Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. Japan to Require AI Firms to Disclose Training Data
  2. New Study Challenges Common Assumptions About Screen Time For Kids
  3. Rescue Mission Is Called Off For NASA’s Aging Swift Space Telescope
  4. Whistleblower Arturo Bejar Leads Testimony In Landmark Trial Against Meta
  5. PINE64 Halts Linux Device Production Amid DRAM and EMMC Shortages
  6. Stripe Buys AI Startup OpenRouter For $7.5 Billion
  7. Amazon’s Drones Will Soon Deliver to Nearly 500 US Cities and Towns
  8. Music Publisher Round Hill Files $1 Billion Copyright Infringement Suits Against Suno, Anthropic
  9. CISA: Medusa Ransomware Hit Over 500 Critical Infrastructure Orgs
  10. Moderna, Merck Say mRNA Vaccine Prevents Melanoma From Returning
  11. X’s Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds
  12. Army Unit Offers 4-Day Pass to Play GTA VI As Reenlistment Incentive
  13. Chinese Robotics Giant Unitree Soars In Stock Market Debut
  14. Babies Born Under Sugar Rationing Grew Into Adults With Lower Cancer Risk
  15. Physicists Entangle Quantum Memories Across a Record-Breaking 420 Kilometers

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

Japan to Require AI Firms to Disclose Training Data

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Japan is preparing a nonbinding “comply or explain” code that would urge generative AI companies, including foreign firms operating in Japan, to disclose what models they use, what training data they rely on, and how that data was collected. The proposal would also let rights holders ask whether specific webpages were included in training datasets. The Japan Times reports:
The draft code comprises three principles. The first principle requires businesses to disclose the generative AI models they use, their training data and methods for collecting such data on their websites and make the information publicly accessible. Meanwhile, disclosure of sensitive information will not be mandatory. The second principle calls for businesses to disclose whether certain webpages are included in training data when requested by copyright holders and other rights holders who allege infringement. The third principle states that businesses will respond to requests for information from system and service users concerned about copyright infringement.

New Study Challenges Common Assumptions About Screen Time For Kids

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
bryanandaimee shares a report from ScienceDaily:
A Finnish study has found an unexpected association between screen use and cognitive performance. Children who accumulated more screen time as they grew up tended to show better cognitive processing during adolescence. One of the researchers cautions against viewing screen time as entirely harmful and says the goal should be to balance physical activity with screen use that encourages active thinking. […] “The findings suggest that screen time can support children’s and adolescents’ cognitive processing. Presumably, the essential point here is what kind of things they do in their screen time. Teachers and parents should encourage children to use devices and screens in such ways that promote active thinking, problem-solving, creativity and learning,” states Doctoral Researcher Petri Jalanko from the University of Jyvaskyla.

Digital activities that involve learning, creativity, problem-solving, or other forms of active mental engagement could potentially help explain the association observed in the study. “We should not regard screen time solely as harmful but seek balance between physical activity and screen time that promotes active thinking,” Jalanko summarizes. The relationship between physical activity and cognition was more complicated. Among girls, greater amounts of light intensity physical activity since childhood were associated with better working memory during adolescence. Among boys, greater participation in guided physical activity from childhood through adolescence was linked to better working memory.

The researchers also found an unexpected pattern involving unsupervised exercise. Lower levels of self-reported unsupervised physical activity were associated with better cognitive processing in adolescence. By contrast, physical activity and sedentary time measured using a device that tracked heart rate and movement were not associated with cognitive processing. One possible explanation is that these sensors can measure movement and physiological activity but cannot determine exactly what a person is doing during periods of activity or inactivity.
The findings have been published in the journal Pediatric Exercise Science.

It’s conditioning during development

By Baron_Yam • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Whatever you focus on, you will get better at. You can play piano obsessively and never be Beethoven, but you will (eventually) acquire competence unless you have a significant mental impairment.

So why would we expect anything else from obsessive focusing during childhood and adolescence? Use your screens to watch interesting, thoughtful, or informative things and you’re conditioning your brain with those things. Use them to indulge your worst social instincts on social media and you’re going to get ‘better’ at that, which unfortunately means turning yourself into a miserable person.

Doing this as a kid, when you don’t have a couple of decades of other experiences under your belt to soften the impact makes it worse.

Finland provides far superior schools

By cosmicl • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
Just search it up. Finland provides really really good public primary and secondary schools and teachers for their kids. From Wiki… " All primary and secondary teachers must hold a master’s degree, and teaching is one of the most prestigious and selective professions in the country.” Kids in Finland learn how to learn. Most likely they are using more of their screen time for that.

Re:Its eggs the of 90s

By phantomfive • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

For individuals there really is only one reasonable course here. Ignore the sensational studies and news.

Man, if you’re getting your science information from news stories, the problem is you.

We live in a world where the actual study is a click away. At least read the abstract.

Rescue Mission Is Called Off For NASA’s Aging Swift Space Telescope

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
NASA has called off a $30 million mission to rescue its aging Swift space telescope after Katalyst Space’s Link spacecraft developed persistent control and positioning problems. The Associated Press reports:
Katalyst said Link will not attempt to capture Swift and boost it to a higher orbit because of problems with controlling the spacecraft. NASA said this means the telescope will plunge through the atmosphere after more than 20 years of tracking some of the biggest explosions in the universe like gamma ray bursts and exploding stars. Its demise is not expected before October.

NASA paid $30 million to Katalyst in an attempt to raise the telescope to a safer, longer-lasting orbit. Intense solar activity caused it to lose altitude faster than expected. The rescue spacecraft went into an uncontrollable spin a few weeks after its liftoff in early July. While flight controllers managed to slow Link’s tumble, issues continued to plague its pointing and positioning in orbit.

“This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement. As a consolation prize, Katalyst will continue to operate Link in proximity with the telescope to demonstrate capabilities for future rescue operations. Katalyst CEO Ghonhee Lee said it was an ambitious mission on an aggressive timeline that was thrown together in under a year. “We took on this high-risk, high-reward challenge and are proud of the milestones we reached along the way,” Lee said in a statement. “We have already learned a tremendous amount.”

A Contributor to Science

By LondoMollari • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Here’s a glass of port to Swift: its discoveries so sweet, results so intoxicating. You shall be missed but not forgotten.

Space telescopes will soon be much cheaper

By greytree • Score: 3, Informative Thread
Starship will soon be flinging stuff into space for pennies, which will also mean weight optimizations will be less necessary, so we can get better telescopes into orbit for much cheaper.

Re: Space telescopes will soon be much cheaper

By dargaud • Score: 5, Informative Thread
Haven’t you seen all the recent deep cuts to NASA science missions? And science in general. In some cases it will take over a generation to recover.

Re: Space telescopes will soon be much cheaper

By LindleyF • Score: 4, Funny Thread
Please don’t fling billions in of pennies into space.

Whistleblower Arturo Bejar Leads Testimony In Landmark Trial Against Meta

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR:
Meta was infused with a culture in which employees obsessed over user numbers and consistently pushed safety to the side, according to Arturo Bejar, a former employee turned whistleblower, who testified today in the landmark child safety trial against the social media company. Only one man had the ability to change that, Bejar said: CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But he didn’t. “At the end of the day, it was the company culture that Mark had created that made it so that it was practically impossible to deliver features that addressed the wellbeing and safety issues that we’ve been talking about,” he said.

Bejar is a linchpin witness for a consortium of states led by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey that sued Meta, alleging violations of consumer and child data protection laws, and that the company lied to the public about risks its platforms posed. The attorneys for the states say Meta designed Facebook and Instagram to hook young users and to keep them on site longer thanks to features such as infinite scrolling and the “like” button. Meta has denied the allegations. In his opening statement on Tuesday, attorney Paul Schmidt argued that the company was sensitive to the risks to teens, sought to address them and did not deceive the public about them. The state attorneys have not yet said if they will call Zuckerberg as a witness.

Testifying in federal court in Oakland, California, for a second day on Wednesday, Bejar, who worked on safety issues at Meta for eight years, said he interacted with Zuckerberg dozens of times, and charged that Zuckerberg was not telling the truth when he made public denials that the company put profits over safety. In particular, Bejar addressed a widely-shared Facebook post Zuckerberg made in 2021 after another whistleblower, Frances Haugen, shared internal documents with The Wall Street Journal that highlighted risks to the mental health of teens. In the post, Zuckerberg said it’s “just not true” that Meta prioritizes profit over safety and wellbeing. “Based on my experience at Meta, that is not an accurate statement,” Bejar said. […] Bejar testified, at almost every turn the company chose policies that boosted usership and revenue over safety. Safety was “not a meaningful priority,” he said.

Surprised

By commodore73 • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
Surprised he didn’t “suicide” before the trial. More power to people like this!

Good for Bejar

By dskoll • Score: 3 Thread

People like this witness are the heroes we need. I hope he has security, though. With this much at stake, I wouldn’t put anything past Meta or its political buddies.

PINE64 Halts Linux Device Production Amid DRAM and EMMC Shortages

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
BrianFagioli writes:
PINE64 has some very bad news for Linux hardware fans. PINE64 says it has no plans to produce additional Linux devices in the near future because of the ongoing DRAM and eMMC shortage. Future production will depend on component pricing after mid 2027, while existing PineNote and PineTab2 inventory could run out in roughly three months. The company says PineTime, PineVoice, and Pinecil production will continue as usual, but the outlook for its Linux hardware is much less certain.
“That’s it for this post, all in all it’s a bit bleak for the Linux devices, but in the meantime PineStore still have a great lineup of MCU powered devices which will continue to expand with more exciting devices,” the company said.

Oh no!

By drinkypoo • Score: 5, Funny Thread

Where will I get a SBC that fails after three months now?

Re:Isn’t capitalism supposed to fix this?

By Valgrus Thunderaxe • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
Because building more manufacturing capacity is a large expenditure and nobody wants to get stuck holding the cards if the AI boom turns into a bust.

The communists aren’t building any faster, either.

Re:Isn’t capitalism supposed to fix this?

By bill_mcgonigle • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

> We have a massive shortage why is nobody stepping up to make more supply?

Look up some stuff instead of just commie ranting.

Apple is testing supply from an up-and-coming DRAM supplier in China. Hynix is working on converting old fabs into a smaller process to create more fast RAM. TSMC is building a fab in Arizona. Samsung is opening a fab in Texas next year.

> the big three can anytime they want drastically increase production within 6 months to a year

Tell me you’ve never been to a fab without telling me you’ve never been to a fab.

If they could double their capacity Altman would buy *that* too. At least presume that the greedy capitalists are greedy.

> Capitalism needs a referee and US dumbasses fired the ref.

How, precisely, did they accomplish this coup in China?

Also, why not move to China, Cuba, or North Korea? They have varying degrees of central planning that should take care of your needs. Nobody wants you to be unhappy.

Re:Oh no!

By drinkypoo • Score: 4, Informative Thread

I bought a MiniPC from China instead, a GMKtec M5 Plus with 5825U, 32GB DDR4 and a 1TB NVMe SSD — for $295 right before everything went to shit. That one is out of production, but an equivalent machine is now $600. I’ve had it for over a year now with literally no problems.

The memory is 3.2 GHz, and despite being so cheap it doesn’t even report a manufacturer, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it. It’s got wifi 6 (MT7922) and dual 2.5 GbE (RTL8125) and the only thing that requires even a vaguely recent kernel is the wifi. It came with Windows, and I even shrank that just in case I’m ever desperate for a real Windows machine to flash some firmware or something, but ofc I’ve never needed or wanted to.

Too bad the combination of AI bullshit and tariff fuckery has doubled the price, I’d buy another similar machine.

PINE64 products are not that great

By dskoll • Score: 3 Thread

I had a Pinebook PRO and it was… meh. Way too slow and underpowered for modern web browsing. Also shipped with Manjaro, but I’m a Debian fan. I installed Armbian instead; PINE64 doesn’t offer much in the way of hardware documentation and so I spent a fair bit of time getting Armbian to work. I had to munge the device tree files based on the ones in Manjaro. I ended up selling the laptop.

In retrospect, I probably should have hung on to it. I could probably sell it for more now!

Stripe Buys AI Startup OpenRouter For $7.5 Billion

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Stripe is acquiring AI model marketplace OpenRouter as it pushes beyond payments into the infrastructure behind AI applications. According to The New York Times, the deal is reportedly valued at about $7.5 billion, with $1.5 billion allocated to OpenRouter’s founders. Less than three months ago the company was valued at about $1.3 billion. CNBC reports:
OpenRouter has become popular with developers seeking to use AI models, particularly those considered non-proprietary and available for free. Many of these so-called open-weight AI models stem from Chinese labs like DeepSeek and Z.ai, which have gained steam among developers for generally being more cost-efficient relative to proprietary AI models from U.S. companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.

In a blog post about the deal, Stripe noted that it’s been working with companies to “optimize their token costs and route tokens efficiently,” referring to a kind of metric used to measure AI model usage. Stripe said it’s difficult to manage AI costs relative to performance because of the rapid “pace at which models are released and repriced.” […]

OpenRouter said in a blog post that combining with Stripe will help with its overall vision of “a healthy AI ecosystem where many models thrive, where AI neurodiversity is a strength, where a lab or an inference provider with a breakthrough can reach millions of developers, and where no single model becomes the default by inertia.”
“Stripe is building the economic infrastructure for AI, and together with OpenRouter we’ll help businesses maximize profitability by routing their requests intelligently and spending their tokens efficiently,” Stripe CEO Patrick Collison said in a statement.

A company buying another company

By rsilvergun • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
For well over a billion dollars should be something you read once or twice in your lifetime not daily news.

Market consolidation is killing us all. And we’re too much of a bunch of pussies and or idiots to do anything about it.

Closed-source software outlets called Open-yada

By Rujiel • Score: 3 Thread
are a plague on this earth

This isn’t a comical bubble at all

By zeeky boogy doog • Score: 3 Thread
According to The New York Times, the deal is reportedly valued at about $7.5 billion, with $1.5 billion allocated to OpenRouter’s founders. Less than three months ago the company was valued at about $1.3 billion. CNBC reports:

This is normal, non-insane valuation in a market that is definitely not a bubble more inflated that the Bootes supervoid.

Used them a few times

By ZipNada • Score: 3 Thread

I have a couple of projects that need raw access to an appropriate AI model and OpenRouter can get that for you. And they do make it very convenient. You put some cash in your account with them and use their API to get access to whichever model you happen to choose at the time. It shows the prices clearly, so you can experiment to find one that works well for your purposes and is as inexpensive as possible. I didn’t bother to write the code that interfaces with OpenRouter of course, I used AI for that.

I am frankly amazed at the $billions that were spent to buy this thing. It’s really just a router for AI prompts and a convenient way to pay for the service, and they take a little cream off the top like a credit card agency. But I guess this is what attracted Stripe, which acts as a payment intermediary for all kinds of things. Stripe probably had very little expertise in the AI arena and this was an easy though expensive way in to the modern paradigm of paying for AI as a commodity.

Amazon’s Drones Will Soon Deliver to Nearly 500 US Cities and Towns

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Amazon says its Prime Air drone delivery service will expand sixfold to nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026, including metro areas around Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Boise. According to Amazon Prime Air vice president David Carbon, the service has already delivered “hundreds of thousands of packages to customers” this year, typically within about an hour. The Verge reports:
These will join 11 locations across the US where Amazon already offers drone deliveries, with each Prime Air site serving an area of approximately 175 square miles. The service aims to quickly deliver packages of up to 5 pounds or less […]. Amazon reiterated its drone safety features alongside these expansion plans, including Prime Air’s “industry-leading Detect-and-Avoid system.” That’s likely an attempt to minimize any concerns raised by the communities where the service is expanding, given these drones have already been scrutinized for crashing into cranes, internet cables, gardens, and an apartment building.

Cities?

By nospam007 • Score: 3, Insightful Thread

I doubt it.

When companies throw around terms like “cities and towns” for drone logistics, they are usually talking about sprawling suburban developments with neat, wide-open lawns, not dense urban cores.

Even with this big rollout targeting nearly 500 communities, the operational reality dictates where these things can actually land:

The Footprint Illusion:

Amazon isn’t building 500 new drone stations; they are counting every municipality touched by a regional network.

A single facility covers a massive swath of territory (roughly 175 square miles), which inevitably zeroes in on the suburbs and outer rings of places like Atlanta, Chicago, and Dallas rather than downtown high-rises.

The Landing Zone Problem: For a drone to safely drop a package (even a modest 5-pound shoebox-sized item), it needs a clear, unobstructed patch of ground free of overhead power lines, tight balconies, narrow alleyways, and inquisitive pets.

Try finding a reliable 2-meter drop zone in a dense neighborhood.
Not to mention it being a porch-pirate’s wet dream.

cnbc also reporting

By stabiesoft • Score: 3 Thread
the same but what caught my eye was “will make 1 million drone deliveries this year.” https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/1… Well that sounds great, except even at 10 bucks/delivery that is only 10M/year. Which seems pretty low for a project that has cost this much. And is 1M deliveries even a blip on their daily deliveries? I could believe they deliver 10M pkgs per day and this is 1M pkgs per year.

Re:Cities?

By dgatwood • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

When companies throw around terms like “cities and towns” for drone logistics, they are usually talking about sprawling suburban developments with neat, wide-open lawns, not dense urban cores.

Well, yeah, but those are still cities. Almost twice as many people live in parts of cities that are not “dense urban cores”.

And the dense areas involve apartment complexes with hundreds or thousands of units and interior halls, so they’re not delivering one package to the building; they’re delivering a hundred. It wouldn’t make sense to send drones for that.

But if you can handle the suburban sprawl with drones, that’s a huge logistics win, because that’s where all the time is spent — not by somebody going to an urban-core building and dropping a hundred packages in the mail room, but by somebody going to a hundred individual houses and dropping off a hundred packages one at a time.

Air density and wind

By michael_cain • Score: 3 Thread
I live along the Colorado Front Range. The Goodyear blimps don’t fly here because of the elevation (reduces lift) and number of wind events with gusts to 60 mph. I will be curious to see if drone delivery is practical.

Diverse hazards

By dsgrntlxmply • Score: 3 Thread
I happen to live across the road from a 115 kV power line, large trees, and the battlefields of inter- and intra- species crow wars. These crows have a very particular set of skills.

Music Publisher Round Hill Files $1 Billion Copyright Infringement Suits Against Suno, Anthropic

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Independent music publisher Round Hill is suing Suno and Anthropic for allegedly using hundreds of copyrighted songs without permission to train their AI systems. The company says potential damages could exceed $1 billion, arguing there is “nothing fair” about building multibillion-dollar AI businesses on copyrighted material while rights holders receive nothing. From The Hollywood Reporter:
Round Hill is a prominent music publisher whose copyrights include the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris,” Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” the Kinks’ “Lola” and Dio’s “Holy Diver.” The company provided a list of 500 songs that the defendants had infringed upon. Round Hill said in the suits that the company plans to “amend to list potentially ten thousand or more of their musical compositions,” with those damages potentially exceeding $1 billion. “While in other cases for copyright infringement, Defendant has waxed poetic about the necessity of progress and AI’s value to society, there is simply no reason — other than rote expediency — to have that progress come at the cost of copyrights holders,” prominent music attorney Richard Busch, representing Round Hill, wrote in the suits.

Round Hill further argued that the latter "‘expediency’ arguments completely falter” when taking into account Suno and Anthropic’s significant cash valuations they’ve earned while “exploiting illicit copies of copyrighted works, including the Round Hill Works.” “There is simply nothing fair about a company using theft to build for purely commercial purposes a multi-billion dollar business while those from which they steal receive nothing,” Round Hill said.
Suno also faces a lawsuit from Universal Music Group and Sony Music Group.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

By Local ID10T • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Their argument is (financially) motivated reasoning blatantly ignoring the fact that their artists creations would not exist without the contributions of the artists who came before them.

None of this exists in a vacuum.

Training is analogous to learning. We all learn from others. This is legal.

What is not legal is reproducing and selling someone else’s work without permission (copyright infringement), or claiming someone else’s work as your own (plagiarism is also copyright infringement).

Re:Standing on the shoulders of giants

By Pinky’s Brain • Score: 4, Informative Thread

Copyright is about reproduction, no distribution necessary.

Fair use is their only defence in the US.

Re:Standing on the shoulders of giants

By gweihir • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Training is analogous to learning.

No. Stop pushing that utterly stupid statement. It has neither factual nor legal merit.

Re: Standing on the shoulders of giants

By drinkypoo • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

We don’t know how the brain works so no it isn’t modeled on the brain.

We don’t know how learning works but the brain does things with what you’ve learned that LLMs can’t do, so it’s surely not working in the same way.

Re:Standing on the shoulders of giants

By Local ID10T • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Copyright is about reproduction, no distribution necessary.

That distinction is a recent invention. Copyright originally came about as a response to the invention of the printing press, and the subsequent publishing (for sale) of books without compensation to the authors. It was expressly about distribution for profit.

Fair use is their only defence in the US.

When we in the US created our copyright laws, we expressly stated the purpose as “to promote the progress of science, art, and useful knowledge.” Building on what was done before was the core of US copyright law. …which is where the idea of “fair use” comes from.

CISA: Medusa Ransomware Hit Over 500 Critical Infrastructure Orgs

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
CISA says the Medusa ransomware operation has breached more than 500 U.S. critical infrastructure organizations since 2021, up from more than 300 reported last year. The group has targeted healthcare, government, defense, manufacturing, IT and financial organizations, evolving into a ransomware-as-a-service operation that recruits initial-access brokers and uses stolen data to pressure victims into paying. BleepingComputer reports:
The three federal agencies recommended that network defenders secure their networks against the ransomware group’s attacks by mitigating security vulnerabilities to protect operating systems, software, and firmware from exploitation attempts. Security teams are also advised to segment networks to block lateral movement after compromise and to block access from untrusted origins to remote services on internal systems.

[…] “Medusa developers typically recruit initial access brokers (IABs) in cybercriminal forums and marketplaces to obtain initial access to potential victims,” the advisory says. “Potential payments between $100 USD and $1 million USD are offered to these affiliates with the opportunity to work exclusively for Medusa.”

This Is What I Expect For My Tax Dollars

By SlashbotAgent • Score: 4, Informative Thread

The three federal agencies recommended that network defenders secure their networks against the ransomware group’s attacks by mitigating security vulnerabilities to protect operating systems, software, and firmware from exploitation attempts.

Patch your shit. That’ll be $1 billion, please.

Moderna, Merck Say mRNA Vaccine Prevents Melanoma From Returning

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Moderna and Merck say their personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine significantly reduced both cancer recurrence and spread in a late-stage trial. The treatment could reach patients as soon as next year if regulators approve it. Reuters reports:
Moderna developed the vaccine with Merck and tested it together with immunotherapy drug Keytruda, a widely used treatment for melanoma. […] This is the first positive late-stage trial result for an mRNA cancer vaccine, which trains a patient’s immune system to fight tumors by targeting specific mutations in those cells and the first such study to show that adding a treatment to Keytruda worked better than that therapy alone. Similar approaches are being tested against lung, breast and pancreatic cancers.

[…] The cancer treatment combines Merck’s Keytruda with a made-to-order mRNA vaccine from Moderna that is based on an analysis of mutations found in the patients’ own tumors. The trial enrolled 1,137 high-risk patients with stage IIB-IV melanoma that had been surgically removed. Volunteers were randomized to receive up to nine doses of Keytruda plus the personalized vaccine or Keytruda alone for about one year. The companies said no new safety signals have emerged in the trial. In January, the companies announced results of a mid-stage trial of the treatment showing that it reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 49% after five years.
Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, said the Moderna results could signal a new era for treating solid-tumor cancers. “The positive hit here leads us into truly this next phase in immunotherapy,” Knudsen said. “This is an auspicious start — this is where things begin.”
Moderna shares more than doubled on the news, adding about $30 billion to its market value.

Sad that a company that actually does something

By ebunga • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

I think it’s sad that once again we have a company that is providing a direct benefit to the world and they’re worth only $30b when you have shitty AI companies that make the world a worse place that are worth many times that.

How this may play out

By JoshuaZ • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
If this works well, similar methods will likely work for other cancers also. Unfortunately, since it requires an individual design for a specific person, it likely is going to not benefit much from economies of scale, so it may remain very expensive. Also, given that it uses mRNA, it is likely that parts of the US right will either refuse to use it or will try to block it. Given RFK Jr. being in the Secretary of Health, what should be a slam dunk may end up becoming an uphill battle. On the bright side, some of the anti-vaxxers seem to be ok with mRNA systems once someone already has a disease.

This is amazing news!

By 93 Escort Wagon • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

… or would be, under any other presidential administration.

Still, the rest of the world can certainly benefit from it.

Re:Sad that a company that actually does something

By quantaman • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

This is why a lot of chronic diseases will NEVER have cures. It’s more profitable to treat than to cure. Treat someone over a lifetime and milk 100k out of them. Treat someone once and present them with a 100k price tag to pay all at once and the consumer or insurance company will balk at the cost.

It’s a fun conspiracy theory, but this is actually just how biology works.

There’s basically four kinds of things that can go wrong with our bodies. Infections, mechanical issues, system errors, and cancer.

Infections we can cure by helping the body to kill off the infection, it’s only some rare stubborn ones like AIDS that are chronic like you describe.

Mechanical issues we can fix with surgery.

System errors? That’s stuff like genetic disorders where our body creates too much of hormone A or doesn’t create the proper form of protein B. The problem is in our DNA and you can’t cure it without rewriting our DNA (which we’re getting to).

And then there’s cancers, which are similar to infections, where we try to kill it (as they’re doing here), though weirdly, some research suggests treating it as a chronic issue might be better for the patients.

In either case, it’s not the fact that pharma is deciding "don’t make a pill to cure it, just find a lifetime treatment!". It’s only in the past few years that we’re reaching the point where we can actually cure things that were traditionally chronic.

Re:How this may play out

By dgatwood • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

I don’t think that’s correct? Possibly I’m misreading this, but it looks like the study involved giving two things, both the Keytruda, and a separate personalized vaccine.

You’re not misreading it. It is individualized. Different cancers express different antigens, and the mRNA vaccine needs to construct something that expresses those same antigens to train the immune system to attack them.

The nice thing about mRNA, is that it is potentially relatively cheap to synthesize mRNA strands and replicate them. It won’t be hundreds of dollars, but it won’t be millions, either. Right now, I think it’s hundreds of thousands per patient, but that will go down over time as they streamline the process of taking a sample of the tumor and determining an mRNA gene sequence that matches said cancer. And economies of scale on the equipment will also probably help.

It may also be the case that it becomes less individualized over time. At some point, we might reach the point where they have a bunch of pre-sequenced antigens that are all ready to go, and someone just keys in a list of antigens, and a piece of software spits out the mRNA sequence. At that point, it is still individualized, but with a much, much more streamlined process for generating it.

Note that I don’t work in this field, so take all of this as the opinion of an educated layperson observer. :-)

X’s Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media:
X’s algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper, titled Value misalignment of X’s feed algorithm is a reflection of value tensions in engagement, found that the site’s algorithm prioritized engagement above all else when it generated a user’s For You Page. It also showed that X serves more ragebait to people who say they are Democrats, although the exact reason for that is unclear.
“In 2026 that’s maybe not the most surprising headline ever,” Ziv Epstein, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, and co-author of the paper, told 404 Media. “So we actually dug in a little deeper to figure out why this is actually happening, and it turns out that X’s feed algorithm, like a lot of these social media algorithms, is optimized for engagement [but] it turns out that not all types of engagement are considered equally.”
The researchers found that X’s algorithm can push users toward content that conflicts with their stated values, especially when they reply to posts that anger or provoke them. Although replies accounted for just 6.8% of interactions, they appeared to carry disproportionate weight: “It’s this feedback loop of outrage baiting. The algorithm learns that you get outraged and then continues to serve more content in that direction,” said Epstein.

It’s unclear why X seems to serve ragebait to Democrats more often than Republicans. 404 Media speculates that it may be because there’s more rightwing content on X overall or that Democrats tend to engage with posts they disagree with more often. “There might be some kind of differential effects on information diets there, or it might be something more psychological about how different you know partisan identities are triggering different kinds of actions and reactions, but ultimately I don’t want to speculate too much,” said Epstein.

X’s former product chief Nikita Bier confirmed that the site had been set to favor replies. “This is no longer true,” Bier said in a post on X. “The largest contributor of seeing ragebait was the reply predictor and we were aware that angry replies were causing people to see more of that content. So last month, we gave the reply predictor a 15x boost if it’s a friend’s post — and it reduced ragebait by [an] order of magnitude.”

Different responses

By fahrbot-bot • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

It’s unclear why X seems to serve ragebait to Democrats more often than Republicans. 404 Media speculates that it may be because there’s more rightwing content on X overall or that Democrats tend to engage with posts they disagree with more often.

Republicans instead storm The Capital, assault police and threaten to hang the Vice President - then get pardoned by a Republican. Or conspire to kidnap governors… Yes, I’m painting Republicans with a broad brush, but a LOT of them aren’t denouncing those people and keep supporting the party.

Re:Is it ragebait, or

By Powercntrl • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Is it content they just don’t like?

The Republican Party itself has become a purveyor of ragebait. This is from the campaign website of the man who just won Florida’s gubernatorial primary:

From the State House to the US House, Byron has a proven record of standing up for our values. From defending Second Amendment rights, to protecting life, and to keeping radical woke ideology out of schools, Byron will always fight the Left’s agenda.

Look, I’m totally fine with seeing political positions that I disagree with. That’s how political discourse in a democracy is supposed to work. The example I just quoted though, is intentionally inflammatory.

Re:Different responses

By drinkypoo • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Don’t forget about getting a pardon via autopen!

In case you’re serious, or for those that don’t know, that’s allowed.

In case you’re serious, and don’t already know, the basis of the joke that wooshed you is that Trump said Biden’s pardons weren’t valid because (he claimed) they were done with autopen. Then he pardoned all of the J6ers with the autopen.

Re:Simple truth is ragebait to all partisans.

By dgatwood • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Of course it serves more ragebait for Democrats and probably a lot of Republican socialists, too. Most of X is going to be considered ragebait for them. I mean they are going to hate that people are practicing with and enjoying firearms.

About 20% of Democrats own firearms. So no, they won’t. But implying that Democrats are going to be up in arms because they’re somehow so fragile that the idea of people using firearms would cause them crippling pain is rage baiting. Please stop.

They are going to hate to hear Libertarians tell the truth about COVID.

They are going to hear people who have not actually read any of the scientific papers tell what a bunch of people pushing an agenda on YouTube claim is the truth about COVID. FTFY.

They are going to hate to hear about the true source of Inflation (Government).

Does anyone actually disagree with that?

They are going to hate to see folks be told about migrant crisis in Europe and about the ICE sending migrants in the US packing.

What migrant crisis? You mean that immigrants initially may cost more than they contribute, but in the long term, contribute more than they cost? This is just an economics lesson and has zero to do with ICE rounding people up who are legally allowed to be here and who have harmed no one, terminating their right to be here, and deporting them, often to countries where they are then immediately imprisoned or killed, or to countries where they don’t speak the language, or other fundamental human rights abuses. This has zero to do with the upsurge in underage pregnancies occurring in ICE detention because of illegally unsafe conditions. This has zero to do with deaths occurring in ICE detention because of illegally denying prisoners access to adequate medical care. And so on.

What you’re missing is that the left doesn’t object to deporting dangerous people. The left doesn’t even object to deporting people en masse so long as they are granted their constitutional right to a fair hearing and due process. What the left objects to are gestapo tactics, illegally rounding college students on valid student visas in the middle of the night and deporting them on a bench warrant obtained under false pretense, locking people in cages at density that exceeds what any sane person would consider humane treatment, illegal discharge of firearms resulting in death of unarmed civilians, and any number of other criminal acts committed by ICE in their war on non-white people.

If you want to change policy, change policy. But change it above the board, through actions by Congress, and make those changes explicitly non-retroactive. Don’t treat people like garbage. If you do that, the left won’t have a problem with you. They might disagree with you, but they will not be offended by you. What offends the left is when the right shows disrespect and contempt for them. And they should be offended by that, because not respecting others is per se offensive.

They are going to really dislike when they see how little respect anyone has for “trans” anything and how much of a joke they consider it.

They’re going to dislike it because disrespecting people is a sin. They might not use the word “sin”, but the moral argument is the same.

They don’t want folks learning that the last 26 years we’ve had more H1B visas than jobs created in IT in the USA.

Do you think H1-B reduction is a left-right thing? It isn’t. It’s a corporate-sponsored-politicians versus everyone else thing. The voters on the left don’t like H1-Bs, either. They just dislike them for different reasons than the right does. The right dislikes H1-Bs because they bring in more immigrants. The left dislikes H1-Bs because they trap immigrants in jobs and make transferring hard, which makes it possible for companies to mistreat them, not pay them a fair wage, etc. The only people who like them are the ones who are in the pockets of the companies that take advantage of them as a cost-reduction tool.

They are going to hate the anti-communism sentiments. The anti-war vibe will piss off both sets of partisans who have their pet wars. The pro-drug attitudes will also cause Republican head-explosions.

Not many people in the U.S. like communism. The problem comes from folks on the right painting everything they don’t like as communist, and from painting socialism with the same brush. They are not the same. Socialism is a spectrum, with the moderate end wanting things like guaranteed medical care, K-12 schooling, TVA, police and fire protection, etc. and the extreme end wanting governments to buy all the big companies and give the money back to the people.

A lot of folks on the right paint even the moderate end as communism, which is an attitude that’s far-removed from any reasoned analysis of objective reality. And they do this because blowhard politicians use the word “communism” as a shibboleth/dog whistle, along with words like “woke”, “DEI”, etc., deliberately distorting the meaning of words to score cheap political points. It’s not the positions the right takes that offend the left. It is the massively distorted caricatures of the left’s positions that the right has to use to scare people into voting for them.

There honestly isn’t much there for them. I mean it’s mostly just the truth about what’s really going on. I’m sure they are going to hate that. I’ve gotta say, fuck the both of them and I’m super glad they’re mad. Truth is treason in an empire of lies.

I haven’t seen a whole lot of truth coming out of X. I’ve mostly seen a lot of people who think they’re speaking the truth, whose entire premise could be torn down by a mountain of studies proving conclusively that they’re wrong, were it not for the fact that the people arguing the other side are also arguing from ignorance. To be fair, this pretty much describes political discussions on the Internet in general, not just X.

Re: Anyone surprised?

By Powercntrl • Score: 5, Informative Thread

Easily observed reality shows that people that constantly block the right wing trolls and dipshits get nothing but right-wing dipshittery in their “For you” feeds, and suggestions to follow right-wing dipshits.

X’s algorithm is right-wing trolls all the way down. Hilariously, most of them aren’t even in the US.

Army Unit Offers 4-Day Pass to Play GTA VI As Reenlistment Incentive

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
A U.S. Army battalion at Fort Stewart is offering soldiers a four-day pass timed to the release of Grand Theft Auto VI if they reenlist for at least two years. The program is limited to one unit for now, but it fits the Army’s broader effort to appeal to gamers as a recruiting and retention pool. CBS News reports:
Twenty soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia in the Army’s 9th Brigade Engineering Battalion, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, have already chosen this incentive as part of their reenlistment, an Army spokesperson told CBS News on Wednesday. “The idea was to have a unique incentives program that connects to what Soldiers are interested in,” Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, a spokesperson for the 3rd Infantry Division, said in a statement. “The command team, in conjunction with the career counselor, wanted to get soldiers excited to reenlist.”

[…] The Army memo, which has circulated online, says any soldier who signs a reenlistment contract between Aug. 1, 2026 and Nov. 14 will be authorized for a special four-day pass designated to coincide with “the highly anticipated release of the video game Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6).” About 130 soldiers are currently eligible for the incentive, Tomko said. Eligible soldiers must reenlist for a minimum of two years and up to six years.

It’s a game to die for I guess

By ebunga • Score: 5, Funny Thread

Or maybe that’s just the ram needed to play the game.

Hope Rockstar doesn’t miss the release date

By Powercntrl • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

So, sign up for two years of military service and get authorized leave for 4 days to play a video game? I guess if that really is the deciding factor to enlist, you probably are just the kind of person the army is looking for.

What a benefit!

By dgatwood • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

I mean sure, I might die in a pointless war in Iran that wouldn’t have been necessary if the same guy who started this war hadn’t ripped up the nuclear agreements we had previously with Iran the last time he was in charge, but think about getting to play a video game for FOUR WHOLE DAYS!

But in all seriousness, the main motivation for joining the military continues to be money. So I guess if they were planning to play GTA anyway, that’s like extra free money, so maybe it might tip the balance for a few people… but I doubt it will rise above the noise floor. Politics, active wars, etc. also don’t usually rise above the noise floor, surprisingly.

The only big factor in recruiting is the economy. When the job market is good, recruiting drops. When the job market stinks, recruiting increases. So if they really want to increase military recruiting, all they have to do is tank the job market further, and it will happen naturally.

Meanwhile, in the Navy …

By fahrbot-bot • Score: 5, Funny Thread

Sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln get to be NPCs in GTA VI for four days, which is a step-up from current living conditions there.

Re:What a benefit!

By dgatwood • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Mod parent Funny, though “continues to be money” was a bit annoying or something. Or maybe my case is too weird or too ancient? Even worse, it was an open contract with no special incentives. (And none of that insane “Thank you for your service” garbage in those days.)

It’s a statistically correct statement, at least post-1973. When asked what the main consideration for joining was, money was the top answer, and IIRC more than half gave that answer. The military is a steady job and provides other financial-adjacent benefits, such as the G.I. Bill paying for higher education. And when there aren’t so many steady jobs out there, that makes it more compelling.

Not saying it’s the only reason, just that it is one of the larger influencing factors in how well the military is able to recruit.

Chinese Robotics Giant Unitree Soars In Stock Market Debut

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Chinese robotics giant Unitree surged more than 600% in its Shanghai stock market debut, marking the first mainland Chinese listing by a humanoid robot maker and a major milestone for Beijing’s robotics ambitions. The BBC reports:
Unitree, officially known as Yushu Technology Co Ltd, was founded in 2016 and now plays a key role in Beijing’s ambitions to develop advanced technology. It has become a robotics industry leader, selling devices from sensors and automated arms to four-legged and human-like machines. The firm shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots last year as demand for the technology grows.

Unitree is one of the few companies in the sector to make money, delivering a net profit of 278 million yuan in 2025. It is a fierce rival to developers in the US as it produces robots with similar features but at lower prices. The company is based in Hangzhou, in eastern China. The region is home to a so-called golden cluster zone of robotics firms, which have benefited from huge government investments. That support helped drive a more than threefold increase in the number of Chinese robotics firms between 2020 and 2024, according to state-run China Daily.

[…] Unitree’s robot dogs start at $2,700, a fraction of the roughly $70,000 price tag for Boston Dynamics’ four-legged device, Spot. “They’re not exactly comparable because some of Unitree’s dogs are much smaller,” [said Harold Soh, a researcher from the National University of Singapore]. “But the price is a big difference.” Unitree has been selling humanoid robots since 2023, with its $13,500 child-sized G1 model hitting the market the following year. Meanwhile, major US rivals — including Elon Musk’s Tesla — have yet to start delivering rival products.

[…] Some experts expect Unitree’s market debut to be a gauge of investor appetite for the fast-growing humanoid robotics sector. The listing has given the public a rare chance to invest in a humanoid robotics company and could set a benchmark for other manufacturers, said Jack Pearson from investment firm RoboStrategy. The listing also marks a “turning point” for China’s robotics industry, as Unitree’s success comes even as the US is curbing imports of foreign-made robots, Pearson said.

The US is screwed

By Puls4r • Score: 3 Thread
Immense vertical integration. China’s industrial base. Huge support by the Chinese government. Low cost manufacturing, with a low paid work force. Subsidized pricing to get market share. Stolen intellectual property. Yeah - China’s going to win every time with that recipe.

Re:The US is screwed

By ArchieBunker • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

In the USA these companies maximize profits above all else. They have no long term goals or planning. Now that China is besting them on quality and efficiency all they can do is cry to daddy Trump for the ban hammer. In the 70s Japan started cranking out cheap and reliable cars and caught the makers of land yachts off guard. It happened again with Harley Davidson in the 80s who went crying to Reagan.

Babies Born Under Sugar Rationing Grew Into Adults With Lower Cancer Risk

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
A study of more than 64,000 people born around the end of Britain’s postwar sugar rationing found that those exposed to less sugar during their first 1,000 days had lower rates of five cancers decades later, including roughly 69% lower liver cancer risk and 36% lower breast cancer risk. They also “showed signs of slower biological aging” and “continued to consume less sugar and had healthier diets overall,” according to the authors of a new study published in The Conversation. From the report:
After the second world war, sugar remained rationed in Britain for several years. But in September 1953, rationing ended and people started eating a lot more sugar. Consumption nearly doubled. This meant that children born just a few months apart had very different levels of sugar exposure both in the womb and during early childhood. For our study, we used data from over 64,000 people born in Britain between 1951 and 1956. Those born earlier spent a larger share of their first 1,000 days under sugar rationing, while those born later experienced progressively less of it.

[…] What is most surprising, however, is not the cancer results or the biological markers of ageing. It’s how early-life sugar exposure continued to affect people’s diets even 50 years later. We found that people who experienced sugar rationing early in life still consumed less sugar in adulthood, around age 50. They also ate less overall, and their diets were healthier and more diverse. This suggests that the level of sweetness people are exposed to very early in life may shape their taste preferences for a long time.

Re:Or

By sg_oneill • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

So the study does actually address that , and found that indeed people who didnt eat the sugar in those first 3 years tended to consume less later in life.

Annecdotally (which isnt evidence!) that rings true to me. My mother was pretty strict on no sugar and minimal salt (in the 1970s the thinking on salt linked it a lot closer to heart disease than current thinking does which has de-emphasized that a little), and nowdays I pretty much never put it in my food and shy away from sweet food, and use pretty minimal salt.

With all that said, the study does mention that children exposed to less sugar in early childhood appeared to have longer telemeres and that there is likely the smoking gun on the early childhood / sugar link, as theres a pretty well established link between telemere length and cancer succeptibility in late life. Essentially the telemeres are the caps on the end the genomes, and the longer they are, the better protected the ends of the genome are from copying errors. Its also closely associated with the hayflick limit (essentially how many copies a cell can make before it shits the bed).

Re:Or

By Rei • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

“It suggests” if you ignore that their confounder control is terrible. First, sugar wasn’t the only restricted food in post-war Britain - there was also rationing of eggs, butter, cheese and meats that ended during the same timeperiod. So you’re not actually testing the effects of sugar consumption, now are you? Also, the early 1950s was a period of rapid change in the US, including the maturation and expansion of the NHS (founded in 1948), the introduction of new childhood vaccines, major environmental shifts (for example, the Great Smog of London in 1952 vs. the 1956 Clean Air Act). Saying “all changes = sugar” just based on birthdate seems absurd.

It’s also worth mentioning that there’s also survivorship bias - anyone who died before the study couldn’t be enrolled, and there’s also no actual linking to any maternal / childhood dietary logs. Also, the ratios of cancer differences they’re describing aren’t small, they’re massive. Are we to attribute a lung cancer difference on the order of smoking vs. nonsmoking households as being to sugar, or due to, you know, smoking (or pollution) trends not accounted for in their cohort?

A life without sugar

By zawarski • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Is not worth living.

This is not surprising

By dskoll • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Inflammation increases the risk of cancer, and sugar increases inflammation, so it’s not too surprising.

Re:Or

By taustin • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

The question is, does sugar intake early in life shorten telemeres, or does having longer telemeres reduce the sweet tooth? (It seems likely that there’s a genetic component to the length, so if the child has longer telemeres, the parents should, too, resulting in a more sugar free home environment.)

Physicists Entangle Quantum Memories Across a Record-Breaking 420 Kilometers

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot
alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org:
Optical fibers are already the backbone of global communication systems. Recently, however, physicists have started to explore how their functionality could be boosted further by conveying information via entangled quantum particles — potentially enabling instantaneous exchanges of information across vast distances. Such a system could eventually be the basis of a future ‘quantum internet,’ offering a level of security and computing power beyond anything possible today. In new research published in Physical Review Letters, a team led by Xi-Yu Luo at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei has pushed that vision further than ever, entangling two quantum memories across 420 kilometers (261 miles) of optical fiber — more than four times the previous record.

Once again

By T34L • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Entangled quantum particles do not allow for faster than light communication. They allow you to be sure that once you collapse the quantum state on one end, it has been or will be the same one on the other end too. The moment you entagle two states, you know they’re the same (or “matching”, which can also mean opposite depending on the states) without actually measuring either of them (where measuring does require destroying them).

A quantum state is like a scrach lottery ticket. You don’t know if it’s gonna win on lose until you scratch it and essentially invalidate it as a “playable” lottery ticket. Quantum entanglement allows you to “clone” tickets without actually scratching them, but you won’t know if they’re winners or losers, just that they match.

Disgusting summary

By cfalcon • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

“potentially enabling instantaneous exchanges of information across vast distances”

NO this has nothing to do with that. This is the first slashdot post in memory that should be fucking deleted. Disgraceful.

Re:Once again

By gargleblast • Score: 5, Informative Thread
Yeah this furphy comes up all the time. Entanglement is not teleportation.
Teleportation (which, let us say, is faster-than-light transmission) is: Carol writes Y therefore Ted reads Y
Entanglement is : Alice reads X therefore Bob reads X
Entanglement and teleportation are not the same. Moreso, entanglement cannot be used for teleportation..

Stop lying!

By Fly Swatter • Score: 3 Thread
instantaneous exchanges this is false unless you consider shipping a matching marble by snail mail to a friend and when they finally get to open the package they get to see the color of the marble. Where is the instant part?

Also this is a read-once-and-it-is-done scenario. That’s ok for sending a password key but this is not instant communication, this is one-way and communication as we all expect it is two-way.

Re:Disgusting summary

By votsalo • Score: 4, Informative Thread

“potentially enabling instantaneous exchanges of information across vast distances”

This is quoted from the phys.org article. It wasn’t added in the summary.