South Africa’s ruling party risks losing almost a quarter of its support unless it brings the country’s worst

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 12, 2023--

Microsoft has made the world’s first purchase agreement for nuclear fusion energy, betting that the next-generation technology will be capable of producing electricity at a commercial scale by 2028. The US tech firm made the deal with fusion research firm Helion Energy, which is aiming to have a 50MW nuclear fusion power plant set up within the next five years. This is despite several significant research hurdles that still need to be overcome before it becomes a viable source of clean energy. “This collaboration represents a significant milestone for Helion and the fusion industy as a whole,” said Helion chief executive David Kirtley. “We still have a lot of work to do, but we are confident in our ability to deliver the world’s first fusion power facility.” Nuclear fusion promises near-limitless energy by mimicking the natural reactions that occur within the Sun. It has been referred to as the “holy grail” of clean energy, as it requires no fossil fuels and leaves behind no hazardous waste. Scientists have made several major breakthroughs with the technology in recent years, with researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California announcing the first ever fusion ignition last year. This meant that they had achieved a net energy gain for the first time using nuclear fusion, marking “one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century”, according to US Energy Secretary Jennifer Graham. At the time, scientists said that commercial nuclear fusion was still likely to be a decade a way due to the complicated and expensive nature of scaling up the process. Microsoft’s bet that it can be achieved in half that time marks the latest phase of the company’s 2020 pledge to be carbon negative by 2030. If achieved, Microsoft could become the first major tech firm to remove more carbon from the environment than it emits, while a longer term goal aims to eliminate all carbon the firm has ever emitted since it was founded in 1975. “We are optimistic that fusion energy can be an important technology to help the world transition to clean energy,” said Microsoft president Brad Smith. “Helion’s announcement supports our long term clean energy goals and will advance the market to establish a new, efficient method for bringing more clean energy to the grid faster.” Read More Nuclear fusion breakthrough holds promise of ‘near-limitless’ clean energy

Elon Musk has announced he’s hired former NBCUniversal advertising boss Linda Yaccarino as the new Twitter chief executive. The erratic billionaire confirmed widespread speculation that Ms Yaccarino would take on the role in a Twitter post on Friday. “Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app,” Mr Musk wrote. Ms Yaccarino will focus on business operations, while Mr Musk will stay on as executive chairman and focus on product design and new technology, he said. Hours earlier, Ms Yaccarino said in a statement she was leaving her role as chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal after more than a decade at the media conglomerate. “It has been an absolute honour to be part of Comcast NBCUniversal and lead the most incredible team,” she said. “We’ve transformed our company and the entire industry.” Ms Yaccarino oversaw the launch of the NBC’s streaming site Peacock. On Thursday, Mr Musk teased the appointment when he announced he had hired a woman to take over the social media platform’s top job from him in six weeks. The appointment, six months after Mr Musk said he would step down as CEO, comes as Twitter faces an exodus of advertisers, service disruptions, and renewed scrutiny from regulators. After purchasing the platform for $44bn last October, Mr Musk has fired around 80 per cent of the workforce, reinstated banned accounts, and allowed hate speech to flourish under the guise of “free speech”. Read More Elon Musk says he's found a new CEO for Twitter, a woman who will start in 6 weeks Stephen King ruthlessly shuts down US commentator Dan Bongino after incendiary exchange Twitter finally adds secure messaging to DMs – but Elon Musk tells people not to ‘trust it’ Reports: NBC Universal executive will take over as the new CEO of Twitter AP News Digest 4 a.m. Secure messaging arrives on Twitter - sort of. 'Don't trust it yet,' Musk warns

Millions of people fly on airplanes each year, so it's easy to imagine how germs and bacteria can grow in certain places - and why passengers bring anti-bacterial wipes with them. Now, one Master of Science student (@The_lab_life1) decided to see for herself by swabbing different areas of the airplane - and the results are interesting. As part of her TikTok series "What Will Grow?" the TikToker boarded a flight and then filmed herself swabbing a head rest, a tray table, the bathroom lock and handle. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter (With safety gloves on, of course). She then brought those swab samples back to the lab where she had to "make a lawn" as she swiped each of the samples across different petri dishes and then stored them away to wait for the results. After an undisclosed amount of time, the TikToker got the petri dishes out to see what happened to them. First up, the head rest sample had white spots all around it, as it contained: "M. luteus," "Streptococcus sp." and "N.subflava," as well as "M.Smegmatis." @the_lab_life1 Much better than expected, all pretty normal flora bacteria ?? #fyp #science #lab #whatwillgrow While the tray table sample had some tiny spots along with lighter shapes around the edges, and listed it as "B.subtilis," and bathroom lock and handle had yellow and white spots in it's petri dish also, which turned out to be "M. luteus," "Staphylococcus sp." and "Streptococcus sp." In the caption, the scientist gave her verdict: "Much better than expected, all pretty normal flora bacteria." The video has since gone viral with 1.3m views as people left their thoughts in the comment section. One person wrote: "Be right back, need to go wash my hair …. Again." Though when another asked if this was all bad bacteria, the TikTok replied: "No actually most of it is very normal and not harmful!" Someone else questioned: "How scared did that make the people sitting next you?" To which she replied: "I waited till they were asleep, didn’t wanna freak them out." Others made their fear of bacteria and germs known after watching the video. "This is why I bring my wipes everywhere better than nothing," one person said. Another wrote: "This made me not wanna ever go on an airplane." "I will never be embarrassed about wiping down my area on the flight ever again," someone else commented. 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.

Binance said on Friday it will be joining other prominent crypto businesses in "proactively withdrawing" from the Canadian

How often do you look at your phone a day? According to an Asurion study,

Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, said it will exit Canada after the country moved to impose new

Millions were plunged offline after Imran Khan's arrest but the blackout hasn't stopped protests.

One of the pioneers of artificial intelligence has warned the Government is not safeguarding against the dangers posed by future super-intelligent machines. Professor Stuart Russell told The Times ministers were favouring a light touch on the burgeoning AI industry, despite warnings from civil servants it could create an existential threat. A former adviser to both Downing Street and the White House, Professor Russell is a co-author of the most widely used AI text book and lectures on computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He told The Times a system similar to ChatGPT – which has passed exams and can compose prose – could form part of a super-intelligence machine which could not be controlled. “How do you maintain power over entities more powerful than you – forever?” he asked. “If you don’t have an answer, then stop doing the research. It’s as simple as that. “The stakes couldn’t be higher: if we don’t control our own civilisation, we have no say in whether we continue to exist.” In March, he co-signed an open letter with Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak warning of the “out-of-control race” going on at AI labs. The letter warned the labs were developing “ever more powerful digital minds that no one, not even their creators, can understand, predict or reliably control”. Professor Russell has worked for the UN on a system to monitor the nuclear test-ban treaty and was asked to work with the Government earlier this year. “The Foreign Office… talked to a lot of people and they concluded that loss of control was a plausible and extremely high-significance outcome,” he said. “And then the Government came out with a regulatory approach that says: ‘Nothing to see here… we’ll welcome the AI industry as if we were talking about making cars or something like that’.” He said making changes to the technical foundations of AI to add necessary safeguards would take “time that we may not have”. “I think we got something wrong right at the beginning, where we were so enthralled by the notion of understanding and creating intelligence, we didn’t think about what that intelligence was going to be for,” he said. We've sort of got the message and we're scrambling around trying to figure out what to do Professor Stuart Russell “Unless its only purpose is to be a benefit to humans, you are actually creating a competitor – and that would be obviously a stupid thing to do. “We don’t want systems that imitate human behaviour… you’re basically training it to have human-like goals and to pursue those goals. “You can only imagine how disastrous it would be to have really capable systems that were pursuing those kinds of goals.” He said there were signs of politicians becoming aware of the risks. “We’ve sort of got the message and we’re scrambling around trying to figure out what to do,” he said. “That’s what it feels like right now.” The Government has launched the AI Foundation Model Taskforce which it says will “lay the foundations for the safe use of foundation models across the economy and ensure the UK is at the forefront of this pivotal AI technology”. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live TikTok ‘does not want to compete with BBC for Eurovision final viewers’ Eurovision’s preparations for potential Russia cyberthreat ‘in good place’ UK-based tech company claims quantum computing ‘breakthrough’

A number of huge tunnels that were discovered in South America at the turn of the century may have been made by giant sloths. At the turn of the century, professor of geology, Heinrich Frank, spotted a strange hole on a highway in Brazil, and crawled inside. There, he realised the tunnel was 4.5 meters (15 feet) long. He also found a collection of giant claw marks on the ceiling. “There’s no geological process in the world that produces long tunnels with a circular or elliptical cross-section, which branch and rise and fall, with claw marks on the walls,” Frank told Discover, adding he's "seen dozens of caves that have inorganic origins, and in these cases, it’s very clear that digging animals had no role in their creation.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The tunnel, along with many others that he and others discovered in Brazil and Argentina, are thought to be made by extinct giant sloths 8-10,000 years ago that were around the size of an African elephant. In the Rio Grande do Sul area, Frank and his team found over 1,500 tunnels made by these sloths beasts, with the longest stretching for 609 meters (2,000 feet) and standing at 1.8 meters (6 feet) tall. Goodness. 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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