Bitcoin earlier this week sank to a three-month low below $90,000 amid declines in global equity markets.

The nightmare scenario of Atlantic Ocean currents collapsing, with weather running amok and putting Europe in a deep freeze, looks unlikely this century, a new study concludes.In recent years, studies haveraised the alarmabout the slowing and potential abrupt shutdown of theAtlantic end of the ocean conveyor belt system. It transports rising warm water north and sinking cool water south and is a key factor in global weather systems. A possibleclimate change-triggered shutdown of whats called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC could play havoc with global rain patterns, dramatically cool Europe while warming the rest of the world and goose sea levels on Americas East Coast, scientists predict.Its the scenario behind the 2004fictionalized disastermovie The Day After Tomorrow, which portrays a world where climate change sparks massive storms, flooding, and an ice age.Scientists at the United Kingdoms Met Office and the University of Exeter used simulations from 34 different computer models of extreme climate change scenarios to see if the AMOC would collapse this century, according to a study in Wednesdays journal Nature. No simulation showed a total shutdown before 2100, said lead author Jonathan Baker, an oceanographer at the Met Office.It could happen later, though, he said. The currents have collapsed in the distant past.Still, the computer simulations should be reassuring to people, Baker said.But this is no greenlight for complacency, Baker warned. The AMOC is very likely to weaken this century and that brings its own major climate impacts.The Atlantic current flows because warm water cools as it reaches the Arctic, forming sea ice. That leaves salt behind, causing the remaining water to become more dense, sinking and pulled southward. But as climate change warms the world and more fresh water flows into the Arctic from the melting Greenland ice sheet, the Arctic engine behind the ocean conveyor belt slows down. Previous studies predict it stopping altogether with one of them sayingit could happen within a few decades.But Baker said the computer models and basic physics predict that a second motor kicks in along the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica. The winds there pull the water back up to the surface, called upwelling, where it warms, Baker said. Its not as strong, but it will likely keep the current system alive, but weakened, through the year 2100, he said.Bakers focus on the pulling up of water from the deep instead of just concentrating on the sinking is new and makes sense, providing a counterpoint to the studies saying collapse is imminent, said Oregon State University climate scientist Andreas Schmittner, who wasnt part of the research.Those Southern Ocean winds pulling the deep water up act like a powerful pump keeps the AMOC running even in the extreme climate change scenarios, Baker said.As the AMOC weakens, a weak Pacific version of it will likely develop to compensate a bit, the computer models predicted.If the AMOC weakens but not fully collapses, many of the same impactsincluding crop losses and changes in fish stocklikely will still happen, but not the big headline one of Europe going into a deep freeze, Baker said.Scientists measure the AMOC strength in a unit called Sverdrups. The AMOC is now around 17 Sverdrups, down two from about 2004 with a trend of about 0.8 decline per decade, scientists said.One of the debates in the scientific world is the definition of an AMOC shutdown. Baker uses zero, but other scientists who have been warning about the shutdown implications, use about 5 Sverdrups. Three of Bakers 34 computer models went below 5 Sverdrups, but not to zero.Thats why Levke Caesar and Stefan Rahmstorf, physicists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research and authors ofan alarming 2018 studyabout potential shutdown, said this new work doesnt contradict theirs. Its more a matter of definitions.An AMOC collapse does not have to mean 0 (Sverdrups) overturning and even if you would want to follow that definition one has to say that such a strong AMOC weakening comes with a lot (of) impacts, Caesar wrote in an email. The models show a severe AMOC weakening that would come with severe consequences.The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Seth Borenstein, AP science writer

Kerry Doyle satin an immigration courtroom observing a fellow judge finish a hearing in an asylum case late on a recent Friday afternoon when she received an email with an attachment titled terminated.Doyle had been a judge for only about two months and was in training to begin hearing cases soon at a recently opened Massachusetts court. Her colleagues helped her pack up her office before the afternoon was over, she said.This doesnt make sense for an administration that is prioritizing removals, Doyle said, using the legal word for deportation. You need the judges to hear the cases to order the person removed so that you can then carry out the removal order. Its a vital part of the system.So far, the administration of President Donald Trump has fired 22 immigration judges, including a group that worked as managers of their respective courts, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, the union that represents immigration judges. The administration has also fired five senior managers of the immigration court system, the union said.As part of its efforts to reduce the size of the government workforce, the Trump administration has beenfiring federal employees on probationary status, meaning that they had recently been hired for their positions. Immigration judges are on probationary status for their first two years, according to the union, except for military veterans who have probationary status for only a year.When the administration sent federal employees itsFork in the Road email calling for voluntary resignations, it was supposed to exclude people who worked in immigration enforcement and national defense and for the Postal Service, according to the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. But the letters went to immigration judges anyway.Look up the definition of hypocrisy, its when someone says one thing but does another. The firing of immigration judges when we need more judges to enforce our immigration laws by this administration is a perfect example of hypocrisy, said Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, in an emailed statement to Beyond the Border.This outrageous move to fire immigration judges will only make the backlog of cases worse. This is the opposite of the administrations stated goals, Biggs said.The Trump administration and the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which operates the courts, did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.Biggs estimated that the fired judges would have held 10,000 hearings this year. The courts currently have a backlog of more than 3.7 million cases, according to theTransactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which monitors government data on immigration through public records requests.Days after the firings, immigration Judge Samuel B. Cole, who has been hearing cases in Chicago since 2016 andhas servedas executive vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said that he would be stepping down. He declined to say more on the subject at this time.The firings affected courts across the United States, with California and Texas losing the most, according to the union. Five of the judges were based in Texas with three in Houston, one in Laredo, and one in El Paso. Four of the judges were based in California with one in San Diego and three in Concord.Rhana Ishimoto, the assistant chief immigration judge who managed the downtown San Diego court, disappeared from the immigration court website at the end of last week and was replaced with Anne Kristina Perry, who already served as assistant chief at the Imperial and Otay Mesa courts in Southern California. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Ishimoto was appointed to her position in May 2023 and previously worked as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney representing the government in immigration court cases. Ishimoto did not respond to a message on social media.On Wednesday morning, the downtown San Diego court, which operates on the fourth floor of the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building, seemed largely business as usual. People with stacks of documents and plastic folders lined up in the courts lobby to file paperwork and check in for court hearings.In one courtroom, Judge Rico Bartolomei, who once served as assistant chief immigration judge in San Diego before stepping down from the managerial role to hear cases full time again, worked his way through a full docket of people from Venezuela, El Salvador, Haiti, Russia, and Brazil. Almost all had recently crossed the border, mostly throughthe now defunct CBP One phone applicationthat allowed people to schedule appointments to request asylum.Bartolomei greeted each person brightly, almost cooing, Hi Kaleb! at a toddler who approached the judge a few strides in front of his parents and older brother.He carefully explained their rights in court and offered them time to find attorneys. In the case of Kalebs parents, whom the government alleged were from Venezuela, he learned that they had moved to Arkansas.He asked how they had arrived in court that day.By bus, the family responded.How long did that take? he asked empathetically.About 36 hours, the family said.He moved their case to a court closer to them.He transferred three of the cases that he heard that morning to the court in Concord, California, which is now short three judges.Kate Morrissey, Capital & MainThis piece was originally published by Capital & Main, which reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.

Here's an example of a company going above and beyond to solve their clients' problems. Sortimo is a German manufacturer of mobile tool storage solutions; van racks and corresponding carry cases are their stock-in-trade. Tradespeople in Europe fit their vans out with Sortimo kit for greater efficiency.So you might wonder why Sortimo's new product isa door. Well, it isn't just any door; their ProPartition Automatic, which is designed to separate the van's cab and storage areas, automatically opens once the driver leaves their seat. It closes again when the driver sits.It might seem silly or frivolous, but the company points out a potentially massive time-savings. "One thing is particularly important in the courier and parcel service industry: Saving time. Time is money and therefors a major competitive advantage."This automation will save around 10 seconds at each delivery stop, which will result in a daily volume of 200 stops. Gain 30 minutes of time."

This Stool Story project is by Weil, an Industrial Design student at ECAL. Weil sought to repurpose cast-off material as functional furniture.The material used in this project is discarded carpet from the school's workshoppreviously utilized in furniture exhibitions. This led Weil to ask: could we transform exhibition carpets into furniture after the event? While searching for an answer, Weil drew inspiration from his everyday interactions with materials. He noticed that the motion of rolling and unrolling fabric caused its edges to naturally create a transformation between sectional surfaces and curves. A 3D surface could be interpreted as a path, and he applied this insight to the rolled carpet. In 3D software, he tested an optimized surface that closely conformed to the shape of the human buttocks. He then mapped this surface onto a simulated cylindrical roll of fabric and used the Unroll command to generate a 20-meter-long path.Next, he used a large-scale cutting machine to precisely cut the collected discarded carpet along this patha process that took about 20 minutes. This uniquely cut carpet, once rolled up and secured with two metal knobs, became a soft yet structurally supportive stool. By repurposing discarded materials, this project not only reintegrates waste into daily life but also uncovers a unique method for constructing complex 3D surfaces.

Thanks to some high-profile tech billionaires, humanoid robots have suddenly become a hot topic, both in positive and negative ways. Seen as the culmination and combination of technologies that power robotic arms and robot dogs like Spot, these robots are sparking controversy and discussion about the future, especially when these machines become available for consumer purchase and use in homes. Thats the kind of future that Figure AI is trying to paint, and it just took one step closer to that impressive and unsettling scenario.This scenario pretty much involves house robots cleaning up after their human owners, putting away not only toys but also groceries to place them in their proper storage or section in the refrigerator. The clincher? These robots may have never seen some of these objects before, but thanks to Helix AI, theyre able to not only identify what they are but even work together to finish the task at twice the speed.Designer: Future AIImagine coming home after a tiring trip to the supermarket, carrying not one but two bags full of groceries. The last thing you probably want to do at that point is to put them away, no matter how important you know the task is. Maybe you want to just spend some time with your kids, or play with your pets, or even sit back and chill for a while. If you have two Figure robots and Helix AI, you can definitely do that without worrying about the groceries.Helix AI is a Visual-Language-Action or VLA model, which is a very fancy term for AI that uses both visual and language processing to perform actions in the real, physical world. While many humanoid robots are demonstrated to be able to navigate and maneuver paths, do back flips, or play table tennis, Figures machines are being trained to do household chores, specifically picking up after humans.There are a few things that make Helix sound pretty impressive, one of which is the AIs ability to actually understand which object youre referring to even without specifically naming it. Tell the robot to pick up the desert item and it will correctly identify a cactus toy from a collection of other objects. Helix also works on objects it has never seen before, using language context and other models to properly identify and classify them.The biggest and most impressive demonstration of this AI model is its ability to coordinate work between two robots. Each robot is able to silently communicate which item goes where and hands them off to whichever robot is nearest to the drawer or the refrigerator. Of course, humans can do this faster and more efficiently, even if it means losing time or energy talking to each other. This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course, and the commercial robots of the future will probably move faster and look less inhuman.The post Figure Helix AI makes two humanoid robots work together to put away groceries first appeared on Yanko Design.

One of the most vivid yet annoying memories from my elementary school days is my pencil always breaking off or getting easily blunted. Of course Ill have to use my small pencil sharpener to get freshly sharpened ones but its not always the easiest and most convenient way. Yes, I lived in an age where we used regular pencils for most of our classes so this was a problem back then. Nowadays of course, these kinds of pencils are rarely used by students but there are still industries that use them like art, design, construction, engineering, and even for those that prefer using them rather than mechanical ones or ballpens. Designer: Megnzi SunSo if theyre using pencils it means that there are pencil sharpeners out there. But just like with a lot of things now, were seeing a more modern take rather than the small, manual ones we used before. This series of Deli Sharpener concepts is one example of a more modern and convenient way of sharpening those writing tools. It uses a core visual hammer for the entire series as well as a unified strip as a visual guide. The product line includes different kinds of sharpeners like a fully automatic, semi-automatic, hand-cranked, and even a large caliber all-in-one sharpener.This sharpener line actually dont look like most sharpeners. At first glance they look like Bluetooth speakers or small humidifiers but of course their basic function is to sharpen your pencils and get them ready for use. You just place the pencil in the hole at the top and depending on the model, it does its job automatically, semi-automatically, or manually. You dont even have to hold the pencil in some of the models as it just automatically sharpens and then releases once its done. It gets rid of the messy and inefficient ways that manual sharpeners have. And they also look good so it would be nice to display them in your workspace. The point (pun intended) of these Deli Sharpener concepts arent just about functionality; theyre about reimagining a mundane task into an enjoyable, even stylish, experience. By blending sleek aesthetics with intelligent design, the designer has elevated the humble pencil sharpener from a classroom necessity to a desirable desk accessory. This series signals a shift in how we perceive everyday tools, proving that even the most basic objects can be infused with innovation and beauty. Whether youre an artist seeking the perfect point, an engineer needing precision, or simply someone who appreciates well-crafted objects, these sharpeners offer a glimpse into a future where practicality and design seamlessly coexist, transforming a simple act into a moment of refined efficiency. The post Stylish pencil sharpener concept can decorate your workspace first appeared on Yanko Design.

Here are 3 major questions for the animation team.

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