REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 10, 2023--

A researcher has figured out that the Earth’s first continent was formed 3bn years ago, in a new paper that sheds fresh light on the early stages of the planet’s life. Jane Greaves, an astronomy professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University in Wales, was examining continent formation on distant stars and planets. It is thought that exoplanets with continents that formed in a similar way to Earth’s are more likely to be habitable, and perhaps even contain alien life. In the process, she calculated when several distant planets’ continents were born, as well as those a little closer to home. Continents on Earth sit on top of the planet’s hot, viscous mantle. Heat from the inner core stops the mantle from solidifying. The reason the core is hot is because it contains radioactive elements that came from neutron star collisions billions of years ago such as forms of Uranium, Thorium and Potassium. By analysing how many materials like this are present on Earth and on other planets, we are also able to estimate when the continents formed. On Earth, that was about 9.5 billion years since the beginning of the universe. Meanwhile, in Greaves' sample, the first continents appeared 2bn years before Earth’s on the exoplanets of younger, so-called thin disk stars. Older, thick disk stars analysed in her work produced rocky planets with continents that appeared even earlier: about 4 to 5bn years before Earth’s. “The outlook seems very promising for finding rocky exoplanets with continents, given that nearby Sun-like stars have already produced a few candidate hosts,” she wrote. The study, “When were the First Exocontinents?” is published in Research Notes of the American Astronomical SocietySign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2023--

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By Dawn Chmielewski and Krystal Hu Walt Disney has created a task force to study artificial intelligence and

Elon Musk says he will drive a Tesla to Mark Zuckerberg’s home in the hope that their on-again-off-again mixed martial arts fight will break out. Mr Musk took to X, the site formerly known as Twitter, to detail his latest plans to try and fight with the Facebook founder after Mr Zuckerberg cancelled it saying that his rival was not serious about the bout. “Knock, knock … challenge accepted … open the door @finkd,” tweeted Mr Musk on Monday. And he added: “For the Tesla FSD test drive in Palo Alto tonight, I will ask the car to drive to @finkd’s house. “Will also test latest X livestream video, so you can monitor our adventure in real-time! If we get lucky and Zuck...actually answers the door, the fight is on!” And in a follow-up post, he took more shots at his tech rival for ditching the contest. “(Zuck thread coming soon about how he would of course love to fight anytime, but blah blah UFC something something)” he wrote. Mr Zuckerberg announced that he was backing out of the fight on Sunday night because Mr Musk would not agree to a format and kept changing details for the bout. “I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on,” Mr Zuckerberg wrote. “I offered a real date. Dana White offered to make this a legit competition for charity. Elon won’t confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and now asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead. “If Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me. Otherwise, time to move on. I’m going to focus on competing with people who take the sport seriously.” Read More X: Elon Musk removes last parts of Twitter branding from website Mark Zuckerberg hits out at Elon Musk for wasting time over cage fight: ‘It’s time to move on’ Mark Zuckerberg plays down Elon Musk’s cage fight details ‘Gladiator’: Elon Musk reveals more details of fight with Mark Zuckerberg Musk vs Zuckerberg: UFC president meets Italy’s culture minister to discuss fight at Colosseum The last parts of Twitter are being removed Mark Zuckerberg hits out at Elon Musk for wasting time over cage fight Elon Musk reveals more dramatic details of fight against Mark Zuckerberg

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First-quarter earnings from Home Depot, Cisco Systems, Take-Two, Target, Walmart, Alibaba, Applied Materials, Ross Stores, and Deere. Plus, retail sales and leading economic index.

The UK’s data protection watchdog is seeking permission to appeal against the decision of a tribunal to overturn a data privacy fine handed out to facial recognition firm Clearview AI. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it believes the tribunal incorrectly interpreted the law when overturning a £7.5 million fine handed out to Clearview by the ICO last year. At the time, the ICO said Clearview had collected billions of images of people’s faces and data – without informing people or gaining their consent – from publicly available information on the internet, including social media platforms, for use in facial recognition services by law enforcement agencies outside of the UK. But last month, a tribunal overturned the ICO’s decision after a Clearview appeal ruling that the ICO did not have the jurisdiction to issue its fine and enforcement notice because Clearview’s system was only used by law enforcement agencies based outside the UK. Whilst my office supports businesses that innovate with AI solutions, we will always take the appropriate action to protect UK people when we believe their privacy rights are not being respected John Edwards, Information Commissioner Now the ICO says it wishes to seek permission to appeal on the grounds that it believes that Clearview itself was not processing data for foreign law enforcement purposes and should not be shielded from the scope of UK law on that basis. “I fully respect the role of the tribunal to provide scrutiny of my decisions – but as the defender of the public’s privacy, I need to challenge this judgment to clarify whether commercial enterprises profiting from processing digital images of UK people, are entitled to claim they are engaged in ‘law enforcement’,” Information Commissioner John Edwards said. “It is my job to protect the data rights of the people of the United Kingdom and it is my view that there are too many who are being affected by the sheer scale and intrusiveness of Clearview’s mass scraping of personal information. “This is an important issue within the AI sphere and whilst my office supports businesses that innovate with AI solutions, we will always take the appropriate action to protect UK people when we believe their privacy rights are not being respected.” The ICO said it would now await the tribunal’s decision on the issue. Clearview AI has been contacted for comment.