Science & Technology
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Veterinarians perform cataract surgery on bald eagle in Florida
BRANDON, Fla. —A team of veterinary surgeons performed cataract surgery on Thunder, a resident bald eagle at Moccasin Lake Nature Park in Clearwater, at a clinic in Brandon on Thursday.
Thunder was rescued after being shot by a poacher as an eaglet in her nest in Sebring in 1995, when bald eagles were still endangered. She survived, but the ...Read more

California aims to limit pesticide. Central Valley farmworker communities say it's not enough
Farmworker communities are protesting the California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s proposal to limit the pesticide 1,3-dichloropropene, arguing the measures don’t go far enough to protect against long-term cancer risks.
Commonly used in agriculture as a pre-plant field fumigant, 1,3-D is injected into the soil, where it turns into a ...Read more

‘Exoborne’ playtest offers chance to play a new twist on the extraction shooter
The extraction shooter is having a moment. The gameplay mode that gained popularity in “Tom Clancy’s The Division” has flourished into a growing subgenre. It’s characterized by gameplay loop, in which players enter an area looking for loot, and once they acquire it, they have to fight their way out to claim it.
Deaths are brutal ...Read more

Florida power company has a deadline to clean up salty pollution under Turkey Point. It won't make it
MIAMI — A giant plume of super salty water has been lurking underneath the Turkey Point power plant for years, tainting the surrounding groundwater along the coast of south Miami-Dade County.
Florida Power & Light, which has operated the plant’s twin nuclear reactors for more than a half-century, has been on a 10-year timeline to clean up ...Read more

Flightless grasshopper thought to be extinct is rediscovered in Virginia 80 years later
Zoologist Andrew Rapp spent four hours hunched over looking through brush and scouring the short grass on the side of the road until he locked eyes with a creature once believed to be extinct.
He had to be careful not to scare it away, so he crept up to it, prepared his net and swung.
In doing so, Rapp officially documented a rare Appalachian ...Read more

Evan Ramstad: China's AI star DeepSeek shook basic patterns of high tech
It’s easy to analyze the strategies of high technology businesses if you know this: Hardware is always upgrading and software is always degrading.
The news last month about China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence breakthrough blew away Silicon Valley and investors because it defied this industry norm.
Historically, the improving ...Read more

Earthquakes are rumbling under Alaska volcano, officials say. Is it about to erupt?
A volcano near Alaska’s most populous city is showing signs it could be headed toward an eruption, officials said.
Mount Spurr, which sits about 75 miles west of Anchorage, has seen “volcanic unrest” for the last 10 months, including an increasing number of earthquakes, according to a Feb. 6 statement from the Alaska Volcano Observatory. ...Read more

The real Scarlett Johansson decries 'misuse of AI' by a deepfake video shaming Kanye West
LOS ANGELES — Scarlett Johansson, Steven Spielberg, Adam Sandler and several other Jewish celebrities assembled in matching T-shirts to shame Ye (formerly Kanye West) for his latest antisemitic outbursts — at least that's what a self-proclaimed "generative AI expert" fantasized this week.
Israel-based creator and marketing professional Ori ...Read more

Gadgets: Good (and cheaper) finds
Once again, during my annual office cleaning, I found a few products I didn't get to but are worth noting. Since I've had them for some time, the significant part is that the prices have decreased on both.
Soundcore calls the Soundcore Motion X500 surround sound Bluetooth 5.3 speaker "The World's Most Portable Spatial Audio Speaker." After ...Read more

Jim Rossman: Moving to a new cell carrier shouldn’t be scary
There are dozens of cellular phone companies and hundreds of different cell plans, and chances are there’s a better deal out there if you are just willing to do a little legwork.
We’ve all seen the commercials for cell companies offering plans for $40 or $30 or even $20 per month or less. It is tempting to want to jump ship from one of ...Read more

‘Doom: The Dark Ages’ takes inspiration from ‘300,’ Batman and a tank
When game director Hugo Martin discussed “Doom: The Dark Ages,” three images spring up over the discourse. The first is Leonidas in the “300” battling the Persians at the Hot Gates in Thermopylae. The second is another Frank Miller project “The Dark Knight Returns” and the last one is a tank.
Those images embody what the team at ...Read more

Earth's inner core isn't just slowing, it's also shape-shifting, study finds
LOS ANGELES — USC scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery about the nature of the Earth's enigmatic inner core, revealing for the first time that this 1,500-mile-wide ball of iron and nickel is changing.
The planet's inner core was previously thought of as a hard, solid sphere. But a new study has found that its edges are softer than ...Read more

'Better than we can': How AI is helping dealers sell more cars and book more repairs
The next time you call to book a service appointment for your car, you might not need to speak with a human.
Companies with artificial intelligence-powered tools are pushing into all corners of the dealership experience, from car buying to the repair shop. AI is now in dealers’ website chatbots, text and voice assistants, sales lead tools, ...Read more
E-commerce platform hopes to make cannabis shopping easier and more fun
For all the ways Colorado’s cannabis industry has evolved over the decade-plus since legalization, one thing that remains largely the same is the consumer buying experience.
Typically, enthusiasts go to a dispensary in person and chat with a budtender, who helps them select the flower, edibles or concentrates that seem suitable to their needs...Read more

NASA, SpaceX up timeline allowing Boeing Starliner astronauts to return sooner
SpaceX and NASA, under pressure to get a pair of Boeing Starliner astronauts home sooner than later, announced Tuesday they have shifted plans for the next mission to the International Space Station.
The Crew-10 mission to the ISS is now targeting as early as March 12. Its four passengers are headed there to relieve the Crew-9 mission, which ...Read more

SpaceX keeps pace with 14th Space Coast launch of the year
SpaceX lined up and knocked out the 14th launch from Florida's Space Coast on Tuesday afternoon.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:53 p.m. Eastern time.
The first-stage booster flew for the 18th time and made a ...Read more

NOAA’s vast public weather data powers the local forecasts on your phone and TV – a private company alone couldn’t match it
When a hurricane or tornado starts to form, your local weather forecasters can quickly pull up maps tracking its movement and showing where it’s headed. But have you ever wondered where they get all that information?
The forecasts can seem effortless, but behind the scenes, a vast network of satellites, airplanes, radar, computer ...Read more
SpaceX queues up afternoon launch from Cape Canaveral
SpaceX is set to send up the 14th launch from the Space Coast on Tuesday afternoon.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites is set to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:53 p.m. during a window that runs through 3:43 p.m. Backup options are available during a ...Read more

A leading pediatrician was already worried about the future of vaccines. Then RFK Jr. came along
The best and the worst thing about vaccination, pediatrician Dr. Adam Ratner says, is that it "makes nothing happen."
A child successfully inoculated against a vaccine-preventable disease — the measles, let's say, to name the most infectious of them all — doesn't fall sick with that condition, doesn't miss school, doesn't go to the hospital...Read more

If FEMA didn’t exist, could states handle the disaster response alone?
Imagine a world in which a hurricane devastates the Gulf Coast, and the U.S. has no federal agency prepared to quickly send supplies, financial aid and temporary housing assistance.
Could the states manage this catastrophic event on their own?
Normally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known as FEMA, is prepared to ...Read more
Popular Stories
- ‘Exoborne’ playtest offers chance to play a new twist on the extraction shooter
- Flightless grasshopper thought to be extinct is rediscovered in Virginia 80 years later
- Evan Ramstad: China's AI star DeepSeek shook basic patterns of high tech
- Florida power company has a deadline to clean up salty pollution under Turkey Point. It won't make it
- ‘Doom: The Dark Ages’ takes inspiration from ‘300,’ Batman and a tank