Telescope #130

SUSTAINABILITY

• At least 10 people have been killed and more than 9,000 buildings have been gutted in wildfires “scorching communities” across Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported in its latest update on Friday. There are multiple fires burning across LA county, including the 15,800-acre Palisades fire that CNN described as the “most destructive fire in LA history”. DETAIL

• ERM, the world’s largest specialist sustainability consultancy, has launched the Council on Sustainability Transformation to drive corporate progress on sustainability amid economic and political pressures. The Council brings together senior leaders from corporations, governments, and academia to offer practical strategies for achieving ambitious environmental and social targets. DETAIL
• President Biden has taken decisive action to protect U.S. coastal waters from offshore oil and gas drilling, conserving over 625 million acres of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Northern Bering Sea. This historic move aims to safeguard marine ecosystems, support local economies, and address environmental risks associated with offshore drilling. DETAIL
• The former French president and 12 others, including three former ministers, are on trial at the Paris Criminal Court in connection with the "Libyan financing" of his 2007 presidential campaign. DETAIL
• XDI (Cross Dependency Initiative) unveiled the XDI Climate Risk Hub at New York Climate Week, introducing a comprehensive platform for on-demand climate risk analysis across industries and geographies. DETAIL

• The Water Efficiency Regulation, published in the Official Gazette dated 30 December 2024, foresees the implementation of a series of measures to make water use more efficient in all sectors. These measures include the establishment of Water Efficiency Systems that will ensure efficient use of water, determination of the current water use status, determination of applicable strategies, and monitoring and reporting of the process. DETAIL
• Multiple climate datasets have confirmed that 2024 was Earth’s hottest year on record, with temperatures breaching 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time, BBC News reported. DETAIL
• Residents in the Saudi cities of Mecca, Jeddah, al-Baha, and the province of Asir were taken for a surprise on January 8 when heavy rainfall led to waterlogging with Mecca facing the worst floods. DETAIL
• Last year, water-related disasters claimed more than 8,700 lives, drove 40 million people from their homes and caused $550bn in economic damage, according to the 2024 Global Water Monitor report covered by the Guardian. DETAIL

• The Los Angeles wildfires continue to burn out of control, with the death toll now at seven and expected to climb. Nearly 180,000 people have been ordered to evacuate and at least 10,000 buildings have been destroyed, L.A. Sheriff Robert Luna stating in a press conference that some of the impacted areas "look like a bomb was dropped in them." DETAIL

HEALTH

• Previous research has linked the consumption of certain foods and beverages — such as red and processed meats, ultra-processed foods, and alcohol — to an increased risk for bowel cancer. Now, a new study published in the journal Nature CommunicationsTrusted Source has found that consuming foods and drinks rich in calcium is correlated with a lowered risk for colorectal cancer. DETAIL

DIGITAL / TECHNOLOGY / SCIENCE / ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

• Google introduced a new feature at CES 2025. The company aims to integrate its artificial intelligence assistant Gemini into Google TV, allowing users to follow the news more quickly and easily. This new feature is called News Brief. Users will receive a summary of the day's top news with a voice command. DETAIL
• Google, which made headlines last month with its Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, an O1 rival reasoning model, is forming a new team working on artificial intelligence models that can simulate the physical world. The team will work on these projects to simulate the physical world, solving critical new problems and taking the models to the highest level of computing. DETAIL
• Every blue eyed person is descended from a single European who lived around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, according to scientists. How did they work it out? Originally, all humans had brown eyes in various shades until there was a specific mutation that made the change. DETAIL
• A new study in Science estimated that building materials used in new construction could potentially store 16bn tonnes of CO2 every year. Transitioning to carbon storage can be accomplished with relatively minor changes to the composition, such as using carbon-rich aggregates in concrete or biomass fiber–based brick. DETAIL

ENERGY / TRANSPORTATION

• Guangzhou-based Pony.ai Inc is seeking to launch its robotaxi services in Hong Kong, joining Baidu, in a race to provide services in the city, as the autonomous driving firm looks to expand its operations globally. DETAIL
• China's Trina Solar has set a new world record for the conversion efficiency of a certain type of solar module, the company said in a statement on Monday. In laboratory tests, Trina's large surface area n-type fully passivated heterojunction (HJT) modules demonstrated an efficiency of 25.44%, according to the results certified by the Fraunhofer CalLab in Germany, a solar research body. DETAIL

• Toyota announced at CES 2025 that it will use Nvidia’s advanced technology solutions in its next-generation vehicles. The company’s autonomous driving vehicles will be equipped with the Nvidia DRIVE AGX Orin? supercomputer and the security-focused DriveOS operating system. DETAIL

CYBERSECURITY

• Cyberattacks on Taiwan government departments doubled in 2024 from the previous year to an average of 2.4 million attacks a day, the island's National Security Bureau said, adding most of them were launched by Chinese cyber forces. DETAIL
• Apple has made a statement against the claims about the privacy of Siri interactions, emphasizing once again that user data is never used to create advertising profiles or sell them to third parties. DETAIL
• Kaspersky researchers have uncovered a new crypto scam method that tricks users into transferring money under the guise of getting “free” crypto assets. The method works through comments left on YouTube videos focused on financial topics. These comments are written by newly created accounts and contain a seed phrase for a crypto wallet that supposedly contains USDT (Tether) tokens. Since knowing the seed phrase usually means checking the funds in the crypto wallet, unsuspecting users who are lured by the prospect of easy money can easily fall for scammers. DETAIL
• Chinese hackers breached the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), a government agency that reviews foreign investments for national security risks, CNN reported on Friday, citing three U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The breach was part of a broader incursion by the hackers into the U.S. Treasury Department's unclassified system, the report said. It did not say when the hack took place. DETAIL

CURIOSITY

• A man had the misfortune of becoming trapped inside a driverless Waymo taxi as it drove around a Scottsdale, Arizona parking lot in circles — instead of getting him to the airport for his imminent flight. DETAIL
• Archaeologists in Greece have unearthed a magnificent ancient structure decorated with gold artefacts and marble lion statues. Excavations that began in October near the city of Aigio on the Peloponnese Peninsula have unearthed this extraordinary discovery, which sheds light on the region’s history. DETAIL