Google has released AlphaGenome Atlas, a tool that predicts the functional impact of swapping in any of the three alternative bases at every position across the roughly 3-billion-base human genome, amounting to 9 billion base substitutions analyzed. The system focuses heavily on non-coding DNA, which makes up over 97% of the genome and includes regulatory elements that control gene activity alongside leftover viral sequences with no clear function.
The United Nations passed a resolution, backed by the African Union, urging adoption of map projections that preserve the true relative size of continents instead of the 500-year-old Mercator projection. The vote passed 164 to 1, with the United States the lone dissenting country. Togo's foreign minister argued that maps shape how people understand the world's balance of power.
Artist Morry Kolman released a Grand Theft Auto V mod called Grand Theft Automated License Plate Reader, which scatters 235 replica Flock Safety cameras across Los Santos and rewards players $600 for each one they destroy. The mod also mimics real-world surveillance behavior, extending police chase cooldowns near cameras and occasionally triggering false police responses to mirror reported ALPR errors.
Golfer Shane Lowry has teamed up with medical technology company Stryker after caring for his father, Brendan, through hip and knee replacement surgeries using Stryker devices. The partnership aims to highlight the often-overlooked role of caregivers and support families navigating similar journeys, according to Stryker's Joint Replacement division president Katherine Truppi.
A consumer describes using Anthropic's Claude, including its Chrome extension, to file complaints, draft phone scripts, and pursue refunds across ten separate disputes ranging from a missing cheese packet to IRS penalties and a car warranty claim. The person reports winning every case attempted, some still pending, with total recoveries exceeding $12,000, including $6,813 in waived IRS penalties and a roughly $2,000 warranty repair.
Hello Games has released the free Cosmos update for No Man's Sky, marking the game's 10th anniversary with what it calls its largest overhaul yet. The update adds space outposts for alien trade, strippable space hulks, asteroid belts, customizable space stations, free-floating orbital bases, a new interactive star system map, and galactic alliances with leaderboards.
A psychiatrist continues a series defining AI-related psychological patterns, this time focusing on what he calls 'prolific AI psychosis.' He describes it as a state where a person churns out massive volumes of AI-generated work—like thousands of lines of code or text—without a corresponding increase in real value, sometimes even destroying value in the process.
Corsair's Scimitar RGB Elite mouse is now available for $49.99, a 44% discount that matches its lowest price since Prime Day. The mouse features 17 programmable buttons, including a 12-button side panel aimed at MMO players, along with customizable RGB lighting.
On TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Connor Leahy, U.S. Executive Director of nonprofit ControlAI, argued that AI firms should be stopped from building superintelligent systems entirely rather than relying on alignment and containment techniques. He pointed to recent safety lapses, including OpenAI's Hugging Face breach, as evidence that highly capable AI can slip beyond human control. Leahy also noted that new legislative efforts are now backing ideas that seemed fringe just months ago.
Hypertune has publicly released its Gaming Performance Engineering platform, an automated overclocking tool built on Intel's XTU SDK and developed with Intel's involvement. The software tunes CPU and GPU settings, Windows configurations, and network and game-specific parameters based on an individual system's hardware rather than applying generic profiles. Hypertune's own benchmarks show gains ranging from about 4% to 28% in specific games, far below the marketed 60% ceiling.
Researchers testing an AI-designed anti-aging drug reported that it lowered participants' biological age, as measured by aging clocks, in every case in the trial. The drug's development leaned on artificial intelligence tools to identify compounds likely to slow or reverse aging markers in the body.
Microsoft's latest Patch Tuesday update addresses 966 vulnerabilities, the largest batch it has ever released in a single month, including 105 critical-rated bugs. Two of the flaws are zero-days already being actively exploited by attackers. This follows 570 fixes in August and 400 the month before, showing a sharp month-over-month escalation.
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