August is peach season, and this cobbler is one of the simplest desserts to make with the stone fruit.

OpenAI has launched a ChatGPT app for iPhone users amid a surge in fake versions of its hugely popular AI chatbot. The free app is the first official OpenAI product to appear in app stores, though dozens of imitation versions seeking to mislead or scam users are currently available for iOS and Android users. The new ChatGPT app is available immediately in the US and will roll out to other countries in the coming weeks, OpenAI said, with an Android version of the ChatGPT app also under development. “With the ChatGPT app for iOS, we’re taking another step towards our mission by transforming state-of-the-art research into useful tools that empower people, while continuously making them more accessible,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post detailing the new app. “We’re eager to see how you use the app. As we gather user feedback, we’re committed to continuous feature and safety improvements for ChatGPT.” Users who download the app will have access to their ChatGPT account history from the web, as well as access to OpenAI’s open-source speech-recognition system Whisper. This will allow people to speak to the artificial intelligence tool for the first time. Subscribers to ChatGPT Plus will also get access to the more advanced GPT-4 tool, as well as faster response times compared to free users. Last month, researchers noted an “alarming” number of scam apps had appeared within the MacOS App Store, while Google’s Play Store is still inundated with unofficial ChatGPT apps. “Most of these apps are nothing but cheap imitations or outright scams that fail to deliver on their promises,” privacy researcher Alex Kleber wrote in a report published in April. “These scams not only deceive users but also tarnish the reputation of legitimate developers and hinder the growth of the app ecosystem on the MacOS platform.” OpenAI has applied to patent the GPT acronym in an effort to crackdown on the concerning trend, however the US Patent and Trademark Office refused to fast-track the request last month. Read More 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity ChatGPT creator ‘nervous’ about AI election manipulation Regulation ‘critical’ to curb risk posed by AI, boss of ChatGPT tells Congress Watch as OpenAI CEO faces questions from Congress on potential AI regulation

It might sound more like the kind of idle daydream billionaires like Elon Musk would have, but could flooding the Sahara actually be the best way of tackling climate change in the future? The idea of creating a new “sea” in Africa is being discussed, and it’s not the first time that the notion of a great oasis in the Sahara has been discussed among the scientific community. As the ongoing climate crisis continues to worsen, the notion of flooding vast areas of the desert is being returned to once again [via IFL Science]. A new “sea” was first proposed following the study of the Messinian salinity crisis – which saw a dried-out area of the Mediterranean rejuvenated by the Zanclean flood, reconnecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean around 5.33 million years ago. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Given how the Mediterranean was transformed by the flood, the idea of flooding the Sahara to achieve similar results has been thrown around in the scientific community as far back as 1877, the Scottish engineer Donald McKenzie suggested flooding the El Djouf basin in Western Africa. The idea is now returning to popularity as the world looks for solutions to the climate crisis. One proposal centres on the Middle East’s Dead Sea and flooding the area using water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea Depression. A vast sea in Africa could represent a hugely innovative step towards tackling climate change and fostering a new hub of life – but even the people suggesting work such a project acknowledge just how expensive and dangerous it is. Even Y Combinator is a US startup accelerator who has described “desert flooding” as “risky, unproven, even unlikely to work”. Only time will tell whether the notion of a new sea in the Sahara coud ever work, or whether it’ll remain the stuff of dreams. 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.

Many of us look to the stars for answers to life’s most complex questions. But actually, some of the greatest mysteries lie beneath our very feet. One might think we’d know the Earth pretty well by now but, in fact, our planet’s core remains shrouded in enigma. Indeed, there are two gigantic blobs located beneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean that occupy around six per cent of the world’s entire volume. And yet, we’re still not entirely sure what they’re made of or where they came from. There are a number of hypotheses, including that they are piles of oceanic crust that have accumulated over billions of years. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter But a more interesting theory is that they are huge chunks of an ancient planet that hit the Earth around 4.5 billion years ago. To give an indication of just how massive these things are, the structure under Africa – an area known as Tuzo – is thought to be around 800km (497 miles) tall – the equivalent of some 90 Mount Everests stacked on top of one another, as IFLScience notes. The problem with determining the origin of these monster formations is that there are no direct ways of observing the Earth’s core. The deepest hole humans have ever dug – branded the "entrance to hell" – reached a pretty staggering 12,263m (40,230ft), but that doesn’t even come close to breaking through the crust to the layers beneath. Our most effective tool for analysing what lies beneath the ground is a technique called seismic tomography, which looks at how waves of energy travel when earthquakes occur. Since rocks and liquids have different densities, the waves move through them at different speeds. By measuring the tremors from different points on the surface, geologists can determine what kind of material the waves are travelling through and, in so doing, map out the Earth’s interior. It was by using this technique that the two unusual structures – known as large low shear velocity provinces (LLSVPs) – were found. Waves travel more slowly in these areas – fondly known as “blobs” – than through the surrounding lower mantle, indicating that they’re made of something different. We can’t tell what this material is based on seismic tomography data alone, but some scientists like to believe that they are the remnants of an ancient planet called Theia – an idea known as the “giant impact hypothesis”. According to this hypothesis, around 4.5 billion years ago, a Mars-sized object collided with the Earth. This impact not only created the planet we call home today, but also threw off enough rock to form the moon that lights up our night skies. Some scientists suggest that some of Theia’s leftovers also sunk to the bottom of the planet, probably settling somewhere above the core – thereby forming at least one of the two LLSVPs. More Updates About Strange Blob Structures Inside Planet Earth youtu.be Experts have been investigating the area for decades but there’s still no way of knowing for sure just what these two giant blobs are. Still, studies into Theia have offered important insights into how the possible collision might have kickstarted key plate tectonic and mantle motion inside our planet – crucial processes for establishing the world on which we live. It’s also a useful reminder that we still have so much to learn about our planet and where we came from. 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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Within hours of the mass shooting on Saturday at a Texas outlet mall, some Twitter users shared gruesome pictures of bloodied bodies, purportedly from the crime scene. At least one image appeared to be of a child.