SoylentNews

hubie writes:Chimps' love for crystals could help us understand our own ancestors' fascination with these stones:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Freeman writes:https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/03/woman-sneezes-out-maggots-after-fly-larvae-get-trapped-in-her-deviated-septum/

hubie writes:Researchers have used brain imaging to show how memories can be reactivated in the brain without them reaching conscious awareness, showing that these memories persist even when we think they have been forgotten:

hubie writes:New UBC research shows apocalyptic thinking is widespread and shapes how people respond to global threats:

fliptop writes:After a costly EV mistake, Porsche is betting on gas engines, hybrids, and eFuels to protect its identity and rebuild profits:

fliptop writes:Starting May 8, every Instagram DM becomes readable by the same company that sells ads against everything else you do on the platform:

owl writes:https://www.righto.com/2019/11/ibm-sonic-delay-lines-and-history-of.html

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Frame-dragging may explain an odd pattern seen in the brightest supernovae:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Musk can't convince judge public doesn't care about where AI training data comes from:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Chinese Loongson 3C6000 CPUs now have heat spreaders with words in Cyrillic?

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:GFiber and Astound to merge with Alphabet selling majority stake to Stonepeak:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:The reliable internet connections provided by Starlink offer a huge advantage on the battlefield. But as access is dependent on the whims of controversial billionaire Elon Musk, militaries are looking to build their own version:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:The Iran war is going to be costly for the tech sector:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/nvidia-is-reportedly-planning-its-own-open-source-openclaw-competitor/

hubie writes:And that is not nearly enough:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Amazon Expands Health AI Access For Virtual Health Carehttps://www.cnet.com/tech/amazon-expands-health-ai-access-for-amazon-users-looking-to-receive-virtual-healthcare/

hubie writes:New study challenges notion that aging means decline, finds many older adults improve over time:

An Anonymous Coward writes:Every month most people receive a bill for water, gas, electricity, internet, or insurance, and in the future, if the CEO of OpenAI has anything to say about it, a monthly bill for AI use.

hubie writes:A new, general theory argues it is not about costly or exaggerated show-offs but about the inherent trade-offs between investments and benefits animals (and humans) face when they signal:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:After 14 years in orbit, NASA's Van Allen Probe A dropped back into the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2119616/americans-diy-solar-panels-avoid-high-electric-bill/

fliptop writes:Troubled SaaS icon Adobe tumbled after hours, sending its stock to 7 year lows after the company announced that CEO Shantanu Narayen will resign from the creative software giant amid deep skepticism about the company's ability to survive and thrive in the AI era:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Most of the devices are made by Asus and are located in the US:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Craig H. Barratt's appointment should settle a governance issue over Intel's Foundry future:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/after-outages-amazon-to-make-senior-engineers-sign-off-on-ai-assisted-changes/

According to Tech Review, a number of different "dashboard" websites have popped up recently, displaying a variety of data sources related to the current war in Iran. They are meant to mimic the sorts of dashboard displays used by governments...but these have been "vibe coded" and don't have traceable sources of data. As well as being entertaining, it seems that these are often tied to gambling on various war-related topics. Story at https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/09/1134063/how-ai-is-turning-the-iran-conflict-into-theater/ or if paywalled, try https://archive.ph/G0zut

owl writes:https://www.thewave.engineer/articles.html/productivity/legos-0002mm-specification-and-its-implications-for-manufacturing-r120/

c0lo writes:(15 Dec 2025) Fortescue Infinity Train gets 14.5 MWh battery that never needs charging [update]

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/ig-nobels-ceremony-moves-to-europe-over-security-concerns/

hubie writes:Two deeply rooted assumptions in global demographic debates are challenged: that fertility will rebound as societies develop, and that "replacement-level fertility" is an ideal to be pursued:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/openais-massive-stargate-data-center-canceled-as-firm-cant-reach-terms-with-oracle-operator-struggles-with-reliability-issues-meta-said-to-be-interested-in-snatching-excess-capacity

hubie writes:When personalized ads get too intrusive, consumers are less likely to buy:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:The US and Iran are trading blows in the Gulf with a simple drone that costs as little as $50,000 to make:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/are-consumers-doomed-to-pay-more-for-electricity-due-to-data-center-buildouts/

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Two of ME-CENTRAL-1's three availability zones went offline after Iran targeted Amazon's cloud infrastructure:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.slashgear.com/2116892/canada-discovery-botswana-rare-earth-minerals-tech-companies-want/

hubie writes:With no enforcement and questionable economics, it may not make a difference:

hubie writes:It's Official: The Cybertruck is More Explosive Than the Ford Pinto:

hubie writes:Ancient clay hidden under Japan caused rupture that triggered devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/norwegian-consumer-watchdog-calls-out-enshittification

hubie writes:The Slow Death of the Power User:

jelizondo writes:A fascinating report in New Scientist tells of common ancestry between Amazonian and Australasian peoples, dating possibly back more than 10,000 years. How could Australasian people crossed the ocean to arrive at the Amazon?

owl writes:https://buttondown.com/suchbadtechads/archive/maxell-life-size-robots/

oaklandwatch writes:It has seemed to me for a long time it might be better if building AGI were a government project," Sam Altman publicly mused last week... Altman speculated on possibility of the government "nationalizing" private AI companies into a public project, admitting more than once he's wondered what would happen next. "I obviously don't know," Altman said - but he added that "I have thought about it, of course" Altman's speculation hedged that "It doesn't seem super likely on the current trajectory. That said, I do think a close partnership between governments and the companies building this technology is super important."Could powerful AI tools one day slip from the hands of private companies to be controlled by the U.S. government? Fortune magazine's AI editor points out that "many other breakthroughs with big strategic implications - from the Manhattan Project to the space race to early efforts to develop AI - were government-funded and largely government-directed." And Fortune added that last week the Defense Department threatened Anthropic with the Defense Production Act, which allows the president to designate "critical and strategic" goods for which businesses must accept the government's contracts. Fortune speculates this would've been "a sort of soft nationalization of Anthropic's production pipeline".Altman acknowledged Saturday that he'd felt the threat of attempted nationalization "behind a lot of the questions" he'd received when answering questions on X.com... How exactly will this AI build-out be handled - and how should AI companies be working with the government? In a sprawling ask-me-anything session on X that included other members of OpenAI leadership, one Missouri-based developer broached an AGI-government scenario with OpenAI's Head of National Security Partnerships, Katherine Mulligan. If OpenAI built an AGI - something that even passed its own Turing test for AGI - would that be a case where its government contracts compelled them to grant access to the DoD?"No," Mulligan answered. At our current moment in time, "We control which models we deploy."Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:FCC rejects protests because Charter and Cox don't compete directly in most places:

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:Built on open-source software, this European cloud office suite aims to keep your data out of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace:

Halibut writes:March and April are the time of year where a decent fraction of the world shifts their clocks forward (or back, in the Southern Hemisphere) for Daylight Saving Time (DST). Every year, it seems to result in debate about whether to abolish DST, and, if so, whether to stick with standard time or daylight time.Soylent News, being a science/fact-oriented site, would likely be interested in a comparison of time zones with Mean Solar Time (MST). There is a map showing the difference between the two in the Wikipedia article on time zones. The person who created that map has some short-yet-interesting articles on creating that map and later discussion about it. The articles are old (timeless?), but largely still relevant, as the time zones, and the existence of DST, are largely unchanged since the articles were written.Interesting how standard time, over most of the landmass of the world, is largely ahead of MST, in some places (e.g. western China) by a lot. DST, where observed, makes that difference worse.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.

AnonTechie writes:

hubie writes:Free beer is great. Securing the keg costs money: