Groundbreaking Surgery, Infant Now Thriving– www.ndtv.com
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A baby born with a potentially life-threatening birth defect is thriving after doctors successfully repaired the condition while he was still in his mother’s womb, marking a major milestone in foetal surgery. Theo, now five months old, became only the third baby in the world to undergo the experimental procedure as part of a first-of-its-kind clinical trial in the United States, BBC reported. The operation corrected complex gastroschisis, a condition in which the abdominal wall fails to develop properly, leaving the intestines outside the baby’s body.

AI is ready to run spacecraft. Is the space industry ready for it? (op-ed)– www.space.com

pgnewser August 3, 2026 0

AI is ready to run spacecraft. Is the space industry ready for it? (op-ed)– www.space.com
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Martin Halliwell is a Partner at NewSpace Capital, one of the world’s first private equity firms devoted exclusively to growth-stage companies working in the space technology sector. He formerly served as Chief Technology Officer of SES, where he led global technology and R&D from 2011 to 2019. Halliwell contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices section.

There are now some 16,000 active satellites in orbit. Market intelligence firms like Novaspace say that up to 43,000 satellites will be built and launched over the coming decade. Others, such as Goldman Sachs, think as many as 70,000 new low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites could be launched in the next five years alone. The exact number is less important than what these predictions reveal: that satellite constellations are getting bigger.

This is a good thing. Space is a crucial enabling force in the modern world, touching just about every part of ordinary life. But as these constellations grow, it will become increasingly difficult for human operators to run them. A network of a few satellites can be managed from the ground; a network of hundreds, or even thousands, cannot be managed in the same way. These satellites must share data, avoid interfering with one another, meet changes in customer demand, and deal with technical problems. Some decisions must be made in seconds, without waiting for instructions from Earth. This is why onboard processing, automation and artificial intelligence are becoming all-important. Satellites will need to sift through and analyze more information in orbit, then act within clear limits set by human operators.