html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" At the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Estonian Ministry of Culture unveiled the installation and exhibition "Let me warm you," which was curated by architects Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, and Helena Männa and displayed in the Estonian Pavilion.The Pavilion examines if the current insulation-driven renovations are a chance to improve the social and spatial quality of mass housing districts or if they are just a compliance tool to fulfill European energy targets.In order to draw attention to this problem, the Estonian Pavilion will install insulation panels on the front of a Venetian building—a technique that is also employed in Estonia for mass housing. The palazzetto is situated in the Castello area at Riva dei Sette Martiri 1611, which lies on the waterfront between Corso Garibaldi and the Giardini. An exhibition demonstrating how social interactions among many stakeholders impact spatial solutions will be held in a room coated in plastic film on the ground floor of the same structure. "With this project, we question whether insulation is just a bureaucratic checkbox for meeting EU targets or a real chance to tackle social and spatial challenges," said curators Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, and Helena Männa."It exposes the clash between bold global ambitions and the everyday realities of people navigating collective decisions."One half of the world is utilizing more powerful cooling systems, while the other half is putting in ever-thicker layers of insulation to combat climate change.Estonia has set an ambitious aim to renovate all residential complexes built before 2000 to at least energy efficiency class C as Europe rushes to become climate neutral by 2050. This extensive repair project is a component of a broader European initiative to address the climate catastrophe by modernizing the old housing stock. Insulation, however, should be viewed as a significant improvement in quality of life rather than as a temporary solution or "bandage."Finding a balance between aggressive climate policies and the daily demands of the residents of these spaces is the true difficulty, considering the large expenses and long-term effects of these modifications.The same materials and design components commonly used in Estonian renovations will be used for the installation, which will be installed directly onto the façade of the current structure. It makes a strong visual statement when juxtaposed with Venice's elaborate architecture. Renovating residential buildings from the Soviet era in Estonia sometimes involves little to no architectural involvement, which perpetuates a problematic disrespect for the potential and character of these areas. The installation attempts to provoke a conversation between residents and architects about the cities and spaces we hope to live in by contrasting a façade covered in fiber cement with Venice's rich historic fabric. An exhibition exploring the social factors influencing remodeling choices will be located on the palazzetto's ground floor. Since the majority of apartment buildings in Estonia are privately owned, renovation decisions are frequently influenced by budgetary considerations, leaving limited opportunity for spatial enhancements other than insulation.The actual exhibition space, an existing apartment, will be covered in plastic film, signifying the constant drive for remodeling while highlighting how superficial repairs frequently obscure the more profound relationships and practical demands people have with their houses. Using theatrical dialogues and exaggerated spatial effects, a model of a Soviet-era housing block at its center highlights human interactions and illustrates how various relationships and interactions affect space.The exhibition encourages visitors to consider the conflict between policy-driven energy goals and the lived realities of individuals impacted by them by shedding light on the intricacies of community living and refurbishment decisions.A catalogue that shows the tragicomedy of an apartment complex in six episodes is included with the presentation. It examines topics from community revival to the dread of change, all based on the experiences of actual people.With the theme Intelligens Natural Artificial Collective the Biennale Architettura 2025, organized by architect Carlo Ratti, will focus on the built environment as a major source of atmospheric emissions, making architecture one of the primary culprits in the deterioration of our planet. As the climate situation worsens, architects need to provide practical, non-cosmetic, efficient, and expedient solutions.In this sense, the Estonian exhibition responds to Ratti’s call for pavilions: "This year’s head theme offers good ground to discuss what happens to architecture when the Architect is excluded from the process," explained Johanna Jõekalda, advisor on architecture and design at the Ministry of Culture of Estonia, Commissioner of the Estonian Pavilion."Renovation processes that are planned by residents themselves according to their best knowledge, provide a good example of how collective intelligence, or lack of it, affects our spatial environment." "The Estonian Pavilion gives the message that the architectural quality of the living environment should not be overlooked in renovation processes," Jõekalda explained.Visitors will actively interact with the pavilion and building during the Venice Biennale with "Let me warm you." Rethinking rehabilitation techniques could help Estonia lead Europe in updating old buildings for a more sustainable and livable future, not merely for energy efficiency.Find out all exhibition news on WAC's Venice Architecture Biennale page. Project factsPavilion of Estonia: Let me warm you Location: Riva dei Sette Martiri 1611 (Castello neighborhood), VeniceCommissioner: Johanna JõekaldaCurators Exhibitors: Keiti Lige, Elina Liiva, and Helena MännaOrganiser: Ministry of Culture of EstoniaCo-organiser: Estonian Museum of Architecture Creative team: Märten Rattasepp, Kirill Havanski, Aadam Kaarma, Joosep KivimäeProduction: Mari-Liis VunderCollaborators: Neeme Külm (Valge Kuup Studio), Margus Tammik, Robert Männa, Markus Puidak, Randel Pomber.All images © Joosep Kivimäe.> via Estonian Pavilion  Source: https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-news/fhmgm/redefining-renovations-insulation-and-quality-in-mass-housing-in-the-estonian-pavilion.html #redefining #renovations #insulation #and #quality #mass #housing #the #estonian #pavilion

Feeding Flamingos Create Underwater Tornado-Like Vortices to Capture Their Prey, Study Finds Rather than passively filter-feeding, the birds use their heads, beaks and feet to generate motion in the water that funnels invertebrates into their mouths A new study reveals how Chilean flamingos are so adept at finding food. Victor Ortega Jiménez / UC Berkeley Flamingos have a natural ability to filter out food, like shrimp and worms, from the surrounding water, even in the most food-poor environments. Now, a new study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals how the birds use the power of physics to nab their elusive prey. Victor Ortega Jiménez, an integrative biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and lead author of the study, first became interested in flamingos’ eating behavior after a visit to Zoo Atlanta in 2019. The pink birds stomped their feet and submerged their beaks, but from the surface, he saw only ripples. The researcher wanted to know what was happening underwater. “We don’t know anything about what is happening inside,” he says in a statement. “That was my question.” Flamingo model tornado vortex Watch on So, Ortega Jiménez and his team took a closer look with the help of three Chilean flamingos at the Nashville Zoo. They trained the animals to feed from a water-filled tray over several weeks and used high-speed cameras and lasers to monitor the process. Then, the researchers created 3D printed models of the birds’ heads, feet and bills to more closely study how they make the water and particles move. The final step of the work involved attaching a real flamingo beak to a machine that snaps it open and shut, with a small pump to simulate the bird’s tongue. The researchers found that the flamingos use the motion of water to their advantage, combining techniques to funnel water—and the invertebrates within it—to their mouths. They’ll stomp their feet in dance-like motions to bring food up to the surface. Then, they’ll quickly bob their heads up and down to create tornado-like underwater vortices that help catch their prey more efficiently. The birds also snap or “chatter” their beaks and move their tongues in and out—and that chattering allows flamingos to capture seven times more brine shrimp. “We are challenging the idea that flamingos are just passive filter feeders,” says Ortega Jiménez to Rachel Nuwer at the New York Times. “Just as spiders produce webs, flamingos produce vortices.” Tornado flamingo chattering Watch on The team calculated just how quickly the flamingos chattered their beaks and bobbed their heads. To create a tornado-like vortex, a bird would retract its head in a short burst of speed at nearly 16 inches per second. The chattering motion involved the lower beak snapping about 12 times per second. The study is “an outstanding demonstration of how biological form and motion can control the surrounding fluid to serve a functional role,” adds Sunghwan Jung, a biophysicist at Cornell University who was not involved in the study, to the New York Times. Flamingo brine filtering foot Watch on Flamingos’ feeding prowess can even benefit other birds: A 2018 study found that Wilson’s phalaropes can double their food intake by following behind a stomping flamingo. Next, Ortega Jiménez wants to study what goes on inside flamingos’ beaks during feeding, in hopes that it can inspire new technologies that harness the strength of vortices to capture toxic algae or microplastics from water. “These behaviors that look kind of silly are generating these really useful water flows,” Elizabeth Brainerd, a functional morphologist at Brown University who was not involved with the study, told Elizabeth Pennisi at Science when the work was presented at a conference in 2023. “That’s unexpected … and quite elegant.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/feeding-flamingos-create-underwater-tornado-like-vortices-to-capture-their-prey-study-finds-180986614/ #feeding #flamingos #create #underwater #tornadolike #vortices #capture #their #prey #study #finds

Intel has spent much of its goodwill with customers chasing down bugs: the Spectre and Meltdown bugs it dealt with years ago, as well as the instability that plagued its Raptor Lake processors last year. Now there are additional chapters in each of those stories. You don’t have to do anything — just make sure your PC is patched and up to date. But there will be a price to pay in performance in fixing the latest issue, and one you can’t really do anything about. On May 1, Intel issued yet another microcode update for the Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors. Those processors could degrade over time due to elevated operating voltages, Intel said last July. But the recent update was designed to prevent instability on systems “running multiple days with low-activity and lightly-threaded workloads” — or machines that weren’t working at their full capacity. Mitigating that bug, Intel said, will not only solve the problem, but performance fortunately will not be affected. Instead, any variation after applying the patch would be within normal “run-to-run variation,” Intel said. Unfortunately, researchers at ETH Zurich have discovered another bug that affects a number of Intel processors, dating back to the 2018 Skylake architecture. This time, mitigating it will have a significant effect, although the effects will be most pronounced in the much-maligned 11th-gen “Rocket Lake” chips. As noted by Bleeping Computer, the new bug hearkens all the back to 2018, when the Spectre and Meltdown bugs were discovered, affecting the kernel software at the heart of most X86 chips. Though Intel patched out both bugs, researchers at ETH Zurich have discovered that branch target injection attacks (known as a “branch privilege injection”) can again be used against Intel CPUs to leak otherwise protected information. The affected chips include everything from 2018’s Skylake to Raptor Lake. AMD’s Zen 5 and Zen 4 chips are not affected, the researchers found. More information can be found at the ETH Zurich site. Proper security practices usually call for researchers to privately disclose bugs to the manufacturers before they’re released to the public, and the researchers did just that. Intel released microcode to the research team for testing and to confirm the microcode update works. To avoid being preyed upon by either vulnerability, what you need to do remains the same: simply make sure that your PC is properly patched, either via Windows Update or via the firmware updates your PC maker or motherboard maker provides. Intel disclosed the bug in a security advisory, and also issued a public blog post about the issue. A company representative also issued a statement, below. “We appreciate the work done by ETH Zurich on this research and collaboration on coordinated public disclosure,” Intel said in a statement. “Intel is strengthening its Spectre v2 hardware mitigations and recommends customers contact their system manufacturer for the appropriate update. To date, Intel is not aware of any real-world exploits of transient execution vulnerabilities.” However, there will be a performance price to pay, too. ETH Zurich said that it won’t be too bad: just a 2.7 percent drop in performance in Alder Lake and 1.6 percent in the 2018 Skylake (Coffee Lake Refresh) chip. (For the record, Intel says that “Intel’s performance tests conclude that standard benchmarks are within normal run-to-run variation.”) If you still own an 11th-gen “Rocket Lake” chips, however, you’re going to pay a price: an estimated 8.3 percent drop in performance, according to ETH Zurich. Knocking almost 10 percent off the performance of what was an already subpar chip may mean that it’s time for an upgrade. This story was updated at 11:56 AM with additional details from Intel. Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2780652/spectre-cpu-bug-returns-to-haunt-intel-processors.html #devastating #spectre #cpu #bug #returns #haunt #intel #processors

What initially appeared to be a power play by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to take over the US Copyright Office by having Donald Trump remove the officials in charge has now backfired in spectacular fashion, as Trump’s acting replacements are known to be unfriendly — and even downright hostile — to the tech industry. When Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden last week and Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter over the weekend, it was seen as another move driven by the tech wing of the Republican Party — especially in light of the Copyright Office releasing a pre-publication report saying some kinds of generative AI training would not be considered fair use. And when two men showed up at the Copyright Office inside the Library of Congress carrying letters purporting to appoint them to acting leadership positions, the DOGE takeover appeared to be complete.But those two men, Paul Perkins and Brian Nieves, were not DOGE at all, but instead approved by the MAGA wing of the Trump coalition that aims to put tech companies in check. Perkins, now the supposed acting Register of Copyrights, is an eight-year veteran of the DOJ who served in the first Trump administration prosecuting fraud cases. Nieves, the putative acting deputy librarian, is currently at the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, having previously been a lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee, where he worked with Rep. Jim Jordan on Big Tech investigations. And Todd Blanche, the putative Acting Librarian of Congress who would be their boss, is a staunch Trump ally who represented him during his 2024 Manhattan criminal trial, and is now the Deputy Attorney General overseeing the DOJ’s side in the Google Search remedies case. As one government affairs lobbyist told The Verge, Blanche is “there to stick it to tech.”The appointments of Blanche, Perkins, and Nieves are the result of furious lobbying over the weekend by the conservative content industry — as jealously protective of its copyrighted works as any other media companies — as well as populist Republican lawmakers and lawyers, all enraged that Silicon Valley had somehow persuaded Trump to fire someone who’d recently criticized AI companies.Sources speaking to The Verge are convinced the firings were a tech industry power play led by Elon Musk and David SacksThe populists were particularly rankled over Perlmutter’s removal from the helm of the Copyright Office, which happened the day after the agency released a pre-publication version of its report on the use of copyrighted material in training generative AI systems. Sources speaking to The Verge are convinced the firings were a tech industry power play led by Elon Musk and “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” David Sacks, meant to eliminate any resistance to AI companies using copyrighted material to train models without having to pay for it.“You can say, well, we have to compete with China. No, we don’t have to steal content to compete with China. We don’t have slave labor to compete with China. It’s a bullshit argument,” Mike Davis, the president of the Article III project and a key antitrust advisor to Trump, told The Verge. “It’s not fair use under the copyright laws to take everyone’s content and have the big tech platforms monetize it. That’s the opposite of fair use. That’s a copyright infringement.”It’s the rare time that MAGA world is in agreement with the Democratic Party, which has roundly condemned the firings of Hayden and Perlmutter, and also zeroed in on the Musk-Sacks faction as the instigator.In a press release, Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) characterized the hundred-plus-page report, the third installment of a series that the office has put out on copyright and artificial intelligence, as “refus[ing] to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.” Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who told The Verge in an emailed statement that the president had no power to fire either Hayden or Perlmutter, said, “This all looks like another way to pay back Elon Musk and the other AI billionaires who backed Trump’s campaign.”The agency’s interpretation of what is or isn’t fair use does not have binding force on the courtsPublications like the AI report essentially lay out how the Copyright Office interprets copyright law. But the agency’s interpretation of what is or isn’t fair use does not have binding force on the courts, so a report like this one functions mostly as expert commentary and reference material. However, the entire AI industry is built on an expansive interpretation of copyright law that’s currently being tested in the courts — a situation that’s created dire need for exactly this sort of expert commentary. The AI report applies the law of fair use to different kinds of AI training and usage, concluding that although outcomes might differ case by case, “making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries.” But far from advising drastic action in response to what the Office believes is rampant copyright infringement, the report instead states that “government intervention would be premature at this time,” given that licensing agreements are being made across various sectors.“Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AP profits”The unoffending nature of the report made Perlmutter’s removal all the more alarming to the MAGA ideologues in Trump’s inner circle, who saw this as a clear power grab, and were immediately vocal about it. “Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AP profits,” Davis posted immediately on Truth Social, along with a link to a CBS story about Perlmutter’s firing. “This is 100% unacceptable.” Curiously, just after Davis published the post, Trump reposted it, link and all. None of Trump’s purported appointees have a particularly relevant background for their new jobs — but they are certainly not DOGE people and, generally speaking, are not the kind of people that generative AI proponents would want in the office. And for now, this counts as a political win for the anti-tech populists, even if nothing further happens. “Sometimes when you make a pitch to leadership to get rid of someone, the person who comes in after isn’t any better,” said a source familiar with the dynamic between the White House and both sides of the copyright issue. “You don’t necessarily get to name the successor and fire someone, and so in many cases, I’ve seen people get pushed out the door and the replacement is even worse.”RelatedThe speed of the firings and subsequent power struggle, however, have underscored the brewing constitutional crisis sparked by Trump’s frequent firing of independent agency officials confirmed by Congress. The Library of Congress firings, in particular, reach well past the theory of executive power claimed by the White House and into even murkier territory. It’s legally dubious whether the Librarian of Congress can be removed by the president, as the Library, a legislative branch agency that significantly predates the administrative state, does not fit neatly into the modern-day legal framework of federal agencies. (Of course, everything about the law is in upheaval even where agencies do fit the framework.) Regardless, the law clearly states that the Librarian of Congress — not the president — appoints the Register of Copyrights.At the moment, the Library of Congress has not received any direction from Congress on how to move forward. The constitutional crisis — one of many across the federal government — remains ongoing. Elon Musk and xAI did not respond to a request for comment.Additional reporting by Sarah Jeong.See More: Source: https://www.theverge.com/politics/666179/maga-elon-musk-sacks-copyright-office-perlmutter #elon #musks #apparent #power #play #the #copyright #office #completely #backfired

Last week, Nintendo predicted it would sell 15 million Switch 2 consoles in its current financial year. This would actually be a fantastic result — equalling Switch, and just about any console you care to mention — but analysts called the figure “conservative” and “on the low side.” That’s just how high the expectations for Switch 2 sales are.The consensus was that Nintendo’s conservative estimate was due to uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s tariffs, but in some unusually direct comments during an investor Q&A, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa denied this was the case. Instead, he said it was the system’s high price that has made Nintendo cautious in its outlook.“Nintendo Switch 2 is priced relatively high compared to Nintendo Switch, so we recognize that there are corresponding challenges to early adoption,” Furukawa said. “We are taking steps like bundling software with the hardware to accelerate adoption in the first fiscal year, aiming to get off to the same start we did with Nintendo Switch.”Furukawa cautioned that investors shouldn’t get carried away over the extreme demand for Switch 2 pre-orders. Due to the system’s high price, he said that “even if there is momentum around the launch, we know it will not be easy to keep that momentum going over the long term through the holiday season and beyond.”Furukawa said that its production capacity for Switch 2 was “not a factor” in settings its forecast, and neither was the unstable economic situation. “The tariff situation in the U.S. or a possibility of a recession did not affectour sales volume forecast either,” he said.He went on to give Nintendo’s fullest statement yet in response to U.S. tariffs, saying that it was working on the assumption that the current tariff rates would persist for the rest of the financial year, which would result in “a negative impact of several tens of billions of yen at the profit level.”“Our basic policy is that for any country or region, if tariffs are imposed, we recognize them as a part of the cost and incorporate them into the price,” he said. “However, this year marks our first new dedicated video game system launch in eight years, so given our unique situation, our priority is to maintain the momentum of our platforms, which is extremely important for our dedicated video game platform business, and to rapidly expand the install base of our new hardware. Consequently, if the assumptions on tariffs change, we will consider what kind of price adjustments would be appropriate, taking into account various factors such as the market conditions.”To translate this from CEO-speak: Nintendo would usually slap the cost of tariffs onto the price of its hardware, but didn’t do so in this case because it wants to sell as many Switch 2s as possible. It’s not ruling out making pricing changes as the situation evolves (but it probably won’t).The whole Q&A is worth a read, just for the bizarre spectacle of a business leader patiently explaining and re-explaining to his insatiable investors why he thinks his new product is only going to be one of the fastest-selling consoles of all time, which is apparently a terrible disappointment to them. Capitalism!See More: Source: https://www.polygon.com/nintendo-switch-2/598877/nintendo-switch-2-forecast-price-not-tariffs #nintendo #says #its #lowballed #switch #forecast #about #price #not #tariffs

Photo Credit: Pixabay/Leonhard_Niederwimmer New satellite data shows NYC, Chicago, and Houston are gradually sinking Highlights 28 major US cities found to be sinking, latest satellite study confirms Houston records the fastest and most widespread urban land subsidence NYC and Chicago are sinking at rates reaching 10 millimeters per year Advertisement A new satellite-based study reveals that the 28 most populous cities in the United States—including New York City, Chicago, Dallas, and Denver—are gradually sinking at rates of 2 to 10 millimetres (0.08 to 0.4 inches) per year. Researchers at Virginia Tech used high-resolution radar measurements to map this ground subsidence across urban regions. In every city examined, at least 20 percent of the land area was found to be sinking; in 25 of the 28 cities, more than 65 percent exhibited measurable downward movement, posing serious long-term risks to urban infrastructure systems.Houston Leads US Cities in Ground Sinking Crisis Driven by Groundwater ExtractionAs per the Nature Cities report published on May 8, cities in Texas showed the highest subsidence rates, with Houston being the most affected—40 percent of the city is sinking faster than 5 millimetres per year, and 12 percent exceeds 10 millimetres annually. Under the direction of Leonard Ohenhen, the researchers linked almost 80 percent of the urban subsidence to too high groundwater extraction, a process motivated by growing urban needs. While natural geological activity is important as well, human activity is now the dominant driver of land depression.Experts warned that even small changes can undermine the structural integrity of roads, bridges, rail systems, and other infrastructure. “This hazard grows very slowly, decimates the ground from underneath, and if disasters occur, very few people recognise it in its early stages,” Manoochehr Shirzaei, who is an associate professor at Virginia Tech, said in a statement. The study also highlighted the vulnerability of not only coastal cities but also inland cities, including those located far from the ocean, where land subsidence increases the frequency of flooding and impacts the long-term planning of urban development.Although it's never going to be completely prevented, the report recommends more monitoring and legal action. Emphasis should be on improved satellite surveillance, changes in groundwater management, and building strong infrastructure. Left alone, the subsidence can turn into a quiet urban menace, experts stated. For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Gadgets 360 Staff The resident bot. If you email me, a human will respond. More Source: https://www.gadgets360.com/science/news/28-major-us-cities-are-sinking-including-nyc-and-chicago-satellite-study-finds-8370574#rss-gadgets-news #major #cities #are #sinking #including #nyc #and #chicago #satellite #study #finds

Mosura fentoni belongs to an extinct group of early arthropods. CREDIT: Art by Danielle Dufault, © ROM Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Despite centuries of digging, paleontologists are still unearthing new flora and fauna preserved for millennia in rocks. Case in point, the newly discovered Mosura fentoni. This 506-million-year-old predator was found in Canada’s Burgess Shale and packed a punch for something only about the size of a human index finger. The findings are detailed in a study published May 13 in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Meet Mosura From the fossils, paleontologists believe that Mosura fentoni had three eyes, spiny jointed claws, a circular mouth lined with teeth, and a body equipped with swimming flaps along its sides. It was likely part of an extinct group of small early arthropods called radiodonts. The three-feet-long predator Anomalocaris canadensis was also a radiodont that shared the water with Mosura. However, Mosura has something that has not been seen in other radiodont. It has an abdomen-like body region made up of several segments at its back–similar to living insects and other arthropods.  Life reconstruction of Mosura fentoni. CREDIT: Art by Danielle Dufault, © ROM. “Mosura has 16 tightly packed segments lined with gills at the rear end of its body,” Joe Moysiuk, a study co-author and Curator of Palaeontology and Geology at the Manitoba Museum, said in a statement. “This is a neat example of evolutionary convergence with modern groups, like horseshoe crabs, woodlice, and insects, which share a batch of segments bearing respiratory organs at the rear of the body.” The team is not sure why Mosura has this intriguing adaptation, but it could be related to particular habitat preference or behavioral characteristics that required more efficient respiration. The sea moth Field collectors nicknamed Mosura the “sea-moth” due to the board swimming flaps located near its midsection and narrow abdomen. The moth-like feature inspired its scientific name, which references the fictional Japanese kaiju also known as Mothra. However, it is only distantly related to real moths. Mosura sits on a much deeper branch in the arthropod evolutionary tree. “Radiodonts were the first group of arthropods to branch out in the evolutionary tree, so they provide key insight into ancestral traits for the entire group,” Jean-Bernard Caron, a study coauthor and Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, said in a statement. “The new species emphasizes that these early arthropods were already surprisingly diverse and were adapting in a comparable way to their distant modern relatives.” Fossil specimen of Mosura fentoni, ROMIP 67520 from the Marble Canyon area. The head is at the left and the dark, three-dimensional bulges represent minerals replacing the gills and circulatory lacunae. CREDIT: Photo by Jean-Bernard Caron © ROM Additionally, several Mosura fossils show details of internal anatomy seen in later arthropods, including some elements of the nervous system, circulatory system, and digestive tract. “Very few fossil sites in the world offer this level of insight into soft internal anatomy. We can see traces representing bundles of nerves in the eyes that would have been involved in image processing, just like in living arthropods. The details are astounding,” said Caron.  Open blood Instead of having internal arteries and veins to transfer blood the way that most living mammals do, Mosura had an open circulatory system. Its heart pumped blood into large internal body cavities called lacunae. In some of the fossils, the lacunae are preserved as reflective patches that fill the body and extend into the swimming flaps. “The well-preserved lacunae of the circulatory system in Mosura help us to interpret similar, but less clear features that we’ve seen before in other fossils. Their identity has been controversial,” said Moysiuk. “It turns out that preservation of these structures is widespread, confirming the ancient origin of this type of circulatory system.” Anatomical diagram of Mosura fentoni, showing preserved details of the nervous system in purple, the digestive system in green, and the circulatory system in orange. CREDIT: Art by Danielle Dufault © ROM All but one of the 61 Mosura fossils in this study were collected by the Royal Ontario Museum between 1975 and 2022, highlighting the importance of these types of animal archives.  “Museum collections, old and new, are a bottomless treasure trove of information about the past. If you think you’ve seen it all before, you just need to open up a museum drawer,” said Moysiuk. Source: https://www.popsci.com/environment/mothra-fossil/ #ancient #threeeyed #sea #moth #used #its #butt #breathe

agsandrew - stock.adobe.com News UKRI must do more to drive innovation agenda and avoid fraud The UKR’s funding of research and innovation to support the government’s growth strategy has room for improvement. By Cliff Saran, Managing Editor Published: 14 May 2025 0:01 The UKRI, the largest single public funder of research and innovation in the UK, needs funding assurance. The UK research and innovation: Providing support through grants report by the National Audit Committee (NAO) found that the organisation’s ongoing challenges include a lack of joined-up direction from government departments; inefficient data systems; and the need to consider how to further support well-managed risk-taking through organisational culture. The report found a lack of coordination in how the government expects UKRI to support the delivery of a range of objectives. The UKRI uses its budget to support the government’s research and innovation agenda. Given the multi-year nature of UKRI’s investments, it needs to make a high level of financial commitments into future financial years, which, the NAO said, limits the budget available to respond to emerging government priorities through initiating new programmes.  Due to the broad nature of UKRI’s activity, government departments indicate their policy priorities to UKRI through a variety of means, including ad hoc and routine meetings, government strategies and mission statements, and spending review budgets. However, the NAO reported that these are not consolidated or ranked. The report’s authors found that since its establishment, UKRI has been grappling with consolidating the data of its predecessor organisations, which ran separate systems and had data quality issues. Although it has now developed a system to classify grants by theme algorithmically, based on the award title and description, tracking or analysing other aspects of spending across UKRI remains a difficult manual exercise. The NAO was told by UKRI that around 15% of its grants do not have a full description on its system or the descriptions are poor quality, which means that spending on these grants cannot be accurately automatically classified. There are also issues relating to fraud. The NAO reported that the counter-fraud team at the UKRI is under-staffed, which means there is a backlog of cases and limited capacity for preventative work. The report from the NAO found that in 2023-24, UKRI investigated suspected fraud on £42.6m of grants. It identified £4.6m of fraud; prevented £13.5m and recovered £80,000. The NAO noted that UKRI has recognised there are issues with its approach to fraud, and said it was reorganising its risk, assurance, counter-fraud and corporate governance team. According to the NAO report, the UKRI is working on a new counter-fraud strategy and a new approach to funding assurance; has recruited new staff; and begun efforts to improve team culture and update fraud risk assessments. The NAO was told to expect improvements by September 2025. Read more stories about UKRI Government funding to help businesses discover AI value: The government is betting the bank on the power of artificial intelligence to fix the public sector, mend roads and boost the UK economy. Government boosts Horizon R&D campaign: As part of its Plan for Change, Labour is ramping up efforts to get more UK businesses to apply for Horizon funding. The authors of the report concluded that UKRI, which spends around £9bn annually, needs to establish a strong approach to understand how its work is providing a return on investment for taxpayers. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said: “UKRI plays a key role in supporting a substantial and successful R&I system, seeking to take a high risk, high reward approach to grant funding. However, it lacks any measurable objectives to track progress and does not have the right data to manage grant spending strategically. “For the nation to remain global leaders in R&I, UKRI must do more to support its decision-makers, foster resilience and ensure our systems can continue to respond to emerging challenges.” In The Current Issue: UK MoJ crime prediction algorithms raise serious concerns Interview: Markus Schümmelfeder, CIO, Boehringer Ingelheim Download Current Issue NordVPN goes full GUI on Linux – Open Source Insider The ongoing AI-automation convergence, and what this means for the enterprise – Data Matters View All Blogs Source: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366623561/UKRI-must-do-more-to-drive-innovation-agenda-and-avoid-fraud #ukri #must #more #drive #innovation #agenda #and #avoid #fraud

Last week, Israeli firm NSO Group, best known for its Pegasus spyware targeting iPhones and Android devices, was ordered to pay Meta more than $167M for targeting WhatsApp users. Now, TechCrunch has published an interesting report based on the 1,000+ page transcript of the trial. The aftermath As soon as the verdict was read, Meta celebrated the outcome as “an important step forward for privacy and security.” The ruling capped a legal battle that stretched over five years, with the court also ordering NSO to hand over the code for Pegasus and its other spyware tools to WhatsApp. With such a long and sprawling case, it’s no surprise that the transcript runs over 1,000 pages. Some of its contents, however, might raise a few eyebrows. One piece of information, however, goes to show the firm’s fearlessness (let’s call it that) when it comes to targeting users with its spyware. As Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai writes: Following the spyware attack, WhatsApp filed its lawsuit against NSO Group in November 2019. Despite the active legal challenge, the spyware maker kept targeting the chat app’s users, according to NSO Group’s research and development vice president Tamir Gazneli. Gazneli said that “Erised,” the codename for one of the versions of the WhatsApp zero-click vector, was in use from late-2019 up to May 2020. The other versions were called “Eden” and “Heaven,” and the three were collectively known as “Hummingbird.” The story is a quick read, but well worth your time if you are into infosec. It goes into how the attack worked and what its relationship with government customers is like. In its official statement about the victory, Meta promised to publish unofficial trial transcripts for “researchers and journalists studying these threats and working to protect the public.” NSO, on the other hand, vowed to appeal. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel Source: https://9to5mac.com/2025/05/13/nso-group-kept-spying-despite-meta-lawsuit/ #nso #group #kept #spying #whatsapp #users #despite #meta #lawsuit

When Bob Dylan Isn’t Writing Nobel-Winning Lyrics, He’s Creating Original Paintings and Drawings Nearly 100 imaginative portraits, still lifes and other artworks by the renowned singer-songwriter are now on view at the Halcyon Gallery in London The collection includes several portraits of musicians. Halcyon Gallery Bob Dylan is famous for his poetic lyrics and raw vocals, but the renowned singer-songwriter has long turned to another art form to “relax and refocus a restless mind”: drawing and painting. Now, nearly 100 of his artworks are on display in London. Titled “Point Blank,” the free exhibition at the Halcyon Gallery features colorful acrylics based on sketches that Dylan completed between 2021 and 2022. The artworks depict subjects like a tree outside a window, a living room and a waterfront in Zurich. The collection also includes imaginative portraits of people engaged in various activities, such as playing guitar, riding a bicycle and drinking tea. “The idea was not only to observe the human condition, but to throw myself into it with great urgency,” Dylan says in a statement, adding: “As to the color schemes, the idea was to create living, breathing entities that have emotional resonance—colors used as weapons and mood-setters, a means of storytelling.” Dylan made the original sketches between 2021 and 2022. Halcyon Gallery The artworks on display are “hazy, snapshot things,” according to Artnet’s Richard Whiddington. “With Dylan remaining noncommittal as to which derive from reality and which from his imagination, the viewer is [encouraged] to partake in a little storytelling of their own.” Born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941, Dylan moved to New York City to begin his musical career in 1961. “The artist who would eventually become the voice of a generation was then a 19-year-old college dropout bored with the Midwest and intrigued by the folk music coming out of Lower Manhattan’s Greenwich Village,” writes Smithsonian magazine’s Grant Wong. In the years that followed, Dylan rose to fame with folk songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Throughout his career, the musician has released 40 studio albums, earning the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016. Along the way, he decided to try his hand at drawing and painting. Dylan has been exhibiting visual art since 2007. Halcyon Gallery “He’s always been an artist in quiet moments,” writes the London Times’ Nancy Durrant. “If he has been more visible in this guise recently, it’s because his usual relentless touring schedule evaporated during the pandemic and he suddenly had the opportunity to focus on painting in a new way.” The singer-songwriter has been displaying his visual artworks since 2007, when an exhibition of 200 watercolor and gouache paintings based on drawings and sketches opened in Germany. In 2019, the Modern Art Museum in Shanghai showcased his sculptures, paintings and drawings. Halcyon has staged several exhibitions of Dylan’s paintings, including a 2022 show that displayed them alongside works by some of his artistic influences, such as Claude Monet, Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall. “A real artist made these drawings and paintings,” wrote the Guardian’s Jonathan Jones in a review of a 2016 show at Halcyon. “Their integrity is compelling. They demand to be looked at, for their awe and wonder at the beauty and grandeur of being alive. These are the pictures of a true poet.”According to the gallery, “Point Blank” began as a book of “quick studies” and “accompanying prose.” Visitors will be able to read the text as they examine Dylan’s latest artworks. “These works on paper feel like memories, intangible windows into the life and imagination of one of the greatest storytellers who ever lived,” says Kate Brown, Halcyon’s creative director, in the statement. “People who attend the exhibition will discover that they provoke stories from our imagination. We consider the circumstances of the protagonists and ponder our movement through the spaces that the artist depicts.” “Point Blank” is on view at the Halcyon Gallery in London through July 6, 2025. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday. Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-bob-dylan-isnt-writing-nobel-winning-lyrics-hes-creating-original-paintings-and-drawings-180986612/ #when #bob #dylan #isn039t #writing #nobelwinning #lyrics #he039s #creating #original #paintings #and #drawings