There is “nothing stopping” child sexual abuse images from spreading on WhatsApp, a child safety organisation has warned. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which helps detect and remove child abuse content from the web, has accused WhatsApp’s owner Meta of failing to have the mechanisms in place to stop the spread of such material, including the type of content that ...
A Scottish and Irish rock formation dating back hundreds of millions of years could be evidence of what scientists call snowball Earth, a new study says. The snowball Earth theory proposes that the planet’s oceans and land were covered by ice during at least two extreme cooling events between 2.4 billion and 580 million years ago. These are speculated to ...
A dramatic image of a whale shark rising from the depths to feed on a bait ball has won an international scientific photography competition. The BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology image competition is an annual contest between scientific researchers who snap shots of science and nature in action as they work. “The slow-moving whale sharks feed on snipefish, ...
Sea lions have become underwater camera operators in Australia to help scientists learn more about the animals’ homes at the bottom of the ocean. Researchers enlisted endangered Australian sea lions to help identify their previously unmapped ocean habitats. “Using animal-borne video and movement data from a predator is a really effective way of mapping diverse habitats across large areas of ...
Some of the biggest social media platforms are failing to detect and remove dangerous suicide and self-harm content, according to a study. The Molly Rose Foundation found that of more than 12 million content moderation decisions made by six of the biggest platforms, over 95% of them were detected and removed by only two sites – Pinterest and TikTok. The ...
NASA has said it has still not decided how to bring home two astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) after their spacecraft developed faults on their outward voyage. In a news conference on Wednesday, the space agency said Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who arrived at the ISS in June expecting to be there for eight days, may yet ...
The world’s only self-driving taxi company has been forced to fix a fleet of cars after residents complained about their constant honking. Waymo’s autonomous cars arrived in a car park in San Francisco, California, a few weeks ago, where they wait between jobs. However, the cars were installed with an update that made them beep their horns whenever another car ...
Meta founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has revealed a giant, teal statue of his wife. Posting a picture of the commissioned artwork on Instagram, the tech mogul said: “Bringing back the Roman tradition of making sculptures of your wife.” The statue shows a sculpted silver piece of material flowing behind the rendering of Ms Chan and appears to be ...
Social media platform Bluesky says it has seen a surge in signups in the United Kingdom in recent days. Since X owner Elon Musk made controversial comments about the riots in the UK, a number of influential figures said they would leave the platform or scale back their use, including home office minister Jess Philips. Now, Bluesky says it has ...
An outbreak of mpox has been declared a public health emergency in Africa by the continent’s top health body. Scientists from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) have expressed alarm at the speed by which a new strain of the disease has been spreading. More than 15,000 mpox cases and 461 deaths have been reported on ...