Criminals Are Staging a Devious New Kind of Kidnapping - and the FBI is Stumped.
schwit1 shares a report: About 10 years ago, when Erik Arbuthnot first started hearing about phony-kidnapping hustles, his fellow agents at the FBI scoffed at the cases. "Don't worry about those," they told Arbuthnot. "Those are fake. We handle the r.....»»
Waymo is suing people who allegedly smashed and slashed its robotaxis
Driverless car service is getting aggressive against alleged vandals. Enlarge (credit: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images) The people of San Francisco haven’t always been kind to Waymo’s growing fleet of driverl.....»»
"Diagnose, treat and prevent:" Scientists develop test and vaccine for common veterinary infection
Eight years after the market release of VANGUARD crLyme, a first-of-its-kind vaccine designed to prevent Lyme disease in dogs, the Marconi laboratory in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of M.....»»
Opening up new ground in the search for dark matter
A new kind of detector for dark matter has the potential to make a direct detection of the enigmatic material, according to an analysis by RIKEN physicists......»»
AI may be able to predict droughts a year in advance
Skoltech researchers and their colleagues from Sber have proposed deep learning models that predict droughts using climate data. Long-term forecasts of this kind are sought by agricultural producers planning their operations, as well as by insurance.....»»
DDoS attacks see a huge rise as criminals get braver and more ambitious
Hackers are getting access to better tools, previously only reserved for state-sponsored actors, researchers say......»»
Scorching storms on distant worlds revealed in new detail
Astronomers have created the most detailed weather report so far for two distant worlds beyond our own solar system. The international study—the first of its kind—reveals the extreme atmospheric conditions on the celestial objects, which are swat.....»»
Best Motorola Prime Day deals: 2023 Razr for $450
Get a new smartphone with a discount by taking advantage of Motorola Prime Day deals. No matter what kind of phone you want, there's something for you here......»»
Oxygen tweaking may be key to accelerator optimization
Particle accelerators are pricey, but their cost comes with good reason: These one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art machines are intricately designed and constructed to help us solve mysteries about what makes up our universe. Still, the scientists and en.....»»
Giant salamander species found in what was thought to be an icy ecosystem
Found after its kind were thought extinct, and where it was thought to be too cold. Enlarge (credit: C. Marsicano) Gaiasia jennyae, a newly discovered freshwater apex predator with a body length reaching 4.5 meters, lurk.....»»
In bid to loosen Nvidia’s grip on AI, AMD to buy Finnish startup for $665M
The acquisition is the largest of its kind in Europe in a decade. Enlarge (credit: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg via Getty Images) AMD is to buy Finnish artificial intelligence startup Silo AI for $665 million in one of the lar.....»»
iOS 18 beta 3 brings dark mode to all icons -- kind of
Apple has released iOS 18 beta 3 with a change that forces dark mode icons onto every app that has a simple color palette, for better or worse.Third-party app icons get the dark mode treatment in iOS 18 beta 3If you've been running the iOS 18 beta, y.....»»
We mapped the entire bilby genome—and now we can use poo to save Australia"s "Easter bunny" from extinction
Commonly known as Australia's "Easter bunny" due to its large ears and hopping movement, the greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis) is the last of its kind. Today we published its reference genome—all 3.66 billion pieces of it......»»
The dangers of sneezing—from ejected bowels to torn windpipes
The benefits of a good sneeze can sometimes come with a greater risk of injury. Enlarge (credit: Getty | Bettmann) If you were to envision the kind of accident that would cause a person’s bowels to explode out of their.....»»
Blue and great tits deploy surprisingly powerful memories to find food, finds study
Blue and great tits recall what they have eaten in the past, where they found the food and when they found it, a new study shows. In the first experiment of its kind to involve wild animals, blue and great tits demonstrated 'episodic-like' memory to.....»»
Fake iPhone return scam cost Apple $12 million in losses, five people charged of fraud
We have seen these kind of scams before, but this particularly case is on a ginormous industry-like scale. Five people have been charged on counts of fraud for their involvement in a fake iPhone return scheme. Essentially, people would take near-w.....»»
Chandra X-ray Observatory"s clear, sharp photos help astrophysicist study energetic black holes
When a star is born or dies, or when any other very energetic phenomenon occurs in the universe, it emits X-rays, which are high-energy light particles that aren't visible to the naked eye. These X-rays are the same kind that doctors use to take pict.....»»
The death of Vulcan: Study reveals planet is actually an astronomical illusion caused by stellar activity
A planet thought to orbit the star 40 Eridani A—host to Mr. Spock's fictional home planet, Vulcan, in the "Star Trek" universe—is really a kind of astronomical illusion caused by the pulses and jitters of the star itself, a new study shows......»»
Bacterial model helps reveal how our bodies prevent population explosions—and cancer
For the size of any population to remain stable over time, its birth and death rates must be balanced. If the birthrate is too high, there could be a population explosion; if it is too low, the population will shrink. This kind of balance exists, for.....»»
Clothed pig carcasses reveal the secrets of mummification—study provides insights for forensic scientists
It was the kind of task any competent seamstress has completed hundreds of times before: altering denim jeans and jerseys. But there was something different about this piece of work. Though our team of scientists were paying for it, we weren't her ul.....»»
Bilingual Brain-Reading Implant Decodes Spanish and English
A first-of-a-kind AI system enables a person with paralysis to communicate in two languages.....»»