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The FDA has approved gene-edited pigs for human consumption, potentially marking the first major commercial application of CRISPR technology in the food chain. Created by British company Genus, these pigs have had their DNA modified to remove the receptor that the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus uses to enter cells, rendering them immune to 99% of known virus variants. PRRS causes losses of approximately $300 million annually in the US alone by killing piglets and spreading rapidly through factory farms. According to Matt Culbertson, chief operating officer of Genus subsidiary Pig Improvement Company, the gene-edited pork could reach US markets sometime next year. Before launching sales to pig farms, Genus must secure regulatory approval in key export markets including Mexico, Canada, Japan, and China.

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An invisible molecular cloud that could shed light on how stars and planets form has been detected surprisingly close to Earth. From a report: Named Eos after the Greek goddess of the dawn, the cloud of gas would appear huge in the night sky if visible to the naked eye. It measures roughly 40 moons in width and has a weight about 3,400 times the mass of the sun, researchers reported in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy. "In astronomy, seeing the previously unseen usually means peering deeper with ever more sensitive telescopes -- detecting those smaller planets ... those more distant galaxies," said study coauthor Thomas Haworth, an astrophysicist at Queen Mary University of London. "This thing was pretty much in our cosmic backyard, and we've just missed it," he added. Molecular clouds are composed of gas and dust from which hydrogen and carbon monoxide molecules can form. Dense clumps within these clouds can collapse to form young stars. The article clarifies that Eos is 300 light-years away, which to be sure, is closer than any of the molecular clouds that we've known about previously.

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Trademark, domain name, GitHub repos stay under control of open source foundation – no word on any forking off for now

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) has reached an agreement with Synadia, the company behind open source messaging system NATS, which will see it control the trademark, domain name, and GitHub repositories.…

Redis, the popular in-memory data store, has returned to open source licensing with Redis 8 now available under the AGPL v3 license. The move reverses last year's controversial shift to proprietary licensing schemes (RSALv2 and SSPLv1) that aimed to force major cloud providers to pay for offering Redis as a managed service. The decision follows significant market pressure, including AWS, Google, and Oracle backing the Valkey fork, which gained momentum in the open source community. Redis believes the AGPL license provides sufficient protection from cloud providers while satisfying open source requirements. Redis 8 will incorporate vector sets and integrate previously separate Redis Stack features including JSON, Time Series, and probabilistic data support.

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Grab more headroom with the 4 and 8 GB variants

Raspberry Pi has bucked tech industry trends and cut prices for the 4 GB and 8 GB variants of its Compute Module 4.…

A 25-year-old California man pleaded guilty to stealing and dumping 1.1TB of data from the House of Mouse

When someone stole more than a terabyte of data from Disney last year, it was believed to be the work of Russian hacktivists protesting for artist rights. We now know it was actually a 25-year-old California resident.…

Almost all new homes in England will be fitted with solar panels during construction within two years, the UK government will announce after Keir Starmer rejected Tony Blair's criticism of net zero policies. From a report: Housebuilders will be legally required to install solar panels on the roofs of new properties by 2027 under the plans. The policy is estimated to add between $4,000 and $5,320 to building a home but homeowners would save more than $1,331 on their annual energy bills, according to the Times. Labour has set a target of building 1.5m homes by the end of the parliament. The party has promised to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 and cut household energy bills by $400 a year.

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A thought experiment involving a cat trapped in a steel box with a potentially lethal device, first proposed by physicist Erwin Schrodinger in 1935, remains at the center of scientific and philosophical debate as it marks its 90th anniversary. The paradox, initially published in a technical review of quantum mechanics, presented a scenario where a cat could theoretically exist in a superposition of states -- both alive and dead simultaneously -- until observed, highlighting profound questions about quantum reality. "Schrodinger understood that under no circumstances could his cat be considered to be both alive and dead at the same time," science writer Jim Baggott noted in a recently published essay. Baggott co-authored "Quantum Drama: From the Bohr-Einstein Debate to the Riddle of Entanglement" in 2024. The thought experiment gained cultural traction largely through science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin's 1974 short story "Schrodinger's Cat," which wrestled with the paradox's philosophical implications. This sparked widespread appearances across literature, film, and television. The paradox continues to divide physicists between those accepting quantum mechanics as a mathematical framework for prediction and others, like Einstein and Schrodinger himself, who considered the theory fundamentally incomplete.

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Real-time video deepfakes? Not convincing yet

RSAC Spam messages predate the web itself, and generative AI has given it a fluency upgrade, churning out slick, localized scams and letting crooks hit regions and dialects they used to ignore.…

A Michigan federal magistrate judge has banned a lawyer from using a cartoon dragon watermark on legal filings, calling the practice "juvenile and impertinent." Judge Ray Kent of the Western District of Michigan issued the order on April 28 after receiving a complaint featuring a purple, suit-wearing dragon on every page. "Each page of plaintiff's complaint appears on an e-filing which is dominated by a large multi-colored cartoon dragon dressed in a suit," Kent wrote. "The Court is not a cartoon." The watermark belongs to Jacob A. Perrone of Dragon Lawyers, who told The New York Times he purchased the image online for $20 because "people like dragons." Perrone said it plans to continue using the logo in his practice but will tone it down in future court submissions.

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Can't run Windows 11? Microsoft suggests renting it instead

Microsoft has announced a price cut for Windows 365 alongside a not-so-subtle suggestion that Windows 10 users might consider taking advantage of the offer to keep security updates flowing.…

UK starts prosecution days after FBI vowed to clamp down on the crime

Three young Brits are accused of stateside swatting offences and will appear in a UK court today to face their charges after a joint investigation by the FBI and Merseyside cops.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Teslarati: Waymo Driver is already reducing severe crashes and enhancing the safety of vulnerable road users. As per a new research paper set for publication in the Traffic Injury Prevention Journal, Waymo Driver had outperformed human drivers in safety, particularly for vulnerable road users (VRUs). Over 56.7 million miles, compared to human drivers, Waymo Driver achieved a 92% reduction in pedestrian injury crashes. It also saw 82% fewer crashes with injuries with cyclists and 82% fewer crashes with injuries with motorcyclists. Waymo Driver also slashed injury-involving intersection crashes by 96%, which are a leading cause of severe road harm for human drivers. Waymo Driver saw 85% fewer crashes with suspected serious or worse injuries as well. "It's encouraging to see real-world data showing Waymo outperforming human drivers when it comes to safety. Fewer crashes and fewer injuries -- especially for people walking and biking -- is exactly the kind of progress we want to see from autonomous vehicles," said Jonathan Adkins, Chief Executive Officer at Governors Highway Safety Association.

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Ireland privacy watchdog says transfers violated GDPR, as Chinese app confirms €1B datacenter in Finland

Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) has confirmed a fine of €530 million ($600 million) against social media biz TikTok for transferring European user data to China.…

Rockstar has delayed Grand Theft Auto 6 to May 26, 2026. It was due out fall 2025. From a report: In a statement, Rockstar apologized for the significant delay to the game, expected to be the biggest entertainment launch of all time. "We are very sorry that this is later than you expected," Rockstar said. "The interest and excitement surrounding a new Grand Theft Auto has been truly humbling for our entire team. We want to thank you for your support and your patience as we work to finish the game." "With every game we have released, the goal has always been to try and exceed your expectations, and Grand Theft Auto VI is no exception. We hope you understand that we need this extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve. We look forward to sharing more information with you soon."

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Report into alternative networks says competition with BT and co making life harder than ever

Alternative network providers (altnets) are facing tough competition from the big players in the UK broadband market, with consolidation likely in the face of slowing growth in fiber internet uptake.…

Experts suggest the obvious: There is an ongoing coordinated attack on UK retail sector

Harrods, a globally recognized purveyor of all things luxury, is the third major UK retailer to confirm an attempted cyberattack on its systems in under two weeks.…

Apple has updated its App Store Guidelines to comply with a court order from the Epic Games lawsuit, now allowing U.S. apps to include external payment links and buttons without needing special approval. "The App Review Guidelines have been updated for compliance with a United States court decision regarding buttons, external links, and other calls to action in apps. These changes affect apps distributed on the United States storefront of the App Store," Apple said in an email to developers on Thursday night. 9to5Mac reports: Here are the full changes to the App Store Guidelines with today's revisions: 3.1.1: Apps on the United States storefront are not prohibited from including buttons, external links, or other calls to action when allowing users to browse NFT collections owned by others. 3.1.1(a): On the United States storefront, there is no prohibition on an app including buttons, external links, or other calls to action, and no entitlement is required to do so. 3.1.3: The prohibition on encouraging users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase does not apply on the United States storefront. 3.1.3(a): The External Link Account entitlement is not required for apps on the United States storefront to include buttons, external links, or other calls to action. "We strongly disagree with the decision. We will comply with the court's order and we will appeal," Apple said in a statement to 9to5Mac yesterday. Spotify, Patreon, Epic Games and others are already working to circumvent Apple's App Store fees.

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Trigger-happy Taiwan headline sparks instant apocalypse vibes

World War III might have begun this week, according to British broadsheet The Telegraph.…

Easy fix: Telling LLMs to cosplay Lenin makes 'em more gender blind

Open source AI models are more likely to recommend men than women for jobs, particularly the high-paying ones, a new study has found.…