"Russian health authorities have taken precautionary measures in response to the death of a woman who worked at an anti-plague research facility," reports Axios, "but have not confirmed that she contracted plague."
On Sept. 25, 28-year-old Daria Shipilova, who worked at an anti-plague research institute in Russia's Irkutsk region, broke a test tube containing the pneumonic plague pathogen, local reports said. Shipilova was admitted to a hospital on Sept. 29 with symptoms of severe pneumonia and died overnight between Oct. 1 and Oct. 2. After her death, authorities imposed quarantines at several medical facilities in the region and placed nearly 200 people who had come into contact with Shipilova under medical observation.
Irkutsk Gov. Igor Kobzev said those being monitored showed no signs of illness and had tested negative... Russia's public health agency said Shipilova had "pneumonia of unknown etiology" and that further testing found no microorganisms linked to her work. The agency said the epidemiological situation in the region remains stable.
Plague is a potentially life-threatening bacterial disease but can be cured with antibiotics when treated promptly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CNN reports that according to Russian state media agency TASS, it remains unclear exactly what was released:
The head of the neighboring republic of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, said earlier that the employee — a 28-year old woman — died "possibly from the plague." He also noted that "there are no plague outbreaks" in Buryatia. The governor of Irkutsk, Igor Kobzev, urged calm on Friday, saying that an extraordinary meeting of the regional anti-epidemic commission was held with Russia's chief state doctor. The meeting was in connection with a "suspected case of a particularly dangerous infection affecting a resident of the region," Kobzev said on Telegram.... The infection in the Irkutsk region is "most likely not the plague, but even if confirmed, there will be no spread of this disease," a previous head of Rospotrebnadzor, Gennady Onishchenko, said on Friday. Onishchenko told the state news agency TASS that the onset of cold weather would likely prevent transmission.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
Raspberry Pi has raised prices for the 2 GB Pi 4 and Pi 5, citing rapidly rising memory costs. Both models now cost $12.50 more, taking the 2 GB Pi 4 to $67.50 and the equivalent Pi 5 to $77.50. Readers with long memories may recall the $35 Pi 4. Its price "temporarily" rose to $45 during the pandemic and has since climbed further. The board maker reported a 90 percent increase in first-half revenue to $256.9 million, while gross profit rose 79 percent to $59.4 million. Gross profit per board increased 53 percent to $12.20, helped by price rises and stocks of memory bought at lower prices in 2025. Raspberry Pi says that inventory advantage has largely been exhausted. Its advice to customers facing higher prices is to consider older models, such as the Pi 3B, 3A+, or 3B+, and check how much RAM their projects actually need. Price rises have become a way of life for Pi customers. In April 2026, much of the Pi 4 and Pi 5 range saw substantial price increases. A 16 GB Pi 5, for example, currently costs $305 at PiShop – a far cry from its $120 launch price in January 2025, when we wondered whether even that was a bit steep for a Pi. The 2 GB Pi 4 and Pi 5 escaped April's increases, but that reprieve has ended. Prices for other products remain unchanged, including the 1 GB Pi 4 and Pi 5 and the 2 GB Compute Module 4 and 5. The latest round of increases comes as enthusiasts and vendors alike ponder ways to upgrade the memory soldered to the boards. Raspberry Pi engineer Phil Elwell took to the firm's support forums earlier this year to state that newer firmware locked the devices to their original RAM capacity. Pi boss Eben Upton said: "The price of memory will eventually subside, and we look forward to reversing our own price increases when it does." Customers may be waiting a while. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra warned earlier this week that RAM shortages would persist into 2028 and possibly beyond. He added: "We do not have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance." ®
The three-banded armadillo has an unusual way to protect itself. When threatened, it rolls itself up. The adorable mammal’s thick plates form a nearly impenetrable ball that just may save its life. That ability has now inspired the outer shell for a new robot — one that can keep fragile stuff, such as electronics, from getting damaged.
Like an armadillo, the new device changes shape to protect itself with a rigid shell, says study leader Jianyu Zhou. He’s a mechanical engineer at North Carolina State University, in Raleigh.
His team’s new gadget starts out flat. But when touched, it can roll up into a wheel. A hard, 3-D printed outer surface will guard its contents from puncture, breakage or falls.
The design can protect components built into a device. But there’s also “an inner space,” Zhou adds. So it can hold and protect a small payload, too.
Zhou works in the lab of Yong Zhu, much of whose work has focused on flexible electronic devices — ones whose electronic innards tend to be fragile. Such gadgets might be wearable fitness trackers or patches that measure blood pressure or blood-sugar levels.
Zhu’s group also has created soft, squishy robots. Inspired by caterpillars, these might wriggle through debris after a natural disaster to help search for survivors or assess damage. They also might be sent out to explore and study hazardous sites, such as the floor of the deep ocean or areas near an active volcano.
Such outings could put soft, morphing robots at risk of getting crushed, fried or pulverized. “The natural question,” Zhu says, has been “how to protect those.”
When he and Zhou set out to explore new defenses for fragile electronics a few years ago, they looked to nature.
This skeleton of a three-banded armadillo shows how the creature can lock itself into a ball for protection. Polyoutis/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Some animals, such as turtles, have hard shells to keep predators or other dangers at bay. But the armor protecting three-banded armadillos and pangolins has another benefit: It can change shape, allowing the animals to form an almost perfect sphere.
Despite being able to morph, it offers a protective “rigid shell,” Zhou points out.
Anatomy of the robo-armadillo
It took the engineers more than a year to create their new robot. The challenge: They had to find a design that could curl up and lock into itself. For this, they took a layered approach. On the outside is a hard shell made from rigid, protective plates. They not only connect but also bend.
Inside this shell are layers of a flexible material that acts like a synthetic muscle. One layer expands when heated. Under that is a layer that contracts when heated. The innermost layer of the device is an inner skeleton made of almost-triangular pieces that lock together as the device rolls up. Zhou says it comes together like an origami creation.
The three-banded armadillo (left) rolls itself up when it senses possible danger. So does a new electronic device (right).Jianyu Zhou/North Carolina State University
Next, the team had to create a sensor that, when triggered, will set the shell in motion. When it detects a vibration nearby, which could be as gentle as a touch, this sensor sends a signal to an actuator. That component turns on a tiny heater that warms the muscle-like material. That material contracts, pulling everything together to form a wheel-like structure. The entire process takes about a minute.
This three-banded armadillo and wildlife ambassador, Roswell, demonstrates how to roll up into a ball.
Nina Attias has been studying armadillos for decades as a conservation biologist in Brazil. She works for the Wildlife Conservation Network, based in San Francisco, Calif. “I am passionate about armadillos, I love them,” she says. She’s happy, but not surprised, that these animals inspired the new robot. “Once you start knowing about them,” she says, “you see that these are pretty amazing creatures.”
The new device impressively mimics the armadillo’s strengths, she says. Only three of the 20 known armadillo species can roll into a ball. Those include the three-banded armadillo native to South America. It’s super-sensitive to vibrations, she adds. It can sense yummy underground termites. These armadillos also can detect the approaching steps of a jaguar that views them as lunch.
After sensing a touch, the new device similarly rolls itself up. And its contracting material, between the shell and skeleton, act like the strong muscles that keep an armadillo’s armor in place. When an armadillo rolls up, “you can’t open it for anything,” Attias says.
The new device survived a range of tests. For instance, the researchers dropped it from a few feet onto a bed of tacks. Fragile objects inside it, including glass spheres and raspberries, remained unharmed.
What’s exciting about the new device, Zhou says, is how it brings rigid and soft parts together. “The armadillo offers a good balance between function and protection,” he says.
Zhu says it’s too soon to know how people might decide to use such a device. But he’s encouraged by the success of a nature-inspired way to solve an engineering problem. In future work, he says that he’ll be looking at other animals for more inspiration.
All-solid-state lithium batteries require solid materials that allow lithium ions to move efficiently. Lithium borohydride (LiBH₄) is a promising material for this purpose because its high-temperature hexagonal phase supports rapid lithium-ion transport.
While lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) remain the most widely used rechargeable batteries worldwide, energy engineers have been testing various alternatives with different underlying chemistries. These include lithium-sulfur batteries, which store and release energy by moving lithium ions between two electrodes on opposite sides of a cell, while sulfur undergoes reactions in the cathode (i.e., positive electrode).
Face à un SMS frauduleux, le réflexe immédiat consiste à ne jamais cliquer sur le lien, à transférer le message au 33700, puis à bloquer l’expéditeur avant de supprimer la conversation. Cette arnaque, appelée smishing, exploite l’urgence et l’usurpation d’identité pour voler des données...
As Eastern Europe's power sector has taken a hit from a record drought, Bulgaria has benefited from building battery storage capacity alongside its rapid solar expansion.
When people hear the term "green building," they often imagine expensive technologies, costly developments or environmentally friendly features that only wealthy buyers can afford.
For decades, nonproliferation scientists and engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have helped convert the fuel in dozens of research reactors around the world so they can operate safely and more securely. They find ways to change systems that rely on highly enriched uranium fuel, which can be used to make weapons, to systems that use low-enriched uranium fuel. With every fuel conversion, Argonne has gained experience, insight and a reputation for expertise in solving some of the toughest reactor conversion problems.
Millions of pounds of nutrient-rich ice cream are discarded after production each year, according to the International Dairy Foods Association. Nearly 5% of the raw materials used in ice cream production end up as waste—representing millions of dollars in lost product per year. This waste primarily comes from batches discarded because of quality issues and waste generated during equipment cleaning. Regulations aimed at preventing cross-contamination with allergens have also greatly increased the amount of discarded ice cream over the past two decades.
Avast One Premium ne se limite pas à bloquer les virus : la suite ajoute un VPN, des outils de confidentialité et plusieurs protections pour sécuriser les usages quotidiens.
Scientists have developed solar panels that can work up to 10 meters underwater
The panels can capture up to 324 mWh of energy at that depth
Each device is expected to last up to five and a half years at a time
A lot of devices are deployed underwater for research and exploration purposes, but powering them all can prove to be difficult, especially if they’re under the waves for a considerable period of time. A new scientific paper, however, has shown that solar panels can be successfully used at depths of up to 10 meters, potentially presenting a new way to keep underwater tech powered up and ready for action.
The paper was published in the Joule periodical and accompanied by a press release explaining its advances. The research was conducted by a team of scientists from Yunnan University in China, who said that a series of solar cells placed 32 feet (10 meters) below the water’s surface in the South China Sea were able to collect enough energy to power up a set of lithium-ion batteries in two hours.
The cells were made from lead halide perovskite with a polymer called polyhexamethylene guanidine hydrochloride added into the mix. This additive helped to enhance the effectiveness of the panels.
According to Wen-Hua Zhang of Yunnan University, “Very few studies have been reported on underwater solar cells, and all of them are focused on very shallow water depths of only two meters or less, a scenario far from catering for requirements of practical application.”
A photo of the prototype solar cells being tested in the South China Sea. (Image credit: Joule)
“This work presents the first functional validation of submerged solar cells practically operating at a water depth of up to about 10 meters, greatly broadening their application scope,” Zhang added. The researchers stated that each cell could be deployed for around five and a half years at a time.
The panels captured 1,416 milliwatt-hours (mWh) of electricity at a depth of two meters. This decreased to 752 mWh at six meters and 324 mWh at ten meters. During separate lab testing, the solar panels had a power conversion efficiency of just under 35%.
Paving the way
Solar panels could one day be used to power ‘self-sustained marine energy systems and autonomous underwater devices,’ researchers believe. (Image credit: datacenterdynamics)
The idea behind this research is that underwater solar panels could be used to power devices such as sensors, cameras, communications systems, and more.
Many of these objects are stationary for much of the time, so nearby solar cells could help keep them topped up and working without necessarily requiring extensive human intervention.
One question that remains unanswered is how exactly solar panels like this would interact with their environment. For example, it’s likely that they would accumulate biomatter that could hinder their operation, potentially requiring regular cleaning in order to remain fully functional. After all, the sunlight that will power these cells could also promote the growth of plants and animals — a process known as biofouling.
Still, the research seems to have potential. As the authors noted, “This work paves the way for the practical deployment of perovskite photovoltaics in underwater environments, offering a promising route toward self-sustained marine energy systems and autonomous underwater devices.”
Snap is introducing "Specs Intelligence," a new AI assistant that can connect other digital accounts to help you with things like work tasks and keeping track of travel information. It seems similar to AI assistants like Meta's Muse and Gemini's Spark, though Snap is pitching Specs Intelligence as an "anticipatory AI service" that "helps you manage what needs attention today, so you can make progress toward your longer-term goals." Like with other AI assistants, you can also chat with it.
Specs Intelligence is being launched alongside Specs, Snap's first consumer pair of augmented reality glasses. But it's also available on iOS today in pre …
My favorite part of wearing the Specs, Snap's new augmented reality glasses, was playing dominoes. Sitting across the table from a Snap employee wearing the same pair of chunky glasses, I could select a virtual domino with a pinch and then move my hand to drop it in place, watching the tile snap down in front of us on a real table. It was unlike anything I've tried in other VR headsets or smart glasses - the ability to sit with another person and have a shared digital experience.
Snap really believes in AR glasses. The company has spent more than half a decade developing the technology, producing two generations of glasses that only ever sh …
Autonomous.ai, an eleven-year-old manufacturer of techno-toys, high-end workstations, and office furniture, has released a small machine called Intern 2 for running AI agents like Hermes or OpenClaw. The company's first Intern device shipped in March, around the time OpenClaw became popular. "People use them for various tasks in a creative way," said Dee Tran, head of AI hardware. "The most common use cases are repetitive cronjobs, loops, and scheduled tasks." Priced at $299, the 4.7-inch pyramid-shaped machine looks more ornamental than computational. We're not sure exactly what's inside because the company's product listing says it includes an OrangePi board, but its press release says it can also include a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5. Autonomous.ai has not responded to several requests for clarification. We'll update the story if they respond. What we do know is that the company sells the devices preconfigured with Hermes or OpenClaw, or will install an agent of your choice for an extra $50. There's also a mic, a speaker, and support for USB-C, Wi-Fi 5, and Bluetooth 5 - all sitting under an illuminated capstone. The device doesn't run a local model. Instead, it accesses cloud-based inference and comes with an allowance of ten million tokens per day from Autonomous' own gateway. "We have an internal router that fuses different models and decides in real time which model to use for each task," explained Tran. That service means Tran sees the device as a less scary way to run an AI agent than using local models. "Buying a second Mac just for background tasks is overkill, but letting an AI agent loose on your main laptop feels pretty sketchy," he told The Register. It's also possible to point Intern 2 at a local model on separate hardware running an OpenAI-compatible server. The operating system (Autonomous-os) is open source under Apache 2.0, except for the hardware abstraction layer (HAL) under GPL-3.0, so further modification is possible. If you want to run local models at speed, Autonomous.ai has you covered. The company also sells computers packing high-end GeForce GPUs at prices that range from $26,100 to $93,900. Having dedicated hardware to run AI resolves some of the issues around enabling agents to operate without supervision. So if you wanted to entrust an AI agent to deal with email, scheduling, GitHub interaction, social media post automation, research, or some similarly hands-off task, Intern 2 could mean you can do so with less concern about unrequested file deletion. Whether anyone wants to receive your agent's automated messages is another issue worth considering. "For now, I don't think auto-sending (slop haha) emails works," Tran said. "But we've seen AI improve so much in many different areas. I barely write code any more. AI writes all of my code and code is a really complex form of language. AI even designs our products now." Maybe one day AI will buy them too. ®
Boston officials released a report explaining why they won't use Flock cameras
It reveals that Flock shared camera data despite saying it wouldn't
Hackers also discovered that Flock cameras track more than just license plates
The Flock backlash might have taken a backseat to more recent tech news — namely, whether AI development needs to slow down before superintelligence wipes us out, or, on a lighter note, Apple’s first foldable iPhone — but the anti-surveillance crusade is continuing, with Boston officials and its police department announcing the city will not be relying on the service any longer.
This follows the publishing of a 2025 report which included details on a Flock pilot the city ran in 2025. According to the report, the city discovered Flock was sharing data with external law enforcement agencies — despite Flock’s agreement with Boston saying data sharing was to be turned off, and the company confirming this was the case.
In response, city officials and Boston's police department have committed to no longer using Flock cameras going forward. However, it’s worth noting this is not an absolute win for privacy advocates. Boston police department has already begun pilots with two of Flock's rivals: a Motorola trial began back in February, while an Axon pilot began in June, suggesting it might merely move to a different Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) service.
(Image credit: Flock)
This also comes as hackers have discovered precisely what Flock cameras track, and it’s not just license plates. Analyzing encrypted data, hackers found the cameras also detect people and bicycles — and they can also pick up and isolate specific bumper stickers.
The fact that the cameras are able to pick up and monitor so much more than some may have realized is worrying enough, but what’s extra concerning is that this data was recovered from a physical camera.
Hopefully Flock will solve this soon, but currently it means anyone with the right hacking skills could tear down a camera and access a chunk of the data stored inside the device — meaning you might not just need to worry about what officials can do with your data
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Is there a right way to use ALPR?
For many, the answer to the question of if there’s a right way to use Flock or similar cameras is an emphatic no, but for advocates of the tech, there are sensible measures police departments could be using to minimize abuse.
Limiting automatic sharing of data to other agencies and restricting the police officers with access are a good starting point. They also argue that all Flock data requests should require case numbers to be attached, and for officers to provide a reason for each request.
Advocates argue this limits the likelihood that bad actors will be able to sneak a peek at Flock data, ensures that accessing ALPR information has a purpose, and creates checks and balances to prevent overreach from law enforcement agencies. As such, many agencies now deploy these methods.
However, some of these practices have been undermined by recent reports. Records obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation show that many officers’ reasons for accessing the data include excuses like “LMAO,” “idk lol,” “TBD,” “Sexy,” and similar phrases. Others took to simply smashing their keyboards to fill the form with random letters.
(Image credit: Tony Webster - Flock Safety ALPR Camera)
What’s more, in an attempt to make it easier to fill in records but still keep data transparent, Flock introduced prepared options like “Traffic infraction,” though some argue this is a step backwards, as it means officers have even less need to articulate their reasoning for accessing ALPR data — and it really doesn’t help when one option is a generic “Other.”
The EFF reached out to several police departments, and it seems that some have been reprimanded, while others claim department policy has changed since the nonsense reasons were given.
However, even if these forms were filled in correctly, or seemingly correctly, they wouldn’t prevent privacy violations. They’d merely allow someone to possibly audit the data after the fact to spot misuse if the forms were investigated.
That’s why many are saying the best protection — besides pulling down ALPR cameras entirely — is to require a warrant for each search.
Though tearing the cameras down might simply be the best approach, especially after that example above, where it shows ALPR cams see a lot more than we might credit them for, and that some of a camera’s data can be accessed by hackers who know what they’re after.
We’ll need to wait and see how things develop, but Flock’s troubles don’t seem to be ending soon.
Biomass-derived oils are important sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based liquid fuels. However, biomass oil mixtures contain much higher concentrations of cyclic nitrogen compounds that contribute to NOx emissions and deactivate refining catalysts. This necessitates their removal by a hydrogen-intensive hydrodenitrogenation (HDN) process that consumes high energy. Therefore, efficient pre-HDN removal of nitrogen compounds is required to lower hydrogen and energy consumption when upgrading nitrogen-rich liquid fuels.
According to The Information, Apple is planning to get back into the server game and might just pair up with Nvidia to make it happen. Apple retired its Xserve line in 2011 and has largely left enterprise machines to other manufacturers since. But the growing demand for compute power as the AI industry continues to expand has apparently led the company to believe there is an opening for its powerful but efficient ARM-based M processors. Its Mac Mini and Mac Studio have proven popular with AI developers, which has led to shortages.
The server product, whether it's called Xserve or something else, likely won't debut until 2029. Word is that i …
Google is inviting third-party agents, including Claude and Open Claw, into Google Home. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Google is opening up its smart home to AI agents, letting tools like Claude and Open Claw access and control your connected devices and analyze your home's data using the standardized Model Context Protocol.
Google Home MCP is a new integration that lets third-party AI agents control and monitor your smart home and act on your behalf. It "allows any AI agents that support MCP, including Google Antigravity, Claude, Hermes or Open Claw, to securely work with all of the devices and event history in your Google Home ecosystem," Taylor Lehman, group product manager at Google Home & Nest, said in a blog post.
Login
