After years of mystery and months of turmoil, the Justice Department is expected on Friday to release — as required by law — the bulk of its unclassified archive on Jeffrey Epstein.Why it matters: No saga has commanded more public fascination this year than the Epstein files, which destabilized the …

Under changes revealed by regulator, banks and card providers encouraged to set their own maximumsThe £100 limit on contactless card payments will be scrapped next year and consumers could get the ability to spend as much as they want without inputting their pin under changes announced by the UK fin…

Fracking’s Forever Problem: Sixth in a series about the gas industry’s radioactive waste. How much toxic oil and gas waste is produced in Pennsylvania every year, and where does it end up? Despite state efforts to track it, there’s no way to know for sure. For more than a decade, regulators have bee…

arXiv:2406.16745v3 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Bandits with preference feedback present a powerful tool for optimizing unknown target functions when only pairwise comparisons are allowed instead of direct value queries. This model allows for incorporating human feedback into online inference a…

arXiv:2508.00836v5 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: The rapid growth of preprint servers has accelerated scientific dissemination but has also shifted the technical burden of manuscript preparation to authors. This challenge is particularly acute in computational research, where manuscripts must re…

We've tested over 50 of the top robot vacuum and mop combos from brands like Roborock, Eufy, Ecovacs, and Dreame to determine which one is best at keeping a home clean.

Gaza's coders and technicians battle to keep enclave online amid Israeli infrastructure destruction.

arXiv:2512.16661v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: In today's information-driven world, access to scientific publications has become increasingly easy. At the same time, filtering through the massive volume of available research has become more challenging than ever. Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) and g…

arXiv:2511.00329v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Much ethical evaluation treats actions dyadically: one agent acts on one recipient. In networked, platform-mediated environments, this lens misses how public acts diffuse. We introduce a minimal message-passing model in which an initiating act wit…

UK buyout firm Bridgepoint Group Plc is expanding into a fast-growing segment of the private equity market by adding a team from mid-market secondaries firm Newbury Partners, according to people familiar with the matter.

Australia's prime minister visited Ahmed in hospital as he's treated for shooting injuries.

Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski have both had good years thanks to disastrous strategy from the two main parties

arXiv:2512.16529v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Generative art systems often involve high-dimensional and complex parameter spaces in which aesthetically compelling outputs occupy only small, fragmented regions. Because of this combinatorial explosion, artists typically rely on extensive manual tri…

Minister says ‘any individual’ at low risk from hack, while Sun reports Chinese cyber gang responsible for breach The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was hacked in October, the minister Chris Bryant has said.Bryant, a trade minister in Keir Starmer’s government, told Sky News there…

arXiv:2512.15830v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Decoding speech from brain activity has typically relied on limited neural recordings collected during short and highly controlled experiments. Here, we introduce a framework to leverage week-long intracranial and audio recordings from patients underg…

arXiv:2512.15776v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) act as powerful reasoning engines but struggle with "symbol grounding" in embodied environments, particularly when information is asymmetrically distributed. We investigate the Privileged Information Bias (or "Curse of Kno…

Image:
XRISM sees comet 3I/ATLAS in X-ray light

Here's how to see the Ursid meteor shower, which peaks in dark skies close to a new moon this year.

New funding from the EU allows Ukraine go shopping for more weapons, says analyst Pavel Felgenhauer

arXiv:2512.16266v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) is a powerful quantitative technique that provides metabolic and molecular contrast, offering strong translational potential for label-free, real-time diagnostics. However, its clinical adoption remains …

Wall Street stock gurus are making predictions again. Our columnist got into the game with a number he doesn’t believe.

Quote from: DanClemmensen on 10/06/2025 01:31 pmQuote from: sstli2 on 10/06/2025 12:00 pmArticle in Ars today: [url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/starlinks-ambitious-...

Quote from: yg1968 on 12/15/2025 02:48 pmThe current Administration is not anti-science....Evidence to the contrary abounds.

This twist-packed, star-strapped take on the reality juggernaut became the year’s most addictive show. It was a masterclass in suspense, camp and chaos• The 50 best TV shows of 2025• More on the best culture of 2025For narrative twists, unforced comedy and high-profile casting, The Celebrity Traitor…

arXiv:2505.24342v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Images shared online strongly influence emotions and public well-being. Understanding the emotions an image elicits is therefore vital for fostering healthier and more sustainable digital communities, especially during public crises. We study Visu…

The 15th iteration of the UK government’s flagship cloud computing procurement framework is due to go live in 2026, and looks set to be very different compared with previous versions of the purchasing agreement

Republicans in Congress are jumping off the ObamaCare cliff as they leave Washington without a deal to extend enhanced subsidies for millions of Americans. But the door to a bipartisan deal hasn't been completely shut, and it may not be too late to reverse that increase if a deal is passed early nex…

Researchers noticed ‘dramatic’ changes in nutrients in crops, including drop in zinc and rise in leadMore carbon dioxide in the environment is making food more calorific but less nutritious – and also potentially more toxic, a study has found.Sterre ter Haar, a lecturer at Leiden University in the N…

Charlie Cox thinks that, nine years later, the MCU will finally pay off the potential of one of the best parts of 'The Defenders.'

From rockpooling in Somerset to stargazing in Northumberland, our readers share their favourite seasonal outdoor activities• Tell us about a beach holiday – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucherArrive at Fowlmere RSPB reserve, 10 miles south-west of Cambridge, an hour before nightfall to allow yo…

If you want to hear Apple Music’s lossless catalog the way it was meant to sound, you will need a little extra hardware. iPhones and most wireless headphones still have limitations when it comes to high-resolution audio, which means a good DAC can make a real difference in clarity and detail. Whethe…

Laura Dern deserves better from the New York Film Festival's closing night film, "Is This Thing On?" Review.

arXiv:2512.16921v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Conventional evaluation methods for multimodal LLMs (MLLMs) lack interpretability and are often insufficient to fully disclose significant capability gaps across models. To address this, we introduce AuditDM, an automated framework that actively disco…

Quote from: Galactic Penguin SST on 12/18/2025 12:32 pmhttps://lvg.shar.gov.in/VSCREGISTRATION/index.jspApparently the page once has the following informa...

Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, 30, was arrested in 2020 for taking part in nationwide democracy protests, and has been tortured in prisonA boxing champion in prison in Iran is thought to be at imminent risk of execution after his request for a retrial was rejected by the country’s supreme court.Mohamma…

arXiv:2411.11403v3 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Priors with non-smooth log-densities, such as the l1-prior, are widely used in Bayesian inverse problems for their sparsity-inducing properties. Existing Langevin-based sampling methods typically rely on proximal mappings or smooth approximations,…

Fawaz Al-Mubaraki, the chief executive officer of Wafra Inc., is leaving at year-end after almost a decade leading the investment manager owned by Kuwait’s state pension agency.

Quote from: edzieba on Today at 09:32 amWhich first requires the standard those radios will use to talk to Starlink satellites to be nailed down.Not quite true. SpaceX makes its own radios down to custom si...

The Japan Foundation Touring Film Program will present 26 Japanese features across U.K. venues, including acclaimed director Miike Takashi’s latest film “Sham” among diverse offerings spanning comedy, drama, horror, sci-fi and animation. The annual celebration, billed as the U.K.’s largest showcase …

The BBC's Asia business correspondent says it is still unclear what sort of experience TikTok users in the US will get.

arXiv:2512.16265v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Cooperative perception between vehicles is poised to offer robust and reliable scene understanding. Recently, we are witnessing experimental systems research building testbeds that share raw spatial sensor data for cooperative perception. While there …

Comments

Government will have to roll over 2025 budget into next year after parliamentary talks collapse

APS A stressful year leads to anxiety. Lasting isolation gives way to depression. An old trauma nags until it becomes paralyzing. Psychological and social experiences shape the brain,...

Lowe, and his wife, Sheryl Berkoff, bought the $13 million property in 2020, in the same neighborhood as Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

arXiv:2512.16327v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: We consider the geometric problem of determining the maximum number $n_q(r,h,f;s)$ of $(h-1)$-spaces in the projective space $\operatorname{PG}(r-1,q)$ such that each subspace of codimension $f$ does contain at most $s$ elements. In coding theory te…

From a Grade II*-listed converted village chapel to a flat in the heart of London Continue reading...

Ryde, Isle of Wight: Lots of commotion here among the hovercraft and herring gulls, but it’s the wonderful, tubby geese that make my winterThere’s a hovercraft on the sand, skirts deflated, dumped like a beached whale. Behind it, the pier stretches into the Solent. The air has the dull taste of off-…

arXiv:2512.16011v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Visual inspection of space-borne assets is of increasing interest to spacecraft operators looking to plan maintenance, characterise damage, and extend the life of high-value satellites in orbit. The environment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) presents unique…

John Arnold parlayed windfall from natural gas bets into a foundation that is challenging medicine approvals

"Pluribus" stars Rhea Seehorn and Karolina Wydra weigh in on Carol and Zosia's first kiss in episode 8.

Saudi Electricity Co. has completed a massive storage project across three sites, enhancing grid stability and renewable integration. Once fully operational, the installation will become the world’s largest battery energy storage system (BESS).

Also: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

An 8-year-old boy survived one of Russia’s worst attacks on Ukrainian children. After, investigators — and his family — struggled to find answers.

Peter Oppenheimer, chief global equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, discusses the outlook for equities in 2026 in light of this week's US CPI print. "The central backdrop, I think, is relatively benign for risk assets, for equities broadly," he tells Bloomberg Television. Oppenheimer also discusses …

arXiv:2512.16449v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: In vision-based robot manipulation, a single camera view can only capture one side of objects of interest, with additional occlusions in cluttered scenes further restricting visibility. As a result, the observed geometry is incomplete, and grasp estim…

⚽ All the latest news going into the weekend programme⚽ Premier League: 10 things to look out for | Mail MichaelChelsea’s press conference has started.Enzo Maresca, Chelsea manager, is asked about the stories linking him to the Manchester City job.It doesn’t affect me. It’s 100% speculation. In this…

Brooks Mendenhall, Astronomy The recent stranding of the Shenzhou-21 crew, caused by

arXiv:2512.16523v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Vision-Language Models (VLMs), such as CLIP, have achieved impressive zero-shot recognition performance but remain highly susceptible to adversarial perturbations, posing significant risks in safety-critical scenarios. Previous training-time defenses …

Aylin Woodward, WSJ Kids who are stars in sports and music don't usually grow up to be stars as adults, a new study found.

An...

arXiv:2512.16920v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: While image editing has advanced rapidly, video editing remains less explored, facing challenges in consistency, control, and generalization. We study the design space of data, architecture, and control, and introduce \emph{EasyV2V}, a simple and effe…

Quote from: yg1968 on 12/18/2025 08:36 pmQuote from: Proponent on 12/18/2025 07:25 pmQuote from: Galactic Penguin SST on 12/18/2025 05:38 pm[quo...

Favourite Anthony Joshua tips the scales more than 12 kilos heavier than YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul at weigh-in.

Fifa’s lack of concern for African football’s key money-spinner has led to inadequate preparation timeWith the hosts, Morocco, taking on the island nation of Comoros in the Africa Cup of Nations opener in Rabat on Sunday, there is no mistaking the excitement across the continent. Football is akin to…

Nuno F.G. Loureiro, the professor, attended the same physics program in Portugal as the man suspected in his killing.

TikTok has signed a deal to divest its U.S. entity to a joint venture controlled by American investors, per an internal memo seen by Axios. Why it matters: A deal would end a yearslong saga to force TikTok's Chinese parent ByteDance to sell the company's U.S. operation to domestic owners to allevia…

Press release, Phys.org Normally, when liquids solidify, their molecules become locked in place, making it much harder for ions to move and leading to a steep decrease in ionic conductivity....

Everyone seems to be experimenting.

A Welsh government review shows out-of-court education is preferred to prosecuting parents.

US aid to Israel continues under Trump, drawing MAGA criticism over fiscal strain and foreign policy implications.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office says Canada and the U.S. will launch formal discussions to review the free trade agreement in mid-January

A research team developed two flavor-enhancing techniques that transform carob pulp into a delicious, sustainable alternative to cocoa. Rising temperatures and the spread of crop diseases are placing increasing pressure on the global supply of cocoa. In response to these challenges, researchers at t…

In the face of energy cost swings and the desire to run cleaner and more efficiently, more homeowners are raising the stakes on their heating and cooling tech and their investment in long-term stability.

arXiv:2512.16420v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We present DPDFNet, a causal single-channel speech enhancement model that extends DeepFilterNet2 architecture with dual-path blocks in the encoder, strengthening long-range temporal and cross-band modeling while preserving the original enhancement fra…

Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review

Welcome to our annual list of the worst, least successful, and simply dumbest technologies of the year.
This year, politics was a...

Quote from: spacenut on Today at 04:27 amAtmospheric research should be under NOAA and not under NASA.  NASA should be totally space oriented.  Just my opinion.  NOAA should handle anything under the Karman line.  ...

Samyukta Mullangi, Harvard Med The man sitting across from me in clinic was only 58, but he had been smoking two packs per day since his teenage years and was exposed to potential...

Traders who spent most of December wondering if the typical year-end “Santa Claus rally” was ever going to kick in may finally be getting what they’ve been waiting for.

arXiv:2509.04654v3 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: In the Strip Packing problem, we are given a vertical strip of fixed width and unbounded height, along with a set of axis-parallel rectangles. The task is to place all rectangles within the strip, without overlaps, while minimizing the height of t…

How to watch college football for free. Live stream Oklahoma vs. Alabama in 2025 without cable.

Many of President Trump’s supporters love his professional-wrestling style of leadership. But some of his recent attacks have sickened even some of his own political allies.

arXiv:2512.16855v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) deliver exceptional performance across natural language tasks but demand substantial computational resources, limiting their deployment on resource-constrained edge devices. Existing compression techniques, such as quantiz…

The NOTAM for CZ-7A from Wenchang on December 30.

arXiv:2512.16178v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Although traditional cameras are the primary sensor for end-to-end driving, their performance suffers greatly when the conditions of the data they were trained on does not match the deployment environment, a problem known as the domain gap. In this wo…

The White House is trying to rein in President Trump, using a primetime address to keep him on script and focused on domestic policy amid slumping poll numbers and campaign-style speeches that tend to veer off-course. Trump touted on Wednesday his administration’s work in its first year of his secon…

The developers of a browser tool that changes AI-centric LinkedIn posts to Allen Iverson facts want to help “take back control of your experience of the internet.”

In "Pluribus" episode 8, Carol (Rhea Seehorn) makes some new discoveries about the Others.

arXiv:2512.16918v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Recent advances have shown that multimodal large language models (MLLMs) benefit from multimodal interleaved chain-of-thought (CoT) with vision tool interactions. However, existing open-source models often exhibit blind tool-use reasoning patterns, in…

What happens when a star dies? In 2019, Betelgeuse dimmed in brightness, sparking speculation that it may soon explode as a supernova. While it likely won’t explode quite yet, we can preview its fate by observing the nearby Crab Nebula. Betelgeuse is easy to find as the red-hued shoulder star of Ori…

arXiv:2512.16344v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) is commonly depicted as transformative. Yet, after more than a decade of hype, its measurable impact remains modest outside a few high-profile scientific and commercial successes. The 2024 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Phy…

Watch Cher, Ariana Grande, and Bowen Yang tease this week's "Saturday Night Live."

They will be eligible for a one-time payment as well as college tuition for their children. The effort is part of a legislative push to address the dangers of working in toxic smoke.

Retailer targets £7m in bonuses as FCA examines scandal in North American armWH Smith will try to take back as much as £7m in bonuses from former executives after it said the UK’s financial watchdog had launched a formal investigation into a devastating accounting error linked to its US business.Alm…

Omar García Harfuch spoke to The New York Times about the country’s aggressive cartel offensive and his relationship with the White House.

arXiv:2512.16056v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The limited bandwidth of PCIe has emerged as the critical bottleneck for large language model (LLM) performance, such as prefix cache fetching and model switching. Although intra-server multipath data transfer between GPU and host memory is theoretica…

arXiv:2507.06489v3 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Robust verbal confidence generated by large language models (LLMs) is crucial for the deployment of LLMs to help ensure transparency, trust, and safety in many applications, including those involving human-AI interactions. In this paper, we presen…

arXiv:2512.16140v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We propose a hybrid reconstruction framework for dual-spectral CT (DSCT) that integrates iterative methods with deep learning models. The reconstruction process consists of two complementary components: a knowledge-driven module and a data-driven modu…

Pakistan’s deputy prime minister has accused India of "weaponizing water" by releasing water from Indian dams without warning

This year, the once-vanishing symbol of Las Vegas glamour was reborn in the wardrobes of Gen Z superstars• Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereAfter a 31-year stint on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The …

Looking for the perfect book to curl up with this winter? If you love the ocean, marine life and the stories behind our ocean, these three titles – reviewed in The Marine Biologist magazine – are essential additions to your reading list. Plus, MBA Members enjoy exclusive discounts when purchasing th…