Do cats play fetch? Here is what the science says

Many people have seen dogs fetch, but cats like to get into the game too. Despite their very different hunting and play styles, fetching appears to combine elements of predatory and social behavior for both species. Although their domestication histories…

Neo-Nazis head to encrypted SimpleX Chat app, bail on Telegram

Dozens of neo-Nazis are fleeing Telegram and moving to a relatively unknown secret chat app that has received funding from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. In a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue published on Friday morning, researchers found that…

Readers discuss the psychedelic psilocybin, frogs and UFOs

In control A high dose of the psychedelic psilocybin temporarily dissolves brain networks, Laura Sanders reported in “Psilocybin erases brain ‘fingerprints’” (SN: 8/10/24, p. 12). In the study, a generic form of the stimulant Ritalin served as a control against…

Halls of Torment is Diablo cranked up to 50,000 kills/hour

The old-school Diablo games endure for a lot of reasons. Some players like the deep lore and world-building. Some like partnering with friends and working through dungeons as a team. Some like hunting for incredibly rare loot and maybe selling…

How London’s Crystal Palace was built so quickly

London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 attracted some 6 million people eager to experience more than 14,000 exhibitors showcasing 19th-century marvels of technology and engineering. The event took place in the Crystal Palace, a 990,000-square-foot building of cast iron and plate…

YouTube fixes glitch that wrongly removed accounts, deleted videos

YouTube confirmed Friday that a bug mistakenly removing seemingly thousands of accounts wrongly marked as sharing spam and deceptive content was finally fixed. The problem started Thursday afternoon, 9to5Google reported, when non-content creators, including paid subscribers, complained that they had…

OpenAI’s Canvas can translate code between languages with a click

On Thursday, OpenAI unveiled Canvas, a new interface for ChatGPT designed to enhance collaboration on writing and coding projects. The feature bears similarities to a feature called Artifacts in Anthropic’s Claude AI assistant, introduced in June. Canvas displays content in…

Thousands of Linux systems infected by stealthy malware since 2021

Thousands of machines running Linux have been infected by a malware strain that’s notable for its stealth, the number of misconfigurations it can exploit, and the breadth of malicious activities it can perform, researchers reported Thursday. The malware has been…

Human cases of H5N1 confirmed in California amid rapid dairy spread

Two California dairy farm workers who had contact with H5N1-infected cows have contracted an H5 avian influenza virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Thursday evening. In a news release from earlier today, California’s health department announced only…

Strange “biotwang” ID’d as Bryde’s whale call

In 2014, researchers monitoring acoustic recordings from the Mariana Archipelago picked up an unusual whale vocalization with both low- and high-frequency components. It seemed to be a whale call, but it sounded more mechanical than biological and has since been…