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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.

Two Times tech reporters and their editor talk about assessing the sky-high valuation of the rocket and satellite maker, the potential economic impact of its public debut and the role of the world’s richest man in it all.

The United States is working to rebuild its domestic uranium enrichment infrastructure for its defense programs, through a project known as DUECE (Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment).

It began in 2016, with an objective to develop and demonstrate the next generation of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment. DUCE is based out of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

The project is strategically significant as it aims to provide a domestic source of highly enriched uranium for powering US nuclear submarines as well as provide tritium for the US nuclear weapons stockpile.

The US imports low enriched uranium for its commercial power reactors but international treaties prohibit the use of imported uranium for military applications.

A capability gap decades in the making

The US once operated three large gaseous diffusion plants for uranium enrichment. These were located in Oak Ridge Tennessee, Portsmouth Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky (which remained operational until 2013).

These facilities consumed enormous amounts of electricity and were gradually shut down as cheaper, more energy-efficient centrifuge-based enrichment became the global standard.

The US was also developing centrifuge technology at Oak Ridge to eventually replace gaseous diffusion. But events like the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, the end of the Cold War, and the decrease in global demand for enriched uranium halted plans for commercializing the gas centrifuge technology.

The enrichment process

Gas centrifuge enrichment works by spinning uranium hexafluoride gas at high speed; the heavier uranium-238 isotope migrates toward the outer wall while the lighter, fissile uranium-235 concentrates near the axis. Cascades of thousands of centrifuges connected in series are required to achieve commercially useful enrichment levels.

In general the enrichment levels of uranium fuel in US nuclear submarines is 93-97%. These enable high power density and long-lived reactor cores. It also facilitates in building more compact naval reactors.

What DUECE is building

Currently the project is focused on building a pilot plant in collaboration with BWX Technologies (BWXT). BWXT built a Centrifuge Manufacturing Development Facility to support the pilot plant, it commenced operations in January 2026. The plant will use centrifuges based on the ORNL’s Generation 1 centrifuge design. Currently the Generation 1 design is deployed in a laboratory cascade at ORNL.

It commenced operations on June 1, 2026. Additional deployments of the Generation 1 machine at ORNL are planned through the early 2030s to mature the TRL (Technology Readiness Level) of the design in time for the pilot plant deployment.

Michael Whedbee ORNL’s technical project manager for DUECE said “ The DUECE project plans to use the developments in computing and in materials to continue to advance and develop new potential designs and capabilities in the centrifuge arena.”

Eventually the technical and operational learnings from the pilot plant will be utilized in building a follow on commercial scale facility in the 2040s. The DUECE project fits within a broader federal push to secure the nuclear fuel cycle, which includes funding for domestic uranium mining, conversion, enrichment and reprocessing.

NASA is introducing a new funding opportunity to accelerate academic research and technology development. The Minority University Research and Education Project Space Technology Artemis Research (M‑STAR) application window opened Thursday and will remain open through 11:59 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Aug. 11.

The research funded through this award supports the agency’s priorities for exploring the Moon, Mars, and deep space, while strengthening eligible institutions in the future of space exploration. Through M-STAR, institutions are encouraged to grow their scientific and engineering capabilities, enhance faculty and student engagement in aerospace research, and expand their ability to compete for future federal and commercial research awards.

Administered by NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, this initiative contributes to NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, and supports the agency’s broader mission to develop innovative technologies that improve space transportation, human exploration, robotic discovery, and the growing space economy.

NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement fosters an ecosystem across education, industry, and government to cultivate a well‑prepared talent pool, while the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate develops the transformative space technologies that enable future NASA missions and ensure U.S. leadership in aerospace. Together, they accelerate mission readiness by aligning cutting edge technological innovation with the workforce needed to carry it forward.

For complete eligibility information, help session registration, and to submit an M-STAR proposal, visit:

https://go.nasa.gov/4exkPiH

Coinbase has launched Coinbase for Agents, a tool that lets AI agents like ChatGPT or Claude execute crypto trades and manage payments on a user's behalf. "For example, customers can prompt their agent to rebalance portfolios, identify trading opportunities, execute strategies and manage positions over time," reports CNBC. "It will eventually expand these capabilities to stocks and predictions." From the report: [U]sing Coinbase's machine-to-machine payments protocol, called x402, agents can pay directly for digital services like paywalled research, data APIs and on-demand compute without a human in the loop -- and execute trades based on those insights. The company sees this stage of agentic payments, which lets customers bypass the need to manage traditional logins or subscriptions, as a precursor to agentic shopping, where agents browse, find the best deals, select and make purchases on users' behalf. [...] The whole idea is to give agents access to money and, through that financial independence, improve their set of capabilities to pretty much anything on the internet," Lincoln Murr, Coinbase's AI product lead, told CNBC. "In the 2010s, every internet company dealt with the transition from desktop and web into a mobile environment. And now in the late 2020s, we're seeing the exact same thing happen where agents are going to be the new primary economic actors on the internet." The x402 protocol was created in May 2025 and has seen more than 100 million transactions since its debut, Murr said. There are about 157,000 agents acting as buyers using the protocol in the past 30 days, according to x402scan.com. "We saw immediate demand and interest in the ability for agents to pay for things autonomously and that was a huge waking up moment for us [on] the ability of agents to become these new primary financial actors across the internet," he said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In Hayneville, Alabama, a stark environmental justice issue is unfolding along the historic route where civil rights marchers once walked toward Montgomery. This rural community, where some residents still cannot flush their toilets due to inadequate sewage infrastructure, now faces the prospect of a massive data center being built in their backyard.

The proposed facility represents a troubling pattern of environmental inequality, where communities already struggling with basic utilities become targets for industrial development that could strain their limited resources further. Data centers are notorious for their enormous energy consumption and water usage requirements for cooling systems, potentially exacerbating existing infrastructure challenges in areas that can least afford additional environmental burdens.

The juxtaposition is particularly striking along Highway 80, a road that symbolizes the fight for equal rights and justice. Today, residents of this same corridor face a different kind of struggle—one for environmental equity and access to basic services that many Americans take for granted. The situation highlights how communities with limited political and economic power often bear disproportionate environmental costs while receiving few benefits from industrial development.

This case exemplifies the growing tension between the digital economy’s infrastructure needs and environmental justice concerns, particularly in rural areas where oversight may be limited and community voices often go unheard in development decisions.

The post Rural Alabama Community Lacking Basic Sanitation Faces New Environmental Challenge from Proposed Data Center first appeared on EnviroLink Network.

A massive environmental disaster unfolded in the small West Texas town of Grandfalls when an abandoned oil well suddenly reactivated beneath the parking lot of the First Baptist Church. Over eight days in April, the forgotten well gushed more than 1.5 million gallons of toxic wastewater onto the surface, creating one of the largest documented spills of its kind in the region.

The incident highlights a growing crisis across oil-producing states: thousands of abandoned wells that were never properly sealed continue to pose environmental threats decades after being shut down. These “orphaned” wells can leak contaminated water, methane gas, and other hazardous materials into groundwater, soil, and air without warning.

State regulators scrambled to contain the damage, shutting down nearby injection wells and spending $1.49 million in emergency response efforts to finally plug the rogue well. However, the toxic wastewater had already reached the surface, potentially contaminating local soil and threatening groundwater supplies that rural communities depend on for drinking water.

The Grandfalls incident underscores the urgent need for more comprehensive tracking and remediation of abandoned oil infrastructure. Environmental experts warn that similar surprises could be lurking beneath communities across Texas and other oil-producing states, where regulatory oversight of old wells has historically been limited and cleanup responsibilities often fall to taxpayers when original operators can no longer be held accountable.

The post Abandoned Oil Well Spills 1.5 Million Gallons of Toxic Wastewater Under Texas Church first appeared on EnviroLink Network.

In the bustling waters of Biscayne Bay, just beneath Miami’s glittering skyline, a quiet environmental crisis is unfolding. The shallow estuary that serves as a critical nursery for juvenile great hammerhead sharks—a critically endangered species—is undergoing a fundamental chemical transformation that threatens both marine life and the city’s drinking water supply.

Recent research reveals that over the past two decades, Biscayne Bay has been steadily becoming saltier and more acidic, essentially shifting from its natural estuarine state toward ocean-like conditions. This transformation poses serious risks to the delicate ecosystem that supports endangered species like the great hammerhead sharks, which spend their first two years of life in these protected waters. The bay has also been home to the critically endangered sawfish, including a recent discovery of a 12-foot specimen pulled from the same shallow areas where researchers conduct their studies.

The changing water chemistry threatens more than just marine wildlife. As the bay’s salinity increases, it puts additional pressure on the underground aquifer system that supplies fresh drinking water to millions of Miami residents. The dual threat of losing critical habitat for endangered species while simultaneously compromising the region’s water security highlights the interconnected nature of environmental challenges facing South Florida’s coastal communities.

Scientists have linked recent die-offs of sawfish and other marine species to record ocean temperatures in 2024, suggesting that climate change is accelerating these dangerous transformations in one of Florida’s most important coastal ecosystems.

The post Miami’s Biscayne Bay Transforms into Saltier, More Acidic Waters Threatening Endangered Marine Life first appeared on EnviroLink Network.

Environmental advocates in Pennsylvania are calling for urgent action to address skyrocketing electricity costs that are burdening consumers across the state. The activists have proposed a three-pronged approach to tackle the crisis: requiring energy-intensive facilities like data centers to generate their own power instead of drawing from the public grid, reducing utility company profit margins, and accelerating the connection of new renewable energy projects to the electrical system.

The push comes amid growing concerns about the environmental and economic impact of the state’s rapidly expanding data center industry. These massive facilities, which house thousands of computer servers to support cloud computing and digital services, consume enormous amounts of electricity around the clock. Despite this surge in demand placing additional strain on Pennsylvania’s power infrastructure, industry representatives maintain that data centers are not responsible for the rising costs faced by residential and business customers.

The advocacy coalition, which includes major environmental organizations, argues that current policies unfairly burden ordinary consumers with the costs of supporting large-scale industrial electricity users. By requiring these high-demand facilities to develop their own power sources, advocates believe the pressure on the existing grid would be reduced, potentially leading to lower rates for households and small businesses. Additionally, streamlining the approval process for solar, wind, and other clean energy projects could help diversify the state’s energy portfolio while creating more competitive pricing options for consumers.

The post Pennsylvania Activists Push for Solutions to Rising Electric Bills as Data Centers Strain Power Grid first appeared on EnviroLink Network.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: If digital sovereignty is important to you, and it certainly is in the European Union (EU), then you'll be pleased to know that EuroOffice, a new open-source browser-based office suite alternative to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, has officially reached its first stable release. A coalition of EU-based companies, including Nextcloud, Ionos, and other Euro-Stack participants, is positioning Euro-Office as a cornerstone of European digital sovereignty. However, The Document Foundation (TDF), LibreOffice's steward, accuses the project of reinforcing Microsoft's document lock-in, which TDF argues isn't friendly to open standards. Setting aside the open-source politics for the moment, here's what Euro-Office brings you. The release went live on June 9. It is, however, not a stand-alone office suite. As the software's backers explain in a FAQ, "Euro-Office is more of an integration component. It merely handles document editing itself. Storage, as well as navigation, permissions, and sharing logic, have to be offered by a platform it is integrated in, like Proton Docs, Nextcloud Hub, or OpenProject." So, while you can install Euro-Office on your own Linux server, you'll need to integrate it yourself. If you're not a Linux expert, however, don't give up hope. Some companies have already released packaged, ready-to-install Euro-Office stacks, including Nextcloud Hub 26 Spring, Ionos' Nextcloud Workspace, and Office.eu. These initial deployments are web-based rather than standalone desktop suites. The goal, organizers say, is to give European organizations a way to host their office suite on EU infrastructure under EU law, while maintaining an experience familiar to Microsoft Office users. Specifically, Euro-Office is meant to be "a solution for editing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, developed as a true sovereign community collaboration of over a dozen different organizations." TDF's main objection is that Euro-Office's decision to default to Microsoft's OOXML format undercuts its claims of European digital sovereignty, since OOXML remains closely tied to Microsoft Office behavior and control. "Compatibility is not sovereignty," TDF warned, saying a European-branded suite that saves files in OOXML by default "is de facto an ally of Microsoft in its content lock-in strategy."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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This episode of Space Minds is from SpaceNews’ recent event on orbital data centers. There, SpaceNews journalists talk with industry leaders and analysts about what’s driving interest in the technology, […]

The post Understanding what’s next for orbital data centers appeared first on SpaceNews.

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.

Il y a plus de 550 millions d’années, les premiers animaux peuplaient déjà les océans terrestres sous des formes très différentes de celles d’aujourd’hui. Longtemps dominés par des organismes fixés au fond marin et se reproduisant probablement par clonage, ces écosystèmes auraient connu une...

German developers have introduced a highly mobile next-generation air defense system designed to protect military units while on the move. Its platform-independent architecture allows the system to be integrated onto a variety of vehicle chassis. One of Germany’s leading defense contractors has unveiled its latest mobile air defense solution. Designated the IRIS-T SLS MK4, the […]

The post Germany Unveils Next-Generation Air Defense System appeared first on AERONAUT.media.

Vaccination remains the priority, but some researchers are looking for drugs to fight the virus in people who don't get the shot.

fjo3 shares a report from Reason: Police arrested a man in Florida for attempted child abduction in a town he had never visited, and the only evidence linking him to the crime was an AI facial recognition hit. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), he is now suing the officers and agencies who put him through it. [...] According to a police report, facial recognition software concluded with 93 percent confidence that the suspect was Robert Dillon. [...] The ACLU is now suing the city of Jacksonville Beach, as well as the individual police officers and officials involved in the case. According to the lawsuit (PDF), the responding officer viewed security camera footage of the suspect but didn't take a copy; instead, he took pictures of the screen with his cell phone. "In the photos, the suspect image is low resolution, and the suspect's face is partially shadowed and off-axis," the lawsuit claims. When an investigator queried the facial recognition system, it was with the officer's grainy secondhand cell phone photos. [...] But as the ACLU notes, facial recognition's accuracy "depends significantly on the quality of the probe image. Lower-quality images contain less interpretable facial data, degrading the system's ability to produce a reliable template." At the very least, it requires a much better source image. Besides, no such investigative tool should form the sole basis for an arrest warrant. "If you came to me with a facial recognition hit and that was your probable cause, I would probably kick you out of my office because that's not how it works," Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters told local news. (Waters is among those being sued in the ACLU lawsuit, because it was an investigator from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office who ran the grainy photo through facial recognition and advised O'Connell it was a "93% match" to Dillon.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.