We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food...
The post Cropped 17 December 2025: ‘Deadly’ Asia floods; Boosting London’s water birds; UN headwinds appeared first on Carbon Brief.

For many families at Christmas, the one time of year when everyone finally ends up in the same room, suggesting a game is often the best strategic move for a fun evening. At its best, this sparks an hour of genuine connection. At its worst, it revives old rivalries faster than you can say "draw four…

Despite Trump claim of ceasefire, no end on horizon to latest round of conflict recently reignited by border skirmish.

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The proposed sale includes rocket systems, self-propelled howitzers and drones. China condemned the move, saying it undermined its sovereignty.

In the 50 years since equal rights for women were enshrined in UK law, the campaigners have been reduced to caricatures, or forgotten. But their struggle is worth rememberingCelia Brayfield was at her desk in the Femail section of the Daily Mail’s Fleet Street office when an editor called her over. …

Volodymyr Zelenskyy joins summit in Brussels pressuring Belgium to drop its opposition to using Russia’s frozen assets

arXiv:2512.11724v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: While voice-based AI systems have achieved remarkable generative capabilities, their interactions often feel conversationally broken. This paper examines the interactional friction that emerges in modular Speech-to-Speech Retrieval-Augmented Gener…

arXiv:2512.15062v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: This letter presents a novel deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approach for joint time allocation and power control in a cognitive Internet of Things (CIoT) system with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT). The CIoT transmitt…

Zulekha Samiullah and Hugh Barrett talk about the highlights from this year’s Quantum Carousel, a variety show for quantum physicists 
The post Learning through laughter at Quantum Carousel  appeared first on Physics World.

As his 1981 film is rereleased, the director talks about his Oscar-winning fable about an actor’s Faustian pact with the Nazi party – and its new relevanceAt the 54th Academy Awards, in 1982, Chariots of Fire was imperial, and Katharine Hepburn broke records. Less remembered today is a darkly brilli…

Marcona almonds from Spain, walnuts, dark chocolate, Agen prunes from France and a few decades of love go into this sumptuous, boozy frangipane tartA recipe box was rifled through, but, alas, much like shopping for a present last minute, nothing leapt to the fore. Out of the corner of an eye I spied…

Whirling dervishes of the Mevlevi order performed Sheb-i Arus ceremonies in Istanbul, Turkey, to commemorate the death of 13th-century Islamic scholar, poet and Sufi mystic Jalaladdin Rumi.

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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

European leaders gathering to decide on using frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine for the next two years.

arXiv:2512.15049v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: In this paper, we aim to explore the stochastic performance limit of large-field-size Random Linear Streaming Codes (RLSCs) in multi-hop relay networks. In our model, a source transmits a sequence of streaming messages to a destination through multipl…

Quote from: JulesVerneATV on 12/15/2025 02:23 pmStranger Things a scifi fantasy horror series set in the 80s timeline, it got many awards, Primetime Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominationsThey...

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Member states kick off two years of haggling over spending priorities amid growing doubts about the bloc’s relevance

Many investors are asking themselves if we are living in an AI bubble; others have gone beyond that and are simply asking themselves, until when? Yet the bubble keeps growing, fueled by that perilous sentiment of "fear of missing out." History and recent experience show us that financial bubbles are…

England's Ashes hopes are vanishing after they are overwhelmed by Australia amid more Snicko controversy on the second day of the third Test.

Players' distrust of 'Snicko' grows as controversy continues with the dismissal of Jamie Smith in the Adelaide Ashes Test.

Angola secured $753 million in financing to speed up development of the Lobito rail corridor, ending months of delays tied to talks over government guarantees.

arXiv:2501.03840v5 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in archaeology have increased significantly in recent years, and these now span all subfields, geographical regions, and time periods. The prevalence and success of these applications have …

Sony Music Taiwan has boarded India-Taiwan co-production “Demon Hunters” as global music distributor, marking a significant commercial partnership as the action-fantasy feature prepares for its international rollout. The film is directed by Chen Mei-Juin (“The Gangster’s Daughter”) and produced by L…

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arXiv:2512.14930v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: High-content screening microscopy generates large amounts of live-cell imaging data, yet its potential remains constrained by the inability to determine when and where to image most effectively. Optimally balancing acquisition time, computational ca…

arXiv:2512.14778v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: This study investigates the key skills and competencies needed by new cybersecurity graduates in the Philippines for entry-level positions. Using a descriptive cross-sectional research design, it combines analysis of job listings from Philippine onlin…

arXiv:2504.13460v4 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Traditional temporal action localization (TAL) methods rely on large amounts of detailed annotated data, whereas few-shot TAL reduces this dependence by using only a few training samples to identify unseen action categories. However, existing few-…

arXiv:2507.23600v4 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Signal unmixing analysis decomposes data into basic patterns and is widely applied in chemical and biological research. Multivariate curve resolution (MCR), a branch of signal unmixing, separates mixed signals into components (base patterns) and t…

What do you get for the person who has everything? I'm a gadget reviewer, and there's a good chance that something on this list will appeal to them - and arrive before Christmas.

US president is unlikely to oust long-ruling Caracas strongman without military muscle, experts say

Kylian Mbappe scored two goals to help Real Madrid overcome a stubborn challenge from third-division side Talavera.

arXiv:2508.09320v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Graph neural networks (GNNs) are increasingly employed in high-stakes applications, such as fraud detection or healthcare, but are susceptible to adversarial attacks. A number of techniques have been proposed to provide adversarial robustness guar…

During a pv magazine Week Europe 2025 webinar, storage specialists gave their thoughts on what to consider when purchasing battery energy storage systems in Europe, with pricing, supplier options and product reliability all on the agenda.

https://twitter.com/EShoreSpaceflt/status/2001539989545291881QuoteEasternShoreSpaceflight@EShoreSpacefltIt was an amazing launch tonight. I still have some 4K slow-motion video from my phone to go through, but here’s what I’ve got so far. Way to g...

arXiv:2412.06196v3 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: 5G networks provide secure and reliable information transmission services for the Internet of Everything, thus paving the way for 6G networks, which is anticipated to be an AI-based network, supporting unprecedented intelligence across application…

Letter from 39 backbenchers threatens rebellion over proposal to expedite court backlog in England and WalesKeir Starmer is facing the threat of a backbench rebellion over plans to reduce the number of jury trials in England and Wales, as dozens of Labour MPs signed a letter describing the move as “…

arXiv:2507.18885v3 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Neural Theorem Proving (NTP) employs LLMs to automate formal proofs in proof assistants. While LLMs have achieved relatively remarkable success in informal reasoning tasks using natural languages, the transition to mechanized formal theorem provin…

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial newsUK inflation falls sharply to 3.2% amid slowdown in food price risesOver in Beijing, China’s commerce minister has criticised the European Union’s investigations into whether Chinese companies are unfairly subsidised by the state.The ministry…

arXiv:2512.15089v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive performance across various language tasks. However, existing LLM reasoning strategies mainly rely on the LLM itself with fast or slow mode (like o1 thinking) and thus struggle to balance reason…

The Oscars will be shown only on YouTube from 2029, the Academy said Wednesday, in a radical gambit for a movie industry that remains wary of streaming platforms even as viewing habits shift online.

Neighbors said a pall had fallen over the wealthy Los Angeles area where Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found stabbed to death.

The 200 square meter facility is targeting an annual manufacturing capacity of 2 GW of solar cells and 2 GW of solar modules. The solar cell production will be 100% for export.

Nova Power & Gas’s 400 MWh project in Cluj County is the largest battery energy storage system (BESS) to date to have been connected to Romania’s grid.

arXiv:2512.15595v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Bloom filters are a fundamental data structure for approximate membership queries, with applications ranging from data analytics to databases and genomics. Several variants have been proposed to accommodate parallel architectures. GPUs, with massive t…

Ares Management is providing a $100 million facility to Dubai-based multifamily office Patrimium, as global finance firms step up their pursuit of private credit opportunities in the Gulf region.

Thanks to RL and its support staff at Wallops, and the NSF crew providing us with video coverage from Wallops as well. This is the first time that we have live coverage from Wallops.For myself and the NSF webcast staff, it has been a pleasure to provi...

That's the 20th launch of the year for RL.RL is now signing off

The rover has been acing a long-term series of durability tests, making the most of its enhanced navigation capabilities, and ferreting out new findings about Mars’ geologic past. After nearly five years on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover has traveled almost 25 miles (40 kilometers), and the mission…

arXiv:2512.14980v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Diffusion models struggle to produce samples that respect constraints, a common requirement in scientific applications. Recent approaches have introduced regularization terms in the loss or guidance methods during sampling to enforce such constraints,…

EY said errors included ‘material misstatements’ in latest setback for Conservative metro mayor Lord Houchen

Parveen doesn’t know if she’s getting a sponge cake or a burger bap, but Joe thinks she needs to embrace his northern-isms. You decide who is sweet and who is sour• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a jurorJoe says ‘buns’ covers all sweet things in the north, but I worry he’ll bri…

With ancient standing stones and modern midwinter festivals, the West Penwith peninsula is a land of magic and mysteryThe light is fading fast as I stand inside Tregeseal stone circle near St Just. The granite stones of the circle are luminous in this sombre landscape, like pale, inquisitive ghosts …

arXiv:2512.14760v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Underwater images are severely degraded by wavelength-dependent light absorption and scattering, resulting in color distortion, low contrast, and loss of fine details that hinder vision-based underwater applications. To address these challenges, we pr…

Arabic is spoken by more than 400 million people. Can you recognise these Arabic words that made their way into English?

Bulgaria’s second standalone energy storage procurement exercise of 2025, worth close to BGN 229 million ($137.2 million), received a lot of interest and there are 30 project proposals included in a reserve list, the government said.

There’s a good chance you own a couple of gadgets that support wireless charging now, be it your iPhone or Android phone, wireless earbuds or smartwatch. Multi-device wireless chargers can help power them all up in one place, without the need for a bunch of cords messing up your space. There are doz…

The first major original musical created and produced in the Middle East begins its run December 19. 'Once Upon a Time in Dubai' will be an attempt to explain expat life in the UAE. The show's Producer Stéphane Boukris spoke to Bloomberg’s Jennifer Zabasajja on Horizons Middle East and Africa about …

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"We live in a bleak time, especially for young people, so this film is an attempted antidote to that," the actor explained on The Tonight Show

European Union leaders are gathering for a summit aimed at agreeing on a massive loan to cover Ukraine’s military and other financial needs for the next two years

A model-independent approach reduces uncertainty in hadronic light-by-light scattering, strengthening Standard Model tests
The post Improving precision in muon g-2 calculations appeared first on Physics World.

arXiv:2503.01459v2 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: Motivation: PCR is more economical and quicker than Next Generation Sequencing for detecting target organisms, with primer design being a critical step. In epidemiology with rapidly mutating viruses, designing effective primers is challengin…

Patrick Lawler previously featured in a BBC undercover investigation into far-right views.

arXiv:2511.01140v2 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: Medical imaging often operates under limited labeled data, especially in rare disease and low resource clinical environments. Existing multimodal and meta learning approaches improve performance in these settings but lack a theoretical expla…

arXiv:2410.14839v4 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: We study the dynamic pricing problem faced by a broker seeking to learn prices for a large number of credit market securities, such as corporate bonds, government bonds, loans, and other credit-related securities. A major challenge in pricin…

arXiv:2512.15353v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Recent evidence shows that the versification of prompts constitutes a highly effective adversarial mechanism against aligned LLMs. The study 'Adversarial poetry as a universal single-turn jailbreak mechanism in large language models' demonstrates that…

arXiv:2512.11295v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: The integrity of many contemporary AI systems is compromised by the misuse of Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) models to obscure systems that remain heavily dependent on human labor. We define this structural dependency as Human-Instead-of-AI (HISOAI), an…

California researchers are preparing for the possible return of the New World screwworm, a parasitic fly that feeds on living flesh and once devastated U.S. livestock. By monitoring traps and educating veterinarians and farmers, they hope to stop the pest before it gains a foothold.

Confusion reigns on day two of the third Ashes Test with England's Jamie Smith at the centre of the controversy after he's given not out after review, only to be given out moments later in a separate delivery, due to a contentious use of the Snicko technology.

arXiv:2512.14932v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: In this work, we propose a method to efficiently find the regularization parameter for low-rank MMSE filters based on a Kronecker-product representation. We show that the regularization parameter is surprisingly linked to the problem of rank selection…

Sydney’s devastated Jewish community gathered for the funeral of “Matilda Bee,” an ebullient, smiling 10-year-old girl.

T-9hr 13minI'll plan to cover this flight if I wake up in time.

“Bloomberg: The China Show” is your definitive source for news and analysis on the world's second-biggest economy. From politics and policy to tech and trends, Yvonne Man gives global investors unique insight, delivering in-depth discussions with the newsmakers who matter. (Source: Bloomberg)

Huge US arms package for Taiwan includes HIMARS rocket systems, howitzer artillery, antitank missiles, and drones.

A former Harvard Medical School morgue manager was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing and selling human body parts as part of a nationwide scheme.The big picture: Cedric Lodge, 58, pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen human remains, which prosecuto…

Also in this newsletter: Mercosur’s last chance

Maxwell maintained in a habeas petition that information that would have resulted in her exoneration at her 2021 trial was withheld and false testimony was presented to the jury.

Standard General’s Soo Kim is considering purchasing or investing in WBD’s television networks

The attack on Wednesday brings the total number killed to at least 99 since the Trump administration began bombing boats suspected of ferrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

Last deployment completed, (4 of 4).  Mission successful.

U.S. inflation data for November, expected to show a 3.1% increase in CPI, could influence Federal Reserve interest rate decisions.

deployment sucessful (2 out of 4)

New measures target antisemitism and extremism in wake of assault authorities said was inspired by Isis

The move may reassure China hawks who are uncertain about the president’s commitment to the self-governing democracy.

US stocks are heading into 2026 with positive momentum and a host of bullish forecasts at their backs. For the fourth year of strong gains that many predict to play out, they must still overcome plenty of potential threats.

A proposal from a cross-party group of politicians could break the deadlock with the country’s biggest bank

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T+40 min now passing South Africa and entering the southern Indian Ocean.  Tracking stations in South Africa and Mauritius are monitoring the LV

Thousands of European farmers are converging on Brussels on Thursday to protest against the EU-Mercosur treaty as European leaders meet for a summit. Protesters are worried about the prospect of an influx of South American products into the bloc and the reform of agricultural subsidies.

England's batters have another day to forget as Australia dominate with the ball on day two of the third Ashes Test, with the tourists closing on 213-8, still 158 runs behind Australia's first innings total of 371, with the home side closing in on an Ashes series victory with two matches to spare.

Hayling Island, Hampshire: Piles of goose barnacles are stranded on the beach after a long journey hitched on a barrel. They’re fascinating creatures, but they won’t survive longA message pinged on to my phone – a photo from a friend out walking her dog. Her whippet, head cocked and nose quivering, …

arXiv:2510.15022v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Low-rank Adaptation (LoRA) models have revolutionized the personalization of pre-trained diffusion models by enabling fine-tuning through low-rank, factorized weight matrices specifically optimized for attention layers. These models facilitate the…

Researchers have tracked how the mother, who also has a biological cub, has taken in a second young bear in a rarely documented case.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a thermoacoustic Stirling heat pump prototype that offers high thermal performance, a peak coefficient of performance of 1.68, and potential applications in high-temperature industrial processes, enabling zero-carbon heating for sectors like p…

arXiv:2512.14895v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: A popular paradigm for training LM agents relies on imitation learning, fine-tuning on expert trajectories. However, we show that the off-policy nature of imitation learning for multi-turn LM agents suffers from the fundamental limitation known as cov…

France-based startup Carbon plans to partner with Chinese manufacturer Longi and adopt back-contact (BC) solar technology as it revises its roadmap for a gigawatt-scale solar module factory.

Trump spoke at a rapid-fire clip with a tone that bordered at times on anger, as if Americans aren't appreciating what he's done, or tried to do.

Cloudflare's annual review describes a busier, more brittle, more hostile network. Frankly, I'm worried