Friday, November 28, 2025

BIG Wrap

Musk makes offer to purchase Twitter

Tesla boss Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter, saying he is the right person to "unlock" the social media platform's "extraordinary potential". Musk said he would pay $54.20 a share for Twitter, valuing it at about $40 billion, the BBC reports. It recently emerged that Musk was Twitter's biggest shareholder after he built up a large stake in the firm. He said that if his offer is not accepted: "I would need to reconsider my position...

Researchers cite microfluidics as path to 3D printing of complex human organs

Human organ transplants offer a crucial lifeline to people with serious illnesses, but there are too few organs to go around. In the U.S. alone, there are more than 112,000 people awaiting transplants. The promise of 3D printing organs is one possible solution to address this shortage, but has been fraught with complexity and technical barriers, limiting the type of organs that can be printed. Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology are now pushing through these...

How facial recognition tech is identifying people in Ukraine

Last month, controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI announced it had given its technology to the Ukrainian government. The BBC has been given evidence of how it is being used – in more than 1,000 cases – to identify both the living and the dead. A man lies motionless on the floor, his head tilted down. His body is naked, apart from a pair of Calvin Klein boxers. His eyes are ringed with what look like...

Go ahead and look up – 4-billion-year-old comet from early solar system heading our way

An enormous comet – approximately 130 kilometres across, more than twice the width of Rhode Island – is heading our way at 35,000 kilometres per hour from the edge of the solar system. Fortunately, it will never get closer than 1 billion miles from the Sun, which is slightly farther from Earth than Saturn; that will be in 2031. Comets, among the oldest objects in the solar system, are icy bodies that were unceremoniously tossed out...

San Francisco police pull over driverless car

San Francisco police officers were faced with a new challenge after stopping an autonomous vehicle with no one inside. Officers approached the car, operated by Cruise, because it had been driving without headlights. In the incident, captured on film, an officer remarks that there "ain't nobody in it," before the car moves to what Cruise said was a safer location. The company said the headlights issue was a result of human error.   https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61080666  

Soaring gasoline and food costs send U.S. inflation to 40-year high

The U.S. inflation rate hit a fresh 40-year high in the year to March after fuel and food prices soared during the first full month of the Ukraine war. Consumer prices surged by 8.5% – the largest annual gain since December 1981 – following a double-digit rise in energy prices, the BBC reports. Last month, President Joe Biden banned all imports of oil and gas from Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, U.S....

Macron targets Le Pen as France run-off campaign commences

France President Emmanuel Macron is firing up his campaign for re-election, directly taking on far-right rival Marine Le Pen in France's presidential run-off. He made his first trip to a Le Pen stronghold at Denain, one of France's poorest towns in the industrial north. Macron won the first round of the election, but opinion polls suggest the second round will be a close race on April 24. "Make no mistake: nothing is decided," he told supporters after the...

Magic mushroom compound found to increase brain connectivity in people with depression

Psilocybin, the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms, helps to "open up" depressed people's brains, even after use, enabling brain regions to talk more freely to one another. These are the findings of a new analysis of brain scans from close to 60 people receiving treatment for depression, led by Imperial College London's Centre for Psychedelic Research. The team behind the study believes it may have untangled how psilocybin exerts its therapeutic effects on the brain. Psilocybin is one of a number...

Nissan, NASA developing ‘game-changer’ EV battery

Nissan is working with NASA on a new type of battery for electric vehicles that promises to charge quicker and be lighter yet safe, the Japanese automaker said Friday. The all-solid-state battery will replace the lithium-ion battery now in use for a 2028 product launch and a pilot plant launch in 2024, according to Nissan. The all-solid-state battery is stable enough to be used in pacemakers. When finished, it will be about half the size of...

Canada approves $12-billion Bay du Nord offshore oil project

Canada has approved a US$12-billion offshore oil project proposed by Norway’s Equinor ASA, a big win for an industry that has grappled with slumping investment and tougher climate policy, reports Bloomberg News. It’s a politically risky move for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that complicates his efforts to hit aggressive emission targets for the oil and gas sector and could potentially alienate the pro-environment bloc within the governing Liberal Party. Yet Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has...