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When Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., it buried hundreds of papyrus scrolls. They were rediscovered in the mid-1700s, remembers Smithsonian magazine, "the only surviving collection of its kind from the Greco-Roman world..." "But when scholars tried to unroll them, the carbonized manuscripts crumbled to dust." Every generation that followed faced the same dilemma: They could wait for technology to advance, abandoning hope of reading the ancient texts in their own lifetime. Or they could try to o…

The Los Angeles Police Department says about 1,500 police agencies across America have drone programs, reports SFGate, and 58 of those drone-using police agencies are in California. The Sacramento County sheriff's office recently posted drone footage on Instagram set to theme from "Mission: Impossible," claiming "a nationwide first" where their drone successfully disarmed a felon "seen earlier with a firearm" (though now not moving, but holding a knife while lying face down in a garage). In the…

The Jerusalem Post reports that doctors at Haifa's Rambam Health Care Campus "have successfully treated their first Israeli opioid addiction patient using an experimental noninvasive brain technology, easing him through withdrawal in just 20 minutes..." [T]he team of specialists at the Haifa medical center intervened in the electrical activity of an area of the patient's brain called the nucleus accumbens, the core of the brain system responsible for feelings of satisfaction, pleasure, and rewa…

Thursday the Free Software Foundation blogged about this year's 47 'LibreLocal 2026' meetups, highlighting 10 that took place in Australia, Mexico, the United States, New Zealand, Cameroon, Switzerland, Spain, Argentina, China, and Iran. "Far from each other in many parts of the world, they came together around one unifying belief: free software." We envisioned LibreLocal as a collage of in-person community meetups that would bring people together to swap ideas, learn from each other, and celeb…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: For the most powerful voices in AI, it's all about being in the loop. Claude Code creator Boris Cherny recently said he doesn't write his own AI prompts much anymore. Thanks to loops, he doesn't have to. "It's an agent that prompts Claude," Cherny recently told CNBC, adding, "I don't write the prompt anymore. Claude writes the prompt, and now I'm talking to that new Claude that is kind of coordinating." In the same interview, Cherny sai…

SpaceX plans to begin building an eight-mile natural gas pipeline called "Starpipe" next month to supply its Starbase launch site with fuel for a much higher cadence of Starship launches. The pipeline is expected to enter service in January 2027. Reuters reports: The pipeline plan, previously reported by Rio Grande Valley Business Journal, signals Musk's intent to accelerate Starship's development and lay the groundwork for a faster flight rate. The 40-story rocket is central to SpaceX's push t…

Friday Bitcoin closed at just $59,948 — dropping 19% just for June and more than 50% lower than its record high in October of $124,310. To commemorate the occasion CNBC interviewed long-time bitcoin skeptic Jeremy Grantham, reporting that the 87-year-old cofounder/chief investment strategist of the massive asset-management firm GMO is "predicting it will gradually fade into irrelevance over decades." [The] longtime market commentator known for his calls on asset bubbles said bitcoin is a "usele…

Astronomers have discovered two Jupiter-sized exoplanets with densities lower than cotton candy, making them the lightest known worlds of their size. The rare "super-puffs," located about 1,110 light-years away, are likely composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with follow-up observations by the James Webb Space Telescope expected to probe their atmospheres. The Associated Press reports: [University of Oxford's George Dransfield] suspects these fluffy, wispy worlds are probably white or blue, …

"The US government has allowed Anthropic to release its powerful Mythos AI model to select companies and organizations," reports CNN, "revising license requirements after ordering an export block earlier this month in the wake of national security fears." Since the export ban earlier in June, "Anthropic has worked with the US government to address risks associated with the Covered Models," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote to the company in a letter dated Friday. In light of progress in t…

Microsoft has quietly extended free Windows 10 security updates for consumers by another year, pushing the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program's end date from October 12, 2026, to October 12, 2027. "The ESU support page was updated with that date, and Microsoft's blog post on the program has a new editor's note confirming the change," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The prevalence of Windows across so many devices and form factors has given Microsoft a massive customer base for decad…

schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has ordered (PDF) urgent inspections of 16 Airbus A380 planes operated by Emirates and Qantas, after cracks were found in a wing component on some aircraft (source paywalled; alternative source).. Cracks were found during earlier inspections of the wing spars structure, a key component of the wing, EASA said in a directive effective Wednesday. EASA determined that they "could reduce the structural in…

Notion announced that it will shut down its email client on September 22. The company says more than half of users already manage email through Notion's AI agents without opening their inbox, so it is shifting its focus from a traditional email client to agent-run workflows. Engadget reports: It has published an FAQ for users to make sure that they don't lose any messages or data in the transition. Most emails will still exist in a Gmail inbox, but customers will need to manually export their d…

Researchers say they detected the first gravitational-wave "fingerprints" of a black hole's event horizon by analyzing the final moments of the powerful GW250114 merger. The findings support Einstein's general relativity and may eventually help probe frame dragging and quantum fluctuations near black holes. Phys.org reports: For the new research published in Nature, an international team of researchers analyzed data from the strongest gravitational wave ever recorded, known as GW250114, detecte…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Spain will require mobile networks to have backup systems that maintain connectivity when power outages occur. Per a royal decree that will be approved by the end of 2026, mobile network operators (MNOs) and infrastructure companies will need to install batteries or other backups to keep service active for at least four hours during a blackout. The mobile network rules will apply to businesses that serve at least 500,000 users or generate upward…

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from autoevolution: The U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security denied Polestar an authorization under the Connected Vehicle Rule. Polestar will continue to sell its existing inventory of Polestar 3 and 4 crossovers in the United States and will continue to offer support to customers and access to its service network. But no new 2027 models will set wheels on American soil. The Connected Vehicle Rule is a regulation that res…