All your AI Paint tools under one roof.Windows Insiders will soon see a Copilot icon in one more place: Paint. Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels will see the new button thanks to an update rolling out now, putting AI tools in one location. Clicking the Copilot button in the task bar will reveal a dropdown menu with generative features like Cocreator, Image Creator, and Generative Erase. Microsoft has been on a mission to put a Copilot icon everywhere it can from your keyboard to the taskbar and Paint is just the latest place for it to pop up.Microsoft has been adding AI image generation tools to Paint throughout the past year and change, bringing in the DALL-E-based Cocreator in late 2023 and generative fill options last fall. Theyre all going in one place now, so if youre looking to create some AI-generated clip art, youll just look for the Copilot logo. Honestly, a Copilot shortcut probably makes more sense in Paint than it does in Bing, anyway.With todays update, Windows 11 Insiders are also getting an update to the AI search opened up in preview earlier this month. Now, the improved search will allow you to find photos in the cloud with natural language; previously, AI search was limited to local files. When you perform a search, youll see the cloud files show up alongside the local images. This update is rolling out to Windows 11 Insiders in the Dev and Beta channels.

The Sandman. Tom Sturridge as Dream in episode 101 of The Sandman. | Image: Liam Daniel/Netflix 2022<br>Though Netflix is planning to bring back a number of its ongoing series in the coming months, the streamer has decided to cancel its adaptation of Neil Gaimans The Sandman.Netflix announced today that The Sandman will conclude with its upcoming second season. In a statement about the show coming to an end, Sandman showrunner Allan Heinberg said that the series has always been focused exclusively on Dreams story, and back in 2022, when we looked at the remaining Dream material from the comics, we knew we only had enough story for one more season.As Variety notes, Netflix took its time before renewing The Sandman after its first season and did not announce a specific number of episodes it ordered. Netflix also made a point of referring to the renewal as a continuation of The Sandman world, which at the time included the Dead Boy Detectives adaptation that was canceled last August after a single season. That all makes Heinbergs statement sound plausible, but the timing of Netflixs move to cancel The Sandman links it to the multiple allegations of sexual assault that Gaiman is currently facing. In response to the allegations, Gaiman wrote in a blog post earlier this month, Im far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever.Amazon made a similar decision last year when it first halted production on the third season of its Good Omens (a Guiman novel co-written with Terry Pratchett) adaptation following earlier reporting about Gaimans actions, and ultimately decided to rework it into one 90-minute-long finale episode. Disney also decided to axe its plans to adapt Gaimans The Graveyard Book. More recently, Dark Horse Comics announced that it was dropping its series based on Gaimans Anansi Boys. Amazons adaptation of Anansi Boys has been in development for ages and was intended to debut later this year, but it wouldnt be surprising if those plans changed as well.

Developing compact yet high-performing language models remains a significant challenge in artificial intelligence. Large-scale models often require extensive computational resources, making them inaccessible for many users and organizations with limited hardware capabilities. Additionally, there is a growing demand for methods that can handle diverse tasks, support multilingual communication, and provide accurate responses efficiently without sacrificing quality. Balancing performance, scalability, and accessibility is crucial, particularly for enabling local deployments and ensuring data privacy. This highlights the need for innovative approaches to create smaller, resource-efficient models that deliver capabilities comparable to their larger counterparts while remaining versatile and cost-effective.Recent advancements in natural language processing have focused on developing large-scale models, such as GPT-4, Llama 3, and Qwen 2.5, which demonstrate exceptional performance across diverse tasks but demand substantial computational resources. Efforts to create smaller, more efficient models include instruction-fine-tuned systems and quantization techniques, enabling local deployment while maintaining competitive performance. Multilingual models like Gemma-2 have advanced language understanding in various domains, while innovations in function calling and extended context windows have improved task-specific adaptability. Despite these strides, achieving a balance between performance, efficiency, and accessibility remains critical in developing smaller, high-quality language models.Mistral AI Releases the Small 3 (Mistral-Small-24B-Instruct-2501) model. It is a compact yet powerful language model designed to provide state-of-the-art performance with only 24 billion parameters. Fine-tuned on diverse instruction-based tasks, it achieves advanced reasoning, multilingual capabilities, and seamless application integration. Unlike larger models, Mistral-Small is optimized for efficient local deployment, supporting devices like RTX 4090 GPUs or laptops with 32GB RAM through quantization. With a 32k context window, it excels in handling extensive input while maintaining high responsiveness. The model also incorporates features such as JSON-based output and native function calling, making it highly versatile for conversational and task-specific implementations.To support both commercial and non-commercial applications, the method is open-sourced under the Apache 2.0 license, ensuring flexibility for developers. Its advanced architecture enables low latency and fast inference, catering to enterprises and hobbyists alike. The Mistral-Small model also emphasizes accessibility without compromising quality, bridging the gap between large-scale performance and resource-efficient deployment. By addressing key challenges in scalability and efficiency, it sets a benchmark for compact models, rivaling the performance of larger systems like Llama 3.3-70B and GPT-4o-mini while being significantly easier to integrate into cost-effective setups.The Mistral-Small-24B-Instruct-2501 model demonstrates impressive performance across multiple benchmarks, rivaling or exceeding larger models like Llama 3.3-70B and GPT-4o-mini in specific tasks. It achieves high accuracy in reasoning, multilingual processing, and coding benchmarks, such as 84.8% on HumanEval and 70.6% on math tasks. With a 32k context window, the model effectively handles extensive input, ensuring robust instruction-following capabilities. Evaluations highlight its exceptional performance in instruction adherence, conversational reasoning, and multilingual understanding, achieving competitive scores on public and proprietary datasets. These results underline its efficiency, making it a viable alternative to larger models for diverse applications.https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-small-3/In conclusion, The Mistral-Small-24B-Instruct-2501 sets a new standard for efficiency and performance in smaller-scale large language models. With 24 billion parameters, it delivers state-of-the-art results in reasoning, multilingual understanding, and coding tasks comparable to larger models while maintaining resource efficiency. Its 32k context window, fine-tuned instruction-following capabilities, and compatibility with local deployment make it ideal for diverse applications, from conversational agents to domain-specific tasks. The models open-source nature under the Apache 2.0 license further enhances its accessibility and adaptability. Mistral-Small-24B-Instruct-2501 exemplifies a significant step toward creating powerful, compact, and versatile AI solutions for community and enterprise use.Check out mistralai/Mistral-Small-24B-Base-2501. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our70k+ ML SubReddit.(Promoted) Sana HassanSana Hassan, a consulting intern at Marktechpost and dual-degree student at IIT Madras, is passionate about applying technology and AI to address real-world challenges. With a keen interest in solving practical problems, he brings a fresh perspective to the intersection of AI and real-life solutions.Sana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/Agentic AI: The Foundations Based on Perception Layer, Knowledge Representation and Memory SystemsSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/Open Thoughts: An Open Source Initiative Advancing AI Reasoning with High-Quality Datasets and Models Like OpenThoughts-114k and OpenThinker-7BSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/YuE: An Open-Source Music Generation AI Model Family Capable of Creating Full-Length Songs with Coherent Vocals, Instrumental Harmony, and Multi-Genre CreativitySana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/TensorLLM: Enhancing Reasoning and Efficiency in Large Language Models through Multi-Head Attention Compression and Tensorisation [Recommended] Join Our Telegram Channel

Nothing to see here.Forbidden TreasureIt looks like Elon Musk and his buddies have forced another US official out of government.The that senior Department of the Treasury official David Lebryk abruptly announced his retirement on Friday, after clashing with Musk's allies at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.Lebryk has worked at the agency for decades. Since the election, according to the report, DOGE has hounded him for access to the Treasury's sensitive payment system, which is used to send out trillions of dollars every year and is normally accessed only by a small number of senior officials.Why Lebryk clashed over the requests is unclear. But maybe he just didn't like the idea of handing over the keys for a trillion-dollar money pipeline to Musk a walking conflict of interest and his retinue of sketchy and underqualified DOGE lackeys.Feds Will RollMusk fueled Trump's election victory by promising to gut federal agencies and drastically slash government spending. In the process, he's made no secret of his intentions to punish his political foes.On the day of Trump's inauguration, the chief of the Federal Aviation Administration, Mike Whitaker, resigned. Musk had openly called for Whitaker's resignation for months, because under his leadership, the FAA temporarily halted Musk's rocket launches at his company SpaceX on several occasions over safety concerns, slapping on fines.Considering those interventions were usually in response to a rocket exploding somewhere, you could say that the FAA was simply doing its job rather than trying to sabotage SpaceX, whose Starship rockets seem to have no problem blowing up on their own without any malicious influence.But maybe Musk isn't interested in the proper functioning of government not when pesky regulators get in the way of his company's progress.Up to No GoodLebryk's departure is expected to be a shock to the Treasury's rank and file, according to WaPo.It's hard to say what Musk and DOGE's intentions are with accessing the Treasury's payment system, which is used to distribute everything from Social Security and Medicare benefits to the salaries of federal employees. A detail we hope won't prove relevant is that Musk got his start in developing a payment system, PayPal, and has strived to integrate a money transferring service into his social media site X, in a bid to turn it into an "everything app."What's seems clear, however, is that the intentions are cynical."Your whole job is to pay the bills as they're due," Mark Mazur, a former Treasury official who served during the Obama and Biden administrations, told WaPo. "It's never been used in a way to execute a partisan agenda... You have to really put bad intentions in place for that to be the case."Share This Article

We are an early stage startup and looking for someone to be in charge of growth, community, and everything else non-technical. You will be the first and (for the immediate future) only non-technical person on the team. You will be in charge of everything related to growth and community, including social media, SEO, ads, content, and more.The ideal candidate is semi-technical (eg. maybe you've written a few Python scripts before), but most importantly, the candidate is able to plan execute a growth strategy.We are an early stage startup with proven demand and early revenue. We offer competitive compensation for the right candidate, especially on the equity side. We think conventional startup options/RSUs are BS, and our equity compensation instead is through a crypto token. More on that when we chat :). Related Jobs See more Sales and Marketing jobs

Self-driving cars are slowly becoming less dystopian and more real world as companies likeWaymo, the driverless arm of Google parent Alphabet, expand into more cities.Waymo currently operates fully autonomous rides for the general public in the San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles areas via itsWaymo One app. But in 2025, the company plans to add more locations to its roster, eventually opening up to riders in places like Atlanta and Miami. Waymo will also be testing with manually driven vehicles in 10 new cities this year, starting with Las Vegas and San Diego, according to The Verge. (Waymo didn't respond to CNET's request for comment on that update.)The autonomous rides take place aboard the all-electricJaguar I-Pace, but in October, Waymo announced it'spartnering with Hyundai to bring the next generation of its technology into Ioniq 5 SUVs. In the years to come, riders will be able to summon those all-electric vehicles -- without a driver behind the wheel -- also using the Waymo One app.The self-driving-tech company is no stranger to large-scale partnerships. In 2024, it said it wasteaming upwith Uber to bring its robotaxi service to Atlanta and Austin via the Uber app. Starting in 2025, Uber will manage and dispatch Waymo's fleet of fully autonomous vehicles, so you can choose a ride without a driver when embarking on your journey.Waymo says it provides more than 150,000 trips each week. I've hailed several rides myself in San Francisco, and as off-putting as it can seem at first (especially to see a steering wheel turn by itself), I quickly adjusted and it soon felt like an ordinary ride.That's not to say there hasn't been pushback as Waymo rolls out to more cities. The company's vehicles have been involved in a handful of high-profile collisions, includingone with a bikerin San Francisco, and another with a towed pickup truck in Phoenix. (Itrecalled and updated its softwareto address the issue.) In response to concerns, Waymo says that across 14.8 million miles, its autonomous Waymo Driver technology "was up to 3.5x better in avoiding crashes that cause injuries and 2x better in avoiding police-reported crashes than human drivers in SF and Phoenix." It also released adata hublast year, detailing efforts to improve road safety using its technology.As Waymo continues to expand and develop its self-driving tech, here's a guide to how and where to summon the robotaxi, if you happen to be in one of the few cities where the company currently operates its fleet. Watch this: Testing Waymo's Safe Exit Feature in a Self-Driving Taxi 05:29 Hailing a ride in PhoenixPhoenix was the first city to open up fully autonomous Waymo rides to the public, in 2020. To hail a ride, download theWaymo One app oniOSorAndroid-- no waiting list needed. The service operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.As a teaser for what's to come in Austin and Atlanta, you can also use the Uber app to summon one of Waymo's vehicles in Phoenix. When you request an UberX, Uber Green, Uber Comfort or Uber Comfort Electric ride, you'll have the choice to confirm a Waymo ride, if you're matched.In addition to hailing a ride, you may also have your Uber Eats meal delivered by an autonomous car. When placing an order in the Phoenix area, you might get a note that "autonomous vehicles may deliver your order." When the Waymo car arrives, take your phone with you to pop open the trunk and grab your delivery. You can opt out of this during checkout if you'd rather have a human deliver your food.Hailing a ride in San FranciscoSan Francisco followed suit after Phoenix, rolling outfully autonomous rides in late 2022. It scrapped the waiting list in June, so now anyone can simply download the Waymo One app to ride anytime. The service also operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There's currently no Uber partnership in San Francisco.In August, Waymo expanded its ride-hailing service into the San Francisco Peninsula, adding 10 square miles and venturing into Daly City, Broadmoor and Colma. It now operates across 55 square miles of the Bay Area.Hailing a ride in Los AngelesIn November, Waymo scrapped its waitlist for Los Angeles and began welcoming all public riders via the Waymo One app. Now any interested passengers can hop in the robotaxis 24/7 and ride across nearly80 square milesof LA county, including Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Downtown LA -- with plans to expand into more areas soon.Coming soon: Austin and AtlantaAfter more than a year of testing in Austin, Waymo opened up rides for people on its interest list there in early October. The company says it'll welcome a "limited number of early riders" via theWaymo Oneapp, before eventually transitioning to the Uber app."Riders will travel across 37 square miles of the city, as we prepare for our commercial launch early next year exclusively on the Uber app," Waymoposted on Xin October.That Uber partnership should make autonomous rides more accessible to more people. In a statement in September, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said, "Waymo's mission is to be the world's most trusted driver, and we're excited to launch this expanded network and operations partnership with Uber in Austin and Atlanta to bring the benefits of fully autonomous driving to more riders."As part of the Uber partnership, Uber will manage tasks like vehicle cleaning and repair, while "Waymo will continue to be responsible for the testing and operation of the Waymo Driver, including roadside assistance and certain rider support functions," the companies said.In Atlanta, public riders can catch a driverless ride via the Uber app starting in early 2025.Members of the public in both Austin and Atlanta can join aninterest listand be notified when it's time to ride.The road ahead: Miami and future vehiclesMiami is also next on Waymo's list, but you'll have to wait until 2026 to ride there via the Waymo One app, the company says. It's been conducting weather testing in the lead-up to this rollout, noting in a blog post, "Our previous road trips to the Sunshine State's challenging rainy conditions have been invaluable in advancing our autonomous driving capabilities."Waymo will collaborate with Moove, a fintech company that offers vehicle financing, first in Phoenix, where Moove will manage the robotaxi's fleet operations, facilities and charging infrastructure. In both Phoenix and then Miami, "Waymo will continue to offer our service through the Waymo One app, and remain responsible for validation and operation of the Waymo Driver," the company said in ablog post.In August, Waymo unveiled thesixth generation of its self-driving technology, which aims to expand the capabilities of its driverless fleet. Smarter sensors are meant to help the cars better navigate in extreme weather, Waymo said. The sixth-gen Driver will come aboard the all-electric Zeekr vehicle, which features a flat floor, more head- and legroom, adjustable seats and a removable steering wheel and pedals. The updated tech is still being tested, and the company says it'll be available to riders soon.In October, Waymo also announced a partnership with Hyundai to integrate its sixth-generation Driver into the all-electric Ioniq 5 SUV, which, according to a blog post, "will be added to the Waymo One fleet over time." The companies added that they "plan to produce a fleet of Ioniq 5s equipped with Waymo's technology in significant volume over multiple years to support Waymo One's growing scale." Testing with these vehicles will start by late 2025 and become available "in the years to follow."Currently, everyday riders can't take a Waymo vehicle on highways and freeways, but that may soon change. The company is testing fully autonomous rides onfreeways in Phoenix, as seen in an exclusive video shared with CNET in May.Waymo is working to expand its autonomous driving tech into trucking as well, but it said last year that it's scaling back those efforts for the time being, to focus on ride-hailing with Waymo One. It noted, "Our ongoing investment in advancing Waymo Driver capabilities, especially on freeways, will directly translate to trucking and benefit its development efforts."

Image: The Pokmon CompanyAs you might have seen earlier this week, the new trading feature went live in Pokmon Trading Card Game Pocket on mobile devices and a lot of trainers are particularly happy.The developers have now released an official notice, responding to the players - mentioning how it appreciates feedback and is "actively investigating ways to improve" the trading feature while explaining how certain restrictions were implemented to deal with bots and "other prohibited actions".The plan "going forward" is to offer multiple ways to obtain trade tokens. Here's the message in full:Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube795kWatch on YouTube Trading Feature Update: Since releasing the first iteration of the trading feature a few days ago, we have received a large number of comments. Thank you all for sharing your feedback.The item requirements and restrictions implemented for the trading feature were designed to prevent abuse from bots and other prohibited actions using multiple accounts. Our goal was to balance the game while maintaining a fair environment for all players and preserving the fun of collecting cards that is core to the Pokmon TCG Pocket experience.However, thanks to your feedback, we understand that some of the restrictions put in place are preventing players from being able to casually enjoy the feature as intended. We are actively investigating ways to improve the feature to address these concerns. Going forward, we also plan to offer multiple ways to obtain trade tokens including through event distributions.As always, thank you for being part of the Pokmon TCG Pocket community.You can get the full rundown about this latest feature and how it works in the story we published earlier this week: Traders of the Lost CardHow are you finding trading so far? Let us know in the comments.Related GamesSee AlsoShare:00 Liam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related ArticlesPokmon TCG Pocket: Dialga EX Deck GuideChoo Choo! All aboard the Dialga train.PSA: Trading Is Finally Live In Pokmon TCG Pocket, But It's A Real HeadacheTraders of the Lost CardPokmon TCG Pocket: Darkrai EX Deck GuideEdgelords and former emo kids rejoice!PSA: Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete Launch Discount Ends SoonGet 50% off while you still can

People working for, or with, Elon Musk are reportedly taking over the inner workings of multiple government agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, the Treasury Department, and the General Services Administration.The Washington Post reported Friday that the highest-ranking career official at Treasury is leaving the department after a clash with people working for Musks so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) over access to sensitive payment systems, citing three unnamed sources. The DOGE officials have been asking for access to the system which controls the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to programs like Social Security and Medicare since after the election in November. The Trump administration has been looking for ways to stop the flow of federal money appropriated by Congress, including hastily ordering a confusing spending freeze, which experts say violates the Constitution.Reuters also reported Friday that Musk aides have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees, citing two unnamed agency officials. Leaked documents obtained by Wired show Musks staff have taken over the General Services Administration, a government agency that manages federal offices and technology.Across the government, tech workers are being grilled and subjected to code reviews by Musk aides, Wired reported Thursday. Musk and his team also appear to have been involved in a recent government-wide email offering employees the chance to resign.Musks disruption of the federal government so far tracks closely to the chaotic days following his takeover of Twitter, as detailed by books like Character Limit and other reporting from the time.It represents an unprecedented power grab within the U.S. government, and one that directly contradicts the original stated purpose of DOGE. When Donald Trump first announced it in November after he won the election, the idea was to set up DOGE as an entity outside the federal government that would make recommendations on where to cut spending.Thats not what happened. After his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order that renamed the U.S. Digital Service to the U.S. DOGE service, meaning Musk is now working inside the government. He reportedly has an office in the West Wing of the White House, but is also apparently sleeping at the DOGE office, according to Wired.This article has been updated to include a new report by Wired that Elon Musks staff have also infiltrated the General Service Administration.

To cap off a day of product releases, OpenAI researchers, engineers, and executives, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, answered questions in a wide-ranging Reddit AMA on Friday.OpenAI finds itself in a bit of a precarious position. Its battling the perception that its ceding ground in the AI race to Chinese companies like DeepSeek, which OpenAI alleges mightve stolen its IP. The ChatGPT maker has been trying to shore up its relationship with Washington and simultaneously pursue an ambitious data center project, while reportedly laying groundwork for one of the largest financing rounds in history.Altman admitted that DeepSeek has lessened OpenAIs lead in AI, and he said he believes OpenAI has been on the wrong side of history when it comes to open sourcing its technologies. While OpenAI has open sourced models in the past, the company has generally favored a proprietary, closed source development approach.[I personally think we need to] figure out a different open source strategy, Altman said. Not everyone at OpenAI shares this view, and its also not our current highest priority We will produce better models [going forward], but we will maintain less of a lead than we did in previous years.In a follow-up reply, Kevin Weil, OpenAIs chief product officer, said that OpenAI is considering open sourcing older models that arent state-of-the-art anymore. Well definitely think about doing more of this, he said, without going into greater detail.Beyond prompting OpenAI to reconsider its release philosophy, Altman said that DeepSeek has pushed the company to potentially reveal more about how its so-called reasoning models, like the o3-mini model released today, show their thought process. Currently, OpenAIs models conceal their reasoning, a strategy intended to prevent competitors from scraping training data for their own models. In contrast, DeepSeeks reasoning model, R1, shows its full chain of thought.Were working on showing a bunch more than we show today [showing the model thought process] will be very very soon, Weil added. TBD on all showing all chain of thought leads to competitive distillation, but we also know people (at least power users) want it, so well find the right way to balance it.Altman and Weil attempted to dispel rumors that ChatGPT, the chatbot platform through which OpenAI launches many of its models, would increase in price in the future. Altman said that hed like to make ChatGPT cheaper over time, if feasible.Altman previously said that OpenAI was losing money on its priciest ChatGPT plan, ChatGPT Pro, which costs $200 per month.In a somewhat related thread, Weil said that OpenAI continues to see evidence that more compute power leads to better and more performant models. Thats in large part whats necessitating projects such as Stargate, OpenAIs recently announced massive data center project, Weil said. Serving a growing user base is fueling compute demand within OpenAI as well, he continued.Asked about recursive self-improvement that might be enabled by these powerful models, Altman said he thinks a fast takeoff is more plausible than he once believed. Recursive self-improvement is a process where an AI system could improve its own intelligence and capabilities without human input.Of course, its worth noting that Altman is notorious for overpromising. It wasnt long ago that he lowered OpenAIs bar for AGI.One Reddit user asked whether OpenAIs models, self-improving or not, would be used to develop destructive weapons specifically nuclear weapons. This week, OpenAI announced a partnership with the U.S. government to give its models to the U.S. National Laboratories in part for nuclear defense research.Weil said he trusted the government.Ive gotten to know these scientists and they are AI experts in addition to world class researchers, he said. They understand the power and the limits of the models, and I dont think theres any chance they just YOLO some model output into a nuclear calculation. Theyre smart and evidence-based and they do a lot of experimentation and data work to validate all their work.The OpenAI team was asked several questions of a more technical nature, like when OpenAIs next reasoning model, o3, will be released (more than a few weeks, less than a few months, Altman said); when the companys next flagship non-reasoning model, GPT-5, might land (dont have a timeline yet, said Altman); and when OpenAI might unveil a successor to DALL-E 3, the companys image-generating model. DALL-E 3, which was released around two years ago, has gotten rather long in the tooth. Image-generation tech has improved by leaps and bounds since DALL-E 3s debut, and the model is no longer competitive on a number of benchmark tests.Yes! Were working on it, Weil said of a DALL-E 3 follow-up. And I think its going to be worth the wait.

A new study finds that overlooking the lives of female birds can have severe conservation consequencesAdult female red phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius) on a snowmelt pond in the tundra. In phaloropes, ... [+] the female is the more colorful (and dominant) sex. Credit: Peter Pearsall / USFWS, common domain)Peter Pearsall, / USFWS, via a creative commons licenseIve long wondered why so many ornithologists, conservation biologists and birders ignore or overlook female birds. For example, Ive often found a lot of challenge as well as pleasure in identifying and observing female birds as they go about their lives lives that are different from those of the (sometimes) more showy males of the species.This sex-bias was explored by conservation biologist Joanna Wu, a PhD student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA, in collaboration with the Audubon Society. In this study (ref), Ms Wu, whose research focuses on female birds and conservation, argues that improving identification and observation of female birds can help scientists to better conserve birds and their habitats.There is so much more that we can learn about birds, and about ecology in general, that we miss when we only focus on males, or assume that females are similar enough to males, said Ms Wu, the studys lead author. Thats why its so critical that we encourage sex-specific questions in research.A pair of Northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis). How many people know that the females sing? ... [+] (Credit: Dave Govoni / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)Dave Govoni via a creative commons licenseMORE FOR YOUFor example, Ms Wu and collaborators argue that our knowledge of birdsong is strongly biased: it is based on northern hemisphere songbirds and thus, does not apply to birds living in the tropics or in the southern hemisphere, where typically, both females and males sing (ref).It shocked me how much of our assumptions about female birds are based on males (largely from Europe or North America) [are] simply false, Ms Wu told me in email.Additionally, Ms Wu and collaborators find that female song is probably the ancestral state in 71% of species globally and is present in 64% of bird species with sex-specific songs (ref and ref).Further, Wu and collaborators assert that, contrary to our now outdated notions, both sexes participate in incubating and raising offspring in many bird species. Our sex-based biases, probably derived from human preconceptions of how the natural world works, are ideas that may have gained support from Charles Darwins influential writings (The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex; Darwin 1872). Moveover, observations of species where females are socially dominant or aggressive, such as shorebirds and raptors, are underreported and understudied (ref).A trio of bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and their nest in the Upper Mississippi River ... [+] Refuge. (Credit: Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, Public domain)Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish RefugeWu and collaborators also report that, unlike in mammals, female birds often have a lower survival rate than do males of the species (ref and ref) a trait that can have powerful negative conservation effects, particularly in endangered species (ref and ref). This observation likely results from female birds being the heterogametic sex (ref), as well as females bearing higher reproductive costs (ref) than males, having higher natal or post-breeding dispersal (ref), and reduced or limited access to essential resources due to male social dominance (ref). For these reasons, important sex-specific information can be obscured when researchers average survival rates across sexes in their studies.Another important factor that Wu and collaborators point out is that female birds may have different migration or overwintering patterns details that can be critically important in light of climate change because changing temperatures could result in, say, a mismatch of arrivals at breeding grounds or in different ecological pressures. For example, we know that female golden-winged warblers overwinter at lower elevations than males, and due to logging biases, females have lost twice as much of their winter habitat than have males. Thus, carefully considered and balanced research analyses can help inform conservation efforts.Adult female golden-winged warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera). Males and females of this species ... [+] overwinter at different elevations and thus, are exposed to different survival pressures. (Credit: Andrew C / CC BY 2.0)Andrew C via a Creative Commons licenseBut really, many sex-specific questions remain unexplored, particularly regarding habitat use in the non-breeding season. For example, we know that migration routes, stop-over sites, and habitats differ for some bird species by age and sex (ref), but we know almost nothing about the details.How can these inequities be addressed? Wu and collaborators recommend that improving knowledge about female identification, capturing birds during migration rather than during breeding season to increase the likelihood of observing and studying females, and including options for birders and citizen scientists to record sex-segregated data in apps like eBird to inform major ornithological institutions.To get a more complete picture, scientists should sample from both sexes and be aware not to lump the data that they are collecting without testing for differences, Ms Wu advised in email. In Figure 1, we provide eight recommendations for collecting data more equitably.F I G U R E 1 : Eight recommendations to improve the collection of female bird data including (1) ... [+] train observers to recognize female traits, (2) normalize collection of intraspecific data, (3) use female-focused capture methods and (4) increase the use of DNA sampling to sex birds. On Who and where, researchers should (5) budget for sex-specific questions, (6) diversify the pool of ecologists, (7) broaden geographical regions of study and (8) encourage the birding community to observe female birds and contribute knowledge on female traits.doi:10.1111/ibi.13386Its important to be aware that, like people, birds are not two-dimensional cardboard cutouts. Basically, if you exclude a whole gender, or race, or social class, youre going to miss a whole perspective and way of seeing and experiencing things.The most important message is to be aware that the biology of birds (whether were talking about migration, reproductive roles, survival, climate effects) differs by sex, Ms Wu explained in email.Theres so many things to think about with regards to these findings; what surprised you most?The most surprising thing to me is that survival rates differed by sex, Ms Wu told me in email. I wonder what downstream effects this has, like on population growth rates. In an era of widespread population declines, knowing there are sex differences in how birds survive can be a tool for conservation and management.Source:Joanna X. Wu, Martha A. Harbison, Stephanie Beilke, Purbita Saha, and Brooke L. Bateman (2025). A focus on females can improve science and conservation, Ibis | doi:10.1111/ibi.13386 Copyright by GrrlScientist | hosted by Forbes | LinkTr.ee