Scientists have uncovered amber containing insects dating back 112 million years, offering a rare glimpse of a Cretaceous ecosystem in South America. Excavated from a quarry near Archidona in the Amazon region, the amber preserved midges, wasps, beetles, aphids, caddisflies, and even part of a spider’s web, while nearby sediments held fossilized plants. Nearly all major amber deposits have been found in the Northern Hemisphere, making this the largest known dinosaur-era deposit from South America. The fossils were studied by researchers from the University of Barcelona and the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt.
Image Credit: Mónica Solórzano-Kraemer
True Spies
Operation Zulu Cricket
How do you befriend a man who could kill you with a glance?
Peter Bleksley was a founding member of Scotland Yard’s undercover unit, a streetwise detective. He spent a decade infiltrating criminal gangs, posing as a dealer, and scamming the scammers out of drugs and cash.
But in 1993, he was handed the biggest job of his career: Operation Zulu Cricket. The target was a well-connected Irish gangster negotiating the largest heroin deal ever attempted inside the UK. The catch? His crew preferred weapons to cash, a red flag that linked them to terrorists. Bleksley was left to win the trust of the gangster’s lieutenant. Over drinks and small talk, the two men hit it off, bonding like brothers in illegality.
For Bleksley, the line between cover story and reality blurred. One mistake, one misplaced word, and the deal would end in blood. Join Peter Bleksley in this week’s podcast selection, 'Operation Zulu Cricket', as he goes undercover on a mission where friendship could be fatal.
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Two new reports from OpenAI and Anthropic offer a global snapshot. OpenAI analyzed 1.5 million ChatGPT conversations over nearly three years and found more than 70% are now personal rather than work-related, up from 53% last year. The company also reported surging GPT adoption in lower-income countries, over four times higher than in wealthier nations. Read OpenAI’s full analysis here.
Anthropic reviewed 1 million Claude conversations from August and found the opposite trend: usage is highest in high-income countries, where people turn to the chatbot for learning and refining work. In lower-income economies, Claude is more often used to automate tasks. View Anthropic’s analysis here.
Image Credit: Anthropic
Articles
Tracked By SKYNET
Could your phone data decide your fate?
Al Jazeera journalist Ahmad Zaidan spent years covering al-Qaeda, but his travel and call patterns triggered alarms inside a top-secret NSA program known as SKYNET. Revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the machine-learning system sifted through millions of cell phone records, flagging patterns of “suspicious” behavior that could place someone on a list of potential terror suspects! Zaidan denied any ties to extremism, but his case raised chilling questions.
What happens when profiling software gets it wrong? Discover more in this SPYSCAPE article.
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The dodo, a large bird native to Mauritius, vanished after human settlement of the island. The last confirmed sighting came in 1662, making it one of the earliest documented cases of human-driven extinction.
Texas-based Colossal Biosciences has announced it has successfully grown pigeon primordial germ cells in a step toward reviving the long-extinct bird. Previously, scientists had only managed to grow these reproductive precursor cells in chickens and geese. The company now plans to develop germ cells in Nicobar pigeons, the dodo’s closest living relatives, using preserved dodo DNA as a genetic guide.
Image Credit: Colossal Biosciences
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