Technology and its impact
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A Minnesota demo plant is turning wind power into ammonia and fertiliser
A new facility in Morris, Minnesota, is using renewable electricity, electrolysers and dynamic controls to make low-carbon ammonia for local fertiliser use.
GM Backs Peak Energy’s Sodium-Ion Push for Grid Storage
Peak Energy says its sodium-ion batteries can serve long-duration grid storage with passive cooling, while GM is helping codevelop and test the cells.
Ancient DNA Analysis Shows Human Evolution Didn’t Slow Down
Using the largest ancient human DNA collection yet assembled, researchers found hundreds of genetic shifts over the past 10,000 years and evidence that selection has intensified more recently.
Inflect-Micro-v2 packs local speech synthesis into 9.36M parameters
A new open-weight text-to-waveform model from Owen Song aims to deliver complete English voice synthesis under 10 million parameters, with CPU and CUDA support and deterministic seeds.
Spain is turning rescue donkeys into living firebreaks as wildfire risk rises—and Canada is watching
A Catalan nonprofit is using rescued donkeys to graze dry vegetation and reduce wildfire fuel, offering a low-tech complement to standard fire prevention methods.
Meteorite That Hit a New Jersey Home Reveals Rare Salt-Rich Chemistry From an Ancient Asteroid
Researchers say fragments from the Hillsborough meteorite preserve evidence of briny processes on a primitive asteroid, adding clues to how organic chemistry may have formed before life on Earth.
Washington’s new AI safety-testing framework, explained
AP explains the federal pre-release vetting framework for advanced AI systems, the voluntary role of major labs, and the policy questions it raises.
An ESP32 desk radar project turns live aircraft data into a tiny display
A maker project combines an ESP32-C3, a round screen, and ADS-B traffic into a desk-friendly plane radar, then adds firmware upgrades for better context and easier updates.
China’s open AI models are forcing a rethink in Silicon Valley
WIRED examines how Chinese open models are improving fast enough to pressure U.S. labs and policymakers on access, safety, and strategy.
Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta push back on tighter rules for open-weight AI models
A coalition of more than 20 companies says open-weight models help competition and innovation, as Washington weighs whether to curb access to Chinese systems.