When a company ‘believes’ something false that causes harm, who’s to blame?

A company does not have a mind the way a person does. So when a corporation is negligent, acting on a false belief it should have caught, responsibility has to land somewhere else. We need a way of conceptualizing this problem so that it does not lead to the unwanted result that no individual is ever to blame in cases of corporate negligence.

How soybeans took over the American diet—without anyone noticing

Chinese farmers domesticated the soybean (Glycine max) from its wild ancestor, Glycine soja, between 6,000 and 9,000 years ago. By the first millennium B.C.E., it ranked among the “five grains”, the staple crops recognized in early Chinese texts.

== yjc, paywall likely, for some reason it didn’t kick in for me
The Study Bitcoin Doesn’t Want You to See

Two economists quietly downloaded the entire blockchain and counted who really owns Bitcoin. What they found breaks the one promise the whole thing was built on.

Psychologist wins Ig Nobel for proving rich drivers are the worst

“As a research psychologist who’s long been interested in the psychology of money and wealth, my team and I spent maybe 20 years documenting that rising wealth and increasing money seem to make people more self-interested, entitled, greedy,”

Global study reveals hidden nutritional value of shellfish and other aquatic invertebrates

Aquatic food systems are typically evaluated by the amount of food they produce rather than the nutrients they provide. The researchers say a better understanding of nutritional value can help ensure nutrition is at the forefront of discussions, so future food systems deliver both healthy diets and sustainable use of marine resources.

A fossil feather preserved inside dinosaur poop could help explain why birds survived the mass extinction

In the aftermath of Earth’s collision with an asteroid 66 million years ago, nearly all the dinosaurs, including nearly all the birds, went extinct. But one group of birds, Neornithes, survived, and every living bird today is one of their descendants. One of the biggest mysteries in paleontology is why this one small group of birds survived when all the other birds and all the other dinosaurs died out.

A fake spider at the tip of this snake’s tail helps it lure birds

Lots of animals use mimicry to survive. Some copy the appearance of threatening predators, and others have evolved to resemble plants or rocks so they can blend into the background and avoid being attacked. But a viper from Iran has found an even stranger strategy.

== yjc
Continuous video of black hole radio observations challenges shock wave theory

For years, scientists have relied primarily on radio imaging from techniques like very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) to study jets from the active galactic nuclei of supermassive black holes. This allows for the detection of broad, unresolved features, called components, moving at what appear to be faster-than-light speeds. However, traditional imaging has poor resolution and treats each observation as a separate snapshot in time, limiting information about how the features move.

How atmospheric events at the top of the world could have triggered two devastating California floods

In early 2017 and 2023, California experienced two catastrophic and record-breaking floods that caused billions of dollars in damage, triggered mudslides and forced thousands of people to evacuate. Why this happened left scientists scratching their heads. Both disasters struck during La Niña conditions, which normally bring drier-than-normal weather to California.

A galaxy with almost no stars? New Cloud-9 observations strengthen the case

The widely accepted model of the universe—the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model—predicts that the universe should contain a large number of small, low-mass dark matter clumps that contain gas but never managed to form stars. This is because the balance between gravity trying to collapse the gas, gas cooling and heating from the ultraviolet background is thought to prevent gas in these small halos from condensing into stars.

== Canadian perspective
Wildfires, permafrost melt in Canada causing even more climate change, new study shows

These climate “feedback loops,” where climate change triggers more carbon emissions that in turn feed into even more climate change, could add 20 to 30 per cent more warming over current estimates for this century.

== a non-Canadian perspective
Climate ‘feedback loops’ could worsen global warming by 30%, study finds

While scientists have long known of these “feedback loops” that amplify the impact of direct pollution from burning coal, oil and gas, the emissions from natural sources are largely unaccounted for in climate projections.

Tiny backpacks reveal the secret, sometimes circuitous migrations of small songbirds

Researchers developed ingenious little light-level geolocators. These miniature tags minimize weight by containing only a tiny battery, clock, computer chip and light sensor. They store data internally rather than transmitting it—hence my need to recapture tagged birds a year later. Researchers infer a bird’s locations from the timing of sunrise and sunset, which vary predictably across the globe and throughout the year.

Helium measurements clarify conditions seconds after the Big Bang

Roughly 90% of the universe’s helium formed during the Big Bang, with 10% originating from stars that have undergone nuclear fusion over the last 13.5 billion years. While researchers had previously only been able to estimate the universe’s helium abundance to a precision of about 2%, this work reduces that error to almost 0.5%, a development that amounts to a huge leap in computational astrophysics.

Local microbes persist in wine despite commercial yeast

The researchers conducted their study because recent research has shown that grape-associated microbial communities are not randomly distributed but exhibit clear biogeographical structuring—meaning different regions harbor distinct microbial assemblages. These microbial differences can influence fermentation dynamics, organic acid metabolism and volatile compound formation.

Why bigger sons may make births riskier across species

It’s often thought that human childbirth is unusually difficult among mammals. The idea is that an evolutionary “obstetrical dilemma” arose because of our bipedal pelvic anatomy and increasing brain size over time. Larger babies passing through a narrow birth canal can increase the chance of obstructed labor, affecting mortality for both the baby and mother.

Newly mapped brain circuit offers clues to how slow nasal breathing eases anxiety

A slow breath in and out does the trick for many people when calming their nerves and dealing with anxiety, a disorder that affects millions of people worldwide. Pranayama, Taoism and meditation have long used slow nasal breathing to ease a negative mood. How this simple act works its magic, however, has been tickling the gray cells of scientists curious to unravel the biological pathways behind it.

== if you weren’t before, I believe you should be worried now
Anthropic caught scientists using Claude to further biological weapon research

The company has produced an extensive collection of case studies covering the ways its current AI models have been misused.

Dark Energy Debunked? Cosmic Acceleration May Be an Illusion

A new analysis of more than 1,700 supernovae is questioning whether the universe is really accelerating at all. After accounting for the ages of the stars that produce these explosions, researchers found signs that cosmic expansion may actually be slowing. They also argue that the apparent acceleration changes with direction, which would be difficult to explain with dark energy. Other cosmologists dispute the conclusion, setting up a major test for upcoming observatories.

== in case anyone interested
Anthropic Reveals Fourth Likely Crime Committed By Its AI

The AI biz published “an alignment assessment” detailing four times Claude models accessed third-party systems without authorization. The company has already reported three of the incidents. Evidence of the fourth was lurking in a session transcript dating back to January 2026 when the misbehavior occurred.

Do black holes grow along with the universe? A new study says yes

We know the universe is constantly expanding. We also know that gravitationally bound objects, such as solar systems and black holes, seem to be immune to that expansion.

Worm’s radical transformation shows metamorphosis can change the functions of cells

Unlike humans, about 80% of animal species undergo metamorphosis, a stepped development from egg to larva to adult, but how it works at the cellular level is not well understood. Some theories and prior research suggested that the original cells in the larva die and are replaced with newly generated adult cells. Other work pointed to cells growing into the same function—for example, larval skin cells would become adult skin cells.

A photon that challenges Einstein: According to current physics, it should never have reached Earth

The reason is that the universe is not completely empty. During its journey, the photon should have interacted with photons from the cosmic microwave background, the faint relic radiation from the Big Bang that permeates the entire universe, transforming into other particles and disappearing long before reaching Earth. It is like shooting an arrow through an extremely dense forest stretching for 2 billion light-years and expecting it not to hit a single tree.

The biggest dinosaurs couldn’t sit on their eggs. Scientists say they did this instead

Fossil eggshells believed to be from some of the biggest dinosaurs that ever lived have been found in a surprisingly cool climate far from the equator. But those massive titanosaurs couldn’t keep their volleyball-sized eggs warm by sitting on them.

Anthropic researcher believes more than 10% chance AI ‘could kill all humans’

He did not spell out how he thought AI systems could in future result in humans being wiped out. But his comments are the latest in a series of increasingly stark warnings about AI, with the debate shifting from whether it truly poses a risk to how big that risk is.

SpaceX’s recovered Starship 40 will take months to get back to Texas

What came as a surprise was that, unlike previous Starship upper stages, Starship 40 survived its splashdown intact. Although it’s likely in no shape to be reused, the salvaged spacecraft gives engineers something to study in detail rather than deduce from telemetry or scraps of debris.

Google DeepMind Publishes AI-Powered Predictions For Effect of All 9 Billion Mutations to Human DNA

DNA is the language of life. Mastering it is a grand challenge that could transform our ability to understand biology and treat disease. But progress has been limited by a fundamental problem: interpreting how genetic variations impact biology at a molecular level. With roughly 9 billion possible single-letter mutations in the human genome, testing each one in the lab is practically impossible.

Evidence points to yogurt as a nutrient-dense part of healthy diets

People have been making health claims about yogurt for hundreds of years. The Mongol emperor Genghis Khan, in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, reportedly believed yogurt would give his army strength and bravery, but science has only recently begun catching up. Bravery: probably not.

== well maybe eventually
Experimental cancer drug could help millions of women battling osteoporosis and midlife weight gain

The drug, known as CADD522, was developed to block a protein that helps drive the growth and spread of several cancers. But scientists found the treatment appeared to strengthen bones in postmenopausal mice while also helping them stay leaner.

Do black holes have hidden hair?

When two black holes crash together and merge, the newly formed black hole rings like a bell, sending out gravitational waves with specific frequencies that fade over time. This brief, fading pattern of waves is called ringdown, and it may hold secrets about what is hiding around black holes.

Why Google Told Drivers to Drive a Longer Way On Purpose

Anyone who drives regularly in the Bay Area knows its persistent traffic choke points, from key stretches of Highway 101 and Interstate 880 to the tangled intersection of Octavia and Market streets in San Francisco. It’s a frustrating, time-wasting problem.

== yjc
Nvidia PAIR makes it easy to create a household data center for running agentic AI tasks

Nvidia explained that when local AI agents are given a task to complete, they generally divide that work into a bunch of subtasks that must be completed in unison to achieve the larger goal. But if those subtasks are all powered by the same laptop or computer, it will get done slower than if each of the subagents had its own, dedicated compute node.

Making 1.47 Million Historical Newspaper Pages Available as High-Quality, Gran

Newspapers contain detailed records of historical events, but their complex layouts and inconsistent print quality have long hindered digitization and computational use.

OpenAI chief scientist warns no-one is prepared for consequences of AI

OpenAI’s chief scientist Jakub Pachocki has called for “extreme caution” over AI’s runaway progress and warned more intervention may be needed to ensure “humans remain in control of the future”.

Private German Rocket Makes History, Reaches Orbit From European Soil

The German company Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket from Andøya Space Center in northern Norway today (Sept. 5). A little over seven minutes later, it etched its name into the record books, settling into an elliptical path around our planet.

Some Great Lakes sturgeon may be 400 years old. Scientists are rethinking how to save them

Human activity brought these giant fish to the brink of extinction. Now they can’t recover without us

Periodical cicadas may be doomed to extinction

Every 13 or 17 years, swarms of cicadas emerge from the ground, their black bodies, orange-tinged wings and ruby-red eyes enveloping trees and forests. It is a biological marvel unique in the insect world, and when it happens, it is impossible not to notice.

How an unassuming wildflower thrives in salt-laden air that kills other plants

On the windswept coasts of Oregon and California lives an unassuming little plant that can withstand salty blasts that kill its inland counterparts. It’s called the yellow monkeyflower. Now, researchers are beginning to understand how it manages to thrive in conditions that leave other plants burned, brown and withered.

Critically endangered pygmy raccoons observed making their own paper toys

Some of the most intriguing scientific breakthroughs happen when researchers aren’t explicitly looking for them. Take, for example, the pygmy raccoon (Procyon pygmaeus), a critically endangered species that lives only on Cozumel Island, Mexico. Scientists were observing them for a study on the impact of tourism on their populations when they made an accidental discovery.

Ancient DNA reveals the surprising Arctic life of extinct North American cat

With slender bodies and long front legs that may have helped them move efficiently across the open landscapes of Pleistocene North America, an adult Miracinonyx trumani was thought to weigh around 150 pounds (68 kilograms) on average, stand about 3 feet (0.9 meters) tall and measure about 8 feet (2.4 meters) long to the tip of its tail.

What different world maps get right - and what they get wrong

There have been many prominent attempts over the years to solve the problem of accurately representing the surface of a sphere on a flat rectangle, each with its own benefits and drawbacks.