Concerning messages showing on people’s phones have led to fears that they are being listened to. The app appears to be attempting to access the microphone within people’s phones, when users are asleep, according to the privacy menus within Google’s Android operating system. But WhatsApp said that it believes the issue is a bug within Android, and has stated categorically that the app would not access user’s microphones without their permission. The problem was raised by Twitter engineer Foad Dabiri, who shared a tweet which included a screenshot of a page in Android that shows when a given app accesses the microphone. He noted that it showed a range of attempts to do so, even when he had been asleep. The post was further amplified by Mr Dabiri’s boss, Elon Musk, who shared the tweet and claimed that “WhatsApp cannot be trusted”. Mr Musk’s post followed a range of other criticisms of Mark Zuckerberg, largely for political reasons, and Twitter also competes with WhatsApp with its direct messaging platform. In another post, Mr Musk pointed to the fact that WhatsApp is “owned by Meta/Facebook”, and claimed that WhatsApp’s former owners had left the parent company “in disgust”. “What they learned about Facebook and changes to WhatsApp obviously disturbed them greatly,” he claimed. Other users also reported seeing the same problem, on Twitter and Reddit, even before Mr Dabiri brought it to widespread attention. The screen can be seen within Google’s “Privacy Dashboard”, which is found within the Settings app and collects information about how personal data is being used by apps on a phone. Some claimed that page even showed WhatsApp accessing their camera. Others said that the microphone appeared to be getting accessed every few minutes. The same privacy dashboard can be used to turn off the microphone for any apps that users may be concerned about. But that could lead to certain features not working, such as voice notes or calls on WhatsApp. WhatsApp said that it believed the screen was showing the microphone being accessed as a result of a “bug”. It said that it was showing the wrong information in Google’s privacy dashboard screen and that it had been in touch with Google to fix it. “Users have full control over their mic settings,” WhatsApp posted in response to Mr Dabiri’s tweet. “Once granted permission, WhatsApp only accesses the mic when a user is making a call or recording a voice note or video – and even then, these communications are protected by end-to-end encryption so WhatsApp cannot hear them.” Meta-owned apps have long been plagued by fears that they are accessing the microphones of users. For years, users have accused Facebook and Instagram of listening to them to collect data and show them more relevant sponsored ads, which Meta has always firmly denied. Many experts have argued that the sometimes uncannily accurate sponsored posts are simply the result of the app’s advertising tools accurately profiling users, without needing to listen to them. Read More WhatsApp just fixed two of its most glaring quirks Google to unveil major new AI Quantum computer discovers bizarre particle that remembers its past Google to unveil major new AI Quantum computer discovers bizarre particle that remembers its past Why is Elon Musk purging Twitter accounts?

Scientists have created what they say is the biggest simulation of our cosmos ever. The virtual universe has the mass of 300 billion galaxies, packed into a space with edges ten billion light years across. Scientists hope that it will help tell us how the real universe that surrounds us first evolved. They could also help address problems in our understanding of physics that currently suggest we might have made deep mistakes about the cosmos. But the first results from the simulation suggest that it might not work: the findings do not get rid of the tensions between different observations about the universe that have proven so difficult to scientists. Researchers created the simulation, named FLAMINGO, by taking the vast amount of data that has been gathered by telescopes such as Nasa’s JWST and other projects. Those projects give information about galaxies, stars and the other arrangement of matter in our cosmos, which can then be fed into the computer. Researchers then hope that the computer can use that data to simulate the evolution and nature of our universe. That can then help resolve those fundamental difficulties we currently face in physics. One of those issues come from the current theory that the properties of our universe are decided by only a few “cosmological parameters”. We can measure those parameters very precisely. But scientists have run into issues because those parameters do not always match. For instance, there are multiple ways of measuring the Hubble constant, or the speed at which the universe is expanding – but those multiple ways show different results, and scientists have not been able to explain them. Scientists hope that the simulation can help explain or resolve that tension. But it is yet to do so. That is just one of the many ways that the creators of the FLAMINGO simulations hope that they can be used to better understand the universe and the observations that we have of it. It might also allow us to make new kinds of discoveries: the vast amount of data means that it can construct random, virtual universes and see how theories work in there, for instance. The work is described in three papers, all of which are published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society today. Read More Scientists see huge explosion in space – and it could explain life Massive space explosion observed creating elements needed for life Tim Peake: Possibility of all-UK space mission a ‘very exciting development’

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Everybody hurts sometimes – even the most basic worms in the animal kingdom which have no eyes, spine or brain. That’s what scientists have found out about nematode species Caenorhabditis elegans, which possesses basic emotions such as fear. Researchers zapped the worms to see if they would display negative reactions, and the worms continued to “flee” at high speeds for minutes after. The scientists at Nagoya City University in Japan and Northeastern University in the US said the response shows a brain state which is comparable to fear in humans. "These properties have been recently regarded as essential features of emotion, suggesting that C. elegans response to electric shock may reflect a form of emotion, akin to fear," the researchers wrote. The findings are the most recent in a debate over which animals can experience primitive versions of our own emotions. Crayfish and bumblebees have all shown animals can have lasting positive and negative mental states. C. elegans is one of the most basic worms in the animal kingdom. At about 1mm in length it is also tiny and transparent, with no brain, sight or smell. Nonetheless, worms which sensed an electric current for 45 seconds “ran away” for more than two minutes. During this state, they ignored food which was placed nearby, instead scurrying at high speeds. This suggests that the emotional response could be triggered by different stimuli and that one stimulus could inhibit responses to others. When the shock was just five seconds long, the worms fled for a minute and a half before calming down. And when the researchers repeated the experiments with worms that were not to produce neuropeptides – which are the equivalent to human hormones – the worms stayed in a state of fear for longer. "Because the requirement of neuropeptide signaling [in worms] is reminiscent of neuropeptide regulation of fear in mammals including humans, the fear-like brain state may be regulated by evolutionarily conserved molecular mechanisms," the authors of the study wrote. Sign 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.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 5, 2023--

Researchers have revealed where in the UK has the most crop circles, in a significant victory for fans of chasing potential alien hotspots. The mysterious crop circle phenomenon is often attributed to unidentified flying object landings or other paranormal forces, with wannabe alien hunters travelling from far and wide to study the markings when they appear. According to Bonusfinder and ukcropcircles.co.uk, the southwestern county of Wiltshire has seen by far the most crop circles since 2005, with a whopping 380 instances of the strange event. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Hampshire was a distant second, with just 51 crop circles in the same period, followed by Oxfordshire with 35 crop circles. Monique Klinkenbergh, researcher and founder of the Crop Circle Visitor Centre and Exhibition, said the county’s sprawling landscape and relatively undisturbed countryside could be part of the reason for the flurry of potential extraterrestrial activity. “Crop circles seem to be attracted by ancient sites such as stone circles, long barrows, hill forts and other archaeological sites, for which Wiltshire is famous,” she said. “We have had so many different designs appearing, from small simple circles and ‘pictograms’ to extremely intricate and large patterns, sometimes with a very detailed and complex lay [the way the plants are flattened] on the ground. “Some crop circle patterns are familiar in design, suggesting they belong to a certain ‘school’ or ‘family-type’, such as Mathematical, Forms of Life, Religious, Astronomical, Codes and Mythology.” Klinkenbergh said invisible “Earth energies” are believed by some to run through ancient landmarks. That could be why the home of Stonehenge has so many crop circles, she said. However, she admitted that another far more mundane explanation could be at the heart of it: that they are manmade. Who would’ve thought it, eh? 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.

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Centenarians have become the fastest-growing demographic group in the world, with numbers approximately doubling every 10 years since the 1970s. Many researchers have sought out the factors and contributors that determine a long and healthy life. The dissolution isn't new either, with Plato and Aristotle writing about the ageing process over 2,300 years ago. Understanding what is behind living a longer life involves unravelling the complex interplay of genetic predisposition and lifestyle factors and how they interact. In a recent study published in GeroScience, researches have unveiled common biomarkers, including levels of cholesterol and glucose, in people who live past 90. The study is one of the largest that has been conducted in this area, comparing biomarker profiles measured throughout life among those who lived to be over the age of 100 and their shorter-lived peers. Data came from 44,000 Swedes who underwent health assessments at ages 64-99. These participants were then followed through Swedish register data for up to 35 years. Of these people, 2.7 percent (1,224) lived to be 100 years old. 85 percent of these centenarians were female. The study's findings conduced that lower levels of glucose, creatinine - which is linked to kidney function and uric acid, a waste product in the body caused by the digestion of certain foods - were linked to those who made it to their 100th birthday. The findings suggest a potential link between metabolic health, nutrition, and exceptional longevity. In terms of lifestyle factors, the study didn't allow for any conclusions to be made, but the authors of the study added that it's reasonable for factors such as nutrition and alcohol intake play a role. Overall, the fact that differences in biomarkers could be observed a long time before death suggests that genes and lifestyle play a role, but of course, chance likely has an input too. Sign 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.