SUNDAY, 18 JANUARY 2026, 08:43
Taking drug in pregnancy does not raise chances of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability, ‘gold standard’ review finds
Taking paracetamol in pregnancy does not increase the chance that the child will be autistic, or have ADHD or an intellectual disability, a “gold standard” review of the evidence has found.
The findings debunk Donald Trump’s claims last September that the painkiller causes...
Cloudflare has acquired the core team behind the open source JavaScript framework Astro, bringing its creators in-house while pledging to keep Astro fully open source. The New Stack reports: Astro is used by major brands like IKEA, Unilever, Visa and OpenAI to build fast, content-driven websites. Search engines prioritize fast-loading and clean pages, the Cloudflare statement noted. Websites...
Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear shares a report from the Washington Times: Breaking with the United States, Canada has agreed to cut its 100% tariff [back to 6.1%] on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. He said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000...
After an ICE agent shot and killed the Minneapolis mother, conservative media launched an all-out attack on her reputation. Her identity as a queer woman was central to it.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) reported record fourth-quarter earnings and said it expects AI chip demand to continue for years. During an earnings call, CEO C.C. Wei told investors that while he cannot predict the semiconductor industry’s long-term trajectory, he remains bullish on AI. “All in all, I believe...
An anonymous reader shares a report: The prospect of Britain realigning its financial rules with the European Union has passed, and the country should avoid linking its regulations to any single jurisdiction, the ambassador for London’s financial services sector told Reuters. Nearly a decade after Brexit, newly appointed Lady Mayor of London Susan Langley said that while maintaining dialogue...
This little power station can keep your stuff topped up, plus you can save some cash on solar panels.
A new study from Cornell and University of Toronto researchers has found that polyester microfibers shed from synthetic clothing during laundry can interfere with cherry tomato plant development [non-paywalled source] when these particles accumulate in agricultural soil. Plants grown in contaminated soil were 11% less likely to emerge, grew smaller and took several days longer to flower and...
The company said on Friday that it would start serving ads in the free version of its chatbot over the next several weeks.
A researchers’ propensity for risky projects is passed down to their doctoral students — and stays with trainees after they leave the laboratory, according to an analysis of thousands of current and former PhD students and their mentors. From a report: Science involves taking risks, and some of the most impactful discoveries require taking big bets. However, scientists and policymakers have...
Demand from centers that power artificial intelligence has driven up electricity bills, frustrating consumers.
An anonymous reader shares a report: A hit song has been excluded from Sweden’s official chart after it emerged the “artist” behind it was an AI creation. I Know, You’re Not Mine — or Jag Vet, Du Ar Inte Min in Swedish — by a singer called Jacub has been a streaming success in Sweden, topping the Spotify rankings. However, the Swedish music trade body has excluded the song from the official...
OpenAI said Friday that it will begin testing ads on ChatGPT in the coming weeks, as the $500 billion startup seeks new revenue streams to fund its continued expansion and compete against rivals Google and Anthropic. The company had previously resisted embedding ads into its chatbot, citing concerns that doing so could undermine the trustworthiness and objectivity of responses. The ads will...
Seattle was late to the light rail party — the city rejected transit ballot measures in 1968 and 1971, missing out on federal funding that built Atlanta’s MARTA, and didn’t approve a plan including rail until 1996 — but the Pacific Northwest city is now in the middle of a multibillion-dollar building boom that has produced the highest post-pandemic ridership recovery of any US light rail...
OpenAI says ads will not influence ChatGPT’s responses, and that it won’t sell user data to advertisers.
Iran’s crackdown on dissidents is shaping up as one of the toughest security tests yet for Elon Musk’s Starlink.
Verizon is offering affected customers a $20 account credit following a nationwide network outage on Wednesday that left users across the US unable to connect, forcing phones into SOS mode for roughly ten hours before the carrier restored service around 10:15PM ET. Customers will receive a text message when the credit becomes available and can redeem it through the myVerizon app by clicking...
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said this week that his company’s software engineering headcount has remained “mostly flat” over the past year as internal AI tools have delivered substantial productivity gains. Speaking on TBPN, Benioff said he has about 15,000 engineers who are “more productive than ever.” The company has redirected its hiring efforts toward sales and customer engagement roles,...
AI still can’t produce code as well as most junior programmers he’s worked with, David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails and co-founder of 37 Signals, said on a recent podcast , which is why he continues to write most of his code by hand. Hansson compared AI’s current coding capabilities to “a flickering light bulb” — total darkness punctuated by moments of clarity before going...
The plan, which is still in its early stages, is spearheaded by former USDS administrator Mikey Dickerson.
An anonymous reader shares a report: China is pulling the plug on a key advantage held by high-frequency traders, removing servers dedicated to those firms out of local exchanges’ data centers, according to people familiar with the matter. Commodities futures exchanges in Shanghai and Guangzhou are among those that have ordered local brokers to shift servers for their clients out of data...