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MONDAY, 06 APRIL 2026, 08:27

Science/Tech

Monday briefing: Can human-based space exploration still be meaningful?

Today at 07:46 AM, via The Guardian

In today’s newsletter: Far from Earth and out of contact, the four‑person crew ​of Artemis II​ continues a journey designed ​to test​ endurance and the limits of deep‑space exploration

Good morning. For a short period today, the four-person crew of the Artemis II mission will be alone in space, unable to contact anyone on Earth. Facing the far side of the moon, the astronauts will be further...

Boötes the herdsman rises to prominence in the northern sky

Today at 07:00 AM, via The Guardian

How to watch the spring constellation defined in ancient Babylon, where it was associated with the god Enlil

Several weeks past the equinox, the northern spring constellation of Boötes, the herdsman, is rising to prominence in the eastern sky after dusk.

The chart shows the view looking east from London at 21.00 BST on 6 April, although the view will be essentially unchanged all week. By this...

Artemis Astronauts Enter Moon’s Gravitational Pull, Catch First Glimpses of Far Side

Today at 06:41 AM, via Slashdot

NASA’s Artemis astronauts are now entering “the lunar sphere of influence,” reports NBC News, “meaning the pull of the moon’s gravity will become stronger than Earth’s.” Now as they begin their swing around the moon, the Artemis astronauts “are chasing after Apollo 13’s maximum range from Earth,” reports the Associated Press, hoping to beat its distance from Earth by more than 4,100 miles...

Internet Bug Bounty Pauses Payouts, Citing ‘Expanding Discovery’ From AI-Assisted Research

Today at 03:34 AM, via Slashdot

The Internet Bug Bounty program “has been paused for new submissions,” they announced last week. Running since 2012, the program is funded by “a number of leading software companies,” reports InfoWorld, “and has awarded more than $1.5m to researchers who have reported bugs “Up to now, 80% of its payouts have been for discoveries of new flaws, and 20% to support remediation efforts. But as...

Claude Code Leak Reveals a ‘Stealth’ Mode for GenAI Code Contributions – and a ‘Frustration Words’ Regex

Today at 01:41 AM, via Slashdot

That leak of Claude Code’s source code “revealed “all kinds of juicy details,” writes PC World. The more than 500,000 lines of code included: – An ‘undercover mode’ for Claude that allows it to make ‘stealth’ contributions to public code bases- An ‘always-on’ agent for Claude Code- A Tamagotchi-style ‘Buddy’ for Claude “But one of the stranger bits discovered in the leak is that Claude Code is...

Hundreds of Theatres Show Apocalyptic-Yet-Optomistic New Movie, ‘The AI Doc’

Today at 00:39 AM, via Slashdot

Hundreds of theatres are now showing a new documentary called The AI Doc: Or How I Became An Apocaloptimist. Variety calls it “playful and heady,”edited “with a spirit of ADHD alertness.” The New York Times suggests it “tries to cover so much that it ends up being more confusing than clarifying, but parts are fascinating.” But the Los Angeles Times calls it an “aggravating soup of information...

Hundreds of Theatres Show Apocalyptic-Yet-Optimistic New Movie, ‘The AI Doc’

Today at 00:39 AM, via Slashdot

Hundreds of theatres are now showing a new documentary called The AI Doc: Or How I Became An Apocaloptimist. Variety calls it “playful and heady,”edited “with a spirit of ADHD alertness.” The New York Times suggests it “tries to cover so much that it ends up being more confusing than clarifying, but parts are fascinating.” But the Los Angeles Times calls it an “aggravating soup of information...

Will ‘AI-Assisted’ Journalists Bring Errors and Retractions?

Yesterday at 23:22 PM, via Slashdot

Meet the “journalist” who “uploads press releases or analyst notes into AI tools and prompts them to spit out articles that he can edit and publish quickly,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune’s web traffic in the second half of 2025.” And most were written by 42-year-old Nick Lichtenberg, who has now written over 600 AI-assisted...

Crooks Behind $27M in ‘Refund’ Scams Busted By YouTube Pranksters After Being Lured to Fake Funeral

Yesterday at 20:34 PM, via Slashdot

One crime ring scammed 2,000 elderly people of more than $27 million between 2021 and 2023 using tech support/bank impersonation/refund scams. “Victims were in their 70s and 80s,” reports the U.S. Attorney’s office for California’s southern district. Victims were first told they’d received a refund (either online or via phone), but then told they’d been “over-refunded” a massive amount, and...

Apple Brings Device-Level Age Verification to Two More Countries

Yesterday at 19:34 PM, via Slashdot

11 days ago Apple launched device-level age restrictions in the U.K. There were some glitches, reports the blog 9to5Mac.For me, the experience was an entirely painless one, taking less than 30 seconds. All I had to do was tap a confirm and continue button, and Apple told me that the length of time I’d had an Apple account was used to confirm that I’m 18+. Others, however, experienced...

Chance of alien life ‘goes to heart’ of space missions, Nasa chief says

Yesterday at 19:26 PM, via The Guardian

Jared Isaacman says odds of evidence we are not alone are ‘pretty high’ four days after Artemis II rocket lifted off

Nasa’s Orion spaceship four days into Artemis II mission: in pictures

The top official at Nasa says that the chance of alien existence is a factor in how the US space agency plans its missions.

Speaking on Sunday, Nasa administrator Jared Isaacman told CNN’s Meet the Press that...

Chrome 148 Will Start ‘Lazy Loading’ Video and Audio to Improve Performance

Yesterday at 18:34 PM, via Slashdot

“Google has announced that it’s currently testing a new feature for Chrome 148 that could speed up day-to-day browsing,” reports PC World:[T]he browser can intelligently postpone the loading of certain elements. Why load all images at the start when it can instead load images as you get close to them while scrolling? Chrome and Chromium-based browsers have had built-in lazy loading support for...

Scientists Engineered a Plant To Produce 5 Different Psychedelics At Once

Yesterday at 17:34 PM, via Slashdot

Plants, toads, and mushrooms “can all produce psychedelic substances,” writes ScienceAlert. “And now their powers have been combined in one plant.”[S]cientists have taken the genes these organisms use to make five natural psychedelics and introduced them into a tobacco plant ( Nicotiana benthamiana), which then produced all five compounds simultaneously. As interest grows in psychedelics as...

Artemis II astronauts expected to reach far side of moon on Monday

Yesterday at 17:22 PM, via The Guardian

Nasa team get deeper into space than any humans have ever ventured

Astronauts on the historic Artemis II mission are expected to reach the far side of the moon on Monday, venturing deeper into space than any humans before them.

Nasa has reported satisfaction with progress toward the lunar fly-round since the team’s launch on Wednesday, with the three Americans and one Canadian on course to...

Satellite mirror plans could disrupt sleep and ecosystems worldwide, scientists say

Yesterday at 13:49 PM, via The Guardian

Letters to US agency raise concerns over tech firms’ plans to use reflective satellites and expand numbers in low Earth orbit

Proposals to deploy reflective mirrors and up to 1m more satellites in low Earth orbit could have far-reaching consequences for human health and ecosystems, leading sleep and circadian rhythm researchers have said.

Presidents of four international scientific societies...

Does Ubuntu Now Require More RAM Than Windows 11?

Yesterday at 13:34 PM, via Slashdot

“Canonical is no longer pretending that 4GB is enough,” writes the blog How-to-Geek, noting Ubuntu 26.04 LTS “raises the baseline memory to 6GB, alongside a 2GHz dual-core processor, and 25GB of storage…”Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) set the floor at 1GB — a modest ask when it launched more than a decade ago in 2014. Then came the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic Beaver) that pushed the number to...

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