Although we might all fundamentally recognize that gaming consoles are just specialized computers, we generally treat them, culturally and physically, differently than we do desktops or laptops. But there was …read more

From the heart of Germany’s automotive sector to manufacturing hubs across France and Italy, Europe is embracing industrial AI and advanced AI-powered robotics to address labor shortages, boost productivity and fuel sustainable economic growth. Robotics companies are developing humanoid robots and collaborative systems that integrate AI into real-world manufacturing applications. Supported by a $200 billion investment initiative and coordinated efforts from the European Commission, Europe is positioning itself at the forefront of the next wave of industrial automation, powered by AI. This momentum is on full display at Automatica — Europe’s premier conference on advancements in robotics, machine vision and intelligent manufacturing — taking place this week in Munich, Germany. NVIDIA and its ecosystem of partners and customers are showcasing next-generation robots, automation and AI technologies designed to accelerate the continent’s leadership in smart manufacturing and logistics. NVIDIA Technologies Boost Robotics Development  Central to advancing robotics development is Europe’s first industrial AI cloud, announced at NVIDIA GTC Paris at VivaTech earlier this month. The Germany-based AI factory, featuring 10,000 NVIDIA GPUs, provides European manufacturers with secure, sovereign and centralized AI infrastructure for industrial workloads. It will support applications ranging from design and engineering to factory digital twins and robotics. To help accelerate humanoid development, NVIDIA released NVIDIA Isaac GR00T N1.5 — an open foundation model for humanoid robot reasoning and skills. This update enhances the model’s adaptability and ability to follow instructions, significantly improving its performance in material handling and manufacturing tasks. To help post-train GR00T N1.5, NVIDIA has also released the Isaac GR00T-Dreams blueprint — a reference workflow for generating vast amounts of synthetic trajectory data from a small number of human demonstrations — enabling robots to generalize across behaviors and adapt to new environments with minimal human demonstration data. In addition, early developer previews of NVIDIA Isaac Sim 5.0 and Isaac Lab 2.2 — open-source robot simulation and learning frameworks optimized for NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 workstations — are now available on GitHub. Image courtesy of Wandelbots. Robotics Leaders Tap NVIDIA Simulation Technology to Develop and Deploy Humanoids and More  Robotics developers and solutions providers across the globe are integrating NVIDIA’s three computers to train, simulate and deploy robots. NEURA Robotics, a German robotics company and pioneer for cognitive robots, unveiled the third generation of its humanoid, 4NE1, designed to assist humans in domestic and professional environments through advanced cognitive capabilities and humanlike interaction. 4NE1 is powered by GR00T N1 and was trained in Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab before real-world deployment. NEURA Robotics is also presenting Neuraverse, a digital twin and interconnected ecosystem for robot training, skills and applications, fully compatible with NVIDIA Omniverse technologies. Delta Electronics, a global leader in power management and smart green solutions, is debuting two next-generation collaborative robots: D-Bot Mar and D-Bot 2 in 1 — both trained using Omniverse and Isaac Sim technologies and libraries. These cobots are engineered to transform intralogistics and optimize production flows. Wandelbots, the creator of the Wandelbots NOVA software platform for industrial robotics, is partnering with SoftServe, a global IT consulting and digital services provider, to scale simulation-first automating using NVIDIA Isaac Sim, enabling virtual validation and real-world deployment with maximum impact. Cyngn, a pioneer in autonomous mobile robotics, is integrating its DriveMod technology into Isaac Sim to enable large-scale, high fidelity virtual testing of advanced autonomous operation. Purpose-built for industrial applications, DriveMod is already deployed on vehicles such as the Motrec MT-160 Tugger and BYD Forklift, delivering sophisticated automation to material handling operations. Doosan Robotics, a company specializing in AI robotic solutions, will showcase its “sim to real” solution, using NVIDIA Isaac Sim and cuRobo. Doosan will be showcasing how to seamlessly transfer tasks from simulation to real robots across a wide range of applications — from manufacturing to service industries. Franka Robotics has integrated Isaac GR00T N1.5 into a dual-arm Franka Research 3 (FR3) robot for robotic control. The integration of GR00T N1.5 allows the system to interpret visual input, understand task context and autonomously perform complex manipulation — without the need for task-specific programming or hardcoded logic. Image courtesy of Franka Robotics. Hexagon, the global leader in measurement technologies, launched its new humanoid, dubbed AEON. With its unique locomotion system and multimodal sensor fusion, and powered by NVIDIA’s three-computer solution, AEON is engineered to perform a wide range of industrial applications, from manipulation and asset inspection to reality capture and operator support. Intrinsic, a software and AI robotics company, is integrating Intrinsic Flowstate with  Omniverse and OpenUSD for advanced visualization and digital twins that can be used in many industrial use cases. The company is also using NVIDIA foundation models to enhance robot capabilities like grasp planning through AI and simulation technologies. SCHUNK, a global leader in gripping systems and automation technology, is showcasing its innovative grasping kit powered by the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin module. The kit intelligently detects objects and calculates optimal grasping points. Schunk is also demonstrating seamless simulation-to-reality transfer using IGS Virtuous software — built on Omniverse technologies — to control a real robot through simulation in a pick-and-place scenario. Universal Robots is showcasing UR15, its fastest cobot yet. Powered by the UR AI Accelerator — developed with NVIDIA and running on Jetson AGX Orin using CUDA-accelerated Isaac libraries — UR15 helps set a new standard for industrial automation. Vention, a full-stack software and hardware automation company, launched its Machine Motion AI, built on CUDA-accelerated Isaac libraries and powered by Jetson. Vention is also expanding its lineup of robotic offerings by adding the FR3 robot from Franka Robotics to its ecosystem, enhancing its solutions for academic and research applications. Image courtesy of Vention. Learn more about the latest robotics advancements by joining NVIDIA at Automatica, running through Friday, June 27. 

El estudio barcelonés Domestic Data Streamers lanza un proyecto que usa inteligencia artificial generativa para reconstruir recuerdos perdidos o nunca registrados. “No son fotografías del pasado, son espejos poéticos del recuerdo”, explican. Con la c

Casa Sofia | © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG Located in the historic heart of Lagos, Portugal, Casa Sofia by Mário Martins Atelier is a thoughtful exercise in urban integration and contemporary reinterpretation. Occupying a site once held by a modest two-story house, the project is situated on the corner of a block facing the Church of St Sebastião. With its commanding presence, this national monument set a formidable challenge for the architects: introducing a new residence that respects the weight of history while offering a clear, contemporary expression. Casa Sofia Technical Information Architects1-4: Mário Martins Atelier Location: Lagos, Portugal Project Completion Years: 2023 Photographs: © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG It is therefore important to design a building to fit into and complete the block. A house that is quiet and solid, with rhythmic metrics, whose new design brings an identity, with the weight and scent of the times, to a city that has existed for many centuries. – Mário Martins Atelier Casa Sofia Photographs © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG © Fernando Guerra / FG+SG Spatial Organization and Circulation The design’s ambition is anchored in reconciling modern residential needs with the dense urban fabric that defines the walled city. Rather than imposing a bold or disruptive form, the project embraces the existing rhythms and textures of the surrounding architecture. The result is a building that both defers to and elevates the neighborhood’s character. Its restrained profile and carefully modulated facade echo the massing and articulation of the original house while introducing an identity that is clearly of its time. At the core of Casa Sofia’s spatial organization is a deliberate hierarchy of spaces that transitions seamlessly between public, semi-public, and private domains. Entry from the street occurs through a modest set of steps leading to an exterior atrium. This threshold mediates the relationship between the public realm and the interior, grounding the house in its urban context. Once inside, an open hall reveals the vertical flow of the building, dominated by a staircase that appears to float, linking the house’s various levels while maintaining visual continuity throughout. The ground floor houses three bedrooms, each with an ensuite bathroom, radiating from the central hall. This level also contains a small basement for technical support, reinforcing the discreet layering of functional and domestic spaces. Midway up the staircase, the house opens onto a garage, a laundry room, and an intimate courtyard. These areas, essential for daily life, are seamlessly integrated into the overall composition, contributing to a spatial richness that is both pragmatic and sensorial. On the first floor, an open-plan arrangement accommodates the main living spaces. Around a central void, the living and dining areas, kitchen, and master suite are arranged to encourage visual interplay and shared light. This configuration enhances the spatial porosity, ensuring that despite the density of the historic center, the house retains a sense of openness and fluidity. Above, a recessed roof level recedes from the street, culminating in a panoramic terrace with a swimming pool. Here, the building dissolves into the sky, offering expansive views and light-filled leisure spaces that contrast with the more enclosed lower floors. Materiality and Craftsmanship Materiality plays a decisive role in mediating the building’s relationship with its context. White-painted plaster, a familiar element in the region, is punctuated by deep limestone moldings. These details create a play of light and shadow that emphasizes the facade’s verticality and rhythm. The generous thickness of the walls, carried over from the site’s earlier construction, lends a sense of solidity and permanence to the house, recalling the tactile traditions of the Algarve’s architecture. The interior and exterior detailing is characterized by an economy of means, where each material is selected for its ability to reinforce the house’s quiet presence. Local materials and craftsmanship ground the project in its immediate context while responding to environmental imperatives. High thermal comfort is achieved through careful orientation and passive design strategies, complemented by the integration of solar control and water conservation measures. These considerations underscore the project’s commitment to sustainability without resorting to superficial gestures. Broader Urban and Cultural Implications Beyond its immediate function as a family home, Casa Sofia engages in a broader dialogue with its urban and cultural surroundings. The project exemplifies a measured response to the question of how to build within a historical setting without resorting to nostalgia or pastiche. It demonstrates that contemporary architecture can find resonance within heritage contexts by prioritizing the values of continuity, scale, and material authenticity. In its measured dialogue with the Church of St Sebastião and the centuries-old urban landscape of Lagos, Casa Sofia illustrates the potential for architecture to enrich the experience of place through quiet, rigorous interventions. It is a project that reaffirms architecture’s capacity to negotiate between past and present, crafting spaces that are at once deeply contextual and unambiguously of their moment. Casa Sofia Plans Sketch | © Mário Martins Atelier Ground Level | © Mário Martins Atelier Level 1 | © Mário Martins Atelier Level 2 | © Mário Martins Atelier Roof Plan | © Mário Martins Atelier Section | © Mário Martins Atelier Casa Sofia Image Gallery About Mário Martins Atelier Mário Martins Atelier is a Portuguese architecture and urbanism practice founded in 2000 by architect Mário Martins, who holds a degree from the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Lisbon (1988). Headquartered in Lagos with a secondary office in Lisbon, the firm operates with a dedicated multidisciplinary team. The office has developed a broad spectrum of work, from single-family homes and collective housing to public buildings and urban regeneration, distinguished by technical precision, contextual sensitivity, and sustainable strategies. Credits and Additional Notes Lead Architect: Mário Martins, arq. Project Team: Rita Rocha, Sónia Fialho, Susana Caetano, Susana Jóia, Ana Graça Engineering: Nuno Grave Engenharia Building: Marques Antunes Engenharia Lda

Donald Trump’s military parade in Washington this weekend — a show of force in the capital that just happens to take place on the president’s birthday — smacks of authoritarian Dear Leader-style politics (even though Trump actually got the idea after attending the 2017 Bastille Day parade in Paris).Yet as disconcerting as the imagery of tanks rolling down Constitution Avenue will be, it’s not even close to Trump’s most insidious assault on the US military’s historic and democratically essential nonpartisan ethos.In fact, it’s not even the most worrying thing he’s done this week.On Tuesday, the president gave a speech at Fort Bragg, an Army base home to Special Operations Command. While presidential speeches to soldiers are not uncommon — rows of uniformed troops make a great backdrop for a foreign policy speech — they generally avoid overt partisan attacks and campaign-style rhetoric. The soldiers, for their part, are expected to be studiously neutral, laughing at jokes and such, but remaining fully impassive during any policy conversation.That’s not what happened at Fort Bragg. Trump’s speech was a partisan tirade that targeted “radical left” opponents ranging from Joe Biden to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. He celebrated his deployment of Marines to Los Angeles, proposed jailing people for burning the American flag, and called on soldiers to be “aggressive” toward the protesters they encountered.The soldiers, for their part, cheered Trump and booed his enemies — as they were seemingly expected to. Reporters at Military.com, a military news service, uncovered internal communications from 82nd Airborne leadership suggesting that the crowd was screened for their political opinions.“If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don’t want to be in the audience then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out,” one note read.To call this unusual is an understatement. I spoke with four different experts on civil-military relations, two of whom teach at the Naval War College, about the speech and its implications. To a person, they said it was a step towards politicizing the military with no real precedent in modern American history.“That is, I think, a really big red flag because it means the military’s professional ethic is breaking down internally,” says Risa Brooks, a professor at Marquette University. “Its capacity to maintain that firewall against civilian politicization may be faltering.”This may sound alarmist — like an overreading of a one-off incident — but it’s part of a bigger pattern. The totality of Trump administration policies, ranging from the parade in Washington to the LA troop deployment to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s firing of high-ranking women and officers of color, suggests a concerted effort to erode the military’s professional ethos and turn it into an institution subservient to the Trump administration’s whims. This is a signal policy aim of would-be dictators, who wish to head off the risk of a coup and ensure the armed forces’ political reliability if they are needed to repress dissent in a crisis.Steve Saideman, a professor at Carleton University, put together a list of eight different signs that a military is being politicized in this fashion. The Trump administration has exhibited six out of the eight.“The biggest theme is that we are seeing a number of checks on the executive fail at the same time — and that’s what’s making individual events seem more alarming than they might otherwise,” says Jessica Blankshain, a professor at the Naval War College (speaking not for the military but in a personal capacity).That Trump is trying to politicize the military does not mean he has succeeded. There are several signs, including Trump’s handpicked chair of the Joint Chiefs repudiating the president’s claims of a migrant invasion during congressional testimony, that the US military is resisting Trump’s politicization.But the events in Fort Bragg and Washington suggest that we are in the midst of a quiet crisis in civil-military relations in the United States — one whose implications for American democracy’s future could well be profound.The Trump crisis in civil-military relations, explainedA military is, by sheer fact of its existence, a threat to any civilian government. If you have an institution that controls the overwhelming bulk of weaponry in a society, it always has the physical capacity to seize control of the government at gunpoint. A key question for any government is how to convince the armed forces that they cannot or should not take power for themselves.Democracies typically do this through a process called “professionalization.” Soldiers are rigorously taught to think of themselves as a class of public servants, people trained to perform a specific job within defined parameters. Their ultimate loyalty is not to their generals or even individual presidents, but rather to the people and the constitutional order.Samuel Huntington, the late Harvard political scientist, is the canonical theorist of a professional military. In his book The Soldier and the State, he described optimal professionalization as a system of “objective control”: one in which the military retains autonomy in how they fight and plan for wars while deferring to politicians on whether and why to fight in the first place. In effect, they stay out of the politicians’ affairs while the politicians stay out of theirs.The idea of such a system is to emphasize to the military that they are professionals: Their responsibility isn’t deciding when to use force, but only to conduct operations as effectively as possible once ordered to engage in them. There is thus a strict firewall between military affairs, on the one hand, and policy-political affairs on the other.Typically, the chief worry is that the military breaches this bargain: that, for example, a general starts speaking out against elected officials’ policies in ways that undermine civilian control. This is not a hypothetical fear in the United States, with the most famous such example being Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s insubordination during the Korean War. Thankfully, not even MacArthur attempted the worst-case version of military overstep — a coup.But in backsliding democracies like the modern United States, where the chief executive is attempting an anti-democratic power grab, the military poses a very different kind of threat to democracy — in fact, something akin to the exact opposite of the typical scenario.In such cases, the issue isn’t the military inserting itself into politics but rather the civilians dragging them into it in ways that upset the democratic political order. The worst-case scenario is that the military acts on presidential directives to use force against domestic dissenters, destroying democracy not by ignoring civilian orders, but by following them.There are two ways to arrive at such a worst-case scenario, both of which are in evidence in the early days of Trump 2.0.First is politicization: an intentional attack on the constraints against partisan activity inside the professional ranks.Many of Pete Hegseth’s major moves as secretary of defense fit this bill, including his decisions to fire nonwhite and female generals seen as politically unreliable and his effort to undermine the independence of the military’s lawyers. The breaches in protocol at Fort Bragg are both consequences and causes of politicization: They could only happen in an environment of loosened constraint, and they might encourage more overt political action if gone unpunished.The second pathway to breakdown is the weaponization of professionalism against itself. Here, Trump exploits the military’s deference to politicians by ordering it to engage in undemocratic (and even questionably legal) activities. In practice, this looks a lot like the LA deployments, and, more specifically, the lack of any visible military pushback. While the military readily agreeing to deployments is normally a good sign — that civilian control is holding — these aren’t normal times. And this isn’t a normal deployment, but rather one that comes uncomfortably close to the military being ordered to assist in repressing overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations against executive abuses of power.“It’s really been pretty uncommon to use the military for law enforcement,” says David Burbach, another Naval War College professor (also speaking personally). “This is really bringing the military into frontline law enforcement when. … these are really not huge disturbances.”This, then, is the crisis: an incremental and slow-rolling effort by the Trump administration to erode the norms and procedures designed to prevent the military from being used as a tool of domestic repression. Is it time to panic?Among the experts I spoke with, there was consensus that the military’s professional and nonpartisan ethos was weakening. This isn’t just because of Trump, but his terms — the first to a degree, and now the second acutely — are major stressors.Yet there was no consensus on just how much military nonpartisanship has eroded — that is, how close we are to a moment when the US military might be willing to follow obviously authoritarian orders.For all its faults, the US military’s professional ethos is a really important part of its identity and self-conception. While few soldiers may actually read Sam Huntington or similar scholars, the general idea that they serve the people and the republic is a bedrock principle among the ranks. There is a reason why the United States has never, in over 250 years of governance, experienced a military coup — or even come particularly close to one.In theory, this ethos should also galvanize resistance to Trump’s efforts at politicization. Soldiers are not unthinking automatons: While they are trained to follow commands, they are explicitly obligated to refuse illegal orders, even coming from the president. The more aggressive Trump’s efforts to use the military as a tool of repression gets, the more likely there is to be resistance.Or, at least theoretically.The truth is that we don’t really know how the US military will respond to a situation like this. Like so many of Trump’s second-term policies, their efforts to bend the military to their will are unprecedented — actions with no real parallel in the modern history of the American military. Experts can only make informed guesses, based on their sense of US military culture as well as comparisons to historical and foreign cases.For this reason, there are probably only two things we can say with confidence.First, what we’ve seen so far is not yet sufficient evidence to declare that the military is in Trump’s thrall. The signs of decay are too limited to ground any conclusions that the longstanding professional norm is entirely gone.“We have seen a few things that are potentially alarming about erosion of the military’s non-partisan norm. But not in a way that’s definitive at this point,” Blankshain says.Second, the stressors on this tradition are going to keep piling on. Trump’s record makes it exceptionally clear that he wants the military to serve him personally — and that he, and Hegseth, will keep working to make it so. This means we really are in the midst of a quiet crisis, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future.“The fact that he’s getting the troops to cheer for booing Democratic leaders at a time when there’s actually [a deployment to] a blue city and a blue state…he is ordering the troops to take a side,” Saideman says. “There may not be a coherent plan behind this. But there are a lot of things going on that are all in the same direction.”See More: Politics

432 Park Avenue | © Halkin Mason Photography, Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Located in Midtown Manhattan, 432 Park Avenue is a prominent figure in the evolution of supertall residential towers. Completed in 2015, this 1,396-foot-high building by Rafael Viñoly Architects asserts a commanding presence over the city’s skyline. Its minimalist form and rigorous geometry have sparked considerable debate within the architectural community, marking it as a significant and controversial addition to New York City’s built environment. 432 Park Avenue Technical Information Architects1-8: Rafael Viñoly Architects Location: Midtown Manhattan, New York City, USA Gross Area: 38,344 m2 | 412,637 Sq. Ft. Project Years: 2011 – 2015 Photographs: © Halkin Mason Photography, Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects It’s a building designed for the enjoyment of its occupants, not for the delight of its creator. – Rafael Viñoly 432 Park Avenue Photographs © Halkin Mason Photography, Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Courtesy of Rafael Viñoly Architects Design Intent and Conceptual Framework At the heart of 432 Park Avenue’s design lies a commitment to pure geometry. The square, an elemental form, defines every aspect of the building, from its floor plate to its overall silhouette. This strict adherence to geometry speaks to Viñoly’s rationalist sensibilities and interest in stripping architecture to its fundamental components. The tower’s proportions, with its height-to-width ratio of roughly 1:15, transform this simple geometry into a monumental presence. This conceptual rigor positions the building as an object of formal clarity and a deliberate statement within the city’s varied skyline. The design’s minimalism extends beyond the building’s shape, reflecting Viñoly’s pursuit of a refined and disciplined expression. Eschewing decorative flourishes, the tower’s form directly responds to programmatic needs and structural imperatives. This disciplined approach underpins the project’s ambition to redefine the experience of vertical living, asserting that luxury in residential design can emerge from formal simplicity and a mastery of proportion. Spatial Organization and Interior Volumes The interior organization of 432 Park Avenue reveals an equally uncompromising commitment to clarity and openness. Each residential floor is free of interior columns, a testament to the structural ingenuity of the concrete exoskeleton. This column-free arrangement grants unobstructed floor plans and expansive panoramic views of the city, the rivers, and beyond. Floor-to-ceiling windows, measuring nearly 10 feet in height, accentuate the sense of openness and lightness within each residence. The tower’s slender core houses the vertical circulation and mechanical systems, ensuring the perimeter remains uninterrupted. This core placement allows for generous living spaces that maximize privacy and connection to the urban landscape. The interplay between structural precision and panoramic transparency shapes the experience of inhabiting these spaces. The result is a sequence of interiors that privilege intimacy and vastness, anchoring domestic life within an architectural expression of purity. Materiality, Structural Clarity, and Detailing Material choices in 432 Park Avenue reinforce the project’s disciplined approach. The building’s exposed concrete frame, treated as structure and façade, lends the tower a stark yet refined character. The grid of square windows, systematically repeated across the height of the building, becomes a defining feature of its visual identity. This modular repetition establishes a rhythmic order and speaks to the building’s underlying structural logic. High-strength concrete enables the tower’s slender profile and exceptional height while imparting a tactile materiality that resists the glassy anonymity typical of many contemporary towers. The restrained palette and attention to detail emphasize the tectonic clarity of the building’s assembly. By treating the structure itself as an architectural finish, Viñoly’s design elevates the material expression of concrete into a fundamental element of the building’s identity. Urban and Cultural Significance As one of the tallest residential buildings in the Western Hemisphere, 432 Park Avenue has significantly altered the Manhattan skyline. Its unwavering verticality and minimal ornamentation create a dialogue with the city’s diverse architectural heritage, juxtaposing a severe abstraction against a backdrop of historic and contemporary towers. 432 Park Avenue occupies a distinctive place in the ongoing narrative of New York City’s architectural evolution. Its reductive form, structural clarity, and spatial generosity offer a compelling study of the power of minimalism at an urban scale. 432 Park Avenue Plans Floor Plans | © Rafael Viñoly Architects Floor Plans | © Rafael Viñoly Architects Floor Plans | © Rafael Viñoly Architects Floor Plans | © Rafael Viñoly Architects 432 Park Avenue Image Gallery © Rafael Viñoly Architects About Rafael Viñoly Architects Rafael Viñoly, a Uruguayan-born architect (1944–2023), founded Rafael Viñoly Architects in New York City in 1983. After studies in Buenos Aires and early practice in Argentina, he relocated to the U.S.. He established a global firm with offices in cities including London, Palo Alto, and Abu Dhabi. Renowned for large-scale, function-driven projects such as the Tokyo International Forum, Cleveland Museum of Art expansions, and 432 Park Avenue, the firm is praised for combining structural clarity, context-sensitive design, and institutional rigor across six continents. Credits and Additional Notes Client: Macklowe Properties and CIM Group Design Team: Rafael Viñoly (Architect), Deborah Berke Partners (Interior Design of residential units), Bentel & Bentel (Amenity Spaces Design) Structural Engineer: WSP Cantor Seinuk Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Engineers: Jaros, Baum & Bolles (JB&B) Construction Manager: Lendlease Height: 1,396 feet (425.5 meters) Number of Floors: 96 stories Construction Years: 2011–2015

A dangerous strain of bird flu is spreading in US livestockMediaMedium/Alamy Since Donald Trump assumed office in January, the leading US public health agency has pulled back preparations for a potential bird flu pandemic. But as it steps back, another government agency is stepping up. While the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) previously held regular briefings on its efforts to prevent a wider outbreak of a deadly bird flu virus called H5N1 in people, it largely stopped once Trump took office. It has also cancelled funding for a vaccine that would have targeted the virus. In contrast, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has escalated its fight against H5N1’s spread in poultry flocks and dairy herds, including by funding the development of livestock vaccines. This particular virus – a strain of avian influenza called H5N1 – poses a significant threat to humans, having killed about half of the roughly 1000 people worldwide who tested positive for it since 2003. While the pathogen spreads rapidly in birds, it is poorly adapted to infecting humans and isn’t known to transmit between people. But that could change if it acquires mutations that allow it to spread more easily among mammals – a risk that increases with each mammalian infection. The possibility of H5N1 evolving to become more dangerous to people has grown significantly since March 2024, when the virus jumped from migratory birds to dairy cows in Texas. More than 1,070 herds across 17 states have been affected since then. H5N1 also infects poultry, placing the virus in closer proximity to people. Since 2022, nearly 175 million domestic birds have been culled in the US due to H5N1, and almost all of the 71 people who have tested positive for it had direct contact with livestock. Get the most essential health and fitness news in your inbox every Saturday. Sign up to newsletter “We need to take this seriously because when [H5N1] constantly is spreading, it’s constantly spilling over into humans,” says Seema Lakdawala at Emory University in Georgia. The virus has already killed a person in the US and a child in Mexico this year. Still, cases have declined under Trump. The last recorded human case was in February, and the number of affected poultry flocks fell 95 per cent between then and June. Outbreaks in dairy herds have also stabilised. It isn’t clear what is behind the decline. Lakdawala believes it is partly due to a lull in bird migration, which reduces opportunities for the virus to spread from wild birds to livestock. It may also reflect efforts by the USDA to contain outbreaks on farms. In February, the USDA unveiled a $1 billion plan for tackling H5N1, including strengthening farmers’ defences against the virus, such as through free biosecurity assessments. Of the 150 facilities that have undergone assessment, only one has experienced an H5N1 outbreak. Under Trump, the USDA also continued its National Milk Testing Strategy, which mandates farms provide raw milk samples for influenza testing. If a farm is positive for H5N1, it must allow the USDA to monitor livestock and implement measures to contain the virus. The USDA launched the programme in December and has since ramped up participation to 45 states. “The National Milk Testing Strategy is a fantastic system,” says Erin Sorrell at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. Along with the USDA’s efforts to improve biosecurity measures on farms, milk testing is crucial for containing the outbreak, says Sorrell. But while the USDA has bolstered its efforts against H5N1, the HHS doesn’t appear to have followed suit. In fact, the recent drop in human cases may reflect decreased surveillance due to workforce cuts, says Sorrell. In April, the HHS laid off about 10,000 employees, including 90 per cent of staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, an office that helps investigate H5N1 outbreaks in farm workers. “There is an old saying that if you don’t test for something, you can’t find it,” says Sorrell. Yet a spokesperson for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says its guidance and surveillance efforts have not changed. “State and local health departments continue to monitor for illness in persons exposed to sick animals,” they told New Scientist. “CDC remains committed to rapidly communicating information as needed about H5N1.” The USDA and HHS also diverge on vaccination. While the USDA has allocated $100 million toward developing vaccines and other solutions for preventing H5N1’s spread in livestock, the HHS cancelled $776 million in contracts for influenza vaccine development. The contracts – terminated on 28 May – were with the pharmaceutical company Moderna to develop vaccines targeting flu subtypes, including H5N1, that could cause future pandemics. The news came the same day Moderna reported nearly 98 per cent of the roughly 300 participants who received two doses of the H5 vaccine in a clinical trial had antibody levels believed to be protective against the virus. The US has about five million H5N1 vaccine doses stockpiled, but these are made using eggs and cultured cells, which take longer to produce than mRNA-based vaccines like Moderna’s. The Moderna vaccine would have modernised the stockpile and enabled the government to rapidly produce vaccines in the event of a pandemic, says Sorrell. “It seems like a very effective platform and would have positioned the US and others to be on good footing if and when we needed a vaccine for our general public,” she says. The HHS cancelled the contracts due to concerns about mRNA vaccines, which Robert F Kennedy Jr – the country’s highest-ranking public health official – has previously cast doubt on. “The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration,” said HHS communications director Andrew Nixon in a statement to New Scientist. However, mRNA technology isn’t new. It has been in development for more than half a century and numerous clinical trials have shown mRNA vaccines are safe. While they do carry the risk of side effects – the majority of which are mild – this is true of almost every medical treatment. In a press release, Moderna said it would explore alternative funding paths for the programme. “My stance is that we should not be looking to take anything off the table, and that includes any type of vaccine regimen,” says Lakdawala. “Vaccines are the most effective way to counter an infectious disease,” says Sorrell. “And so having that in your arsenal and ready to go just give you more options.” Topics:

Fewer food crops Biofuels policy has been a failure for the climate, new report claims Report: An expansion of biofuels policy under Trump would lead to more greenhouse gas emissions. Georgina Gustin, Inside Climate News – Jun 14, 2025 7:10 am | 24 An ethanol production plant on March 20, 2024 near Ravenna, Nebraska. Credit: David Madison/Getty Images An ethanol production plant on March 20, 2024 near Ravenna, Nebraska. Credit: David Madison/Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. The American Midwest is home to some of the richest, most productive farmland in the world, enabling its transformation into a vast corn- and soy-producing machine—a conversion spurred largely by decades-long policies that support the production of biofuels. But a new report takes a big swing at the ethanol orthodoxy of American agriculture, criticizing the industry for causing economic and social imbalances across rural communities and saying that the expansion of biofuels will increase greenhouse gas emissions, despite their purported climate benefits. The report, from the World Resources Institute, which has been critical of US biofuel policy in the past, draws from 100 academic studies on biofuel impacts. It concludes that ethanol policy has been largely a failure and ought to be reconsidered, especially as the world needs more land to produce food to meet growing demand. “Multiple studies show that US biofuel policies have reshaped crop production, displacing food crops and driving up emissions from land conversion, tillage, and fertilizer use,” said the report’s lead author, Haley Leslie-Bole. “Corn-based ethanol, in particular, has contributed to nutrient runoff, degraded water quality and harmed wildlife habitat. As climate pressures grow, increasing irrigation and refining for first-gen biofuels could deepen water scarcity in already drought-prone parts of the Midwest.” The conversion of Midwestern agricultural land has been sweeping. Between 2004 and 2024, ethanol production increased by nearly 500 percent. Corn and soybeans are now grown on 92 and 86 million acres of land respectively—and roughly a third of those crops go to produce ethanol. That means about 30 million acres of land that could be used to grow food crops are instead being used to produce ethanol, despite ethanol only accounting for 6 percent of the country’s transportation fuel. The biofuels industry—which includes refiners, corn and soy growers and the influential agriculture lobby writ large—has long insisted that corn- and soy-based biofuels provide an energy-efficient alternative to fossil-based fuels. Congress and the US Department of Agriculture have agreed. The country’s primary biofuels policy, the Renewable Fuel Standard, requires that biofuels provide a greenhouse gas reduction over fossil fuels: The law says that ethanol from new plants must deliver a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to gasoline. In addition to greenhouse gas reductions, the industry and its allies in Congress have also continued to say that ethanol is a primary mainstay of the rural economy, benefiting communities across the Midwest. But a growing body of research—much of which the industry has tried to debunk and deride—suggests that ethanol actually may not provide the benefits that policies require. It may, in fact, produce more greenhouse gases than the fossil fuels it was intended to replace. Recent research says that biofuel refiners also emit significant amounts of carcinogenic and dangerous substances, including hexane and formaldehyde, in greater amounts than petroleum refineries. The new report points to research saying that increased production of biofuels from corn and soy could actually raise greenhouse gas emissions, largely from carbon emissions linked to clearing land in other countries to compensate for the use of land in the Midwest. On top of that, corn is an especially fertilizer-hungry crop requiring large amounts of nitrogen-based fertilizer, which releases huge amounts of nitrous oxide when it interacts with the soil. American farming is, by far, the largest source of domestic nitrous oxide emissions already—about 50 percent. If biofuel policies lead to expanded production, emissions of this enormously powerful greenhouse gas will likely increase, too. The new report concludes that not only will the expansion of ethanol increase greenhouse gas emissions, but it has also failed to provide the social and financial benefits to Midwestern communities that lawmakers and the industry say it has. (The report defines the Midwest as Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.) “The benefits from biofuels remain concentrated in the hands of a few,” Leslie-Bole said. “As subsidies flow, so may the trend of farmland consolidation, increasing inaccessibility of farmland in the Midwest, and locking out emerging or low-resource farmers. This means the benefits of biofuels production are flowing to fewer people, while more are left bearing the costs.” New policies being considered in state legislatures and Congress, including additional tax credits and support for biofuel-based aviation fuel, could expand production, potentially causing more land conversion and greenhouse gas emissions, widening the gap between the rural communities and rich agribusinesses at a time when food demand is climbing and, critics say, land should be used to grow food instead. President Donald Trump’s tax cut bill, passed by the House and currently being negotiated in the Senate, would not only extend tax credits for biofuels producers, it specifically excludes calculations of emissions from land conversion when determining what qualifies as a low-emission fuel. The primary biofuels industry trade groups, including Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association, did not respond to Inside Climate News requests for comment or interviews. An employee with the Clean Fuels Alliance America, which represents biodiesel and sustainable aviation fuel producers, not ethanol, said the report vastly overstates the carbon emissions from crop-based fuels by comparing the farmed land to natural landscapes, which no longer exist. They also noted that the impact of soy-based fuels in 2024 was more than $42 billion, providing over 100,000 jobs. “Ten percent of the value of every bushel of soybeans is linked to biomass-based fuel,” they said. Georgina Gustin, Inside Climate News 24 Comments

June 13, 20255 min readFive Climate Issues to Watch When Trump Goes to CanadaPresident Trump will attend the G7 summit on Sunday in a nation he threatened to annex. He will also be an outlier on climate issuesBy Sara Schonhardt & E&E News Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | The world’s richest nations are gathering Sunday in the Canadian Rockies for a summit that could reveal whether President Donald Trump's policies are shaking global climate efforts.The Group of Seven meeting comes at a challenging time for international climate policy. Trump’s tariff seesaw has cast a shade over the global economy, and his domestic policies have threatened billions of dollars in funding for clean energy programs. Those pressures are colliding with record-breaking temperatures worldwide and explosive demand for energy, driven by power-hungry data centers linked to artificial intelligence technologies.On top of that, Trump has threatened to annex the host of the meeting — Canada — and members of his Cabinet have taken swipes at Europe’s use of renewable energy. Rather than being aligned with much of the world's assertion that fossil fuels should be tempered, Trump embraces the opposite position — drill for more oil and gas and keep burning coal, while repealing environmental regulations on the biggest sources of U.S. carbon pollution.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Those moves illustrate his rejection of climate science and underscore his outlying positions on global warming in the G7.Here are five things to know about the summit.Who will be there?The group comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — plus the European Union. Together they account for more than 40 percent of gross domestic product globally and around a quarter of all energy-related carbon dioxide pollution, according to the International Energy Agency. The U.S. is the only one among them that is not trying to hit a carbon reduction goal.Some emerging economies have also been invited, including Mexico, India, South Africa and Brazil, the host of this year’s COP30 climate talks in November.Ahead of the meeting, the office of Canada's prime minister, Mark Carney, said he and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva agreed to strengthen cooperation on energy security and critical minerals. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would be having "quite a few" bilateral meetings but that his schedule was in flux.The G7 first came together 50 years ago following the Arab oil embargo. Since then, its seven members have all joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. The U.S. is the only nation in the group that has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, which counts almost every country in the world as a signatory.What’s on the table?Among Canada’s top priorities as host are strengthening energy security and fortifying critical mineral supply chains. Carney would also like to see some agreement on joint wildfire action.Expanding supply chains for critical minerals — and competing more aggressively with China over those resources — could be areas of common ground among the leaders. Climate change is expected to remain divisive. Looming over the discussions will be tariffs — which Trump has applied across the board — because they will have an impact on the clean energy transition.“I think probably the majority of the conversation will be less about climate per se, or certainly not using climate action as the frame, but more about energy transition and infrastructure as a way of kind of bridging the known gaps between most of the G7 and where the United States is right now,” said Dan Baer, director of the Europe program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.What are the possible outcomes?The leaders could issue a communique at the end of their meeting, but those statements are based on consensus, something that would be difficult to reach without other G7 countries capitulating to Trump. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that nations won’t try to reach a joint agreement, in part because bridging gaps on climate change could be too hard.Instead, Carney could issue a chair’s summary or joint statements based on certain issues.The question is how far Canada will go to accommodate the U.S., which could try to roll back past statements on advancing clean energy, said Andrew Light, former assistant secretary of Energy for international affairs, who led ministerial-level negotiations for the G7.“They might say, rather than watering everything down that we accomplished in the last four years, we just do a chair's statement, which summarizes the debate,” Light said. “That will show you that you didn't get consensus, but you also didn't get capitulation.”What to watch forIf there is a communique, Light says he’ll be looking for whether there is tougher language on China and any signal of support for science and the Paris Agreement. During his first term, Trump refused to support the Paris accord in the G7 and G20 declarations.The statement could avoid climate and energy issues entirely. But if it backtracks on those issues, that could be a sign that countries made a deal by trading climate-related language for something else, Light said.Baer of Carnegie said a statement framed around energy security and infrastructure could be seen as a “pragmatic adaptation” to the U.S. administration, rather than an indication that other leaders aren’t concerned about climate change.Climate activists have lower expectations.“Realistically, we can expect very little, if any, mention of climate change,” said Caroline Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada.“The message we should be expecting from those leaders is that climate action remains a priority for the rest of the G7 … whether it's on the transition away from fossil fuels and supporting developing countries through climate finance,” she said. “Especially now that the U.S. is stepping back, we need countries, including Canada, to be stepping up.”Best- and worst-case scenariosThe challenge for Carney will be preventing any further rupture with Trump, analysts said.In 2018, Trump made a hasty exit from the G7 summit, also in Canada that year, due largely to trade disagreements. He retracted his support for the joint statement.“The best, [most] realistic case outcome is that things don't get worse,” said Baer.The worst-case scenario? Some kind of “highly personalized spat” that could add to the sense of disorder, he added.“I think the G7 on the one hand has the potential to be more important than ever, as fewer and fewer platforms for international cooperation seem to be able to take action,” Baer said. “So it's both very important and also I don't have super-high expectations.”Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

Industrial AI isn’t slowing down. Germany is ready. Following London Tech Week and GTC Paris at VivaTech, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang’s European tour continued with a stop in Germany to discuss with Chancellor Friedrich Merz — pictured above — new partnerships poised to bring breakthrough innovations on the world’s first industrial AI cloud. This AI factory, to be located in Germany and operated by Deutsche Telekom, will enable Europe’s industrial leaders to accelerate manufacturing applications including design, engineering, simulation, digital twins and robotics. “In the era of AI, every manufacturer needs two factories: one for making things, and one for creating the intelligence that powers them,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “By building Europe’s first industrial AI infrastructure, we’re enabling the region’s leading industrial companies to advance simulation-first, AI-driven manufacturing.” “Europe’s technological future needs a sprint, not a stroll,” said Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG. “We must seize the opportunities of artificial intelligence now, revolutionize our industry and secure a leading position in the global technology competition. Our economic success depends on quick decisions and collaborative innovations.” This AI infrastructure — Germany’s single largest AI deployment — is an important leap for the nation in establishing its own sovereign AI infrastructure and providing a launchpad to accelerate AI development and adoption across industries. In its first phase, it’ll feature 10,000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs — spanning NVIDIA DGX B200 systems and NVIDIA RTX PRO Servers — as well as NVIDIA networking and AI software. NEURA Robotics’ training center for cognitive robots. NEURA Robotics, a Germany-based global pioneer in physical AI and cognitive robotics, will use the computing resources to power its state-of-the-art training centers for cognitive robots — a tangible example of how physical AI can evolve through powerful, connected infrastructure. At this work’s core is the Neuraverse, a seamlessly networked robot ecosystem that allows robots to learn from each other across a wide range of industrial and domestic applications. This platform creates an app-store-like hub for robotic intelligence — for tasks like welding and ironing — enabling continuous development and deployment of robotic skills in real-world environments. “Physical AI is the electricity of the future — it will power every machine on the planet,” said David Reger, founder and CEO of NEURA Robotics. “Through this initiative, we’re helping build the sovereign infrastructure Europe needs to lead in intelligent robotics and stay in control of its future.” Critical to Germany’s competitiveness is AI technology development, including the expansion of data center capacity, according to a Deloitte study. This is strategically important because demand for data center capacity is expected to triple over the next five years to 5 gigawatts. Driving Germany’s Industrial Ecosystem Deutsche Telekom will operate the AI factory and provide AI cloud computing resources to Europe’s industrial ecosystem. Customers will be able to run NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries, as well as NVIDIA RTX- and Omniverse-accelerated workloads from leading software providers such as Siemens, Ansys, Cadence and Rescale. Many more stand to benefit. From the country’s robust small- and medium-sized businesses, known as the Mittelstand, to academia, research and major enterprises — the AI factory offers strategic technology leaps. A Speedboat Toward AI Gigafactories The industrial AI cloud will accelerate AI development and adoption from European manufacturers, driving simulation-first, AI-driven manufacturing practices and helping prepare for the country’s transition to AI gigafactories, the next step in Germany’s sovereign AI infrastructure journey. The AI gigafactory initiative is a 100,000 GPU-powered program backed by the European Union, Germany and partners. Poised to go online in 2027, it’ll provide state-of-the-art AI infrastructure that gives enterprises, startups, researchers and universities access to accelerated computing through the establishment and expansion of high-performance computing centers. As of March, there are about 900 Germany-based members of the NVIDIA Inception program for cutting-edge startups, all of which will be eligible to access the AI resources. NVIDIA offers learning courses through its Deep Learning Institute to promote education and certification in AI across the globe, and those resources are broadly available across Germany’s computing ecosystem to offer upskilling opportunities. Additional European telcos are building AI infrastructure for regional enterprises to build and deploy agentic AI applications. Learn more about the latest AI advancements by watching Huang’s GTC Paris keynote in replay.