The first successful human implant of a 3D-printed cornea made from human eye cells cultured in a laboratory has restored a patient’s sight.
The North Carolina-based company that developed the cornea described the procedure as a ‘world first’—and a major milestone toward its goal of alleviating the lack of available donor tissue and long wait-times for people seeking transplants.
According to Precise Bio, its robotic bio-fabrication approach could potentially turn a single donated cornea into hundreds of lab-grown grafts, at a time when there’s currently only one available for an estimated 70 patients who need one to see.
“This achievement marks a turning point for regenerative ophthalmology—a moment of real hope for millions living with corneal blindness,” Aryeh Batt, Precise Bio’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.
“For the first time, a corneal implant manufactured entirely in the lab from cultured human corneal cells, rather than direct donor tissue, has been successfully implanted in a patient.”
The company said the transplant was performed Oct. 29 in one eye of a patient who was considered legally blind.
“This is a game changer. We’ve witnessed a cornea created in the lab, from living human cells, bring sight back to a human being,” said Dr. Michael Mimouni, director of the cornea unit at Rambam Medical Center in Israel, who performed the procedure.
“It was an unforgettable moment—a glimpse into a future where no one will have to live in darkness because of a shortage of donor tissue.”
Dubbed PB-001, the implant is designed to match the optical clarity, transparency and bio-mechanical properties of a native cornea. Previously tested in animal models, the company said its graft is capable of integrating with a patient’s own tissue.
The outer layer of the eye—covering the iris and pupil—can end up clouding a person’s vision following injuries, infections, scarring and other conditions. PB-001 is currently being tested in a single-arm phase 1 trial in Israel, which aims to enroll between 10 and 15 participants with excess fluid buildups in the cornea due to dysfunction within its inner cell layers.
Precise Bio said it plans to announce top-line results from the study in the second half of 2026, tracking six-month efficacy outcomes.
The corneas are designed to be compatible with current surgery hardware and workflows. Shipped under long-term cryopreservation, it is delivered preloaded on standard delivery devices and unrolls during implantation to form a natural corneal shape.
“PB-001 has the potential to offer a new, standardized solution to one of ophthalmology’s most urgent needs—reliable, safe, and effective corneal replacement,” said Anthony Atala, M.D., co-founder of Precise Bio and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
The Carreras Pampas trackways – credit, Raúl Esperante
In Bolivia, the largest number of dinosaur footprints ever recorded in a single spot is yielding fascinating insight on how these prehistoric animals moved in a way that bones just can’t.
16,600 footprints, forming dozens of “trackways,” have been so far documented on what would have been the muddy floor of a waterway along what is now the coastline in Bolivia’s Carreras Pampas.
If a skeleton shows what a dinosaur could do, tracks show what they actually did; and while bones may be transported from the location of death through environmental events, a footprint provides perfect evidence of where exactly a dinosaur was at a given time.
These and other aspects of the tracks are why this site in the Torotoro National Park in Bolivia has paleontologists so excited.
The tracks were made by theropods, the bipedal meat-eating dinosaurs that included T. rex. Some were isolated, some moved back and forth, some were made while the animals were swimming or wading, and yet more may show theropods moving in groups.
“Everywhere you look on that rock layer at the site, there are dinosaur tracks,” said study coauthor Dr. Jeremy McLarty, an associate professor of biology and director of the Dinosaur Science Museum and Research Center at Southwestern Adventist University in Texas.
Speaking with CNN, Dr. McLarty said that most of the tracks were traveling north-northwest or southeast, had been made over a short period of time, and may have been part of a long stretch of open country used by these animals in migratory routes to as far south as Argentina.
– credit, Raúl Esperante
The tracks can show so much about the animal that made them. The size of the prints can estimate the size of the theropod, while the space between prints can suggest the speed of their movement. As a trackway turns and bends, researchers can estimate the hip flexibility of the dinosaur, while traces of a tail dragging behind or the individual impression of each toe shows various gaits that might infer an injury, a posture, or the type of terrain that was present when the tracks were made.
Of their age, Dr. McLarty and his team estimate they were made between 100 and 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period.
Several paleontologists spoke with CNN who weren’t involved in the trackway analysis, published in PLOS One, and they expressed their supreme eagerness to learn more about the various theropod species which made the imprints, some of which could have been as short as two-feet tall at the hip, while others might have been three-feet tall.“Tracks don’t move,” McLarty said. “When you visit Carreras Pampas, you know you are standing where a dinosaur walked.” Scientists Document Over 16,000 Footprints in the World’s Most Extensive Dinosaur Tracksite
Pink circles show the systems closest to tipping points. Some would have regional effects, such as loss of coral reefs. Others are global, such as the beginning of the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet. Global Tipping Points Report, CC BY-ND
As the planet warms, it risks crossing catastrophic tipping points: thresholds where Earth systems, such as ice sheets and rain forests, change irreversibly over human lifetimes.
Scientists have long warned that if global temperatures warmed more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared with before the Industrial Revolution, and stayed high, they would increase the risk of passing multiple tipping points. For each of these elements, like the Amazon rain forest or the Greenland ice sheet, hotter temperatures lead to melting ice or drier forests that leave the system more vulnerable to further changes.
Pink circles show the systems closest to tipping points. Some would have regional effects, such as loss of coral reefs. Others are global, such as the beginning of the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet. Global Tipping Points Report, CC BY-ND
The term “tipping point” is often used to illustrate these problems, but apocalyptic messages can leave people feeling helpless, wondering if it’s pointless to slam the brakes. As a geoscientist who has studied the ocean and climate for over a decade and recently spent a year on Capitol Hill working on bipartisan climate policy, I still see room for optimism.
It helps to understand what a tipping point is – and what’s known about when each might be reached.
Tipping points are not precise
A tipping point is a metaphor for runaway change. Small changes can push a system out of balance. Once past a threshold, the changes reinforce themselves, amplifying until the system transforms into something new.
The scientific reality of tipping points is more complicated than crossing a temperature line. Instead, different elements in the climate system have risks of tipping that increase with each fraction of a degree of warming.
For example, the beginning of a slow collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, which could raise global sea level by about 24 feet (7.4 meters), is one of the most likely tipping elements in a world more than 1.5 C warmer than preindustrial times. Some models place the critical threshold at 1.6 C (2.9 F). More recent simulations estimate runaway conditions at 2.7 C (4.9 F) of warming. Both simulations consider when summer melt will outpace winter snow, but predicting the future is not an exact science.
Gradients show science-based estimates from the Global Tipping Points Report of when some key global or regional climate tipping points are increasingly likely to be reached. Every fraction of a degree increases the likeliness, reflected in the warming color. Global Tipping Points Report 2025, CC BY-ND
Forecasts like these are generated using powerful climate models that simulate how air, oceans, land and ice interact. These virtual laboratories allow scientists to run experiments, increasing the temperature bit by bit to see when each element might tip.
Their nine core tipping elements include large-scale components of Earth’s climate, such as ice sheets, rain forests and ocean currents. They also simulated thresholds for smaller tipping elements that pack a large punch, including die-offs of coral reefs and widespread thawing of permafrost.
The world may have already passed one tipping point, according to the 2025 Global Tipping Points Report: Corals reefs are dying as marine temperatures rise. Healthy reefs are essential fish nurseries and habitat and also help protect coastlines from storm erosion. Once they die, their structures begin to disintegrate. Vardhan Patankar/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
Some tipping elements, such as the East Antarctic ice sheet, aren’t in immediate danger. The ice sheet’s stability is due to its massive size – nearly six times that of the Greenland ice sheet – making it much harder to push out of equilibrium. Model results vary, but they generally place its tipping threshold between 5 C (9 F) and 10 C (18 F) of warming.
Other elements, however, are closer to the edge.
Alarm bells sounding in forests and oceans
In the Amazon, self-perpetuating feedback loops threaten the stability of the Earth’s largest rain forest, an ecosystem that influences global climate. As temperatures rise, drought and wildfire activity increase, killing trees and releasing more carbon into the atmosphere, which in turn makes the forest hotter and drier still.
Rising temperatures also threaten biodiversity underwater.
The second Global Tipping Points Report, released Oct. 12, 2025, by a team of 160 scientists including Lenton, suggests tropical reefs may have passed a tipping point that will wipe out all but isolated patches.
Coral loss on the Great Barrier Reef. Australian Institute of Marine Science.
Corals rely on algae called zooxanthellae to thrive. Under heat stress, the algae leave their coral homes, draining reefs of nutrition and color. These mass bleaching events can kill corals, stripping the ecosystem of vital biodiversity that millions of people rely on for food and tourism.
Low-latitude reefs have the highest risk of tipping, with the upper threshold at just 1.5 C, the report found. Above this amount of warming, there is a 99% chance that these coral reefs tip past their breaking point.
Similar alarms are ringing for ocean currents, where freshwater ice melt is slowing down a major marine highway that circulates heat, known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC.
The AMOC carries warm water northward from the tropics. In the North Atlantic, as sea ice forms, the surface gets colder and saltier, and this dense water sinks. The sinking action drives the return flow of cold, salty water southward, completing the circulation’s loop. But melting land ice from Greenland threatens the density-driven motor of this ocean conveyor belt by dilution: Fresher water doesn’t sink as easily.
The Amazon forest has been losing tree cover to logging, farming, ranching, wildfires and a changing climate. Pink shows areas with greater than 75% tree canopy loss from 2001 to 2024. Blue is tree cover gain from 2000 to 2020. Global Forest Watch, CC BY
Other changes driven by rising global temperatures, like melting permafrost, could be reversed. Permafrost, for example, could refreeze if temperatures drop again.
Risks are too high to ignore
Despite the uncertainty, tipping points are too risky to ignore. Rising temperatures put people and economies around the world at greater risk of dangerous conditions.
But there is still room for preventive actions – every fraction of a degree in warming that humans prevent reduces the risk of runaway climate conditions. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions slows warming and tipping point risks.
Tipping points highlight the stakes, but they also underscore the climate choices humanity can still make to stop the damage.
This article was updated to clarify permafrost discussion.
Climate change has been on the world’s radar for decades. Predictions made by scientists at oil giant Exxon in the early 1980s are proving accurate. The damage done by a hotter, more chaotic world is worsening and getting more expensive.
Even so, many countries around the world are failing to meet their emissions targets, with major gaps found even this week between the commitments and actions needed to hold global warming to 1.5°C.
This has put Earth on a dangerous path, as our new report on the state of the climate reveals.
Every year, we track 34 of the planet’s vital signs. In 2024, 22 of these indicators were at record levels. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and ocean heat both hit new highs, as did losses of trees to fire. Meat consumption kept rising and fossil fuels consumption reached new heights.
Examples of vital signs, including carbon dioxide emissions, global tree cover loss to fire and energy consumption from different sources. State of the Climate 2025
The consequences of climate inaction are ever more clear. In 2024, the world’s coral reefs suffered the most widespread bleaching ever recorded, affecting roughly 84% of the world’s coral reef area between January 2023 and May 2025.
Greenland and Antarctic ice mass fell to record lows. Deadly and costly disasters surged, including the flooding in Texas which killed at least 135 people while the Los Angeles wildfires have cost more than A$380 billion. Since 2000, global climate-linked disasters have now caused more than $27 trillion in damages.
Stories and statistics like this are sadly not new. Many other reports and warnings have been published before we started this annual snapshot in 2020. Therefore, our report this year focuses on three high-impact types of climate action, across energy, nature and food.
Energy
Combined solar and wind consumption set a new record in 2024 but is still 31 times lower than fossil fuel (oil, coal, gas) energy consumption. This is despite the fact renewables are now the cheapest choice for new energy almost everywhere. One reason for this are the ongoing subsidies for fossil fuels.
By 2050, solar and wind energy could supply nearly 70% of global electricity. But this transition requires restricting the influence of the fossil fuel industry and a full phase out of fossil fuel production and use, not the expansion we continue to see globally.
As a result of surging fossil fuel consumption, energy-related emissions rose 1.3% in 2024 and reached an all-time high of 40.8 gigatons (Gt) of carbon dioxide equivalent. In 2024, the greatest fossil fuel greenhouse gas emitters were China (30.7% of total), the United States (12.5%), India (8.0%), the European Union (6.1%), and Russia (5.5%). Together, they accounted for 62.8% of global emissions.
Sadly, much of the rise in fossil fuel electricity generation may be due to hotter temperatures and heat waves.
Although there are concerns over the environmental impacts of renewables, the greater threat to our biodiversity is climate change and biodiversity conservation and mitigation measures can be part of project planning.
Nature
Protecting and restoring ecosystems on land and in the ocean remains one of the most powerful ways to support climate change, and support biodiversity and human well-being.
Protecting and restoring ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, mangroves and peatlands could remove or avoid around 10 Gt of carbon dioxide emissions per year by 2050, which is equivalent to roughly 25% of current annual emissions.
But we must also stop destroying what we have. Global tree cover loss was almost 30 million hectares in 2024, the second highest area on record and a 4.7% increase over 2023. Tropical primary forest losses were particularly large in 2024, with fire-related losses reaching a record high of 3.2 million hectares, up from just 690 thousand hectares in 2023, a 370% increase.
Food
Approximately 30% of food is lost or wasted globally. Reducing food waste could greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions since it accounts for roughly 8–10% of global emissions. Policies supporting plant-rich diets could also help slow climate change, while offering many benefits related to human health, food security, and biodiversity.
The technical mitigation potential associated with switching away from eating meat may be in the order of 0.7–8.0 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2050. This is in part because methane emissions from cows, sheep and other ruminant livestock account for roughly half of all agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Per capita meat consumption hit all-time highs in 2024, and we currently add 500,000 more ruminants per week.
In our report, we note that social tipping points can trigger climate action. These refer to moments when a small, committed minority triggers a rapid and large-scale shift in social norms, beliefs, or behaviours. Research shows sustained, nonviolent movements and protests involving just a small proportion of a population (about 3.5%) can help trigger transformative change.
Many people underestimate how much support there is globally for climate action. Wikimedia, CC BY-NC
Many people underestimate just how much support there is globally for climate action, with most people believing they are in a minority. This arguably fosters disengagement and isolation. But it also suggests that as awareness grows and people see their values reflected in others, the conditions for social tipping points may be strengthened.
Reaching this positive tipping point will require more than facts and policy. It will take connection, courage, and collective resolve. Climate mitigation strategies are available, cost effective and urgently needed, and we can still limit warming if we act boldly and quickly, but the window is closing.
Climate change is the biggest issue of our time. 2024 marked both the hottest year on record and the highest levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the past two million years.
Global warming increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, bushfires, floods and droughts. These are already affecting young people, who will experience the challenges for more of their lives than older people.
It will also adversely affect those not yet born, creating a crisis of intergenerational justice.
Caught in the changing climate
In 2025, children and young people comprise a third of Australia’s population.
Given their early stage of physiological and cognitive development, children are more vulnerable to climate disasters such as crop failures, river floods and drought.
They are also less able to protect themselves from the associated trauma than most older people.
Under current emissions trajectories, United Nations research warns every child in Australia could be subject to more than four heatwaves a year. It’s estimated more than two million Australian children could be living in areas where heatwaves will last longer than four days.
A recent report found more than one million children and young people in Australia experience a climate disaster or extreme weather event in an “average year”.
Those in remote areas, from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and Indigenous children are more likely to be negatively effected. That’s equivalent to one in six children, and numbers are rising.
Anxiety, frustration and fear
The impact of climate change on young people’s health and wellbeing is also significant. Globally, young people bear the greatest psychological burden associated with the impacts of climate change.
Feelings such as frustration, fear and anxiety related to climate change are compounded by the experience of extreme weather events and associated health impacts.
Intergenerational inequality is the term on the lips of policymakers in Canberra and beyond. In this four-part series, we’ve asked leading experts what’s making younger generations worse off and how policy could help fix it.
For young people who live through climate-related disasters, they may experience challenges with education, displacement, housing insecurity and financial difficulties.
All these come on top of other issues. These include increased socioeconomic inequality, rising child poverty, mounting education debt, precarious employment, and lack of access to affordable housing.
Some key policy figures understand how climate change is turbo-charging intergenerational unfairness.
Former treasury secretary Ken Henry described the situation as an “intergenerational tragedy”, referring to the ways Australian policymakers are failing to address the changing climate, among other crucial issues.
Even Treasurer Jim Chalmers acknowledged “intergenerational fairness is one of the defining principles of our country”.
Climate change was barely mentioned in the May 2025 federal election. The major parties largely avoided the subject.
It was also concerning that the first major decision of the newly reelected Albanese government was approving an extension to Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project off Western Australia until 2070.
This leaves a legacy to young people of an additional 87 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent every year for many years to come.
Raising young voices
Australia’s children and young people are not stupid. Many worked out early that they could not trust governments.
Since 2018, young people have mobilised hundreds of thousands of other children in protests calling for climate action.
Domestically, many young people have turned to strategic climate litigation and collaboration with members of parliament on legislative change. They argue governments have a legal duty of care to prevent the harms of climate change.
Thwarted attempts
Beyond accelerating implementation of the National Adaptation Plan, other legislative innovations will help.
In 2023, young people worked with independent Senator David Pocock to draft legislation addressing these concerns.
This bill required governments to consider the health and wellbeing of children and future generations when deciding on projects that could exacerbate climate change.
It was sent to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee. While all but one of 403 public submissions to the committee supported the bill, in June 2024 the Labor and Coalition members agreed to reject it. They argued it was difficult to quantify notions such as “wellbeing” or “material risk”.
Adding insult to injury, both major parties claimed Australia already had more than adequate environmental laws in place to protect children.
Turning around the Titanic
The Australian parliament may have another opportunity to embed a legislative duty to protect children and secure intergenerational justice. Independent MP Sophie Scamps introduced the Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill in February 2025. As legislation brought before the parliament lapses once an election is called, Scamps is planning to reintroduce the bill in this sitting term.
The bill would introduce a legislative framework to embed the wellbeing of future generations into decision making processes. It would also establish a positive duty and create an independent commissioner for future generations to advocate for Australia’s long-term interests and sustainable practice.
While this bill does not include penalties for breaches of the duty, if passed, it would force the government of the day to consider the rights and interests of current and future generations.
If nothing else, the Welsh experiment suggests we can take entirely practical steps to promote intergenerational justice, reduce the negative impacts of climate change on young people right now and avert a climate catastrophe threatening our children who are yet to be born.
It may feel like turning around the Titanic, but it must be done.
Language enables us to connect with each other and coordinate to achieve incredible feats. Our ability to communicate abstract concepts is often seen as a defining feature of our species, and one that separates us from the rest of life on Earth.
This is because while the ability to pair an arbitrary sound with a specific meaning is widespread in human language, it is rarely seen in other animal communication systems. Several recent studies have shown that birds, chimpanzees, dolphins, and elephants also do it. But how such a capacity emerges remains a mystery.
While language is characterised by the widespread use of sounds that have a learned association with the item they refer to, humans and animals also produce instinctive sounds. For example, a scream made in response to pain. Over 150 years ago, naturalist Charles Darwin suggested the use of these instinctive sounds in a new context could be an important step in the development of language-like communication.
In our new study, published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, we describe the first example of an animal vocalisation that contains both instinctive and learned features – similar to the stepping stone Darwin envisioned.
A unique call towards a unique threat
Birds have a variety of enemies, but brood parasites are unique.
Brood parasites, such as cuckoos, are birds that reproduce by laying their egg in the nest of another species and manipulating the unsuspecting host to incubate their egg and raise their offspring. The first thing a baby cuckoo does after it hatches is heave the other baby birds out of the nest, claiming the effort of its unsuspecting foster parents all to itself.
The high cost of brood parasitism makes it an excellent study system to explore how evolution works in the wild.
For example, our past work has shown that in Australia, the superb fairy-wren has evolved a unique call it makes when it sees a cuckoo. When other fairy-wrens hear this alarm call, they quickly come in and attack the cuckoo.
During these earlier experiments, we couldn’t help but notice other species were responding to this call and making a very similar call themselves. What’s more, discussions with collaborators who were working in countries as far away as China, India and Sweden suggested the birds there were also making a very similar call – and also only towards cuckoos.
Birds from around the world use the same call
First, we explored online wildlife media databases to see if there were other examples of this call towards brood parasites. We found 21 species that produce this call towards their brood parasites, including cuckoos and parasitic finches. Some of these birds were closely related and lived nearby each other, but others shared a last common ancestor over 50 million years ago and live on different continents.
For example, this is a superb fairy-wren responding to a shining bronze-cuckoo in Australia.
Superb fairy-wren responding to a shining bronze-cuckoo.
William Feeney, CC BY169 KB(download)
And this is a tawny-flanked prinia responding to a cuckoo finch in Zambia.
Tawny-flanked prinia responding to a cuckoo finch.
William Feeney, CC BY160 KB(download)
As vocalisations exist to communicate information, we suspected this call either functioned to attract the attention of their own or other species.
To compare these possibilities, we used a known database of the world’s brood parasites and hosts. If this call exists to communicate information within a species, we expected the species that produce it should be more cooperative, because more birds are better at defending their nest.
We did not find this. Instead, we found that species that produce this call exist in areas with more brood parasites and hosts, suggesting it exists to enable cooperation across different species that are targeted by brood parasites.
Communicating across species to defend against a common threat
To test whether these calls were produced uniquely towards cuckoos in multiple species, we conducted experiments in Australia.
When we presented superb fairy-wrens or white-browed scrubwrens with a taxidermied cuckoo, they made this call and tried to attack it. By contrast, when they were presented with other taxidermied models, such as a predator, this call was very rarely produced.
When we presented the fairy-wrens and scrubwrens with recordings of the call, they responded strongly. This suggests both species produce the call almost exclusively towards cuckoos, and when they hear it they respond predictably.
If this call is something like a “universal word” for a brood parasite across birds, we should expect different species to respond equally to hearing it – even when it is produced by a species they have never seen before. We found exactly this: when we played calls from Australia to birds in China (and vice-versa) they responded the same.
This suggests different species from all around the world use this call because it provides specific information about the presence of a brood parasite.
Superb fairy-wrens attacking a taxidermied shining bronze-cuckoo. William Feeney, CC BY
Insights into the origins of language
Our study suggests that over 20 species of birds from all around the world that are separated by over 50 million years of evolution use the same call when they see their respective brood parasite species.
This is fascinating in and of itself. But while these birds know how to respond to the call, our past work has shown that birds that have never seen a cuckoo do not produce this call, but they do after watching others produce it when there is a cuckoo nearby.
In other words, while the response to the call is instinctive, producing the call itself is learned.
Whereas vocalisations are normally either instinctive or learned, this is the first example of an animal vocalisation across species that has both instinctive and learned components. This is important, because it appears to represent a midpoint between the types of vocalisations that are common in animal communication systems and human language.
So, Darwin may have been right about language all along.
New Delhi, (IANS): Worldwide spending on artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to be nearly $1.5 trillion in 2025, up nearly 50 per cent up from $987,904 in 2024, a report said on Monday.
Further, the overall global AI spending is likely to top $2 trillion in 2026, led by AI integration into products such as smartphones and PCs, as well as infrastructure, according to a business and technology insights company Gartner, Inc report.
Mirroring last year's spending graph, generative AI integration in smartphones would lead the spending at $298,189 this year as well, followed by AI services ($282,556), AI-optimised servers ($267,534), AI processing semiconductor ($209,192), AI application software ($172,029) and AI infrastructure Software ($126,177).
"The forecast assumes continued investment in AI infrastructure expansion, as major hyperscalers continue to increase investments in data centres with AI-optimised hardware and GPUs to scale their services," said John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner.
"The AI investment landscape is also expanding beyond traditional U.S. tech giants, including Chinese companies and new AI cloud providers. Furthermore, venture capital investment in AI providers is providing additional tailwinds for AI spending," he added.
According to the report, the AI spending would reach $2.02 trillion in 2026 following a similar growth trajectory.
In 2026, spending on Generative AI integration in smartphones is likely to be at $393,297. Meanwhile, the spending on AI Services would reach $324,669, and for AI-optimised servers, it would go around $329,528
Similarly, AI processing semiconductor ($267,934), AI application software ($269,703) and AI infrastructure software ($229,885) will also put weight in spending on AI.
The other segments, attracting AI spending, would be AI PCs by ARM and x86, AI-optimised IaaS, and GenAI Models.Gartner providers equip tech leaders and their teams with role-based best practices, industry insights and strategic views into emerging trends and market changes to achieve their mission-critical priorities and build the successful organisations of tomorrow. Worldwide spending on AI is expected to be nearly $1.5 trillion in 2025: Report | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
New Delhi, (IANS): The success of Information Technology revolution caused the transition of the world from the Industrial Age to the Age of Information but the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expediting another transformational shift- from the Information Age to the Age of Intelligence propelled by the basic fact that ‘all intelligence is information but all information is not intelligence’.
This shift is compelled by the reality that there was no competitive gain from having information that everybody else also had and that it is the ownership of ‘exclusive knowledge’ called Intelligence that gave one advantage over the others.
AI applications are becoming a means of generating and accessing such knowledge largely through Data Analytics. Any information of intelligence value has to be ‘reliable’ but also ‘futuristic’ in the sense that it indicates the ‘opportunities’ and ‘risks’ lying ahead and thus opens the pathway to gainful action. To the extent a system of algorithms can be put in place to produce ‘insights’ during the analysis of data, this came closer to bridging the gap between ‘Artificial’ and ‘Human’ intelligence. Fundamentally, however, AI was an ‘assistant’ for and not a ‘substitute’ for human intelligence.
Someone rightly said that Artificial Intelligence backed by Large Language Models(LLMs) can become the ultimate repository of human knowledge but even when it might be able to decide what was ‘factually true or false’ it could not take the stewardship of determining what is ‘right or wrong’. This can only be done by the human mind that is equipped with ‘intuition’ rooted in conscience, piety and a capacity to think for the future.
The power of logic -another singular feature of the human mind- derives from a combination of past experience, the capacity to observe and analyse information and the ability to see things in a ‘cause and effect’ mode. To a limited extent ‘logic’ can be built into the ‘machine learning’ but only in a borrowed way.
Moreover, human conduct is often conditioned by the ‘system of moral values’ followed at the personal level- biases and wishful thinking are often built into any system of morality- and this is yet another area where Artificial Intelligence would not be able to substitute the human mind.
AI essentially works on data in the memory and the Language Models enhance its outreach to demographies and customs bringing it somewhat closer to human behaviour but what stands out in all of this is the fact that AI cannot be freed from the ‘input-output’ principle.
Albert Einstein famously said that ‘imagination was more important than knowledge’- he was not referring to the trait of wildly imagining things that some people might have but was defining the human capacity to see beyond the data in front and perceive what lay ahead. In a way, he was alluding to the ability of the human mind not to ‘miss the wood for the tree’.
Imagination and human feedback are great assets in both business and personal lives and they mark out human intelligence from the machine-led operation. They both are of great help in the areas of Customer Relations Management- since they made it possible to personalise this relationship -as well as Risk Assessment which no successful enterprise could do without.
It is important to know the difference between ‘intelligence’ that tests the reach of the human mind and ‘machine learning’ that has its own boundaries.
Intelligence by definition is information that gives you an indication of ‘what lies ahead’ -Artificial Intelligence is therefore going to buy its importance from its capacity to produce ‘predictive’ readings.
AI has the limitation of being able to only read ‘patterns’ in the data examined by it and if the data was about the footprints left behind in the public domain by the ‘adversary’ or the ‘competitor’, this could enable data analytics to throw light at least on the ‘modus operandi’ of the opponent and indicate how the latter would possibly move next. There is a partial application of ‘logic’ here though not of ‘imagination’ which was an exclusive trait of the human mind.
If AI cannot be a substitute for human intelligence the best use of it is in making it an ‘assistant’ for the latter and this is precisely what explains the phenomenal advancement of AI in professional and business fields. A ‘symbiotic relationship’ between the two guarantees a bright future for humanity at large. Data analytics can aim at bringing out trends relating to the business environment, the study of the competitors and the organisation’s internal situation. It can focus on the examination of the specific requirements of a particular business, organisational entity and profession, in a bid to seek a legitimate competitive advantage.
AI is strengthening the ‘knowledge economy’ by helping to evolve new services and products, by making things more efficient through cost-cutting and optimal utilisation of the available workforce and by generally improving the ‘quality of life’ by encouraging innovation. The constant change of the business scene because of the shifting paradigms of knowledge, establishes that any AI application will not be a one-time event and will further advance the cause of research and development. The determination of the ‘direction’ of an AI operation, however, will remain with the human mind and this placed a fundamental limitation on AI.
As the field of Al gets enlarged, two things are emerging as major concerns- the challenge of establishing the reliability of the data banks used and the likely use of AI for unethical and criminal objectives. In the age of fake news and misinformation on social media, only verified information must be used for AI applications. Confirming the reliability of data is by itself a task for AI that would create value for business.
India as a matter of policy favours international oversight of AI research in the interest of transparency for safeguarding the general good. The US thinks of AI development purely as an economic instrument and wants to preserve ownership rights in research and innovation.
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At the strategic level, AI has the potential for providing new tools of security and intelligence and in the process, can become a source of threat for the geopolitical stability of the world itself. India has rightly taken the lead in demanding the ethical advancement of AI for the good of humanity and called for a collective approach to minimising the ‘perils’ of AI while promoting its progress for universal causes.It is instructive to note that the recent joint winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics- John J Hopfield of Princeton University and Geoffrey E Hinton of the University of Toronto- are pioneers in the field of modern ‘machine learning’ research and they have both warned that AI had the potential to cause ‘apocalypse’ for humanity. The Third Eye: Moving from Information Age to ‘Age of Intelligence’ | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
First prize in the USA’s largest and most prestigious science fair has gone to a 16-year-old girl who found new ways to optimize the components of biomedical implants, promising a future of safer, faster, and longer-lasting versions of these critical devices.
It’s not the work of science fiction; bioelectronic implants like the pacemaker have been around for decades, but also suffer from compatibility issues interfacing with the human body.
On Friday, Grace Sun from Lexington, Kentukcy, pocketed $75,000 and was recognized among 2,000 of the nation and the world’s top STEM students as having produced the “number one project.”
Sun’s work focused on improving the capabilities of organic electrochemical transistors or OECTs, which like other devices made of silicon, are soft, flexible, and present the possibility of more complex implants for use in the brain or the heart.
“They have performance issues right now,” Sun told Business Insider of the devices. “They have instability in the body. You don’t want some sort of implanted bioelectronic to degrade in your body.”
Sensitive OECTs could detect proteins or nucleic acids in sweat, blood, or other transporters that correspond to diseases in their earliest stages. They could replace more invasive implants like the aforementioned pacemaker, and offer unprecedented ways to track biomarkers such as blood glucose, circulating white blood cell count, or blood-alcohol content, which could be useful for people with autoimmunity, epilepsy, or diabetes.
“This was our number one project, without a shadow of a doubt,” Ian Jandrell, a judging co-chair for the materials science category at ISEF, told Business Insider about Sun’s research.
“It was crystal clear that that room was convinced that this was a significant project and worthy of consideration for a very top award because of the contribution that was made.”Sun says she is looking to develop the OECTs further, hoping to start a business in the not-too-distant future as a means of getting them out into the world and impacting real people as fast as possible. 16-year-old Wins $75,000 for Her Award-Winning Discovery That Could Help Revolutionize Biomedical Implants
Sydney, (IANS) Lizard Island on Australia's Great Barrier Reef has suffered one of the world's worst coral die-offs, with 92 per cent of surveyed corals lost after the 2024 bleaching event, new research has revealed.
Researchers used drone imagery to assess the Fourth Global Coral Bleaching Event in 2024 at Lizard Island, where 96 per cent of corals were bleached and mortality averaged 92 per cent, with some sites losing over 99 per cent of corals, according to a statement released recently by Australia's Griffith University.
"This marks one of the highest coral mortality rates ever documented globally," said the study's lead researcher Vincent Raoult from Griffith University's School of Environment. Raoult described the mortality as "unprecedented," especially given that Lizard Island experienced less heat stress than other parts of the Great Barrier Reef.
Drone technology enabled precise mapping of the widespread bleaching, said Jane Williamson from the Macquarie University in Sydney, also the study's senior author, who stressed the urgent need for climate action, warning that repeated heatwaves could irreversibly damage coral reefs, Xinhua news agency reported.
Lizard Island's reefs remain fragile after years of repeated damage, such as bleaching, cyclones, and Crown-of-Thorns outbreaks, and scientists will monitor them through 2026 for signs of recovery, according to the study published in Coral Reefs, the journal of the International Coral Reef Society.
"Prolonged heat stress throughout the Far Northern and Northern regions of the reef caused widespread bleaching," said the reef snapshot published by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Australian Institute of Marine Science and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, earlier in April.Coral bleaching is a phenomenon that occurs when coral experiencing heat stress expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissue and turn completely white. Bleaching is not fatal in itself but bleached coral are more likely to starve and can take a decade or longer to recover. Lizard Island on Australia's Great Barrier Reef faces alarming coral loss following 2024 bleaching | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
A study examining mercury concentrations in the leaves of alpine plants has revealed that humanity has reduced worldwide exposure to this most toxic of heavy metals substantially.
Controlled via a UN treaty called the Minamata Convention on Mercury Emissions, mercury (Hg) enters the atmosphere through a variety of natural and anthropogenic avenues.
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining, coal burning, and cement and nonferrous metals production all release several thousands tons of mercury into the atmosphere every year.
Much like carbon dioxide, the oceans also emit mercury—between 400-1,300 metric tons per year. Terrestrial sources include volcanic eruptions and other geothermal features, the weathering of mercury-containing rocks, soil erosion, and wildfires, and contribute around the same amount as the oceans.
Anthropogenic sources, however, contribute as much as the land and oceans together; or at least they once did.
A team of Chinese scientists from schools in Tianjin, Beijing, Tibet, and Nanjing has found that Hg concentrations in the atmosphere reduced by 70% since a peak in the year 2000. For the next 20 years, the levels continually dropped, corresponding with a reduced reliance on coal for power and the implementation of the Minamata Convention in 2013.
The scientists were able to calculate the past atmospheric Hg concentrations using the leaves of the flowering plant Androsace tapete on the slopes Mt. Everest atop the Tibetan Plateau. Here, exposure to atmospheric deposition is far greater than at sea level, and the plateau is a popular place for making such measurements.
Their study shows that today, there is less mercury emitted into the atmosphere by humans than by the Earth itself.
There is no safe level of mercury exposure in humans, and children are at particularly high risks.While living around coal-burning power plants is a large risk factor for mercury exposure, small-scale or artisanal gold mining operations contribue by the most mercury into the atmosphere. Mercury Emissions Fall 70% Over the Last Four Decades Thanks to UN Treaty, Coal Phase-Out\
The Japan Atomic Energy Agency has developed what it says is the world's first "uranium rechargeable battery" and that tests have verified its performance in charging and discharging. Meanwhile, South Korean researchers have developed a prototype betavoltaic battery powered by the carbon-14 isotope.
The uranium storage battery utilises depleted uranium (DU) as the negative electrode active material and iron as the positive one, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) said. The single-cell voltage of the prototype uranium rechargeable battery is 1.3 volts, which is close to that of a common alkaline battery (1.5 volts).
The battery was charged and discharged 10 times, and the performance of the battery was almost unchanged, indicating relatively stable cycling characteristics.
"To utilise DU as a new resource, the concept of rechargeable batteries using uranium as an active material was proposed in the early 2000s," JAEA noted. "However, no studies were reporting the specific performance of the assembled uranium rechargeable batteries."
It added: "If uranium rechargeable batteries are increased in capacity and put to practical use, the large amount of DU stored in Japan will become a new resource for output controls in the electricity supply grid derived from renewable energy, thereby contributing to the realisation of a decarbonised society."
According to JAEA, there is currently about 16,000 tonnes of depleted uranium stored in Japan and some 1.6 million tonnes stored worldwide.
JAEA said it is now aiming to increase the capacity of uranium storage batteries (the amount of electricity they can store) by circulating the electrolyte.
"Specifically, we will be examining whether it is possible to increase capacity by increasing the amount of circulating electrolyte and the concentration of uranium and iron, and what the optimal materials are for the electrodes and membranes that make up the storage battery," JAEA said. "If we are successful in increasing the capacity of uranium storage batteries and put them to practical use and implemented in society using depleted uranium stored in Japan, we can expect them to play new roles such as adjusting supply and demand for mega solar power plants."
It says the need for rechargeable batteries has been increasing in recent years with an increase in the introduction of renewable energy sources. Power generation from solar, wind, and other sources is affected by weather conditions and has the instability of fluctuating power generation. To stabilise the power supply in this situation, output controls via energy storage devices such as rechargeable batteries are necessary, and the development of new energy storage technologies is attracting attention.
Batteries to last a lifetime
South Korean researchers are considering radiocarbon as a source for safe, small and affordable nuclear batteries that could last decades or longer without charging.
Su-Il In, a professor at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology, will present his results at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society, being held 23-27 March. The research was funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea, as well as the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology Research & Development Programme of the Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology of Korea.
With the increasing number of connected devices, data centres and other computing technologies, the demand for long-lasting batteries is increasing. However, In says that the performance of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries is "almost saturated". His team is therefore developing nuclear batteries as an alternative to lithium.
The researchers have produced a prototype betavoltaic battery with carbon-14, an unstable and radioactive form of carbon, called radiocarbon. "I decided to use a radioactive isotope of carbon because it generates only beta rays," said In. Moreover, a by-product from nuclear power plants, radiocarbon is inexpensive, readily available and easy to recycle. And because radiocarbon degrades very slowly, a radiocarbon-powered battery could theoretically last for millennia.
(Image: Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology)
To significantly improve the energy conversion efficiency of their new design, the team used a titanium dioxide-based semiconductor, a material commonly used in solar cells, sensitised with a ruthenium-based dye. They strengthened the bond between the titanium dioxide and the dye with a citric acid treatment. When beta rays from radiocarbon collide with the treated ruthenium-based dye, a cascade of electron transfer reactions, called an electron avalanche, occurs. Then the avalanche travels through the dye and the titanium dioxide effectively collects the generated electrons.
The new battery also has radiocarbon in the dye-sensitised anode and a cathode. By treating both electrodes with the radioactive isotope, the researchers increased the amount of beta rays generated and reduced distance-related beta-radiation energy loss between the two structures.
During demonstrations of the prototype battery, the researchers found that beta rays released from radiocarbon on both electrodes triggered the ruthenium-based dye on the anode to generate an electron avalanche that was collected by the titanium dioxide layer and passed through an external circuit resulting in usable electricity.
These long-lasting nuclear batteries could enable many applications, says In. These include powering implants, remote applications, and satellites. For example, a pacemaker would last a person's lifetime, eliminating the need for surgical replacements.However, this betavoltaic design converted only a tiny fraction of radioactive decay into electric energy, leading to lower performance compared to conventional Li-ion batteries. In suggests that further efforts to optimise the shape of the beta-ray emitter and develop more efficient beta-ray absorbers could enhance the battery's performance and increase power generation. Japan, Korea develop prototype nuclear batteries
A baby has been born following a form of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) largely carried out by a machine, in what researchers say is a world first.
The development could signal a major shift in how fertility treatments are performed, The Express Tribune reported.
The machine, developed by New York-based biotech firm Conceivable Life Sciences, was used to complete 23 critical steps of a procedure known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). A human operator supervised the process remotely via livestream, initiating each step with the press of a button.
"This level of automation could reduce the chance of human error and fatigue affecting the outcomes," said Jacques Cohen, co-founder of the company and an expert in assisted reproduction.
In ICSI, a single sperm is injected directly into an egg, a technique often used when male infertility is involved. However, the manual nature of the process requires extreme precision and concentration, making it prone to errors.
To test the automated system, researchers recruited a couple struggling with infertility. The male partner's sperm had limited motility, and the female partner received donor eggs due to ovulatory issues.
Of the eight donor eggs, five were fertilised using the automated system, and three through conventional manual ICSI. All eight developed into embryos. An AI model then evaluated the embryos, selecting two deemed most viable—both from the automated process.
One embryo failed to implant, but the other resulted in the successful birth.
Joyce Harper, a reproductive science professor at University College London, described the result as an "exciting proof-of-concept" but noted that larger, controlled trials would be needed to determine if the system is more effective than manual IVF.
The system incorporates artificial intelligence to choose optimal sperm based on visual cues and uses a laser to immobilise them before injection.Though not immediately expected to become widespread due to cost, Cohen believes the expense will decrease with further development and standardisation. custom title: Source Article
An invention from the UK features diamonds in the first-ever application of the gemstone in battery technology.
Promising to last thousands of years, the microwatt power sources are seen as the perfect solution to devices in environments where neither changing batteries nor carrying around extras are options.
Developed by the University of Bristol in partnership with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), the battery contains a radioactive isotope of carbon called carbon-14.
Isotopes are forms of chemical elements with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons. Some are stable, but those that aren’t are radioactive and emit radiation as they decay.
In the battery, a radioactive carbon-14 isotope is encased inside a shell of diamond, the hardest substance known to man.
“Diamond batteries offer a safe, sustainable way to provide continuous microwatt levels of power. They are an emerging technology that use a manufactured diamond to safely encase small amounts of carbon-14,” said Sarah Clark, the director of Tritium Fuel Cycle at the (UKAEA), in a statement.
Electricity via the battery is generated in a way similar to a solar panel through the betavoltaic effect—harnessing the electrons emitted by the carbon-14 and captured by the diamond matrix.
Carbon-14 has a half-life of about 5,700 years, meaning that it would be several thousand years before the diamond Duracell bunny inside would start to tire out, making it ideal for spacecraft and satellites which can’t undergo maintenance easily, or in medical devices like pacemakers which have to be implanted and which cannot for the sake of the user have a battery change on the go.
“Our micropower technology can support a whole range of important applications from space technologies and security devices through to medical implants,” Tom Scott, a professor in materials at the University of Bristol, said in the statement. “We’re excited to be able to explore all of these possibilities, working with partners in industry and research, over the next few years.”The idea gives a whole new meaning to that old adage about how diamonds are forever. World's First Diamond Battery Could Power Spacecraft and Pacemakers for Thousands of Years