Paleontologists have identified a previously unknown species of amphicyonid -- the extinct family of carnivorous mammals popularly known as bear-dogs -- from two specimens unearthed at a rich fossil site in the Vallès-Penedès Basin near Barcelona, Spain.
The post New Species of Ancient Bear-Dog Identified in Spain appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Hundreds of camera-trap records from Bolivia and Peru suggest the short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis), one of the world’s least-known canids and one of Latin America’s least-known carnivores, may be thriving in intact upland forests.
The post Amazon’s Elusive Short-Eared Dog May Be More Common than Researchers Once Thought appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
O Mundial de Futebol começa hoje, 11 de junho, com 48 seleções em campo nos Estados Unidos, Canadá e México. A app oficial da FIFA 2026 é a companhia indispensável para acompanhar cada jogo e respetivos preparativos, seja em casa ou nas bancadas.
The post Mundial de Futebol FIFA 2026 é a aplicação oficial do maior evento desportivo do planeta que arranca hoje appeared first on Tek Notícias.
À medida que os agentes ganham capacidade de atuação, o papel do profissional começa a deslocar-se e o foco passa a estar na coordenação. Miguel Oliveira diz que a competência exigida está mais próxima da psicologia do que da engenharia.
The post A competência invisível dos próximos 24 meses: saber delegar a agentes de IA appeared first on Tek Notícias.
O próximo processador de IA da Google terá uma arquitetura de fabrico dividida. A TSMC deverá produzir o núcleo computacional, cabendo à Samsung o fabrico do componente de interligação à memória. A Intel poderá também entrar na equação com a produção da TPU.
The post Google quer reduzir dependência da TSMC e negoceia a produção de um novo chip de IA com a Samsung e Intel appeared first on Tek Notícias.
Under a new bipartisan bill, Americans could sue for damages if a government official illegally tries to coerce a social media, AI, or broadcasting company to remove their post - regardless of whether the platform actually does it.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the JAWBONE Act on Thursday, which, in addition to letting individuals sue for these kinds of damages, would create new transparency requirements for government communications with social media, AI, and broadcast companies.
That could empower someone like Jimmy Kimmel to sue Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr …
Elon Musk, on the verge of becoming the world's first trillionaire, is whipping up anti-immigration tensions amid ongoing riots in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Following a knife attack in the city on Monday, Musk declared support for Restore Britain, a hard-right populist political party that advocates for large-scale migrant deportation in the UK. He reposted statements from party leader Rupert Lowe calling for "a vast number of people" to be forced out of the country, as well as a promise from Lowe to "prosecute officials and politicians who knowingly placed dangerous third world savages in our communities." "This is the way," Musk added to …
Three years ago, when the women's World Cup kicked off in Australia and New Zealand, my social feeds were in a strange place. Twitter had just transformed into X, newcomer Threads was seemingly ascendant, and places like Bluesky had yet to garner much momentum. It left me with an odd, and admittedly silly, dilemma: I had nowhere good to post dumb jokes during games. And now, as the next World Cup is set to begin across Canada, the US, and Mexico, not much has changed.
There were a lot of problems with Twitter even when it was at its most popular, but it also introduced a new kind of live experience for many. Its real-time nature and huge au …
Apesar dos progressos significativos na conectividade de fibra de alta velocidade em Portugal, um novo estudo mostra que que muitos utilizadores continuam a enfrentar problemas de latência, bloqueios, paragens de carregamento e quebras de ligação.
The post 23% dos portugueses com internet de alta velocidade enfrentam atrasos e problemas de ligação todas as semanas appeared first on Tek Notícias.
O Claude Fable 5 é a primeira versão pública da classe Mythos da Anthropic e supera todos os modelos anteriores em praticamente todos os benchmarks testados. Mas chegou ao mercado com salvaguardas tão conservadoras que perguntas básicas de biologia ativam o sistema de segurança.
The post Claude Fable 5 e Claude Mythos 5 são a última geração do modelo de IA da Anthropic mais poderoso do mercado appeared first on Tek Notícias.
Fog is a living ecosystem for bacteria, rather than just a sterile cloud of mist, and may provide an unexpected buffer against harmful pollution.
In a recent paper published in mBio, an Arizona State University team led by then PhD candidate Phi Thuong Thuong Cao, now a graduate, revealed that bacteria are present in fog that cleans the air at a surprising rate, but also poses a possible risk to drinking water collection.
While scientists have long known that bacteria exist in fog, the researchers were surprised to find that the bacteria are not merely present but form an active, if short-lived, ecosystem.
“There’s very limited knowledge about what kinds of bacteria are present in fogs, which are like clouds at the ground level,” Cao said.
To probe the mystery of fog bacteria further, Cao focused on two questions: what kinds of bacteria are present, and whether they are active. Discovering growing bacteria within fog droplets elevates fog from a simple atmospheric phenomenon to a biological habitat, a major shift in how researchers have traditionally viewed it.
Fog is composed of tiny droplets of water, each less than a tenth the width of a human hair and too small to fall to the ground. These minuscule droplets form around particles, which can occasionally be living microbes. Although fewer than 1% of droplets contain bacteria, that still represents a substantial population, with bacterial concentrations roughly comparable to those found in the ocean. About 10 million individual bacteria inhabit just a thimbleful of fog water.
A major challenge in studying fog is the wind. Sampling the same location before, during, and after a fog event can produce misleading results because airborne particles are constantly being transported and mixed. For this reason, Cao focused on radiation fog, which forms in still air near the ground as temperatures cool. This allowed the team to minimize complications associated with sample collection.
In Cao’s investigation, one particular type of bacteria, methylobacteria, predominated within the fog droplets. Intriguingly, samples collected during fog events contained far more bacteria than samples of dry air gathered beforehand, suggesting that these microbes thrive in foggy conditions. Among the compounds methylobacteria consume are simple carbon-based molecules, including pollutants such as formaldehyde. In a laboratory setting, Cao was able to observe and experiment on samples collected in the field.
“We observed them under the microscope to see that, yes, the bacteria are getting bigger, and they’re dividing, so there is growth,” Cao explained. “We also found that they’re using the formaldehyde as food to support their growth.”
Even more surprising was the rate at which methylobacteria were breaking down formaldehyde—far faster than they could consume it. This led the team to conclude that because formaldehyde is toxic to the bacteria, they were converting much of it into carbon dioxide to make their environment safer, doing so even faster than they could use it as a food source.
The team’s research suggests that fog may play a more important role in Earth’s ecosystems than previously understood, serving as both a temporary aquatic habitat and a natural filter for harmful pollutants.
The implications of the findings are varied. Harvesting fog for drinking water and crop irrigation is already practiced in some regions of the world. This study suggests that such water may contain more bacteria than previously recognized, potentially requiring additional filtration. The risk to most people appears minimal; researchers say only a slight risk may exist for individuals with severely compromised immune systems who are exposed to fog. However, more work is needed to determine the potential benefits and drawbacks of consuming water collected from fog.
Harvesting fog for drinking water and crop sustenance is an ongoing practice. This work shows that water may be full of bacteria, requiring more filtering than previously understood. The risk to most people is very minimal; only a minor risk exists to people with heavily compromised immune systems from breathing in fog. However, the researchers say that more work is needed to determine the benefits and harms of drinking fog water.
“It’s relatively new that people are starting to look at biological activities in clouds, so there’s still a lot which we don’t understand,” said co-author Pierre Herckes. “At nighttime, for example, there isn’t that much atmospheric chemistry going on. Chemistry is largely driven by the sun and by light. But if the bacteria are still doing their thing even during the nighttime, they can be important.”
Many questions remain unanswered in the wake of this discovery. Cao’s team focused on a single type of fog, leaving open which bacteria thrive in other kinds of fog in other locations, what they eat, and how they impact air quality, all of which will require further study.
“The sky’s the limit,” co-author Ferran Garcia-Pichel says. “No pun intended.”
The paper, “Growth and Formaldehyde Degradation of Photoheterotrophic Methylobacterium within Radiation Fogs,” appeared in mBio on May 11, 2026.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.
One of the most surprising and remarkable discoveries in recent scientific history has been CRISPR. Short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, CRISPR is a form of immune system that evolved in bacteria more than a billion years ago to defend against persistent viral threats. Under attack, bacteria can snip a small fragment of a virus’s DNA, store it in the CRISPR region…
As people grow older, many changes occur in the body. Vision may become weaker, joints may become stiffer, and hearing often becomes less sharp. For decades, hearing loss was largely considered a quality-of-life issue that made conversations more difficult. Today, scientists are beginning to view it very differently. New research from the University of Hong […]
The post A Simple Device May Help Prevent Dementia appeared first on Knowridge Science Report.
Login