Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that gave birth to a one-ton baby, captured a legendary move on film, discovered a hole in space, and imagined our brains on Mars. First, a sperm whale named Rounder gives birth on camera, complete with some surprise guests. Then: the deadliest headbutts on…
An AI-generated LEGO movie out of Iran depicting Trump as a war hungry pedophile has gone viral online. The video is the work of Iran-based propagandists called the “Explosive News Team” and is just the latest in a long line of AI-generated LEGO videos aimed at mocking Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. LEGO-themed propaganda isn’t new…
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss getting stories from Twitter, the metaverse, and the new game Marathon. JASON: This is maybe not great to admit as a journalist, but I have taken a…
This article was produced in collaboration with Court Watch, an independent outlet that unearths overlooked court records. Subscribe to them here. Apple provided the FBI with the real iCloud email address hidden behind Apple’s ‘Hide My Email’ feature, which lets paying iCloud+ users generate anonymous email addresses, according to a recently filed court record. The…
After months of heated debate and previous attempts to restrict the use of large language models on Wikipedia, on March 20 volunteer editors accepted a new policy that prohibits using them to create articles for the online encyclopedia. “Text generated by large language models (LLMs) often violates several of Wikipedia’s core content policies,” Wikipedia’s new…
Georgia State Patrol used its system of Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) surveillance cameras to issue a ticket to a motorcyclist who was allegedly looking at his cell phone while riding, according to a copy of the citation obtained by 404 Media. The incident is notable because Flock cameras are not designed for traffic…
🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. Regular ejaculation — for example, by masturbation — produces higher quality sperm, a finding that has implications for fertility science and assisted reproductive technologies, according to a comprehensive new study published…
Barely three months ago, the Walt Disney Company announced that it would be bringing user-generated AI slop to Disney+ as part of a landmark $1 billion investment into OpenAI that would allow people to use Sora to create short videos from more than 200 beloved Disney characters. The announcement was so important that Disney’s then-CEO…
When Meta announced its plan to shut down Horizon Worlds last week a lot of us laughed. Social scientist Dr Ruth Diaz was not one of them. Diaz worked for Meta as a VR community design developer in the early days of the Horizon Worlds project and left in 2022. After Meta’s announcement last week,…
This week we start with Emanuel’s crazy story about WebinarTV, a company that is secretly recording Zoom meetings and turning them into AI-powered podcasts. It’s nuts. After the break, Joseph tells us about the eccentric billionaire who tried to become a cocaine kingpin. In the subscribers-only section, we lament the lose of the metaverse. Listen…
