Science
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Meta allowed pornographic ads that break its content moderation rules
Meta owns social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram JRdes / Shutterstock In 2024, Meta allowed more than 3300 pornographic ads – many featuring AI-generated content – on its social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. The findings come from a report by AI Forensics, a European non-profit organisation focused on investigating tech platform algorithms. The researchers also discovered an…
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Forever chemicals: Wastewater treatment plants funnel PFAS into drinking water
A wastewater treatment plant in California Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Wastewater treatment facilities are a major source of PFAS contamination in drinking water in the US – they discharge enough of the “forever chemicals” to raise concentrations above safe levels for an estimated 15 million people or more. They can also release long-lasting prescription drugs into the water supply. Even though…
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IBM will release the largest ever quantum computer in 2025
Multiple copies of IBM’s quantum Flamingo chip can be connected together IBM IBM is planning to build the largest quantum computer so far, by linking together smaller machines to create one with a recording-breaking number of quantum bits, or qubits. The firm’s first steps on this path in 2025 should see it hit a new qubit record, and it eventually…
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Forget aesthetics, the reason to look after our skin should be health
Dr Jeremy Burgess/Science Photo Library Our skin isn’t just our biggest organ, it is also the one we are most familiar with. We look at it constantly, touch it, wash it, inspect it. And yet, when we think about looking after it, our minds often jump to aesthetics. We are inundated with ads for lotions and potions that promise to…
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Plastic chemicals linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide
Plastic food packaging can expose people to chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA) Shutterstock/Trong Nguyen Hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of cases of heart disease worldwide may be linked to chemicals in common plastic products, suggesting that more stringent regulations on such toxins could benefit public health. Maureen Cropper at the University of Maryland and her colleagues assessed…
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The ancient board games we finally know how to play – thanks to AI
In the 1970s, in a grave in a Bronze Age cemetery in Shahr-i Sokhta, Iran, an incredible object was unearthed next to a human skull: the oldest complete board game ever discovered. Around 4500 years old, it consists of a board with 20 circular spaces created from the coils of a carved snake, four dice and 27 geometric pieces. The…
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When, and where, did the covid-19 pandemic really begin?
People carrying out disinfection work at a market in Wuhan, where covid-19 is thought to have originated, in March 2020 An Yuan/China News Service via Getty Images Five years ago, the covid-19 pandemic was getting under way – but we didn’t know it yet. So, what exactly happened? Many scientists are convinced that it began with infected animals at a…
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Older people may have better immunity against bird flu virus
The H5N1 bird flu virus has caused sporadic cases in humans Luca Bruno/Associated Press/Alamy If the H5N1 bird flu virus sparks a pandemic, older people may have better immunity than younger people because of past exposure to closely related viruses. In previous clusters of H5N1 cases, older people were less likely to catch the virus than younger individuals, so scientists…
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We may have solved the mystery of what froze Earth’s inner core
How did Earth’s inner core freeze solid? Rost9/Shutterstock A high concentration of carbon within Earth’s inner core could explain a long-standing mystery about how the deepest part of our planet froze solid – a process that kick-started the magnetic field protecting life on the surface. Earth’s inner core presents a paradox for geophysicists: it first formed as a massive liquid…
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How a single gopher restored a landscape devastated by a volcano
The northern pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides) brings unexpected ecosystem benefits All Canada Photos/Alamy Two years after Mount St Helens erupted in 1980, a team of researchers helicoptered in a gopher to the ash-covered landscape. Decades later, the activity of that single gopher burrowing for a single day may have helped the decimated ecosystem regrow by boosting the diversity of soil…
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