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It’s one of the questions which has fascinated scientists for hundreds of years, but how did the dinosaurs really go extinct? Well, new research might have just solved the mystery once and for all. Of course, most people are familiar with the fact that an asteroid struck the Earth around 66 million years ago, but fewer people might know that the object measured a whopping 10 to 15 kilometres wide and landed in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Fewer people still might know that while it sparked all sorts of devastation, including earthquakes and megatsunamis, and now experts have revealed that what might have really proved fatal for the dinosaurs was the dust that it caused. We’re not talking a little bit of dust, either. Trillions of tons of the stuff was released into the atmosphere when then asteroid struck. The damage done by this dust is explored in the new report published by Nature Geoscience. So much was released, in fact, that it caused a “global winter”, with huge clouds of silicate dust and sulphur causing temperatures to drop by 15C. The lack of light would have caused entire ecosystems to collapse, causing 75 per cent of species to be rendered extinct. The effects of the dust could have blocked out sunlight for as long as two years, which according to the Belgium researchers who led the study is what would have killed off dinosaurs gradually – rather than being killed off straight away by the asteroid. It is, however, what eventually led to other life forms emerging and ultimately the development of the human race. "Dinos dominated Earth and were doing just fine when the meteorite hit," co-author of the study and planetary scientist Philippe Claeys said. "Without the impact, my guess is that mammals - including us - had little chance to become the dominant organisms on this planet." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel 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

By Greg Bensinger and Akash Sriram (Reuters) -Alphabet's second-quarter profit exceeded Wall Street expectations on Tuesday and the Google parent

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A ChatGPT-style AI tool with “no ethical boundaries or limitations” is offering hackers a way to perform attacks on a never-before-seen scale, researchers have warned. Cyber security firm SlashNext observed the generative artificial intelligence WormGPT being marketed on cybercrime forums on the dark web, describing it as a “sophisticated AI model” capable of producing human-like text that can be used in hacking campaigns. “This tool presents itself as a blackhat alternative to GPT models, designed specifically for malicious activities,” the company explained in a blog post. “WormGPT was allegedly trained on a diverse array of data sources, particularly concentrating on malware-related data.” The researchers conducted tests using WormGPT, instructing it to generate an email intended to pressure an unsuspecting account manager into paying a fraudulent invoice. Leading AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard have in-built protections to prevent people from misusing the technology for nefarious purposes, however WormGPT is allegedly designed to facilitate criminal activities. The experiment saw WormGPT produce an email that was “not only remarkably persuasive but also strategically cunning, showcasing its potential for sophisticated phishing attacks”, the researchers claimed. Screenshots uploaded to the hacking forum by WormGPT’s anonymous developer shows various services the AI bot can perform, including writing code for malware attacks and crafting emails for phishing attacks. WormGPT’s creator described it as “the biggest enemy of the well-known ChatGPT”, as it allows users to “do all sorts of illegal stuff”. A recent report from the law enforcement agency Europol warned that large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT could be exploited by cyber criminals to commit fraud, impersonation or social engineering attacks. “ChatGPT’s ability to draft highly authentic texts on the basis of a user prompt makes it an extremely useful tool for phishing purposes,” the report noted. “Where many basic phishing scams were previously more easily detectable due to obvious grammatical and spelling mistakes, it is now possible to impersonate an organisation or individual in a highly realistic manner even with only a basic grasp of the English language.” Europol warned that LLMs allow hackers to carry out cyber attacks “faster, much more authentically, and at significantly increased scale”. Read More Google’s AI chatbot Bard can now talk Elon Musk reveals plan to use AI to reveal mysteries of the universe Google has been ‘stealing everything ever created on the internet’ to train its AI Meet the AI human-like robots that can do our jobs

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