
World Has Record Hot January Despite Outlook for La Niña Cooling
Last month was the hottest January on record, with global average temperatures climbing 1.75C above pre-industrial levels.
The temperature in January averaged 13.2C (55.8F), according to preliminary data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, a UK-based research institute supported by 35 states. The ECMWF data was published by the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine.
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Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Texas to expand psychedelic research with $50M ibogaine investment
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is holding a bill signing ceremony Tuesday for legislation that invests $50 million into clinical research of ibogaine — a naturally occurring psychedelic substance that could treat post-traumatic stress disorder, opioid use disorder and other mental health conditions. For years, veterans and others suffering from PTSD have sought ibogaine treatment in Mexico, where the substance is not heavily regulated. In the United States, ibogaine is classified as a Schedule 1 drug, the most restrictive drug category. Other drugs classified under Schedule 1 include psilocybin, LSD and heroin. According to the legislative summary of SB 2308, the implications for those with opioid use disorder are lifechanging; a single administration of ibogaine in a controlled setting has been shown to stop withdrawal symptoms and reduce drug cravings long-term. RELATED: Lawmakers hope to expand medical marijuana program as state bans intoxicating hemp products 'Preliminary reports also suggest benefits in cognitive function, mood regulation, and sleep among individuals with [traumatic brain injury] and PTSD—conditions prevalent among U.S. veterans,' the bill text read. The new legislation will create a program within the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to support Texas-based trials of ibogaine through the FDA. Ibogaine is not currently FDA-approved due to its Schedule 1 classification. SB 2308 will fund research through gifts, grants or donations and will require equal matching funds by the recipients, which will include Texas medical facilities 'equipped for cardiac-intensive monitoring' by a supervising physician, among other qualifications. 'By advancing ibogaine research, Texas has the opportunity to lead in neuroscience innovation, address urgent veteran health needs, and shape the future of mental health treatment nationwide,' the bill text reads. While legislation aimed at easing access to ibogaine moves forward, separate legislation to restrict access to another plant has also progressed. Texas lawmakers sent a bill banning non-medical THC products to Abbott for approval late last month. Still, Texas in recent years has become more open-minded to the use of psychedelic substances in treating mental health conditions. 'There's definitely been a shift in the openness and the receptivity of the field to this type of research,' said Greg Fonzo, Ph.D., co-director of the McGill Center for Psychedelic Research & Therapy at Dell Medical School. 'People who do undergo this treatment process, some of them respond well and have a benefit in terms of symptom reductions and feeling better,' Fonzo told KXAN earlier this year. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


Gizmodo
4 hours ago
- Gizmodo
These Are the Dogs Most Likely to Get Diarrhea
Researchers in the U.K. analyzed vet records from over two million dogs to uncover the messy truth about canine diarrhea. Speaking from personal experience; fewer things in the world are messier than a dog with the runs. New research out today reveals how often people will take their dog to the vet for a bout of diarrhea, as well as some potential factors that could raise a pup's risk of it, such as their breed. Scientists at the Royal Veterinary College in the U.K. conducted the study, which examined the vet records of several million dogs. They estimated that one in every 12 dogs experiences diarrhea serious enough to prompt a vet visit each year, with certain breeds, including German Shepherds, more likely to experience it. The study also suggests that dogs are often getting overprescribed antibiotics as a result. Much like their human owners, dogs commonly suffer from diarrhea, and the study's researchers wanted to better understand how often it's diagnosed in primary care vet clinics and how it's typically managed. To do so, they analyzed the (anonymous) medical records of more than two million U.K. dogs that visited vets in 2019. They also studied the characteristics of 1,835 randomly selected cases of confirmed diarrhea within this sample. They calculated that 8.18% of dogs are diagnosed with diarrhea by their primary vet in a given year. But this risk was higher for six breeds in particular compared to the average mixed breed dog: the Maltese, Miniature Poodle, Cavapoo, German Shepherd, and Yorkshire Terrier. Conversely, only two breeds—the Jack Russell Terrier and Chihuahua—had a lower risk of diarrhea. Dogs younger than three and older than nine were also more likely to be diagnosed with diarrhea compared to middle-aged dogs. About a third of the cases they studied involved blood in the stool, a sign of more serious illness; nearly half of all dogs studied also experienced vomiting. But most cases in general cleared up without too much trouble, with more than 80% only meriting a single trip to the vet. In other words, as is true with people, doggy diarrhea is usually miserable but short-lasting. 'Experiencing the dreaded doggy poonami is one of those events every dog owner fears. This new study shows that diarrhea events are very common in dogs but that owners should not panic—no matter how bad the deluge, most dogs will recover in a few days with good veterinary treatment,' said lead study researcher Dan O'Neill, an associate professor of companion animal epidemiology at the RVC, in a statement provided to Gizmodo. The findings might also provide some insights into the nature of doggy diarrhea. It's possible that the higher-risk breeds highlighted in the study are more genetically vulnerable to digestive problems, for instance. The researchers also found other factors tied to a higher diarrhea risk, such as scavenging (the tendency for a dog to try eating things off the ground or from other non-intentional sources). On the more worrying side, the findings indicate that antibiotics are getting overused in dogs as well as humans. Veterinary guidelines have long advised against using antibiotics for mild to moderate cases of diarrhea in dogs, the researchers note. These drugs are not only unlikely to speed up a dog's recovery, but can incidentally increase antibiotic resistance. Despite these guidelines, however, nearly 40% of the cases they studied were still treated with antibiotics. 'High antibiotic use within veterinary clinical management against years of recommendation to the contrary raises concerns about unnecessary antibiotic therapy for this condition,' the researchers wrote in their paper, published in PLOS ONE. Dogs deserve nothing but the best healthcare, of course. But for most cases of diarrhea, time and less intrusive measures like switching to blander foods (boiled chicken, white rice, etc.) are all you need to help your dog through their gastrointestinal ordeal.


WIRED
6 hours ago
- WIRED
A Deep Learning Alternative Can Help AI Agents Gameplay the Real World
Jun 11, 2025 12:30 PM A new machine learning approach tries to better emulate the human brain, in hopes of creating more capable agentic AI. Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images A new machine learning approach that draws inspiration from the way the human brain seems to model and learn about the world has proven capable of mastering a number of simple video games with impressive efficiency. The new system, called Axiom, offers an alternative to the artificial neural networks that are dominant in modern AI. Axiom, developed by a software company called Verse AI, is equipped with prior knowledge about the way objects physically interact with each other in the game world. It then uses an algorithm to model how it expects the game to act in response to input, which is updated based on what it observes—a process dubbed active inference. The approach draws inspiration from the free energy principle, a theory that seeks to explain intelligence using principles drawn from math, physics, and information theory as well as biology. The free energy principle was developed by Karl Friston, a renowned neuroscientist who is chief scientist at 'cognitive computing' company Verses. Friston told me over video from his home in London that the approach may be especially important for building AI agents. 'They have to support the kind of cognition that we see in real brains,' he said. 'That requires a consideration, not just of the ability to learn stuff but actually to learn how you act in the world.' The conventional approach to learning to play games involves training neural networks through what is known as deep reinforcement learning, which involves experimenting and tweaking their parameters in response to either positive or negative feedback. The approach can produce superhuman game-playing algorithms but it requires a great deal of experimentation to work. Axiom masters various simplified versions of popular video games called drive, bounce, hunt, and jump using far fewer examples and less computation power. 'The general goals of the approach and some of its key features track with what I see as the most important problems to focus on to get to AGI,' says François Chollet, an AI researcher who developed ARC 3, a benchmark designed to test the capabilities of modern AI algorithms. Chollet is also exploring novel approaches to machine learning, and is using his benchmark to test models' abilities to learn how to solve unfamiliar problems rather than simply mimic previous examples. 'The work strikes me as very original, which is great,' he says. 'We need more people trying out new ideas away from the beaten path of large language models and reasoning language models.' Modern AI relies on artificial neural networks that are roughly inspired by the wiring of the brain but work in a fundamentally different way. Over the past decade and a bit, deep learning, an approach that uses neural networks, has enabled computers to do all sorts of impressive things including transcribe speech, recognize faces, and generate images. Most recently, of course, deep learning has led to the large language models that power garrulous and increasingly capable chatbots. Axiom, in theory, promises a more efficient approach to building AI from scratch. It might be especially effective for creating agents that need to learn efficiently from experience, says Gabe René, the CEO of Verses. René says one finance company has begun experimenting with the company's technology as a way of modeling the market. 'It is a new architecture for AI agents that can learn in real time and is more accurate, more efficient, and much smaller,' René says. 'They are literally designed like a digital brain.' Somewhat ironically, given that Axiom offers an alternative to modern AI and deep learning, the free energy principle was originally influenced by the work of British Canadian computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, who was awarded both the Turing award and the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work on deep learning. Hinton was a colleague of Friston's at University College London for years. For more on Friston and the free energy principle, I highly recommend this 2018 WIRED feature article. Friston's work also influenced an exciting new theory of consciousness, described in a book WIRED reviewed in 2021.