logo
Texans shaken as thousands of fire ants seen forming rafts on river using their bodies

Texans shaken as thousands of fire ants seen forming rafts on river using their bodies

Yahoo20-07-2025
This army is in formation.
Thousands of fire ants have been spotted floating on floodwaters through the Texas city and forming rafts using their bodies with residents now reporting the gross behavior.
KXAN Austin took to X to post a video taken by Austinite David Todd of the little critters, seen nestled into a large cluster in the waters of Lake Travis.
X users weighed in on the scary sight.
'A floating ball of pure hate,' one observed.
'I've done more than seen them. I've run into them at night wading out to the ramp on my dock when the lake is rapidly rising,' another wrote. 'Sucks.'
'Bring out the torch,' someone else suggested.
The pesky bugs, which can cause painful stings, are rife in Texas. But when their underground nests flood, they sink their teeth into each other, interlock their limbs and create rafts to stay alive.
'It's called a self-organizing or self-assembling process. And it's something only social insects do,' Ed LeBrun, a research scientist at the University of Texas' Brackenridge Field Lab, told the outlet.
'There are a lot of other structures that ants make in a similar way. For example, army ants will make bridges across rivers.'
Solve the daily Crossword
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

What Is Superintelligence? Everything You Need to Know About AI's Endgame
What Is Superintelligence? Everything You Need to Know About AI's Endgame

CNET

time41 minutes ago

  • CNET

What Is Superintelligence? Everything You Need to Know About AI's Endgame

You've probably chatted with ChatGPT, experimented with Gemini, Claude or Perplexity, or even asked Grok to verify a post on X. These tools are impressive, but they're just the tip of the artificial intelligence iceberg. Lurking beneath is something far bigger that has been all the talk in recent weeks: artificial superintelligence. Some people use the term "superintelligence" interchangeably with artificial general intelligence or sci-fi-level sentience. Others, like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, use it to signal their next big moonshot. ASI has a more specific meaning in AI circles. It refers to an intelligence that doesn't just answer questions but could outthink humans in every field: medicine, physics, strategy, creativity, reasoning, emotional intelligence and more. We're not there yet, but the race has already started. In July, Zuckerberg said during an interview with The Information that his company is chasing "personal superintelligence" to "put the power of AI directly into individuals' hands." Or, in Meta's case, probably in everyone's smart glasses. Scott Stein/CNET That desire kicked off a recruiting spree for top researchers in Silicon Valley and a reshuffling inside Meta's FAIR team (now Meta AI) to push Meta closer to AGI and eventually ASI. So, what exactly is superintelligence, how close are we to it, and should we be excited or terrified? Let's break it down. What is superintelligence? Superintelligence doesn't have a formal definition, but it's generally described as a hypothetical AI system that would outperform humans at every cognitive task. It could process vast amounts of data instantly, reason across domains, learn from mistakes, self-improve, develop new scientific theories, write flawless code, and maybe even make emotional or ethical judgments. The idea became popularized through philosopher Nick Bostrom's 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies , which warned of a scenario where an AI bot becomes smarter than humans, self-improves rapidly and then escapes our control. That vision sparked both excitement and fear among tech experts. Speaking to CNET, Bostrom says many of his 2014 warnings "have proven quite prescient." What has surprised him, he says, is "how anthropomorphic current AI systems are," with large language models behaving in surprisingly humanlike ways. Bostrom says he's now shifting his attention toward deeper issues, including "the moral status of digital minds and the relationship between the superintelligence we build with other superintelligences," which he refers to as "the cosmic host." For some, ASI represents the pinnacle of progress, a tool to cure disease, reverse climate change and crack the secrets of the universe. For others, it's a ticking time bomb -- one wrong move and we're outmatched by a machine we can't control. It's sometimes called the last human invention, not because it's final, but because ASI could invent everything else we need. British mathematician Irving John Good described it as an "intelligence explosion." Superintelligence doesn't exist yet. We're still in the early stages of what's called artificial narrow intelligence. It's an AI system that is great at specific tasks like translation, summarization and image generation, but not capable of broader reasoning. Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude and Grok fall into this category. They're good at some tasks, but still flawed, prone to hallucinations and incapable of true reasoning or understanding. To reach ASI, AI needs to first pass through another stage: artificial general intelligence. What is AGI? AGI, or artificial general intelligence, refers to a system that can learn and reason across a wide range of tasks, not just one domain. It could match human-level versatility, such as learning new skills, adapting to unfamiliar problems and transferring knowledge across fields. Unlike current chatbots, which rely heavily on training data and struggle outside of predefined rules, AGI would handle complex problems flexibly. It wouldn't just answer questions about math and history; it could invent new solutions, explain them and apply them elsewhere. Current models hint at AGI traits, like multimodal systems that handle text, images and video. But true AGI requires breakthroughs in continual learning (updating knowledge without forgetting old stuff) and real-world grounding (understanding context beyond data). And none of the major models today qualify as true AGI, though many AI labs, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta, list it as their long-term target. Once AGI arrives and self-improves, ASI could follow quickly as a system smarter than any human in every area. How close are we to superintelligence? A superintelligent future concept I generated using Grok AI. Grok / Screenshot by CNET That depends on who you ask. A 2024 survey of 2,778 AI researchers paints a sobering picture. The aggregate forecasts give a 50% chance of machines outperforming humans in every possible task by 2047. That's 13 years sooner than a 2022 poll predicted. There's a 10% chance this could happen as early as 2027, according to the survey. For job automation specifically, researchers estimate a 10% chance that all human occupations become fully automatable by 2037, reaching 50% probability by 2116. Most concerning, 38% to 51% of experts assign at least a 10% risk of advanced AI causing human extinction. Geoffrey Hinton, often called the Godfather of AI, warned in a recent YouTube podcast that if superintelligent AI ever turned against us, it might unleash a biological threat like a custom virus -- super contagious, deadly and slow to show symptoms -- without risking itself. Resistance would be pointless, he said, because "there's no way we're going to prevent it from getting rid of us if it wants to." Instead, he argued that the focus should be on building safeguards early. "What you have to do is prevent it ever wanting to," he said in the podcast. He said this could be done by pouring resources into AI that stays friendly. Still, Hinton confessed he's struggling with the implications: "I haven't come to terms with what the development of superintelligence could do to my children's future. I just don't like to think about what could happen." Factors like faster computing, quantum AI and self-improving models could accelerate things. Hinton expects superintelligence in 10 to 20 years. Zuckerberg said during that podcast that he believes ASI could arrive within the next two to three years, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman estimates it'll be somewhere in between those time frames. Most researchers agree we're still missing key ingredients, like more advanced learning algorithms, better hardware and the ability to generalize knowledge like a human brain. IBM points to areas like neuromorphic computing (hardware inspired by human neurons), evolutionary algorithms and multisensory AI as building blocks that might get us there. Meta's quest for 'personal superintelligence' Meta launched its Superintelligence Labs in June, led by Alexandr Wang (ex-Scale AI CEO) and Nat Friedman (ex-GitHub CEO), with $14.3 billion invested in Scale AI and $64 billion to $72 billion for data centers and AI infrastructure. Zuckerberg doesn't shy away from Greek mythology, with names like Prometheus and Hyperion for his two AI data superclusters (massive computing centers). He also doesn't talk about artificial superintelligence in abstract terms. Instead, he claims that Meta's specific focus is on delivering "personal super intelligence to everyone in the world." This vision, according to Zuckerberg, sets Meta apart from other research labs that he says primarily concentrate on "automating economically productive work." Bostrom thinks this isn't mere hype. "It's possible we're only a small number of years away from this," he said of Meta's plans, noting that today's frontier labs "are quite serious about aiming for superintelligence, so it is not just marketing moves." Though still in its early stages, Meta is actively recruiting top talent from companies like OpenAI and Google. Zuckerberg explained in his interview with The Information that the market is extremely competitive because so few people possess the requisite high level of skills. Facebook and Zuckerberg didn't respond to requests for comment. Should humans subscribe to the idea of superintelligent AI? There are two camps in the AI world: those who are overly enthusiastic, inflating its benefits and seemingly ignoring its downsides; and the doomers who believe AI will inevitably take over and end humanity. The truth probably lands somewhere in the middle. Widespread public fear and resistance, fueled by dystopian sci-fi and very real concerns over job loss and massive economic disruption, could slow progress toward superintelligence. One of the biggest problems is that we don't really know what even AGI looks like in machines, much less ASI. Is it the ability to reason across domains? Hold long conversations? Form intentions? Build theories? None of the current models, including Meta's Llama 4 and Grok 4, can reliably do any of this. There's also no agreement on what counts as "smarter than humans." Does it mean acing every test, inventing new math and physics theorems or solving climate change? And even if we get there -- should we? Building systems vastly more intelligent than us could pose serious risks, especially if they act unpredictably or pursue goals misaligned with ours. Without strict control, it could manipulate systems or even act autonomously in ways we don't fully understand. Brendan Englot, director of the Stevens Institute for Artificial Intelligence, shared with CNET that he believes "an important first step is to approach cyber-physical security similarly to how we would prepare for malicious human-engineered threats, except with the expectation that they can be generated and launched with much greater ease and frequency than ever before." That said, Englot isn't convinced that current AI can truly outpace human understanding. "AI is limited to acting within the boundaries of our existing knowledge base," Englot tells CNET. "It is unclear when and how that will change." Regulations like the EU AI Act aim to help, but global alignment is tricky. For example, China's approach differs wildly from the West's. Trust is one of the biggest open questions. A superintelligent system might be incredibly useful, but also nearly impossible to audit or constrain. And when AI systems draw from biased or chaotic data like real-time social media, those problems compound. Some researchers believe that given enough data, computing power and clever model design, we'll eventually reach AGI and ASI. Others argue that current AI approaches (especially LLMs) are fundamentally limited and won't scale to true general or superhuman intelligence because the human brain has 100 trillion connections. That's not even accounting for our capability of emotional experience and depth, arguably humanity's strongest and most distinctive attribute. But progress moves fast, and it would be naive to dismiss ASI as impossible. If it does arrive, it could reshape science, economics and politics -- or threaten them all. Until then, general intelligence remains the milestone to watch. If and when superintelligence does become a reality, it could profoundly redefine human life itself. According to Bostrom, we'd enter what he calls a "post-instrumental condition," fundamentally rethinking what it means to be human. Still, he's ultimately optimistic about what lies on the other side, exploring these ideas further in his most recent book, Deep Utopia. "It will be a profound transformation," Bostrom tells CNET.

Castle Biosciences to Present at the Canaccord Genuity 45th Annual Growth Conference
Castle Biosciences to Present at the Canaccord Genuity 45th Annual Growth Conference

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Castle Biosciences to Present at the Canaccord Genuity 45th Annual Growth Conference

FRIENDSWOOD, Texas, July 29, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Castle Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: CSTL), a company improving health through innovative tests that guide patient care, today announced that its executive management is scheduled to present a company overview at the Canaccord Genuity 45th Annual Growth Conference on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern time. A live audio webcast of the Company's presentation will be available by visiting Castle Biosciences' website at A replay of the webcast will be available following the conclusion of the live broadcast. About Castle BiosciencesCastle Biosciences (Nasdaq: CSTL) is a leading diagnostics company improving health through innovative tests that guide patient care. The Company aims to transform disease management by keeping people first: patients, clinicians, employees and investors. Castle's current portfolio consists of tests for skin cancers, Barrett's esophagus and uveal melanoma. Additionally, the Company has active research and development programs for tests in these and other diseases with high clinical need, including its test in development to help guide systemic therapy selection for patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis seeking biologic treatment. To learn more, please visit and connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Instagram. DecisionDx-Melanoma, DecisionDx-CMSeq, i31-SLNB, i31-ROR, DecisionDx-SCC, MyPath Melanoma, TissueCypher, DecisionDx-UM, DecisionDx-PRAME and DecisionDx-UMSeq are trademarks of Castle Biosciences, Inc. Investor Contact:Camilla Zuckeroczuckero@ Media Contact:Allison Marshallamarshall@ Source: Castle Biosciences while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data

Natera Announces Launch of ABCSG 61 ("TEODOR"), a Randomized Controlled Trial of Signatera™ in Early-Stage Breast Cancer
Natera Announces Launch of ABCSG 61 ("TEODOR"), a Randomized Controlled Trial of Signatera™ in Early-Stage Breast Cancer

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Natera Announces Launch of ABCSG 61 ("TEODOR"), a Randomized Controlled Trial of Signatera™ in Early-Stage Breast Cancer

Study utilizes Signatera to identify HR+, HER2-negative breast cancer patients for de-escalation of neoadjuvant chemotherapy AUSTIN, Texas, July 29, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Natera, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTRA), a global leader in cell-free DNA and precision medicine, today announced the launch of the TEODOR trial (Neoadjuvant TrEatment Optimization driven by ctDNA and endOcrine Responsiveness). TEODOR is a Phase II, multicenter, randomized controlled trial (RCT) that aims to replace chemotherapy with endocrine therapy prior to surgery for a subset of women with hormone receptor-positive (HR+), HER2-negative breast cancer, who are endocrine responsive and test negative with Signatera. Sponsored by the Austrian Breast & Colorectal Cancer Study Group (ABCSG), TEODOR expects to enroll approximately 250 patients across 15 sites in Austria. Previous studies have demonstrated that patients who test Signatera-negative at diagnosis and then receive chemotherapy have excellent outcomes, with risk of recurrence at less than 5%. In an effort to reduce pre-operative chemotherapy, which can carry significant side effects, this study is designed to evaluate the efficacy of endocrine therapy compared to chemotherapy in patients who are Signatera-negative. After a four-week course of endocrine therapy, patients who are Signatera-negative and show a favorable endocrine sensitivity as measured by the Ki-67 proliferation index will be randomized to receive either additional endocrine therapy or chemotherapy. The primary endpoint of the study is the rate of neoadjuvant therapy response, assessed via pathological complete response (pCR) and modified Preoperative Endocrine Prognostic Index (PEPI) score across the endocrine therapy and chemotherapy arms of the trial. Secondary endpoints include long-term outcomes such as breast cancer recurrence and overall survival. "TEODOR is designed to examine whether we can use endocrine responsiveness and ctDNA status to optimize systemic therapy in the neoadjuvant setting," said ABCSG President, Michael Gnant, M.D., FACS, FEBS, who serves as professor of surgery, Comprehensive Cancer Center, Medical University of Vienna, and principal investigator of the TEODOR trial. "This study marks a critical step toward more personalized medicine, leveraging the latest technologies to improve patient care." "With the TEODOR trial, our goal is to identify patients who may be able to safely forgo chemotherapy," said Angel Rodriguez, M.D., medical director of oncology at Natera. "We are proud to collaborate with ABCSG on this important trial, and we hope this study will support the role of Signatera in guiding neoadjuvant therapy in breast cancer." About Natera Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA and genetic testing, dedicated to oncology, women's health, and organ health. We aim to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard-of-care to protect health and inform earlier, more targeted interventions that help lead to longer, healthier lives. Natera's tests are supported by more than 300 peer-reviewed publications that demonstrate excellent performance. Natera operates ISO 13485-certified and CAP-accredited laboratories certified under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) in Austin, Texas, and San Carlos, California. For more information, visit About ABCSG The ABCSG (Austrian Breast & Colorectal Cancer Study Group) is Austria's largest and best-known academic research organization, successfully conducting international clinical trials on breast and colorectal cancer — and, since 2013, also on pancreatic cancer. In addition, ABCSG is increasingly active in translational research. Our goal is to standardize diagnostics, treatment, and follow-up care throughout Austria and to offer patients the best and most up-to-date therapies. Since 1984, approximately 29,000 patients have participated in ABCSG studies worldwide. Multidisciplinarity is key to our global success and has helped improve cure rates and survival. Our clinical trials and translational research projects are conducted transparently and are monitored at every stage by ethics committees, regulatory authorities, and our highly professional and dedicated ABCSG team. Forward-Looking Statements All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release are forward-looking statements and are not a representation that Natera's plans, estimates, or expectations will be achieved. These forward-looking statements represent Natera's expectations as of the date of this press release, and Natera disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including with respect to whether the results of clinical or other studies will support the use of our product offerings, the impact of results of such studies, our expectations of the reliability, accuracy, and performance of our tests, or of the benefits of our tests and product offerings to patients, providers, and payers. Additional risks and uncertainties are discussed in greater detail in "Risk Factors" in Natera's recent filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, and in other filings Natera makes with the SEC from time to time. These documents are available at and View source version on Contacts Investor Relations: Mike Brophy, CFO, Natera, Inc., investor@ Media: Lesley Bogdanow, VP of Corporate Communications, Natera, Inc., pr@ Sign in to access your portfolio

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store