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upstart writes:

Academics accuse AI startups of co-opting peer review for publicity:

There's a controversy brewing over "AI-generated" studies submitted to this year's ICLR, a long-running academic conference focused on AI.

At least three AI labs — Sakana, Intology, and Autoscience — claim to have used AI to generate studies that were accepted to ICLR workshops. At conferences like ICLR, workshop organizers typically review studies for publication in the conference's workshop track.

Sakana informed ICLR leaders before it submitted its AI-generated papers and obtained the peer reviewers' consent. The other two labs — Intology and Autoscience — did not, an ICLR spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch.

Several AI academics took to social media to criticize Intology and Autoscience's stunts as a co-opting of the scientific peer review process.

"All these AI scientist papers are using peer-reviewed venues as their human evals, but no one consented to providing this free labor," wrote Prithviraj Ammanabrolu, an assistant computer science professor at UC San Diego, in an X post. "It makes me lose respect for all those involved regardless of how impressive the system is. Please disclose this to the editors."

As the critics noted, peer review is a time-consuming, labor-intensive, and mostly volunteer ordeal. According to one recent Nature survey, 40% of academics spend two to four hours reviewing a single study. That work has been escalating. The number of papers submitted to the largest AI conference, NeurIPS, grew to 17,491 last year, up 41% from 12,345 in 2023.

Academia already had an AI-generated copy problem. One analysis found that between 6.5% and 16.9% of papers submitted to AI conferences in 2023 likely contained synthetic text. But AI companies using peer review to effectively benchmark and advertise their tech is a relatively new occurrence.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Scientists at America's Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico say they have developed a Spacecraft Speedometer that satellites can use in orbit to ideally avoid orbital collisions.

Working with the US Air Force Academy, the LANL [scientists] say they have come up with a novel device capable of determining the velocity of a satellite while it is looping Earth and potentially other planets.

(The lab repeatedly uses the word velocity in its description of the equipment. Velocity is strictly speaking a vector quantity of magnitude and direction, so we'll assume the eggheads have been able to determine the speed component of a satellite's velocity vector using this gadget, at least.)

The Spacecraft Speedometer, we're told, makes use of twin laminated plasma spectrometers, with one facing forward along the space vehicle's trajectory and another identical unit facing in the opposite direction.

This design is based on the theory that more charged particles will impact the spectrometer that is facing forward than the rear-facing unit, allowing the velocity to be calculated.

"Like a car driving through a heavy rain, the satellite passes through the charged particles, ions and electrons, that comprise the Earth's upper atmosphere. In the case of the car, many raindrops will hit the car's front windshield while fewer raindrops will hit the rear windshield. In addition, the raindrops on the front hit the windshield harder," the research lab explains.

The principle is therefore that many atmospheric ions will hit the front-facing sensor, dubbed the ram measurement because ions ram into it. Fewer ions will be measured by the rear-facing sensor, called the wake measurement. The Spacecraft Speedometer uses the difference in both the number and impact energy of ions collected by the two sensors to provide an in-orbit velocity measurement.

taylorvich writes:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-naturalness-seasonal-basis-modern-criticism.html

What is the best time to start the day in view of the variation in when the sun rises? This is the problem analyzed by Jorge Mira Pérez and José María Martín-Olalla, lecturers at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and the University of Seville (US), in a study that has just been published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. In it, they analyze the physiological and social foundations of the practice of seasonal time change and review its impact on health.

The study takes as an example the cities of Bogotá and New York, which are located on the same meridian but at different latitudes, to point out that in winter the sunrise is delayed by an hour-and-a-half in the latter city. "This delays life in New York during the winter, but in spring the delay in sunrise has disappeared and activity can start earlier. Putting the clocks forward in spring facilitates this adaptation," says Mira.

The study includes several current and past examples of societies with delayed activity in winter and earlier activity in summer, in line with the synchronizing role of morning light for our bodies. "Modern societies have several synchronization mechanisms. For example, the use of a standard time in a large region, or the use of pre-set schedules. Time shifting is another synchronizing mechanism, which adapts human activity to the corresponding season," says Martín-Olalla. The authors suggest that the first weekend in April and the first weekend in October would be the most appropriate time for the clocks to change.

The study reviews the impact of the seasonal time change on human health, considering two types of effects: those associated with the change itself, and those associated with the period during which daylight-saving time is in effect. In the first case, the authors point out that published studies have not analyzed the problem epidemiologically and that the evidence suggests that the impact is very weak.

"A very comprehensive study in the United States reports a 5% increase in traffic accidents in the week following the clocks going forward in spring but overlooks the fact that from one year to the next, weekly traffic accidents fluctuate by 15%. Changing the clocks has an impact, but it is very weak compared to the other factors influencing the problem," Mira points out.

"Changing the clocks has worked for a hundred years without serious disruption. The problem is that in recent years it has been associated only with energy saving when, in fact, it is a natural adaptation mechanism," says Martín-Olalla.

North Korea's Bitcoin Reserve Thought to be 3rd Largest in World: Report

upstart writes:

North Korea's bitcoin reserve thought to be 3rd largest in world: report:

With authorities identifying North Korean hackers to be behind multiple recent cryptocurrency hackings, the totalitarian communist state is now thought to have a bigger bitcoin stash than any other nation in the world besides the United States and the United Kingdom.

Binance News, a news platform of global cryptocurrency exchange business firm Binance, recently reported that North Korea's allegedly state-run hacker syndicates are believed to have accumulated 13,562 BTC, valued at $1.14 billion. It cited Arkham Intelligence, a Dominican Republic-based company that provides data about blockchain transactions to help identify money laundering and other suspicious activity.

North Korea-affiliated hacking groups including the Lazarus Group were pinpointed to be culprits behind a string of cyber attacks in 2024 that stole $659 million in cryptocurrency, according to a joint statement by South Korea, the US and Japan made in January. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation last month released a public statement that North Korea is responsible for the theft of approximately $1.5 billion worth of virtual assets, the biggest hacking incident so far, which occurred last month.

Much of the stolen virtual assets were Ethereum coins, a substantial portion of which are thought to have been converted into bitcoins.

It was reported last week that the Lazarus Group converted at least $300 million of their stolen crypto into unrecoverable funds.

Lazarus Group and other hacking groups are alleged to be run by the North Korean government, and are thought to be an important source of income for it. North Korea is currently under multiple sanctions placed by the international community, as punitive actions for developing its nuclear weapons program.

A significant portion of the profits from North Korea's illegal activities are thought to be used to fund its ballistic missiles programs and nuclear tests.

If confirmed, North Korea's bitcoin reserve will be only behind US' 198,109 BTC and the UK's 61,245 BTC, according to the Binance's estimates. It would be more than 10,635 BTC of Bhutan and El Salvador's 6,117 BTC.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

German tech company AP Sensing just developed a technology that lets undersea cables detect tampering and sabotage through soundwaves. The company tested its new Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing (DFOS) last year when it sent a diver to make contact with an underwater cable it was monitoring. “He stops and just touches the cable lightly, you clearly see the signal,” Daniel Gerwig, global sales manager at AP Sensing told BBC. “The acoustic energy which travels through the fiber is basically disturbing our signal. We can measure this disturbance.”

The technology works like sonar, where it senses vibrations traveling through the water by monitoring the light traveling within the fiber optic cable. These tiny movements, as well as temperature changes and physical disturbance, affect the minute number of photons being reflected back along a fiber optic cable. By measuring these changes, the team can determine if something makes contact with the cable or if a part of it is unearthed.

AP Sensing’s software is also claimed to be able to pick up vehicles moving and events happening within the vicinity of the cables. This makes it possible for fiber optic cables to hear a dropping anchor, detect ships passive above it, and even possibly determine the vessel’s approximate class.

One more advantage to this technology is that it can be retrofitted to existing lines that have free channels or at least one unused cable. That means undersea cable operators do not have to spend millions in laying new cables with built-in sonar sensors. The only additional investment they need is to install signal-listening devices every 100km (approx 62 miles).

Many companies are starting to invest in technologies like this in the wake of several high-profile cable-cutting incidents in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan in late 2024 and early 2025. As the majority of global communications rely on undersea cables, purposely disrupting this crucial infrastructure could be considered a hostile act.

However, these sabotage detectors may only help catch an offending vessel after it has already damaged or severed a cable. Still, some suggest putting dedicated sensors around crucial infrastructure is a good idea, giving Coast Guard and Navy ships some time to respond before damage is inflicted. This would make it easier to safeguard these key undersea lines of communication and would work well alongside NATO’s deployment of sea drones.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Redmond insists it's got this right and has even more impressive results to share soon:

Updated Microsoft's claim of a quantum computing breakthrough has attracted strong criticism from scientists, though the software giant says its work is sound – and it will soon reveal data that proves it.

Redmond's quantum claims were made in February when it announced its in-house boffins had created "the world's first topoconductor, a breakthrough type of material which can observe and control Majorana particles to produce more reliable and scalable qubits, which are the building blocks for quantum computers."

This is a piece of alleged technology based on basic physics that has not been established

The Windows maker showed off a quantum chip called Majorana 1, based on a Topological Core architecture, which it said could power future quantum computers that pack a million qubits. Quantum computers with even a few hundred qubits are promised to be so powerful that the device you're reading this on might as well be a broken abacus.

Microsoft's claims were astounding because Majorana particles were first theorized in 1937 but detecting them has proved difficult. Yet Microsoft told the world it not only observed Majorana particles but had learned how to put them to work in a machine packing eight topological qubits.

The super-corporation has made big claims about Majorana particles before, but it didn't end well: In 2021 Redmond's researchers retracted a 2018 paper in which they claimed to have detected the particles.

Shortly after Microsoft's recent announcement, scientists expressed concern that the claims in the company's paper, published in Nature, lacked important details.

Microsoft researcher Chetan Nayak has reaffirmed Redmond's claims and pointed out that the paper was submitted in March 2024 and published in February 2025. In the intervening months he said Microsoft has made even more progress that he will discuss at an American Physical Society (APS) meeting scheduled for next week in California.

While the quantum world waits for that update, critics have voiced their concerns about Microsoft's paper.

Henry Legg, a lecturer in theoretical physics at the University of St Andrews in the UK, recently published a pre-print critique that argues the software giant's work "is not reliable and must be revisited."

Vincent Mourik, an experimental physicist at the German national research organization Forschungszentrum Jülich, and Sergey Frolov, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh in the US, took to YouTube to criticize "distractions caused by unreliable scientific claims from Microsoft Quantum."

Frolov went even further when discussing the matter with The Register.

"These concerns go back quite a number of years so [the community reaction] hasn't just been triggered by this announcement per se," Frolov told The Register. "It was just made in such a dramatic way that it, I guess, triggered a reaction but [it hasn't altered] the underlying sort of understanding that this is essentially a fraudulent project."

Asked to elaborate on that characterization, Frolov said: "This is a piece of alleged technology that is based on basic physics that has not been established. So this is a pretty big problem."

Frolov also claimed Microsoft shared data with some select scientists a few weeks ago, ahead of next week's APS meeting, and that those invited to hear more did not come away more confident about Microsoft's claims.

"I was not there but I spoke with a few people that were ... and people were not impressed and there was a lot of criticism," he said.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.wired.com/story/federal-trade-commission-removed-blogs-critical-of-ai-amazon-microsoft/

The Trump administration's Federal Trade Commission has removed four years' worth of business guidance blogs as of Tuesday morning, including important consumer protection information related to artificial intelligence and the agency's landmark privacy lawsuits under former chair Lina Khan against companies like Amazon and Microsoft. More than 300 blogs were removed.

On the FTC's website, the page hosting all of the agency's business-related blogs and guidance no longer includes any information published during former president Joe Biden's administration, current and former FTC employees, who spoke under anonymity for fear of retaliation, tell WIRED. These blogs contained advice from the FTC on how big tech companies could avoid violating consumer protection laws.

One now deleted blog, titled "Hey, Alexa! What are you doing with my data?" explains how, according to two FTC complaints, Amazon and its Ring security camera products allegedly leveraged sensitive consumer data to train the ecommerce giant's algorithms. (Amazon disagreed with the FTC's claims.) It also provided guidance for companies operating similar products and services. Another post titled "$20 million FTC settlement addresses Microsoft Xbox illegal collection of kids' data: A game changer for COPPA compliance" instructs tech companies on how to abide by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by using the 2023 Microsoft settlement as an example. The settlement followed allegations by the FTC that Microsoft obtained data from children using Xbox systems without the consent of their parents or guardians.

"In terms of the message to industry on what our compliance expectations were, which is in some ways the most important part of enforcement action, they are trying to just erase those from history," a source familiar tells WIRED.

Another removed FTC blog titled "The Luring Test: AI and the engineering of consumer trust" outlines how businesses could avoid creating chatbots that violate the FTC Act's rules against unfair or deceptive products. This blog won an award in 2023 for "excellent descriptions of artificial intelligence."

The Trump administration has received broad support from the tech industry. Big tech companies like Amazon and Meta, as well as tech entrepreneurs like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, all donated to Trump's inauguration fund. Other Silicon Valley leaders, like Elon Musk and David Sacks, are officially advising the administration. Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employs technologists sourced from Musk's tech companies. And already, federal agencies like the General Services Administration have started to roll out AI products like GSAi, a general-purpose government chatbot.

The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Apple has lost an appeal in Germany on how much it dominates the smartphone market, and is now staring down antitrust penalties in the country on top of everything else it faces in the European Union.

As such, Apple is now subject to penalties in accordance with anti-competition law in Germany. On Tuesday, judges from the Federal Court of Justice issued a ruling after a one-month deliberation, declaring that Apple should be applied additional controls to encourage competition in the German market.

Presiding judge Wolfgang Kirchhoff said that an assessment has shown that Apple has too much control across multiple markets, and should be subjected to additional controls, reports Reuters.

Apple's legal team asked for the court to discuss the matter with the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ahead of making a decision, on the belief that EU and German law don't necessarily line up. Judge Kirchhoff said the judges failed to see any grounds for such contact to be made.

Federal judges ruled that Apple's 2023 designation as a "company of paramount cross-market significance for competition" stands.

Controls and fines are likely as a result of the ruling. Exactly how harsh the penalties will be remains to be seen.

[...] The legal fight is also separate from the regulator's other Apple-related activities. In June 2022, it launched an antitrust investigation into Apple over App Tracking Transparency, specifically complaints that ATT rules that applied to third-party app producers didn't apply to Apple itself.

Germany's activity also follows after years of attempts by the EU and other governments to curtail the power of tech giants in the marketplace.

The most recent attempt are the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, a set of rules to try and force gatekeepers to act in a competition-promoting way.

This included forcing Apple into allowing third-party App Store alternatives onto the iPhone in the EU, and eliminating anti-steering rules. Changes that Apple dragged its heels over, but eventually relented in some cases.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander went gently into the lunar night after spending a full lunar day on the Moon, gathering data and beaming it back to Earth as part of the company’s first commercial drop-off mission.

Blue Ghost sent its final transmission on Sunday at 7:15 p.m. ET, wrapping up the longest private mission on the Moon to date. Firefly’s lander touched down on the lunar surface on Sunday, March 2, landing in an ancient impact site known as Mare Crisium. After pulling off a flawless touchdown, Blue Ghost got to work on the Moon’s dusty surface. The lander completed 14 days of surface operations, deploying its various payloads and transmitting more than 119 gigabytes of data back to Earth. This was the longest the mission could last, as Blue Ghost is not built to survive the frigid lunar night.

“There is no such thing as an easy Moon landing, especially on your first attempt,” Will Coogan, chief engineer of the Blue Ghost mission at Firefly Aerospace, said in a statement. “We battle tested every system on the lander and simulated every mission scenario we could think of to get to this point.”

[...] After the Sun set on the Moon, Blue Ghost operated for around five hours into the lunar night before bidding farewell to its mission team. Firefly claims that Blue Ghost met “100 percent of its mission objectives.” The company is now gearing up to send annual missions to the Moon, and is already in the process of putting together its Blue Ghost mission 2, which will land on the far side of the Moon.

With its first mission, Firefly became the second company to land on the Moon. Intuitive Machines was the first one to do it in February 2024, but its Odysseus lander tipped over on its side after a not-so-ideal touchdown. The company’s follow-up mission also ended up on its side and was declared dead shortly after arriving on the Moon on March 6.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

UK's internet watchdog puts storage and file-sharing services on watch over CSAM:

As duties under the U.K.'s Online Safety Act (OSA) related to tackling illegal content came into force Monday, the internet watchdog, Ofcom, said it has launched a new enforcement program focused on online storage and file-sharing services.

The regulator said its evidence shows that file-sharing and file-storage services are "particularly susceptible" to being used for the sharing of image-based child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The enforcement programme will assess safety measures they put in place that are aimed at preventing offenders from disseminating CSAM on their services.

Ofcom added that it has written to "a number" of these services, without naming any of those involved. It has put them on notice that "formal information requests" will soon be sent regarding the measures they have already implemented or plan to implement to tackle CSAM. It will ask them to submit illegal harm risk assessments.

Failure to comply with the OSA could lead to major penalties — of up to 10% of global annual turnover.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Published: March 13, 2025 5.53pm CET

Tobacco's hidden friendly side: how the controversial plant could be used for good of pharmaceutical production on Earth and beyond.

Tobacco kills 8 million people worldwide every year, but imagine if it could be used to make medicine. The idea isn't unheard of – tobacco has been used as a herbal medicine in the past. But now, in the age of genetic engineering, tobacco may well be the future of pharmaceutical production on Earth and beyond.

European explorers first encountered tobacco in the Americas during the 16th century. There, indigenous people had used it for centuries, either by inhalation, ingestion or topically, as a treatment for any number of illnesses like headaches, colds, sores and stomach upsets.

Tobacco became a panacea in 16th century Europe, prescribed for almost everything. The most bizarre application, however, would probably be as a cure for symptoms of drowning in the 18th century. Tobacco smoke enema kits were kept by the Thames River in London. Should someone fall in, they would be awoken with a shock with one of these kits. The thinking was that the tobacco smoke would provide warmth and stimulation.

Many people think of plants as nice-looking greens. Essential for clean air, yes, but simple organisms. A step change in research is shaking up the way scientists think about plants: they are far more complex and more like us than you might imagine. This blossoming field of science is too delightful to do it justice in one or two stories.

While there is little evidence for tobacco being inherently medicinal, its harmfulness was observed even in the 18th century.

A lot of our modern medications come from plants, like the cancer chemotherapy Taxol from yew trees, or the heart medication Digoxin from fox gloves. These medications are tiny molecules. But if we want anything more complicated, like a protein-based pharmaceutical such as insulin or a vaccine, the equipment involved becomes a lot more technical.

Most of these more complex medications are the product of a kind of genetic engineering called recombinant technology. The genetic material required to make, for instance, insulin, is combined with a cell's genetic material. That cell (which can be bacteria, yeast or animal cells) will now produce the insulin along with all its own proteins. It's much like when a child stealthily slips a chocolate bar in with the rest of their parent's shopping.

The technology is extraordinarily expensive (around US$2 billion, or £1.5 billion) because of the huge vats or bioreactors needed to grow recombinant cells in sterile conditions. This makes access to these kinds of pharmaceuticals difficult for low-income countries.

This is where tobacco could make a difference. Much like the recombinant cells we currently use, plants can also be genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals. Plants, however, only need soil, water and sunlight to grow. Tobacco is the largest leafy non-food crop. It is very amenable to genetic modification, and is an absolute power-house when it comes to producing proteins, be it their own or the ones we've introduced. This combined with their high biomass makes them the most prolific plant for pharmaceutical production.

It may be indigenous to the Americas and Australia, but it is a resilient plant and can be grown all over the world. Thanks to its ease of genetic modification, tobacco can become even more resilient by making it drought-resistant.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Atari parts and accessories store Best Electronics stands bravely defiant against the march of time and technology, continuing to serve this increasingly niche retro hardware market — a whopping 41 years after it was set up.

As well as supplying parts, the store continues to source and make new parts, provide support, hints, and tips, and claims to have spent $100,000+ in engineering development. In contrast, the iconic and innovative Atari Corp. behind all the firm's home computers, and advanced consoles like the Lynx and Jaguar, went bankrupt in 1996, almost 30 years ago.

Many readers and writers here on Tom's Hardware will have grown up with Atari computers and consoles. Thus it's admirable to see exclusive new and upgraded parts like rubber domes for your ST / STE / Falcon computer keyboard and all Gold PCB boards for your CX series joysticks, plus lots of other parts, continue to be manufactured and supplied to Atari fans.

The retailer also stocks "a lifetime supply" of new-old products in some categories. Interestingly, it reveals many of these were warehoused from the "thousands and thousands of pallets of Atari goods" it bought when Atari Sunnyvale was liquidated.

As a previous owner of Atari ST, Falcon, Lynx and Jaguar hardware, looking through these products is like hunting through a treasure trove. Best Electronics says it lists 5,000+ Atari items on its site. But these are just the most popular items, so if you are after something that appears absent from the extensive parts and components lists, send the store an email to ask after it.

Alternatively, go back in retail time by ordering the Best Rev. 10 All Atari catalog — a paper catalog of over 220 pages, making it about half an inch thick and 1.4 pounds in weight. Helpfully, the catalog includes 330 pictures of Atari bits, as well as extras like prototype information, repair tips and tricks, a complete list of Atari custom chips and replacement ICs, and more. Check out the two-page sample and more information on the Best Electronics site.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Discord launches SDK to help developers enhance social experiences in their games:

Discord on Monday announced the launch of its Discord Social SDK, a free toolkit that allows developers to leverage the platform's social infrastructure to enhance their games' social and multiplayer experiences. The toolkit allows developers to improve their in-game experiences, whether players have a Discord account or not.

Social integrations include a unified friends list that allows players to access their Discord friends in-game and their in-game friends on Discord, making it easier to stay connected both in and out of the game. Plus, the SDK offers deep-linked game invites that enable players to invite their friends to directly join their party or lobby.

Communication features include cross-platform messaging to allow players to keep conversing across desktop, console, and mobile. Other features include the ability to link in-game chats to specific Discord channels in their servers, and voice chat.

"For game creators from indie to AAA, Discord is where you can connect with the world's largest and most engaged community of players to fuel the growth of your game before, during, and after launch," Discord co-founder and CTO Stan Vishnevskiy, said in a press release. "Game discovery and retention have never been so critical, and we're excited to help developers grow their games by reaching gamers where they are."

Discord says the toolkit is already being used by many developers, including  Theorycraft Games, Facepunch Studios,1047 Games, Scopely, Mainframe Industries, Elodie Games, Tencent Games, and others.

Discord Social SDK is compatible with C++, Unreal Engine, and Unity, and supports Windows 11+ and macOS. Support for console and mobile is coming soon, the company says.

The platform boasts more than 200 million monthly active users who spend a combined 1.5+ billion hours playing games each month on PC alone.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2025-03-iguanas-world-colonize-fiji-genetic.html

Iguanas have often been spotted rafting around the Caribbean on vegetation and, ages ago, evidently caught a 600-mile ride from Central America to colonize the Galapagos Islands. But for long-distance travel, the Fiji iguanas can't be touched.

A new analysis conducted by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of San Francisco (USF) suggests that sometime after about 34 million years ago, Fiji iguanas landed on the isolated group of South Pacific islands after voyaging 5,000 miles from the western coast of North America—the longest known transoceanic dispersal of any terrestrial vertebrate.

Overwater dispersal is the main way newly formed islands get populated by plants and animals, including humans, often leading to the evolution of new species and entirely new ecosystems. Understanding how these colonizations happen has fascinated scientists since the time of Charles Darwin, the originator of the theory of evolution by natural selection.

The new analysis, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that the arrival of the ancestors of the Fiji iguanas coincided with the formation of these volcanic islands.

The estimated time of arrival, 34 million years ago or more recently, is based on the timing of the genetic divergence of the Fiji iguanas, Brachylophus, from their closest relatives, the North American desert iguanas, Dipsosaurus.

Previously, biologists had proposed that Fiji iguanas may have descended from an older lineage that was more widespread around the Pacific but has since died out, leaving Brachylophus as the sole iguanids in the western Pacific Ocean. Another option was that the iguanas hitchhiked from tropical parts of South America and then through Antarctica or even Australia, though there is no genetic or fossil evidence to support this.

The new analysis puts those theories to rest.

"We found that the Fiji iguanas are most closely related to the North American desert iguanas, something that hadn't been figured out before, and that the lineage of Fiji iguanas split from their sister lineage relatively recently, much closer to 30 million years ago, either post-dating or at about the same time that there was volcanic activity that could have produced land," said lead author Simon Scarpetta, a herpetologist and paleontologist who is a former postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley and is now an assistant professor at USF in the Department of Environmental Science.

"That they reached Fiji directly from North America seems crazy," said co-author Jimmy McGuire, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and herpetology curator at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

"But alternative models involving colonization from adjacent land areas don't really work for the timeframe, since we know that they arrived in Fiji within the last 34 million years or so. This suggests that as soon as land appeared where Fiji now resides, these iguanas may have colonized it. Regardless of the actual timing of dispersal, the event itself was spectacular."

More information: Simon G. Scarpetta et al, Iguanas rafted more than 8,000 km from North America to Fiji, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2318622122.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Amazon is killing a privacy feature to bolster Alexa+, the new subscription assistant:

Since Amazon announced plans for a generative AI version of Alexa, we were concerned about user privacy. With Alexa+ rolling out to Amazon Echo devices in the coming weeks, we're getting a clearer view of the privacy concessions people will have to make to maximize usage of the AI voice assistant and avoid bricking functionality of already-purchased devices.

In an email sent to customers today, Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon's cloud. Amazon apparently sent the email to users with "Do Not Send Voice Recordings" enabled on their Echo. Starting on March 28, recordings of every command spoken to the Alexa living in Echo speakers and smart displays will automatically be sent to Amazon and processed in the cloud.

[...] One of the most marketed features of Alexa+ is its more advanced ability to recognize who is speaking to it, a feature known as Alexa Voice ID. To accommodate this feature, Amazon is eliminating a privacy-focused capability for all Echo users, even those who aren't interested in the subscription-based version of Alexa or want to use Alexa+ but not its ability to recognize different voices.

However, there are plenty of reasons people wouldn't want Amazon to receive recordings of what they say to their personal device. For one, the idea of a conglomerate being able to listen to personal requests made in your home is, simply, unnerving.

[...] Likely looking to get ahead of these concerns, Amazon said in its email today that by default, it will delete recordings of users' Alexa requests after processing. However, anyone with their Echo device set to "Don't save recordings" will see their already-purchased devices' Voice ID feature bricked. Voice ID enables Alexa to do things like share user-specified calendar events, reminders, music, and more. Previously, Amazon has said that "if you choose not to save any voice recordings, Voice ID may not work." As of March 28, broken Voice ID is a guarantee for people who don't let Amazon store their voice recordings.

[...] Amazon is forcing Echo users to make a couple of tough decisions: Grant Amazon access to recordings of everything you say to Alexa or stop using an Echo; let Amazon save voice recordings and have employees listen to them or lose a feature set to become more advanced and central to the next generation of Alexa.

However, Amazon is betting big that Alexa+ can dig the voice assistant out of a financial pit. Amazon has publicly committed to keeping the free version of Alexa around, but Alexa+ is viewed as Amazon's last hope for keeping Alexa alive and making it profitable. Anything Amazon can do to get people to pay for Alexa takes precedence over other Alexa user demands, including, it seems, privacy.

Original Submission