Britain’s public finances are more vulnerable to shocks than other major economies, the Treasury’s fiscal watchdog said, as

A review undertaken by the Pentagon after a trove of classified documents were leaked online has recommended that the department establish a new office to monitor insider threats and improve access to vetting information from ongoing background checks to ensure individuals still meet security clearance requirements.

Seven leading artificial intelligence firms will debut new voluntary safeguards designed to minimize abuse of and bias within

Scientists have cooked up the "alien haze" of distant planets, in an effort to help with the search for alien life. The haze is a simulation of the hazy skies that appear on water-rich exoplanets, or worlds outside of our solar system. That haziness can get in the way of observations of those planets, making it difficult to understand what is happening there. Haze can also affect conditions on the planet themselves. If the atmosphere has hazes or other particles then it can drastically change the temperature, amount of light an other factors – some of which might be make or break for alien life there. Scientists hope the homemade haze will let them better understand the atmospheres of other planets, and model how the planets themselves form and grow. They could allow us to better understand how the have distorts our picture of those planets – distortions that could give us the wrong understanding of the makeup of their atmospheres. Getting that wrong could mean potentially missing habitable worlds, for instance. The observations are used to come up with the estimates about the temperature and atmospheric conditions that are then used to determine whether a planet might be able to host alien life. “The big picture is whether there is life outside the solar system, but trying to answer that kind of question requires really detailed modeling of all different types, specifically in planets with lots of water,” said co-author Sarah Hörst, from Johns Hopkins University. “This has been a huge challenge because we just don't have the lab work to do that, so we are trying to use these new lab techniques to get more out of the data that we’re taking in with all these big fancy telescopes.” The team cooked up the haze using a custom-designed chamber in Hörst’s lab. The haze they made is formed out solid particles, suspended in gas, which changes how light interacts with the gas itself. To test the hazes they made, scientists shot ultraviolet light through them, measuring how much they absorbed and reflected. They found that hate haze matched the chemical signatures of a well-studied exoplanet. Scientists hope to develop yet more hazes, with different gas mixtures, that will let them better understand different atmospheres. The work is described in a new paper, 'Optical properties of organic haze analogues in water-rich exoplanet atmospheres observable with JWST', published in the journal Nature Astronomy. Read More SpaceX rockets are punching holes in atmosphere, causing blood-red ‘auroras’ Chinese rocket that slammed onto Moon may have carried mysterious undisclosed payload Nasa’s ‘Message in a Bottle’ will send your name into space

Researchers funded by the US Air Force are developing a new type of device that can invite comparisons to a weapon used by a Batman villain. Scientists, including Patrick Hopkins from the University of Virginia in the US, are working on a new device to be used for on-demand surface cooling for electronics inside spacecraft and high-altitude jets. The device may seem similar to the freeze gun used by Batman villain Mr Freeze to “ice” his enemies. “A lot of electronics on board heat up, but they have no way to cool down,” said Dr Hopkins, whose lab has been granted $750,000 over three years to develop the technology. On Earth, electronics in military craft can rely on nature to cool themselves, but in space, this may be a challenge, scientists said. Citing an example, researchers said the Navy uses ocean water in its liquid cooling systems while flying jets can rely on air that is dense enough to help keep components chilled. “With the Air Force and Space Force, you’re in space, which is a vacuum, or you’re in the upper atmosphere, where there’s very little air that can cool,” Dr Hopkins said. “So what happens is your electronics keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter. And you can’t bring a payload of coolant onboard because that’s going to increase the weight, and you lose efficiency,” he explained. In such extra-terrestrial environments, a jet of plasma, the fourth and most common state of matter in the universe, can be used in the interior of a craft. “This plasma jet is like a laser beam; it’s like a lightning bolt. It can be extremely localized,” Dr Hopkins explained. One of the strange qualities of plasma is that while it can reach temperatures as hot as the surface of the Sun, it chills before heating when it strikes a surface. In the new research, published recently in the journal ACS Nano, scientists fired a purple jet of plasma generated from helium through a hollow needle encased in ceramic, targeting a gold-plated surface. When researchers turned on the plasma, they could measure temperature immediately at the point where the plasma hit, and could see that the surface cooled first and then heated up. “We were just puzzled at some level about why this was happening, because it kept happening over and over,” Dr Hopkins said. “And there was no information for us to pull from because no prior literature has been able to measure the temperature change with the precision that we have. No one’s been able to do it so quickly,” he said. The strange surface-cooling phenomenon, according to scientists, was the result of blasting an ultra-thin, hard-to-see surface layer, composed of carbon and water molecules. Researchers compare this to a similar process that happens when cool water evaporates off of our skin after a swim. “Evaporation of water molecules on the body requires energy; it takes energy from body, and that’s why you feel cold. In this case, the plasma rips off the absorbed species, energy is released, and that’s what cools,” the researchers explained. Using the method, scientists could reduce the temperature of the setup by several degrees for a few microseconds. While this may not be dramatic, they said it is enough to make a difference in some electronic devices. Now, thanks to the Air Force grant, researchers are looking at how variations on their original design might improve the apparatus. “Since the plasma is composed of a variety of different particles, changing the type of gas used will allow us to see how each one of these particles impact material properties,” researchers said. Read More Scientists discover 3,000-year-old arrowhead made of ‘alien’ iron Carcinogens found at nuclear missile sites as reports of hundreds of cancers surface India’s moon rover confirms sulphur and detects several other elements near the lunar south pole China’s ‘government-approved’ AI chatbot says Taiwan invasion likely Russian cyber-attacks ‘relentless’ as threat of WW3 grows, expert warns How new bike technology could help cyclists tell drivers not to crash into them

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New findings have suggested that adding sensors to supermarket trolleys could save people’s lives. Scientists investigated whether installing electrocardiogram (ECG) sensors – designed to check the heart’s rhythm – on the handles of supermarket, trolleys could identify shoppers with atrial fibrillation, which causes an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rate. The sensors would detect heart conditions that put them at increased risk of stroke. The researchers said that over the course of two months, they identified 39 people who were unaware that they had the condition. Ian Jones, professor of cardiovascular nursing at Liverpool John Moores University, who led the study, said: “That’s 39 people at greater risk of stroke who received a cardiologist appointment.” He added: “This study shows the potential of taking health checks to the masses without disrupting daily routines.” It is estimated that around 1.5 million people in the UK have atrial fibrillation, contributing to one in five strokes. The condition is treatable, but at least another 270,000 people in the UK remain undiagnosed and unaware, according to the British Heart Foundation. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter There are wearable devices that can also spot irregular heartbeat but this would also require people to take responsibility and wear the device. Professor Jones said: “Nearly two-thirds of the shoppers we approached were happy to use a trolley, and the vast majority of those who declined were in a rush rather than wary of being monitored. “This shows that the concept is acceptable to most people and worth testing in a larger study.” He added: “Checking for atrial fibrillation while people do their regular shopping holds promise for preventing strokes and saving lives. “A crucial aspect is providing immediate access to a health professional who can explain the findings and refer patients on for confirmatory tests and medication if needed.” The findings were presented at ACNAP 2023 conference organised by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). 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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The April 2020 supermoon will be the biggest and brightest of 2020 as its elliptical orbit brings it closer to the Earth in more than a year. On 7-8 April, the full moon will reach as close as 356,907km (221,772 miles), and will appear most impressive at moonrise on Tuesday and moonset on Wednesday. Clear skies in the UK, combined with unusually low air pollution due to the coronavirus lockdown, make it one of the best opportunities in years to view the rare celestial phenomenon. Here’s how to take the perfect picture of it: Use a landmark to get perspective Everyone will be taking pictures of the supermoon by itself, but some of the best pictures show the moon next to a land mark or trees and houses, which is what helps to give the picture “a sense of place”, says Nasa’s senior photographer, Bill Ingalls. “Think of how to be creative – that means tying it into some land-based object. It can be a local landmark or anything to give your photo a sense of place.” Pick the best spot Location isn’t everything, but it can definitely help with getting a perfect picture of the supermoon if you have time to plan it. You can look up the best monuments or statues in your area to photograph the image of the moon against, like Mr Ingalls does in Washington D.C., where he lives. “It means doing a lot of homework. I use Google Maps and other apps – even a compass – to plan where to get just the right angle at the right time,” he told Nasa. Use an app to find the moon Unless you're an astronomer, the best way to know where the moon will rise or set is to use a app on your smartphone to locate it. There are several free or cheap options you can choose from, each using your phone's inbuilt accelerometer to know which way you're facing. The apps can also tell you what phase the moon is in, while some even give other celestial details, like the location of planets and star constellations. Decent options for iOS and Android devices include Star Chart, Sky Safari and Skyview. Get the right exposure If you’re using a camera where you can control the shutter speed, don’t go for a long exposure even though the picture will be taken in low light, National Geographic photographer Mark Thiessen told the magazine, as it will lose any chance of capturing lunar detail and make the moon itself appear too bright. If you’re taking a picture on your camera, control the light balance by first tapping the screen where the moon appears to get the camera to focus on the object before dragging your finger up and down to play with the exposure. “You’ll usually want to drag it down for underexposure to be sure you have all the highlight detail,” National Geographic photographer Michael Christopher Brown said. Use a tripod for your camera or rest your phone on a solid surface David Reneke, an astronomer and writer for Australian science magazine told ABC.net that if you’re using an SLR or DSLR then it’s important to play with aperture settings on your camera to photograph the supermoon, but that using a tripod is essential. It’s worth using a tripod for taking pictures with a smartphone too, as any camera shake can compromise the quality of the pictures – but if you don’t have one to hand you can simply rest your phone on a window ledge. For older smartphones that use a digital zoom rather than an optical zoom, it’s generally best not to use the zoom as it could compromise the quality of the image. Instead, take the picture and then crop it. Newer phones like the Huawei P30 and P40 series feature incredible zoom capabilities that can take detailed pictures of far away objects. Other cameras come with special features to improve pictures of the night sky, such as the Google Pixel 4’s Astro mode. Read More How to take the perfect picture of tonight's supermoon Hundreds of years after it was discovered, one material could change the world Kanye West allowed back on Twitter following his ban over antisemitic conspiracies Hundreds of years after it was discovered, one material could change the world Kanye West allowed back on Twitter following his ban over antisemitic conspiracies As Twitter becomes X - Seven disastrous rebrands from Royal Mail to New Coke

Even as Britain prepares to bake again this weekend, the country is not geared up any better for

OpenAI has integrated its AI image generator into its hugely popular ChatGPT chatbot. The Microsoft-backed company unveiled its latest version of DALL-E, named DALL-E 3, on Wednesday, allowing users to generate images with “significantly more nuance and detail” compared to previous systems By converging the capabilities of its two distinct generative AI tools, OpenAI researchers claim that users will now be able to “brainstorm” ideas with the artificial intelligence. OpenAI boss Sam Altman gave an example of how the dual functionality could be used, saying that it could write and illustrate a children’s bedtime story from a few simple prompts. Current text-to-image systems, such as Midjourney or OpenAI’s Dall-E 2, often misinterpret commands from users due to their inability to understand specific requests. This has resulted in the emergence of prompt engineers, also known as prompt wizards, who train to optimise the results of generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E. “Our new text-to-image model, DALL-E 3, can translate nuanced requests into extremely detailed and accurate images,” OpenAI stated. “DALL-E 3 is built natively on ChatGPT, which lets you use ChatGPT as a brainstorming partner and refiner of your prompts. Just ask ChatGPT what you want to see in anything from a simple sentence to a detailed paragraph.” The latest version of DALL-E will only be available for paying users, with ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Enterprise receiving the upgrade in October. OpenAI has also introduced improved safety features to its AI image generator, which it claims will prevent people from creating lewd or hateful images. These protections include ignoring certain words and denying requests to depict public figures. Earlier this month, AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman warned that AI could be misused to potentially generate synthetic viruses that could trigger pandemics. “The darkest scenario is that people will experiment with pathogens, engineered synthetic pathogens that might end up accidentally or intentionally being more transmissible or more lethal,” he told The Diary of a CEO podcast. “That’s where we need containment. We have to limit access to the tools and the know-how to carry out that kind of experimentation.” Read More Amazon Alexa gets new AI powers, with the same kind of brain as ChatGPT Amazon Alexa is getting the same brain as ChatGPT UK competition regulator proposes guiding principles to make AI market safe Chatbots ‘able to outperform most humans at creative thinking task’