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Grok’s Antisemitic Rant Shows How Generative AI Can Be Weaponized
The AI chatbot Grok went on an antisemitic rant on July 8, 2025, posting memes, tropes and conspiracy theories used to denigrate Jewish people on the X platform. It also invoked Hitler in a favorable context. The episode follows one on May 14, 2025, when the chatbot spread debunked conspiracy theories about “white genocide” in South Africa, echoing views publicly voiced by Elon Musk, the founder of its parent company, xAI.
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Hypersonic Weapons and Contemporary Conflicts
The use of hypersonic weapons in contemporary conflicts marks a turning point in modern warfare as they make defenses vulnerable and expand strategic ambiguity. The US, China and Russia have operational hypersonic weapons. India has recently joined the list by successfully testing a hypersonic missile.
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Marco Rubio Impersonator Contacted Officials Using AI Voice Deepfakes – Computer Security Experts Explain What They Are and How to Avoid Getting Fooled
Ongoing advances in deep-learning algorithms, audio editing and engineering, and synthetic voice generation have meant that it is increasingly possible to convincingly simulate a person’s voice. Even worse, chatbots like ChatGPT are capable of generating realistic scripts with adaptive real-time responses.
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The Texas Flash Flood Is a Preview of the Chaos to Come
Climate change is making disasters more common, more deadly and far more costly, even as the federal government is running away from the policies that might begin to protect the nation.
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Horses for Courses: Where Quantum Computing Is, and Isn’t, the Answer
Despite the impressive and undeniable strides quantum computing has made in recent years, it’s important to remain cautious about sweeping claims regarding its transformative potential.
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Climate Change Helped Fuel Heavy Rains That Caused Hill Country Floods, Experts Say
Warming ocean temperatures and warmer air mean there’s more water vapor in the atmosphere to fuel extreme downpours like those that struck Texas during the July 4 weekend.
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A Deadline Looms for a New Colorado River Plan. What Happens If There Isn’t One?
It would likely be complicated, messy and involve big lawsuits, according to experts and former officials.
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Hills, Rivers and Rocky Terrain: Why the Hill Country Keeps Flooding
When storms roll in, water rushes downhill fast, gaining speed and force as it moves — often with deadly results.
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FDA Layoffs Could Compromise Safety of Medications Made at Foreign Factories, Inspectors Say
Beyond staff cuts, the departures of some longtime investigators in recent months have left less experienced people tasked with rooting out dangerous manufacturing practices.
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Managing the Dark Side of the Critical Minerals Rush
As the world scrambles to meet the demands of a clean energy transition, it’s tempting to focus on the environmental, social and human security costs of mining. But focusing solely on these negative externalities obscures a hard reality: without mining, there is no energy transition.
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A Unique Method of Rare-Earth Recycling Can Strengthen the Raw Material Independence of Europe and America
Researchers have developed a new method of separating the rare earth elements, or lanthanides, which are widely used in the electronic, medical, automotive, and defense industries.
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Smaller Nuclear Reactors Spark Renewed Interest in a Once-Shunned Energy Source
In the past two years, half the states have taken action to promote nuclear power, from creating nuclear task forces to integrating nuclear into long-term energy plans.
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Flock Safety’s Feature Updates Cannot Make Automated License Plate Readers Safe
Two recent statements from the surveillance company reveal a troubling pattern: when confronted by evidence of widespread abuse, Flock Safety has blamed users, downplayed harms, and doubled down on the very systems that enabled the violations in the first place.
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A Simple, Low-Cost Method Detects GPS Trackers Hidden in Vehicles, Empowering Cyberstalking Victims
Novel algorithm transforms commercial radio device into user-friendly, effective tracker detector.
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Nth Cycle Is Bringing Critical Metals Refining to the U.S.
Much like Middle Eastern oil production in the 1970s, China today dominates the global refinement of critical metals that serve as the foundation of the United States economy. The U.S. needs another technological breakthrough to secure domestic supplies of metals like lithium, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements, which are needed for everything from batteries to jet engines and electric motors. Nth Cycle thinks it has a solution.
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The long view
A Shining Star in a Contentious Legacy: Could Marty Makary Be the Saving Grace of a Divisive Presidency?
While much of the Trump administration has sparked controversy, the FDA’s consumer-first reforms may be remembered as its brightest legacy. From AI-driven drug reviews to bans on artificial dyes, the FDA’s agenda resonates with the public in ways few Trump-era policies have.
Risk Assessment with Machine Learning
Researchers utilize geological survey data and machine learning algorithms for accurately predicting liquefaction risk in earthquake-prone areas.
Foundation for U.S. Breakthroughs Feels Shakier to Researchers
With each dollar of its grants, the National Institutes of Health —the world’s largest funder of biomedical research —generates, on average, $2.56 worth of economic activity across all 50 states. NIH grants also support more than 400,000 U.S. jobs, and have been a central force in establishing the country’s dominance in medical research. Waves of funding cuts and grant terminations under the second Trump administration are a threat to the U.S. status as driver of scientific progress, and to the nation’s economy.
The True Cost of Abandoning Science
“We now face a choice: to remain at the vanguard of scientific inquiry through sound investment, or to cede our leadership and watch others answer the big questions that have confounded humanity for millennia —and reap the rewards.”
Bookshelf: Smartphones Shape War in Hyperconnected World
The smartphone is helping to shape the conduct and representation of contemporary war. A new book argues that as an operative device, the smartphone is now “being used as a central weapon of war.”
New Approach Detects Adversarial Attacks in Multimodal AI Systems
New vulnerabilities have emerged with the rapid advancement and adoption of multimodal foundational AI models, significantly expanding the potential for cybersecurity attacks. Topological signatures key to revealing attacks, identifying origins of threats.