Telescope #125

Lets begin with a great news…

The Oxford Dictionary has chosen “brain output,” which has taken on new meaning on social media, as its word of the year. More than 37,000 people voted to help choose the winner from a shortlist of six words written by Oxford University Press, publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary. This 170-year period marks the continuation of the various mental capacities of the first person, as well as the accumulation of unnecessary content. DETAIL

SUSTAINABILITY

• BNP Paribas Asset Management (BNPP AM) has launched its first infrastructure private equity fund, the BNP Paribas Low Carbon Transition Infra Equity Fund I, targeting €750M to advance Europe’s energy transition. Backed by a €400M anchor commitment from the BNP Paribas Group, the fund aims to build a diversified portfolio of 8-12 equity investments in mid-market capital-intensive infrastructure projects. DETAIL
• A PwC Luxembourg report reveals that 55% of FY2024 companies foresee challenges in maintaining data quality and consistency as they prepare for Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) compliance. The directive mandates transparent ESG reporting, pushing businesses to integrate sustainability into their operations and value creation strategies. DETAIL
• The World Bank has reached a $100 billion funding target for its lending arm dedicated to the world’s poorest countries, raising hopes for a boost in climate resilience financing. DETAIL
• Changes in cloud cover may account for why global temperatures for the past two years have exceeded the predictions of climate models. 2023 and 2024 saw temperature records repeatedly smashed, with both years now showing average temperatures around 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level. Climate change plus an El Ni?o weather pattern are partly to blame, but neither factor fully explains the extraordinary warmth. Now, researchers believe the answer lies in a sharp drop in low-lying cloud cover in 2023. This change reduced Earth’s albedo – the planet’s ability to reflect solar radiation back into space – causing an increase in temperatures. DETAIL

• The Arctic is known to be melting at an alarming rate. The region is losing its icy shield by 12% per decade due to excessive greenhouse gas emissions. The disappearance of Arctic sea ice could trigger a cascade of negative consequences, from disrupting global weather patterns to devastating Arctic ecosystems. DETAIL

• We are living through a period of unprecedented species extinction due to human-induced changes to the planet’s ecosystems. This is not the first time that human activities have fundamentally altered the relationships between land and life. The extirpation of bison from the North American West in the 19th century, illustrated by a famous photograph of the remains, is a prime example of catastrophic species loss. DETAIL

• Green reforms to a major energy treaty that has shielded oil and gas investments from climate regulation took a big step forward today, as the 51 governments of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) agreed to allow each other to remove protections for fossil fuels. DETAIL

HEALTH

• It is rare that a drug becomes a household name and even rarer for one to become a superstar, but with its ability to grab headlines, Ozempic is the Taylor Swift of pharmaceuticals. So just what lies behind its star power? Even as the drug and its derivatives take off, researchers are racing to find out how it works. Last year, Wegovy – a version of Ozempic approved for weight loss – was shown to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke by almost 20 per cent. The emergence of “Ozempic pregnancies” hinted at fertility benefits. People started noticing positive effects on depression and anxiety. In May, results showed it also slashed the risk of kidney failure and death in people with diabetes during a three-year trial. In July, another version of the drug was found to reduce brain shrinkage and slow cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease. DETAIL
• The H5N1 bird flu virus that has spread worldwide is already better at infecting people than earlier strains. What’s more, a single mutation could allow it to infect the cells lining our noses and throats, making it more likely to go airborne. This change alone is not enough for the virus to be capable of causing a pandemic. However, if a virus with this mutation swapped genes with a human flu virus, it could acquire this ability almost instantly. “The more people get infected, the more likely it is that something like this could arise,” says Ian Wilson at the Scripps Research Institute in California. DETAIL
• Bottlenose dolphins are swimming in drugs, including fentanyl, according to a team of researchers that recently examined 89 blubber samples from the iconic cetaceans. This finding suggests, drugs are flooding the ocean. DETAIL

• Health authorities are sounding the alarm after poliovirus was found in sewage in Germany, Poland, and Spain this autumn. DETAIL
• Visceral fat has been shown to contribute significantly to the relationship between high body mass index (BMI) and the accumulation of proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers from Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, presented results from three small studies at the Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, held between December 1–5. DETAIL

DIGITAL / TECHNOLOGY / SCIENCE / ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

• Researchers from METU aim to extend the charging time of mobile phones for one year with a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based neuristor device that they developed, inspired by the combination of memory and processing units in the human brain. Stating that the human brain consumes only 25 watts of energy, but when you try to do this with a processor that performs the same operations, 25 megawatts of energy are needed, the researchers said that the integration of the memory and processing unit in the brain is critical in terms of energy efficiency, and stated that if the transistors in mobile phones are replaced with MEMS neuristors, the phones will not need to be charged for one year. DETAIL
• China launched its first Long March 12 rocket Saturday, marking an advance in its crewed moon plans and the debut of a new spaceport that will boost the country’s access to space. The two-stage, 62-meter-tall Long March 12 lifted off at 9:25 a.m. Eastern (1425 UTC) Nov. 30 from the Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site. The rocket climbed into the night sky above the coastal spaceport, with amateur live streams from the area capturing the event. DETAIL
• Last November, the estates of two former UHC patients filed suit in Minnesota alleging that the insurer used an AI algorithm to deny and override claims to elderly patients that had been approved by their doctors. DETAIL
• OpenAI announced that it will begin a 12-day announcement series on December 5, where it will share new features and give demos via live streams. DETAIL
• New York City is a busy place, with too many cars and too few places to park them. That makes parking enforcement vital to the city. The local government took a big step to up its enforcement capabilities earlier this year when it began installing new AI-powered cameras on some of its buses. However, there have been issues. AI cameras used on a few certain routes incorrectly issued thousands of parking tickets to cars supposedly blocking the bus lanes. DETAIL

• AT&T aims to retire a majority of its old-school copper networks by 2029, which will involve moving users to wireless, fiber, and even satellite technology. DETAIL

ENERGY / TRANSPORTATION

• The US company Paraclete Energy has presented a study on its battery anode material called SILO Silicon. According to the study, the anode material has the potential to reduce the weight of batteries by 50 per cent. DETAIL

CYBERSECURITY

• Italy's data protection watchdog has warned Italian publisher GEDI not to share its personal data archives with ChatGPT owner OpenAI, it said on Friday, citing concern over potential breaches of EU rules. DETAIL
• An Apple employee named Amar Bhakta has filed a lawsuit against the company for monitoring employees' personal devices. According to Amar Bhakta, Apple accesses employee data through devices managed by the company. According to the lawsuit, among the devices accessed by Apple are employees' personal iPhones. DETAIL
• The invite-only encrypted messaging service known as Matrix was intercepted and taken down on Tuesday, according to reports from international authorities. The investigation, dubbed Operation Passionflower, was run by European authorities who monitored messages on Matrix for three months, gathered intel, and ultimately took down the platform. Over 2.3 million messages in 33 different languages from 8,000 accounts were intercepted and read. DETAIL

HUMANITY / CURIOSITY

• China believes it has found the world's biggest gold deposit, with reserves estimated to be worth more than $80 billion. Chinese state media said that a gold ore deposit site with supposed reserves of more than 1,000 tonnes at a depth of 2,000 meters had been located in the Wangu goldfield in Pingjiang County in central Hunan province. Newsweek was unable to independently verify the report. DETAIL
• These are scary times to be a multi-millionaire insurance bigwig. The fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, the former CEO of UnitedHealthcare, has c-suites across the country quaking in their boots. As 404 Media reports, with the killer still at larger, major health insurance companies are now taking down their leadership pages and scrubbing any information about their top brass. DETAIL