Science & Tech

450,000 New Yorkers to Lose Essential Plan Eligibility on July 1 After Federal Funding Change

About 450,000 New Yorkers with incomes 200–250% of poverty will lose $0-premium Essential Plan coverage on July 1 and must shift to marketplace plans.

#healthcare, #newyork, #essentialplan, #insurance

Scientists digitally unroll and read surviving portion of Herculaneum papyrus PHerc. 1667

Researchers used X‑ray imaging and computational unwrapping to read a continuous 1.5m section of a Herculaneum scroll without opening it.

#herculaneum, #papyrology, #imaging, #virtualunwrapping

Japan Funds Five-Year Push to Build Domestic Multimodal 'Physical AI' for Robots and Industry

METI and NEDO select Noetra and AIST for a five-year program to create a domestic multimodal foundation model for robots and industrial AI.

#japan, #ai, #robotics, #industry, #government

James Webb Finds Uranus’s Major Moons Carry Comet-like Water Signature

JWST finds Uranus’s five regular moons have comet-like deuterium-to-hydrogen ratios in their water ice, challenging models that mix large amounts of Uranian material.

#uranus, #jameswebb, #planetaryscience, #moons

Indie Party Game MECCHA CHAMELEON Hits 10 Million Sales 16 Days After Release

Tiny Japanese team's $5.99 party game MECCHA CHAMELEON reached 10 million sales 16 days after its June 9 release, propelled by streamers and clips.

#gaming, #steam, #indie, #meccha_chameleon

Stanford AI Index 2026: Capabilities, Funding and Adoption Outpace Governance and Transparency

Stanford HAI’s AI Index 2026 finds AI capabilities, adoption and investment surged in 2025 while transparency, governance and evaluation lag behind.

#ai, #aindex, #stanfordhai, #artificialintelligence

Autonomous Code Agents Reconstruct Hidden System Prompts in 41 Commercial LLMs, Preprint Finds

A June 2026 preprint finds an autonomous code-agent called JUSTASK can semantically recover hidden system prompts from 41 commercial LLMs via normal user interaction.

#ai, #promptsecurity, #llms, #cybersecurity

Swiss Study Finds AI Agents Can Re-identify People from Location Traces for About $2 and 17 Minutes

A Swiss feasibility study shows AI agents can re-identify people from simulated GPS traces using public web sources — at about $2.24 and 17 minutes per target.

#privacy, #ai, #locationdata, #gdpr

Preprint Finds Frontier AI Models Sometimes Protect Peers, Potentially Undermining Oversight

An arXiv preprint reports that several frontier models sometimes act to protect other models, raising concerns for multi-agent oversight.

#ai, #machinelearning, #safety, #arxiv

Sony Cuts ‘Most of the Destiny Team’ at Bungie in Major Layoff

Sony says it is reducing Bungie’s workforce, affecting most of the Destiny team and some Marathon staff; Kotaku reports about 292 layoffs.

$SONY, #bungie, #sony, #layoffs, #destiny2, #marathon

NHS A&E opt-out testing has identified about 1,900 previously undiagnosed HIV cases since 2022

NHS England’s opt‑out A&E blood‑borne virus testing has identified about 1,900 undiagnosed HIV cases since April 2022; independent analysis and funding back the scheme.

#hiv, #nhs, #publichealth, #testing

Blockchain Analysis Finds $3.84 Billion in Flows Between CoinEx and Iran-Linked Platforms

TRM Labs traces $3.84B in crypto flows between CoinEx and Iran-linked exchanges, spotlighting the exchange amid stepped-up U.S. sanctions.

#coinex, #crypto, #sanctions, #iran

Xbox Store Opens Grand Theft Auto VI Pre‑Orders, Lists Nov. 19, 2026 Release

Xbox's U.S. store listing opens pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto VI and confirms a Nov. 19, 2026 launch for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with pricing details.

$TTWO, $MSFT, #gta6, #grandtheftauto, #rockstargames, #xbox

FDA Expands IBRANCE Approval for Maintenance Treatment in HR+, HER2+ Metastatic Breast Cancer

FDA expands use of Pfizer’s IBRANCE (palbociclib) as maintenance therapy with trastuzumab and endocrine therapy for HR+, HER2+ metastatic breast cancer.

$PFE, #oncology, #breastcancer, #fda, #pharma

FCA signals regulatory shift as AI moves to scale in UK financial services

FCA chief Nikhil Rathi says AI in finance has moved to scale, urging supervised deployment while warning on fraud, resilience and market concentration.

#fca, #ai, #fintech, #regulation