Science & Tech

Andre Cronje, Michael Kong and David Richardson Resign from Sonic Labs Board as Governance Overhaul Begins

Sonic Labs said three board members resigned June 19 as new leadership and governance changes aim to steady the struggling Sonic blockchain.

#sonic, #crypto, #defi, #governance

RAND paper warns AI-biology tests need clearer design, scoring and reporting for policy use

RAND paper warns tests of AI agents' biological capabilities are sensitive to design and need clearer standards for scoring, reporting and policy use.

#ai, #biosecurity, #rand, #benchmarks

Papers Clash Over Whether BE Lyncis Hides a Nearby Black Hole

Two newly accepted papers reach opposing conclusions about BE Lyncis: pulsation timing suggests a massive unseen companion, while Gaia astrometry disagrees.

#astronomy, #blackhole, #gaia, #hipparcos

NOAA Declares El Niño Underway as NASA Satellites Show Strengthening in Equatorial Pacific

NOAA says El Niño is underway and likely to strengthen; NASA satellite altimetry shows higher sea levels across the equatorial Pacific, raising odds of a strong 2026–27 event.

#climate, #elnino, #nasa, #noaa

ArXiv preprint claims axion early dark energy model raises Hubble constant to 71.6, easing Hubble tension

Unreviewed arXiv preprint reports an axion early dark energy fit to CMB, DESI and JWST data gives H0 = 71.58 ± 1.05 km/s/Mpc, largely easing the Hubble tension.

#cosmology, #hubble-tension, #early-dark-energy, #arxiv

Preprint Presents Sharper Spectroscopic Case for a Recoiling Black Hole in Quasar 3C 186

A revised arXiv preprint reports precise blueshifted spectra in quasar 3C 186, strengthening — but not proving — the case for a recoiling supermassive black hole.

#astronomy, #blackhole, #quasars, #gravitationalwaves

NASA Taps Relativity Space to Deliver Aeolus Mars Atmospheric Mission in 2028

NASA will provide the Aeolus science payload while Relativity Space supplies spacecraft, rocket and operations to deliver it to Mars in 2028.

#nasa, #relativityspace, #mars, #space

EFF Warns IETF Drafts Could Let Sites Gate Automated Access to Web Content

EFF warns two IETF draft specs — AIPREF and Web Bot Auth — could let websites signal AI-use preferences and cryptographically verify bots, risking gated web access.

#ietf, #ai, #web, #privacy

Epic Games lays out Unreal Engine 6 roadmap, targets Early Access end of 2027

Epic will merge UE5 and Unreal Editor for Fortnite into UE6; Early Access targeted late 2027, full release 12–18 months afterward.

#epicgames, #unrealengine, #game-development, #uefn

Single neurons predict grammar and meaning during natural conversation, NIH-led study finds

Recordings of single neurons during natural conversation let AI models predict grammar, meaning and context—an advance toward speech neuroprostheses.

#neuroscience, #speech, #bci, #nih, #language

ArXiv paper proposes a measurable internal “rift” that may reveal lies in language models

An arXiv preprint finds a measurable internal 'residual rank' difference when models lie versus when they err, with implications for AI safety.

#ai, #ai-safety, #language-models, #deception

Keck Spectroscopy Finds Third Dark-Matter–Deficient Galaxy in NGC 1052 Field

Keck spectroscopy suggests NGC 1052-DF9, like DF2 and DF4, shows stellar motions consistent with little dark matter — but distances and measurements remain uncertain.

#astronomy, #darkmatter, #dwarfgalaxies, #ngc1052

Webb Captures Rapid Atmospheric Heating on Eccentric Giant Exoplanet HD 80606 b

Webb's MIRI tracked HD 80606 b heating by about 1,100°F at periastron, revealing rapid temperature and chemical changes; preliminary results shown at AAS.

#exoplanet, #jameswebb, #astronomy, #hd80606b

NVIDIA releases Nemotron 3 Ultra: open-weight Mixture-of-Experts LLM with 1 million-token context

NVIDIA released Nemotron 3 Ultra, a 550B/55B Mixture‑of‑Experts LLM with a 1 million‑token context window and shared checkpoints, recipes and model weights.

$NVDA, #nvidia, #llm, #openmodels, #ai

InclusionAI, linked to Ant Group, releases Ling and Ring 2.6 models — including 1T checkpoints

InclusionAI, tied to Ant Group, published a technical report and released Ling-2.6 and Ring-2.6 checkpoints on Hugging Face under MIT, including 1T variants.

#ai, #opensource, #antgroup, #largelanguagemodels