Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Dutch Fugro has secured additional survey contracts offshore Timor-Leste that will support the planning and development of critical offshore energy infrastructure associated with two gas developments.Source: Fugro In addition to the geophysical contract announced in July, Fugro has secured two further awards from Timor-Leste’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources (MPRM) in support of the Greater Sunrise TLNG development and Bayu-Undan Pipelines Highway projects. The awards comprise a six-month geotechnical survey and a twelve-month metocean survey as part of the wider survey campaign for the proposed pipeline routes, expected to start in the first quarter of 2027, following the geophysical…

Reporting Highlights Too “Woke”? Trump tried to fire one Smithsonian official and, after finding “ideological capture,” plans to install anti-woke warning signs outside the history museum. Is This History? One exhibit speculated that Ben Franklin may have shocked enslaved people in electric experiments. Another displayed a “crotch harness” used for sadomasochistic sex.  A Longstanding Debate: As early as 1999, one critic argued that the history museum lacked focus, examining oppression rather than the central figures and episodes of U.S. history. These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story. In November 2021, the Smithsonian’s National…

What price would you put on friendship? In these hyper-capitalistic times, where nothing is beyond being given a monetary value, perhaps even Mastercard wouldn’t dare to claim that it’s priceless. A YouGov survey found that 15% of Britons say they have no close friends, while nearly one in 10 (8%) have no friends at all. The numbers are similarly dismal in the US. As we face this contemporary crisis of connection, it is little wonder that friendship, or at least the possibility of it, is increasingly being marketed for sale.There has been a striking increase in online platforms and apps…

Pakistan said it carried out air strikes early Thursday on 10 sites in Afghanistan that it said were used to launch drone attacks against Pakistan a day earlier, a sharp escalation in recent fighting between the two countries that threatens international mediation efforts. The air strikes struck southern and eastern Afghan provinces of Kandahar, Paktia and Khost, killing four civilians, Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement. “These shameless acts of aggression and attacks by the Pakistani military regime will be met with an appropriate response,” he said. The announcement of the strikes by Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah…

The Netherlands will return to the Eurovision Song Contest next year despite a boycott by the broadcaster that was previously in charge of the country’s participation.Dutch network Avrotros withdrew in 2026 and said it would also not take part in 2027 because the competition could “no longer be considered neutral” given divisions over Israel’s involvement and the Gaza war.The NPO, which oversees public broadcasting in the country, has now stepped in, saying coverage of the contest will be provided by broadcasting organisation NOS, while an independent panel will select the Dutch participant.Jurre Bosman, NPO’s director of media, said: “It is…

Nick Clegg has dismissed fears over AI’s “godlike power to exterminate humanity”, calling it a sign that tech bosses are “breathing their own fumes”.The former UK deputy prime minister said that tech bosses should focus on addressing known “specific threats” such as cybersecurity, bio-weapons and emotional dependence rather than the “slightly hand-wavy view that this technology is unavoidably going to develop some godlike power which is going to turn on us and exterminate humanity”.Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “I think it is perhaps accidentally self-serving, because it sort of implies that we can only be made…

Meta’s personal AI agent Muse is only a few weeks old, and the social networking giant isn’t wasting any time building out what may be its biggest bet on consumer AI to date.  CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the company’s annual Connect event in Menlo Park on Wednesday with a keynote that made one thing clear: Meta is going all-in on Muse.  The Muse agent (the physical avatar is named Jolly, according to Zuckerberg) is designed to handle everyday tasks by connecting to users’ apps and services, including email and calendars. At Connect, Zuckerberg introduced a slew of new capabilities…

Power analysis attacks are not new, but they are typically local and require some sort of power measurement interface in order to monitor differences between computations and infer details about what’s being processed. This side-channel technique has been used before to leak cryptographic secrets such as keys. Hertzbleed, however, shows that frequency scaling generates timing differences in computations and these can be observed even remotely without any power measurement interface. The novelty is that Hertzbleed works even against so-called constant time cryptographic implementations that were intentionally designed to prevent leaking information through timing analysis. The researchers used Hertzbleed to implement…

In brief Anthropic says Claude spent 21 hours and roughly 210 million tokens searching DNA databases before flagging an unusual enzyme system it now calls ART CRISPR co-inventor Feng Zhang reviewed the pre-print and called the find “genuinely intriguing,” However, even CEO Dario Amodei admits the system’s “precise function, biotechnological utility (if any), or level of significance is not yet clear.” Anthropic put out a press release Wednesday saying Claude, its AI model, discovered a new molecular machine hiding in virus DNA. But read past the hype and CEO Dario Amodei admits its “precise function, biotechnological utility (if any), or…

A fractured rib from Scotty, the largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, is giving researchers a rare look at dinosaur biology from 66 million years ago. Preserved inside the bone is something almost never found in the fossil record: evidence of an injury that was still healing when the animal died. Scientists used neutron imaging at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to examine the fossil from the inside. The technology allowed them to construct detailed 3D images without damaging the preserved soft tissue. “It’s like winning the lottery,” said Mauricio Barbi, professor of physics at…