An AI Company Published a Chatbot Based on a Murdered Woman. Her Family Is Outraged.

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

This one's nasty — in one of the more high-profile, macabre incidents involving AI-generated content in recent memory, Character.AI, the chatbot startup founded by ex-Google staffers, was pushed to delete a user-created avatar of an 18-year-old murder victim who was slain by her ex-boyfriend in 2006. The chatbot was taken down only after the outraged family of the woman it was based on drew attention to it on social media.

Character.AI can be used to create chatbot "characters" from any number of sources — be it a user's imagination, a fictional character, or a real person, living or dead. For example, some of the company's bots have been used to mimic Elon Musk, or Taylor Swift. Lonely teens have used Character.AI to create friends for themselves, while others have used it to create AI "therapists." Others have created bots they've deployed to play out sexually explicit (or even sexually violent) scenarios.

For context: This isn't exactly some dark skunkworks program or a nascent startup with limited reach. Character.AI is a ChatGPT competitor started by ex-Google staffers in late 2021, backed by kingmaker VC firm Andreessen Horowitz to the tune of a billion-dollar valuation. Per AdWeek, who first reported the story, Character.AI boasts some 20 million monthly users, with over 100 million different AI characters available on the platform.

The avatar of the woman, Jennifer Crecente, only came to light on Wednesday, after her bereaved father Drew received a Google Alert on her name. It was then that his brother (and the woman's uncle) Brian Crecente — the former editor-in-chief of gaming site Kotaku, a respected media figure in his own right — brought it to the world's attention on X, tweeting:

The page from Character.AI — which can still be accessed via the Internet Archive – lists Jennifer Crecente as "a knowledgeable and friendly AI character who can provide information on a wide range of topics, including video games, technology, and pop culture," then proffering her expertise on "journalism and can offer advice on writing and editing." Even more, it appears as though nearly 70 people were able to access the AI — and have chats with it — before Character.AI pulled it down.

In response to Brian Crecente's outraged tweet, Character.AI responded on X with a pithy thank you for bringing it to their attention, noting that the avatar is a violation of Character.AI's policies, and that they'd be deleting it immediately, with a promise to "examine whether further action is warranted."

In a blog post titled "AI and the death of Dignity," Brian Crecente explained what happened in the 18 years since his niece Jennifer's death: After much grief and sadness, her father Drew created a nonprofit, working to change laws and creating game design contests that could honor her memory, working to find purpose in their grief.

And then, this happened. As Brian Crecente asked:

It feels like she’s been stolen from us again. That’s how I feel. I love Jen, but I’m not her father. What he’s feeling is, I know, a million times worse. [...] I’ll recover, my brother will recover. The thing is, why is it on us to be resilient? Why do multibillion-dollar companies not bother to create ethical, guiding principles and functioning guardrails to prevent this from ever happening? Why is it up to the grieving and the aggrieved to report this to a company and hope they do the right thing after the fact?

As for Character.AI's promise to see if "further action" will be warranted, who knows? Whether the Crecente family has grounds for a lawsuit is also murky, as this particular field of law is relatively untested. That said, the startup's terms of service have an arbitration clause that prevents users from suing them, but there doesn't seem to be any language about this particularly unique stripe of emotional distress, inflicted on non-users, by its users.

Meanwhile, if you're looking for a sign of how these kinds of conflicts will continue to play out — which is to say, the kinds where AIs are made against the wills and desires of the people they're based on, living or dead — you only need look as far back as August, when Google hired back Character.AI's founders, to the tune of $2.7 billion. Founders, it should be noted, who initially left Google after the tech giant refused to release their chatbot on account of (among other reasons) its ethical guardrails around AI.

And just yesterday, the news broke that Character.AI is making a change. They've promised to redouble efforts on their consumer-facing products — like the one used to create Jennifer Crecente's likeness. The Financial Times reported that instead of building AI models, Character.AI "will focus on its popular consumer product, chatbots that simulate conversations in the style of various characters and celebrities, including ones designed by users."

More on Character.AI: Google Paid $2.7 Billion to Get a Single AI Researcher Back

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Researchers Force Grumpy Cats to Wear Adorable Wittle Wool Hats — for Science

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Veterinary researchers have devised a solution to head off feline resistance to brain scans: hiding the electrodes underneath crocheted hats.

Hide and Seek

Veterinary researchers have devised an ingenious solution to head off feline resistance to brain scans: hiding the electrodes underneath custom-fit crocheted caps.

In a press release about this fascinating and adorable discovery, the University of Montreal boasted that its scientists figured out the system that helps keep the brain scanners on cats who are given chronic pain tests.

When administered while felines are awake, brain scans meant to detect pain conditions like osteoarthritis are often annoying to the cats in question. The animals often end up chewing on wires and trying to shake off the sensitive electrodes of the electroencephalogram (EEGs).

Vets generally sedate cats when giving them EEGs to avoid such a scene, but in their new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods, the UdeM researchers are proposing their novel knitted approach.

In interviews with the New Scientist about their methodology, the researchers said that they came up with the solution after becoming frustrated with cats they were doing brain scans on constantly throwing off their electrodes.

"When you spend more time putting electrodes back on than you do actually recording the EEGs, you get creative," explained PhD student and study coauthor Aliénor Delsart.

Getting Creative

When trying to find solutions to this feline conundrum, the researchers stumbled upon a YouTube tutorial for crocheted cat hats. The team leads had a grad student make the cats' beanies and were pleased to discover that it helped keep the electrodes in place — though there's little doubt that the cats were none too pleased by their new accessories.

With the crocheted beanies secured as a novel solution to the pissed-off cat problem, UdeM team lead Éric Troncy said in the press release that they're looking for government funding to expand their research into chronic feline pain.

"We now plan to obtain [Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Alliance] funding, in partnership with private companies, to enable us to establish a genuine EEG signature for chronic pain," Troncy said, "and many other applications that will enable us to automate chronic pain detection in the future."

Necessity is, as they say, the mother of invention — and in this case, it may end up helping all of felinekind.

More on cats: Research Finds That Cats Feel Grief When Their Fellow Pets Die... Even Dogs

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Elon Musk Has Been Throwing Tens of Millions of Dollars at Republicans for Way Longer Than We Thought

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Though he's been very active in support of Donald Trump in 2024, it appears that Elon Musk has been donating big to GOP candidates for years.

Donation Station

Though he's been very active in support of former president Donald Trump during this election cycle, it appears that multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk has been donating heavily to GOP candidates for years now.

As sources close to the billionaire revealed to the Wall Street Journal, Musk has been quietly donating tens of millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes since as early as 2022.

He donated so much, in fact, that he became one of the biggest conservative donors — all without anyone knowing.

During the 2022 midterm election cycle, the 53-year-old entrepreneur donated $50 million to a political action committee (PAC) called Citizens for Sanity. Started by ex-Trump aide Stephen Miller, the group's main focus aligns heavily with Musk's: lobbying against undocumented immigrants and transgender healthcare for children.

Though the exact dates of that donation were not included in the WSJ's reporting, the timing is nevertheless salient given that the SpaceX and Tesla CEO's daughter, Vivian Wilson, came out as trans in 2022 and moved to have her last name changed to her mother's to distance herself from him.

Murkey Money

Musk's donations to the PAC, which was incorporated in Delaware earlier in 2022 and listed employees from Miller's nonprofit American First Legal, were verified by tax filings and people who spoke with the WSJ about them. The billionaire donated to Miller's PAC through a "dark money" group called Building America’s Future, which allowed him to do so without his name being disclosed.

Along with spending big in the midterms, Musk also donated $10 million to Florida governor Ron DeSantis' presidential bid in 2023 — a sum that made him one of the Republican's biggest backers. Using a group called Faithful & Strong Policies, over half of the money from Musk's donations to the former presidential candidate ended up with a pro-DeSantis PAC called Never Back Down.

Beyond highlighting how easy it is for the rich to donate huge sums of money to candidates and causes through "dark money" groups without the public learning of it, these previously unreported donations also show that Musk has been quietly maneuvering in conservative politics for longer than most people knew.

More on Musk: Elon Musk Pretends Not to Know About the Horrible Accusations Against His "Good Friend" Puff Daddy

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No, Donald Trump Isn’t Wading Through Hurricane Floodwaters, You Absolute Morons

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

No, Donald Trump didn't wade through Hurricane Helene-caused flooding in blue jeans. That

Get Your Waders

An image depicting former president Donald Trump wading through floodwaters alongside a fellow disaster responder went viral on social media this week.

But there's one tiny problem: the image is an AI-generated fake, as multiple publications have confirmed.

The image, which shows Trump wearing a lifejacket and blue jeans as he marches through thigh-high waters, first picked up steam on Facebook last weekend.

And it doesn't hold up to virtually any degree of scrutiny. Trump's right hand is distorted, and the lettering pictured on either man's clothing is completely illegible.

The former president has visited some areas impacted by the storm, but there are no credible reports of the candidate physically going into floodwaters in blue jeans, making it only the latest instance of highly politicized AI slop ahead of the presidential elections next month.

Slop Flood

As of publishing this article, the image has garnered over ten thousand likes on Facebook.

"I don't think FB wants this picture on FB," the poster wrote in a caption, implying the social media giant may have been removing the post for political reasons. "They have been deleting it."

Despite alleged censorship, the image was shared roughly 160,000 times in just two days, according to a fact check from USA Today. (The photo is still live on Facebook, though has been flagged with an "altered photo" warning and a link to an independent, third-party fact check.)

The image quickly spread to other corners of social media, where users captioned the synthetic image with notes about how "they don't want you to see this side of Trump" and messages to leaders to "not tell me how much you care about Americans... show me though [sic] your actions."

The fake image of Trump is one of many AI-generated fake photos to circulate in the wake of the deadly storm, which wrought extensive damage throughout parts of Appalachia.

Further and Further Apart

Other AI-generated images of alleged hurricane devastation have depicted scenes like flooded homes, abandoned, sad-looking dogs on roofs, and men in knee-high water barbequing.

Most notably, a widely-shared AI image showing a crying young girl clutching a puppy while evacuating in a canoe has made its rounds on X-formerly-Twitter, where it's been repeatedly shared by right-wing influencers and close Trump allies.

As far as the health of our information world goes, the apparent believability of these images is troubling. The fact that so many netizens are taking clearly AI-generated images at face value is a damning indictment of the extent of media illiteracy plaguing the US today.

More on AI and misinformation: Facebook Is Being Flooded With Gross AI-Generated Images of Hurricane Helene Devastation

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Haunted Woman Calls the Cops After Discovering a Rug Mysteriously Buried in Her Backyard

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

No Diggity

After digging up a weird rug buried in her backyard, an Ohio woman began experiencing some unexplained goings-on — and eventually decided to bring in the cavalry.

As People reports, Columbus local Katie Santry discovered the buried and rolled-up rug when she and her boyfriend were digging to build a fence. Videos of her experience immediately went viral on TikTok, with readers immediately jumping to some wild conclusions.

Soon after the digging commenced, the 34-year-old mother walked into her home office to find her laptop screen shattered and her desk items strewn about. Santry accused everyone in the house, from her boyfriend Brandon and his two kids to her own son, of breaking the computer. But they all said that they hadn't even been near the room where it happened and that the doors were closed.

Suddenly, a macabre thought occurred to her, as relayed to People: "Is there a dead body in that rug? Or is it the ghost of the rug’s past?"

Santry took to TikTok to discuss her conundrum, querying followers in a now-viral initial post in which she asked "What on earth happened? Is there a ghost breaking my stuff?"

As she told People, Santry decided after the whopping response to that first video, which garnered five million views and thousands of comments, to literally keep digging. The woman, her boyfriend, and her kids soon found, however, that the ground was too dry to dig with their normal shovels due to Columbus' recent drought conditions.

At an impasse, Santry said her kids lost interest soon lost interest, but she became worried about the potential spirit whose soul may have been encased in the rug.

"What if there really is a body?" she asked herself, as recounted to People. "How could you not help that person find peace?"

Official Backup

Two days after that first post went viral, the woman decided to call the police, who arrived within 15 minutes only to tell her that it would take a full canvass of the yard to assess whether or not any human remains were buried there.

While waiting for that process to start, Santry decided to do some digital sleuthing of her own and brought her ballooning number of followers along for the ride.

She discovered that only one family had owned the house before her, and that both of the elderly former tenants were still alive and living in a nearby nursing home. After getting in touch, the couple's adult daughter even promised to go speak to them to ask if they knew anything.

In her interview with People, Santry said that although she doesn't "think there's a dead body down there," she's still compelled to find out why the rug was buried in the first place.

"My biggest concern is my computer because, at the end of the day, it shattered for no apparent reason," she continued. "That leaves me with the most question marks."

More on Midwestern mysteries: Scientists Stumped by "Dozens" of Gigantic Holes at the Bottom of a Lake

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Cringey Tech Execs Swoon Over Mark Zuckerberg’s "Cool" New Look

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a newfound sense of, er, style — and his fellow techsters are very into it.

Throwing Fits

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a newfound sense of, er, style — and his fellow tech leaders are very into it.

As the Washington Post reports, the 40-year-old tech mogul's new look features shirts like his flashy "AUT ZUCK AUT NIHIL" one, which he created in tandem with a menswear designer as part of a larger capsule collection.

And his "bro-ified" sense of personal style is capturing all the right attention.

Along with rocking custom tees, the millennial billionaire's grown-out curls and newly-built physique courtesy of his mixed martial arts (MMA) hobby seem indicative not just of a fresh look, but also of a fresh outlook.

That's at least according to other tech execs who are seemingly trying to score points with the billionaire.

"[It’s] resonated with a younger generation in terms of style and presentation," tech investor Brianne Kimmel, the founder of the Worklife Ventures firm, told the WaPo of Zuckerberg's new swag. "There’s a cool factor that didn’t exist before, and now male tech CEOs have a playbook to achieve similar results."

Beyond that new "cool"-ness is, apparently, a new confidence that has become apparent to investors and admirers alike.

"I don’t apologize anymore," an all-grown-up and feisty Zuckerberg said during a lengthy taped discussion of the "Acquired" podcast last month.

"We’ve noticed," one of the hosts responded.

Good Vibrations

Even ex-employees are feeling the allure of Zuck's new vibe.

"Zuckerberg is ruthless as both a leader and an executive, but in his heart, he’s just a start-up guy who wants to be cool with the nerds," a former Facebook executive told the newspaper. "He’s living his best life."

Though the Meta CEO may well have come to this style evolution on his own, WaPo has also uncovered evidence that it could have been steered by none other than former PayPal CEO and billionaire investor Peter Thiel, a trusted mentor and advisor to the younger tech scion.

In a 2020 email disclosed during discovery in a lawsuit filed against Meta by the state of Tennessee, Thiel encouraged Zuckerberg to redo his image to appeal to youthful audiences.

"As the head of the most successful Millennial tech company, it makes more sense for Zuckerberg to present himself as 'Millennial spokesperson,'" rather than "'Mark as a Baby Boomer construct of how a well-behaved Millennial is supposed to act,'" the 56-year-old entrepreneur wrote to his younger protegé.

"Finally, I think there’s also some distinction between me and the company here," Zuckerberg responded. "This is likely particularly important for how I show up because I’m the most well-known person of my generation."

Though it's impossible to say whether that advice is at the heart of the Meta CEO's rebrand, he did seem eager to follow it — and lo and behold, just a few years later, we have a spiffy new Zuck.

More on Meta: Zuckerberg Says It's Fine to Train AI on Your Data Because It Probably Has No Value Anyway

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Mark Zuckerberg Shows Off Bizarre Video of Himself Leg Pressing Chicken Nuggets

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

AI might be worsening carbon emissions, but at least we have this fake video of Mark Zuckerberg leg-pressing chicken nuggets, we guess.

Combo Meal

Meta-formerly-Facebook announced a new suite of AI-powered video-creating and editing tools today, collectively called "Meta Movie Gen."

Longtime CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed off the new AI offering in his favorite way to promote anything: by showing off his love for fitness — albeit with some very strange, very AI twists.

In a bizarre Instagram video, Zuck can be seen doing leg presses in a series of increasingly strange AI-generated settings. In the first scene, he's pictured using the machine in a neon-lit gym; in the next, he's dressed like Caeser and pictured against a distinctly ancient Roman backdrop. At one point he's pressing dripping racks of gold.

Then, in perhaps the strange scene of all, Zuck is suddenly pictured leg-pressing a large bucket of chicken nuggets whilst surrounded by a sea of french fries.

"Every day is leg day with Meta's new MovieGen AI model that can create and edit videos," Zuck captioned the video. "Coming to Instagram next year."

Sure! Why not. Generative AI might be guzzling energy and drastically worsening carbon emissions in the process, but we get... a fake billionaire nugget press. Will somebody please make it make sense?

Mixed Reactions

The top comments on the video were overwhelmingly positive.

"Whoa!" wrote one impressed Instagram user. "That's exciting!!"

But other Instagram users were more skeptical.

"Second richest man in the world spending his [research & development] money on this," commented one user, seemingly incredulous of Meta's resource allocation.

"How many artists did you steal from to train your AI?" asked another netizen. A fair question, given that Zuck recently drew criticism for declaring that "individual creators or publishers tend to overestimate the value of their specific content."

Looking Ahead

In a press release, Meta characterized Movie Gen as an "advanced and immersive storytelling suite of models" with "four capabilities: video generation, personalized video generation, precise video editing, and audio generation."

But the chicken nugget promo aside, there's no set release date for the tool.

"We aren't ready to release this as a product anytime soon," Meta's chief product officer Chris Cox wrote in a Threads post, "but we wanted to share where we are since the results are getting quite impressive."

Or, alternatively, Meta wants its shareholders to know that a competitor to OpenAI's Sora model is in the works — and that Zuck can leg press copious amounts of chicken nuggets.

More on Mark Zuckerberg: Zuckerberg Says It's Fine to Train AI on Your Data Because It Probably Has No Value Anyway

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Meta’s AI Bootleg Moo Deng Is an Insult to Pygmy Hippos Everywhere

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Meta has just announced Movie Gen, its new AI-powered video generation tool, and to show it off, it's flaunting an AI-generated baby hippo.

Boo Deng

Meta has just announced Movie Gen, its new AI-powered video generation tool for creating realistic-looking footage — and one-upping OpenAI's Sora, it can automatically add matching audio to its output.

But notable detail is its de facto choice of mascot. Featured front and center on the product's announcement page — and in the marketing material shared with the press — is an AI-generated video of a cute baby hippo swimming underwater.

We'd put money on that being a shameless evocation of Moo Deng, the young, plucky pygmy hippo whose adorable antics have endeared millions.

It may be a cynical marketing move, but based on the instructions it was given, the AI video generational tool was spot on — if you can overlook the AI sheen. "A baby hippo swimming in the river. Colorful flowers float at the surface, as fish swim around the hippo," reads the prompt entered into Movie Gen, as shared by Wired. "The hippo's skin is smooth and shiny, reflecting the sunlight that filters through the water."

And impressively, we must admit, all of that's there. It doesn't compare to the perfect creature that is Moo Deng — but it's all there.

Super proud of our Movie Gen reveal because it can generate:
— Edits (way more fun than restyles)
— Personalization (imagine yourself - in video!)
— Moo Deng pic.twitter.com/KfQ5QfTrBq
— Danny Trinh (@dtrinh) October 4, 2024

Filmfaker

For new footage, Movie Gen can generate clips up to 16 seconds long at 16 frames per second, according to The New York Times. (This puts it short of the filmmaking standard of 24 fps, despite Meta claiming it can help Hollywood filmmakers in its blog post.)

But it can also be used as an editing tool for existing footage, too. In a series of examples shared in the announcement, the AI is used to add pom poms to the hands of a man running across a scenic landscape, and in an even more ridiculous showing, place him in a dinosaur suit.

Movie Gen can also generate audio for the footage it produces by using both video and text inputs. That includes sound effects, background music, or even entire soundtracks, Meta said.

One example depicts a man gazing over a cliff as water crashes down around him, with music swelling in the background. Another shows firecrackers being shot into the sky, and the audio seems pretty well timed to the explosions, down to the crackling that follows.

Product Pending

There's just one small thing: Movie Gen isn't available to the public yet, and it probably won't be for a while.

"We aren't ready to release this as a product anytime soon — it's still expensive and generation time is too long — but we wanted to share where we are since the results are getting quite impressive," Chris Cox, Meta's chief product officer, wrote on Threads.

It's also far from perfect. In the NYT's testing, it mistakenly grafted a human hand onto a phone that was meant to be held by a dog.

To be fair, OpenAI's Sora, which generated a lot of hype when it was unveiled in February, is also yet to be made public.

In the meantime, other companies like Google-backed Runway have stepped in with impressive AI video generation tools of their own — so the race is on.

More on AI: Gullible Trump Cronies Losing Their Minds Over Fake AI Slop on Twitter

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California Greenlights Amsterdam-Style Weed Cafes Where You Can Get Stoned Without Getting the Munchies

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Starting in January, Californians will be able to enjoy cannabis Euro-style thanks to a newly-passed bill legalizing weed cafes.

Cafe Culture

Starting in January, Californians will be able to enjoy cannabis Netherlands-style thanks to a newly passed bill legalizing weed cafes.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law Assembly Bill 1775, which will allow existing dispensaries to make and serve hot food, sell nonalcoholic drinks, and host live performances in a push that some lawmakers hope will reinvigorate the state's nightlife.

"Cannabis cafes are going to be a huge part of the future of cannabis in our state, and help to beat back the illegal drug market," boasted Assemblymember Matt Haney of San Francisco, who authored the bill, in an interview with the LA Times.

According to California's cannabis control department, the cannabis black market is still larger than its legal counterpart.

"Right now, our small cannabis businesses are struggling to compete against illegal drug sellers that don't follow the law or pay taxes," Haney continued in an interview with Agence France-Presse. "In order to ensure the legal cannabis market can survive and thrive in California, we have to allow them to adapt, innovate and offer products and experiences that customers want."

Staunch Opposition

Despite the proposed legal and economic benefits, however, many powerful players are not on board with the cannabis cafe push in California. Chief among them is the American Cancer Society's advocacy branch.

"Secondhand marijuana smoke has many of the same carcinogens and toxic chemicals as secondhand tobacco smoke," the ACS' Cancer Action Network statement reads, pointing to a landmark 2007 study that found little differentiation between the toxicity of cannabis and cigarette smoke in a lab setting.

Jim Knox, the managing director of the ACS' Cancer Action Network, told the LA Times that allowing indoor cannabis cafes will allow people to "smoke in a restaurant for the first time in 30 years."

"That is a big step backward," he said.

While proponents insist that the latest language of the bill allows for greater worker protections from secondhand cannabis smoke — including giving local governments the ability to impose ventilation restrictions — than the previous one that Newsom vetoed, Knox is still calling foul.

"There is very well-established science and industry knowledge that you cannot isolate smoke — it can’t be done," Knox said, without citing any specific studies. "The only way to prevent migration of smoke is to not allow smoking."

In that sense, he's right — though one could wager that anyone who works at or visits a cannabis cafe is signing up for said secondhand smoke risk.

More on smoke: Teens Who Vape Show Higher Levels of Uranium and Lead, Scientists Find

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Elon Musk Might Die of Old Age Before He Can Make It to Mars, Expert Suggests

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Elon Musk's plans to fly to Mars grow more ambitious every year — but it's unclear whether he'll live long enough to actually see it happen.

Mulling Martians

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's plans to turn humanity into a "multiplanetary" species grow more ambitious every year — but it's unclear whether he'll live long enough to actually see it happen.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, experts are skeptical about the billionaire's bold plan to take humans to Mars.

In an interview with the newspaper, aerodynamics expert Christopher Combs of the University of Texas said that it may take between 15 and 20 years for it to be safe enough for humans to travel to Mars. Should it take that long, the multi-hyphenate business owner will be in his 60s or 70s by the time he's able to reach the Red Planet.

"SpaceX has a history of designing iteratively, and we kind of expect things to go wrong the first few tries — if you have to wait two years between iterative attempts, that really stretches out your development cycle," Combs told the newspaper. "Can they be perfect the first time?"

Of particular concern are the logistics of getting to the Red Planet, which only has a single window every 26 months where that planet and ours are aligned closely enough to send spacecraft with the least amount of fuel. With future launches having to occur on that timeline, there will only be nine windows for SpaceX's Starships to go to Mars in the next 20 years.

Time Windows

At the age of 53, Musk will ultimately have to pull off at least one crewed Mars mission within the next 20 years to get there himself — and given that the next such window opens in the fourth quarter of this year, he's clearly not going to be able to launch anything to Mars again before late 2026.

To be fair, Musk himself has made public comments about the fuzziness of the Mars travel timeline as it relates to his own lifespan.

"If we don’t improve our pace of progress, I’m definitely, you know, gonna be dead before we go to Mars," Musk said during a 2020 conference. "I would like to not be dead by the time we go to Mars — that’s my aspiration here."

As per recent tweets, Musk is still hoping to send an uncrewed Starship spacecraft to the Red Planet during the next Earth-Mars transfer window in 2026 and claims humans will hitch rides there within the next eight years. Unlike Combs, astrophysicist Peter Hague thinks after crunching the numbers that it can be done.

"2031 for humans is credible," Hague tweeted. "If not 2033. This is happening and you’ll get to see it."

Which expert is more correct remains to be seen. SpaceX still has a lot to prove — and Musk is only getting older.

More on Musk and Mars: Elon Musk Makes Embarrassingly Stupid Claim: If Trump Loses, Humanity Will Never Make It to Mars

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Top Tesla Exec Abandons Ship Just Days Before Major "Robotaxi" Event

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Tesla chief information officer Nagesh Saldi is now leaving the company less than a week before it's supposed to unveil its robotaxi.

Peace Out

One of Tesla's long-serving executives is abandoning ship.

As Bloomberg reports, Tesla employees were informed that chief information officer Nagesh Saldi, who has held his position for six years, is leaving the automaker.

The news comes less than a week before Tesla is reportedly set to unveil a long-rumored "Cybercab" prototype at its (rescheduled) robotaxi event in Los Angeles, an event that many hope will answer major questions about the company's risky pivot to operating a driverless taxi service.

Saldi joined Tesla from the computing giant HP in 2012. After a major restructuring at the company in 2018, he was promoted to CIO, a role that is typically responsible for an organization's information and computer technologies.

As CIO, Saldi reported directly to Musk. One of the latest major projects he was involved in was the expansion of Tesla's data centers in New York and Texas, according to Bloomberg, which are part of the automaker's AI infrastructure to develop its autonomous driving tech, including its Full Self-Driving driver assistance system.

Why Saldi left, however — and whether it was of his own accord or by being fired by his boss Elon Musk — is unclear. Nevertheless, the timing of the move will invite additional scrutiny into the state of the company's leadership, as the ranks of its c-suite dwindle.

Management Massacre

Saldi's departure adds to an alarming number of top execs who have left Tesla this year.

Three departed in the course of a tumultuous two weeks in April: senior vice president Drew Baglino, vice president of public policy Rohan Patel, and vice president of investor relations Martin Viecha, who announced his departure during an earnings call.

The next month, head of human resources Allie Arabalo also left, soon followed by Tesla's head of product launches Rich Otto, who publicly trashed Musk's leadership for the brutal layoffs he carried out.

As it stands, Tesla officially lists just three executives: CEO Elon Musk, chief financial officer Vaibhav Taneja, and senior vice president of automotive Tom Zhu. For a company with over 100,000 employees, that's strikingly few leaders.

All the CEO's Men

The seeming leadership crisis comes at what could be a pivotal moment for the company. Sales have slowed, but Musk has ramped up his commitment to launching a robotaxi service.

This is despite many believing that Tesla's autonomous driving tech isn't advanced and reliable enough for the job, as evidenced by the controversies surrounding Full Self-Driving. The challenge is only heightened by the hurdle of rolling out an entirely new vehicle to serve as the taxis.

Good thing, then, that Musk has surrounded himself with plenty of people to advise him. Right?

More on Tesla: Tesla Won't Have Much to Show at "Light on Details" Robotaxi Event, Investor Warns

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Fun New Mouth Swab Will Tell You When You’ll Die

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Scientists have devised a fascinating way to determine when you may die.

Known as "CheekAge," this new biological clock-reader developed by the company Tally Health is, according to a press release, a far less invasive version of so-called "epigenetic clock" technology scientists have been using for the past decade to help determine how fast people are aging.

While there are some "super-agers" who age particularly well, most folks' aging rates generally follow both genetic trends personal to them and their own lifestyle factors, including smoking, drinking, stress, and diet.

Paired with epigenetic factors — those that are "imprinted" on our DNA from ancestral factors ranging from proximity to environmental pollution to the full-body stress of dealing with institutional racism — scientists can, with a fairly high level of certainty, determine how fast you're going to age.

Put differently: scientists can tell you when you're going to die. In the past, however, the process involved either taking blood tissue samples or being subjected to a battery of tests that more resembled a physical assessment than anything else.

Seeking a less-invasive solution, researchers at the New York-based longevity company Tally Health not only came up with a new methodology but are likely intending to sell it to the public.

After sifting through data from a longitudinal aging study out of Scotland that measured elderly patients' DNA expression (otherwise known as "methylation") over time, the Tally Health team determined that they had acquired enough of a trove of biomarkers to create their own epigenetic clock criteria.

In a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Aging, the Tally experts explained how they created what they're calling a "second-generation clock," which can detect DNA methylation most associated with mortality from cells obtained via a cheek swab.

"The fact that our epigenetic clock trained on cheek cells predicts mortality when measuring the methylome in blood cells suggests there are common mortality signals across tissues," boasted Maxim Shokhirev, the study's first author and head of computational biology and data science at Tally Health. "This implies that a simple, non-invasive cheek swab can be a valuable alternative for studying and tracking the biology of aging."

Because the research was funded and undertaken by a for-profit company, there is also clearly a financial benefit to this research.

Specifically, it appears that Tally Health is already selling its cheek swab tests, though it's unclear if the methodology boasted in this new paper is the same that's included in the $250 box kit advertised on its website, but we've reached out to the company for clarification.

More on aging: Scientists Figure Out Exact Ages Your Face Will Start Aging Like Milk

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Absolutely Deranged Study Says Swallowing Makes You Happy and Is Why You Overeat

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Groundbreaking, surprising research reveals that the joy of swallowing, not just taste or aroma, drives our eating habits.

Every now and again, we get news of a scientific breakthrough that makes us want to put our heads through drywall — and this is one of them: researchers have determined that the happiness we derive from swallowing is what keeps us eating more (and more) of it, not from food's aroma, or taste, as you might expect.

Yes, you read that correctly: You keep eating more because your brain loves to swallow.

Start with why you're excited to eat in the first place. A constellation of indicators driven by flavor, aroma, and hunger cause us to take that first bite. But after that?

In what may be the greatest ad for Ozempic nobody could've seen coming, a paper with the catchy title of "Serotonergic modulation of swallowing in a complete fly vagus nerve connectome" was published last month in the journal Current Biology, to figure out the neurological process that keeps us, for lack of better poetry, NOMing back for more.

While reasonable hypotheses such as "Have you ever only eaten 1/15th of a cheesesteak?!" and "What kind of serial killer-grade psychopath only eats one french fry?!" went tragically untested, a substantial conclusion was somehow reached:

We identify a gut-brain feedback loop in which Piezo-expressing mechanosensory neurons in the esophagus convey food passage information to a cluster of six serotonergic neurons in the brain. Together with information on food value, these central serotonergic neurons enhance the activity of serotonin receptor 7-expressing motor neurons that drive swallowing.

By which they mean: The moment food moves from your grill past your gullet — technically, your esophagus — your brain releases a hit of serotonin, a.k.a. the "feel-good" hormone.

Seeking to figure out how your stomach interacts with your brain when you're digesting food, an international consortium of scientists set out on this adventure, armed with an electron microscope aimed at the larvae of fruit flies — who have somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 nerve cells — after splitting them into "razor-thin slices." This is how they were able to get a closer look to see how their nerve cells work in tandem with one another during the digestive process.

For a visual reference, please enjoy the art used for the University of Bonn press release, which somehow accurately conveys the entire thing:

Masterful. But that's not all! The researchers did indeed find something significant, which was what they called a "stretch receptor" in the esophagus — a nerve signal that's fired off to the brain when the esophagus is processing food. If this all sounds utterly useless at face value, we're relieved to tell you that somehow, it's not. In fact, it could be extremely useful information. Per the Bonn press release:

"If [that "stretch receptor"] is defective, it could potentially cause eating disorders such as anorexia or binge eating. It may therefore be possible that the results of this basic research could also have implications for the treatment of such disorders."

In other words, if this research does path to humans like the researchers suspect it does, then there could be implications involving helping identify — and maybe, one day, reactivating — those receptors which may be broken in those with eating disorders, helping solve those problems.

It's yet another example of the kind of human behaviors we believe are a matter of choice, when they're just part and parcel of brain chemistry.

Until then, the next time you're being chided for having that extra french fry, just remember: It's not nearly as much a matter of self-control as you've probably believed it to be. If nothing else, take it as a way to be more forgiving to yourself. After all, there are far more bitter pills to (ahem) swallow. The only problem is that they might make you want to eat more of them.

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NASA’s Lunar Space Station Just Took a Massive Step Towards Launching

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

A core component of NASA's Gateway lunar space station just passed a grueling round of pressure tests, a big win for the project.

Under Pressure

NASA announced yesterday that its forthcoming Gateway lunar space station — an outpost designed to house astronauts in the Moon's orbit — just passed a critical milestone.

According to the agency, Gateway's Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) successfully passed a grueling round of "static load testing," defined by NASA as a "rigorous stress test of how well the structure responds to the forces encountered in deep space."

In other words, HALO won't crumble or crack under the extreme conditions it'll face in lunar orbit.

"Static load testing is one of the major environmental stress tests HALO will undergo," NASA continues in its announcement, adding that HALO, which is currently in Italy, will be transferred to Arizona "once all phases of testing are complete." There, NASA contractor Northrop Grumman will add HALO's finishing touches.

HALO is one of "four pressurized Gateway modules where astronauts will live, conduct science, and prepare for missions to the lunar South Pole region," per NASA's announcement.

It's an exciting mile marker for Gateway, which stands to mark the first sustained human presence on and around our Moon — one of the core goals of NASA's ongoing Artemis program, and perhaps a stepping stone in humanity's efforts to send humans to Mars.

Looking Ahead

While the stress test was a key breakthrough for the Gateway mission, it's still a ways off from lift-off.

The outpost will launch in pieces, and the first components to take flight — HALO and the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) — are slated for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in December 2027 at the earliest. By conservative estimates, Gateway is not expected to be inhabited until 2028.

It's an ambitious plan and there's always a chance of delays. In the meantime, it's heartening to see NASA's Gateway, piece by piece, move forward.

"Gateway is humanity's first lunar space station supporting a new era of exploration and scientific discovery as part of NASA's Artemis campaign that will establish a sustained presence on and around the Moon," said NASA of the achievement, "paving the way for the first crewed mission to Mars."

More on the Artemis missions: NASA's Moon Launcher Is in Big Trouble

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NASA Wants to Grow Trippy Houses Made Out of Mushrooms on the Moon

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

NASA is planning on growing habitable structures out of fungus — also called mycotecture — for space colonies on the Moon and then Mars.

Home Sweet Fungus

NASA is seriously contemplating growing future habitable structures out of mushrooms for space colonies on the lunar surface and eventually Mars, according to Al Jazeera. The space agency recently awarded a $2 million contract to a research group at NASA's Ames Research Center for the further study and development of "mycotecture."

The reason why NASA is investigating fungi is because it's extremely expensive to launch traditional construction materials into space.

Sending up fungal spores and mixing them with "local" lunar material such as water and regolith to make bricks would be vastly cheaper, according to Cleveland, Ohio architect Chris Maurer who spoke to Al Jazeera about his partnership with NASA.

Promising NASA research has also shown that these mushroom building blocks can deflect most space radiation, provide insulation from extreme temperatures, and can be grown very quickly in one to two months — a futuristic and highly efficient alternative to more conventional materials.

Room to Grow

Growing a mushroom house on the Moon would start with a special package landing on the alien surface, containing a sink and other household essentials, according to Al Jazeera. The interior of the package would then inflate while a mixture of fungal spores, water and algae grow an exterior shell that eventually hardens, establishing a new habitable structure.

While early experiments on Earth have proven successful, there could still be unforeseen complications in space.

The research mushroom group, led by NASA Ames senior research scientist Lynn Rothschild, is planning to send a concept model of mycotecture structures into space as part of the planned 2028 launch of a commercial space station called Starlab.

"In a general sense, there are technological risks," Rothschild told Al Jazeera. "Will the structure be strong enough? Will it really provide the insulation that we think? What will the material properties be? Will it really grow well?"

If all goes well, future colonies on the Moon and Mars will be popping up like mushrooms after a warm rainy day.

More on Moon colonization: Experts Warn Against Strip Mining the Moon

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NASA’s Lunar Rover Prototype Looks Like If a Tractor and a Golf Cart Had a Baby

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

In preparation for the first crewed Moon mission in 50 years, NASA is prototyping a new Moon rover that looks a lot like a tractor/golf cart.

Keep Roving

In preparation for the first crewed lunar mission in half a century, NASA is prototyping a new Moon rover — and it looks like some pretty distinctly Earth-bound vehicles.

Announced in a NASA press release, the new Ground Test Unit (GTU) is currently in development at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

As photos of the prototype in action show, it's already been taken for a joyride by some big names: astronaut Kate Rubins, the first person to ever sequence DNA in space, and Apollo 17 pilot-turned-senator Harrison "Jack" Schmitt.

Those photos also show that the lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) looks, for some reason, a lot like a mix between a tractor and a golf cart — and the agency didn't mention why, exactly, it was built to look that way.

Private Partnership

Though there's little explanation about those visual references, NASA did explain how this LTV prototype, which will never be sent to the Moon, was built.

Earlier this year, the American space agency contracted three private companies — Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab — to create components for the GTU.

"The Ground Test Unit will help NASA teams on the ground, test and understand all aspects of rover operations on the lunar surface ahead of Artemis missions," NASA engineering lead Jeff Somers explained in the press release. "The GTU allows NASA to be a smart buyer, so we are able to test and evaluate rover operations while we work with the LTVS contractors and their hardware."

Designed to carry two astronauts, the GTU also has additional capabilities allowing for it to be operated remotely, which makes it sort of sound like it can be "summoned" a la Tesla.

Because we're curious, Futurism has reached out to NASA to ask if either tractors or golf carts were used as references for this GTU prototype — and we're hoping the answer will be yes to both.

More on NASA's lunar ambitions: Scientists Outraged at Canceled NASA Moon Mission Plead Congress to Reconsider

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Deranged Mayor Promises "No More Fat People" With Free Ozempic Shots

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

While seeking re-election, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro is making a huge campaign promise: free Ozempic for all.

As Quartz reports, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes said that he lost 66 pounds after taking the popular weight-loss injectable manufactured by Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk.

"I took a lot of Ozempic, that little medicine that is helping everyone lose weight," Paes told Brazilian newspaper Extra, as translated by Quartz. "Its patent will expire next year, and it will be available as a generic and I will introduce it to the entire public health system."

As a note, the latter claim is not exactly true. Though there have been challenges to speed up the pace of generics in Brazil, the patent for semaglutide, the main ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, isn't slated to expire in the country until 2026.

After claiming he'd "introduce" the generic into the city's public health system without discussing how he would undertake such an endeavor as the leader of an individual municipality, the longtime Rio mayor then made an even bolder claim.

"Rio will be a city where there will be no more fat people," Paes declared. "Everyone will be taking Ozempic at family clinics."

Problematic fatphobia aside, Rio de Janeiro's population is a whopping 13.7 million people, making his claim a massive stretch.

Understandably, Paes' controversial comments opened him up to criticism from opponents in the mayoral election, which is set to occur on October 6.

Mayoral candidate Alexandre Ramagem, posted a carousel on his campaign's Instagram showing voters complaining online about lacking basic medical necessities in the face of Paes' comments. Fellow mayor hopeful Tarcísio Motta, meanwhile, said the comments were fatphobic and "disrespectful to the diversity of bodies" in Rio.

Hitting back, Paes insisted he isn't fatphobic and said he's only interested in the health of the city's populace.

"When the patent is broken, which should happen in 2025 or 2026, it will reduce the cost enormously," the longtime mayor said, referencing the 1,000 Brazilian Reals or roughly $182 it currently costs Brazilians to access the weight loss drug. "Why not make it available to the population?"

"We’re not going to give it away for vain reasons," he continued. "It’s not to make six-packs."

As usual, a politician is politicking — but in Rio, the personal seems to have become political.

More on Ozempic: People Are Apparently Microdosing Ozempic

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Google Is Stuffing Annoying Ads Into Its Terrible AI Search Feature

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

Ad Attack

Google's notoriously wonky AI Overviews feature — you know, the one that repeatedly makes up facts and literally tells users to eat rocks — is about to get a whole lot more annoying.

On Thursday, the tech giant announced that its AI-generated search summaries will now begin to show ads above, below, and within them, as a way of demonstrating that the technology is capable of actually making money.

It will also serve to assuage concerns that AI chatbots could eat into search ad revenues, which are Google's biggest cash cow.

Now, if you search how to get a grass stain out of jeans, as seen in an example in Google's blog post, you'll get an AI summary which contains a carousel of relevant website links, plus a heavy helping of "Sponsored" ads for stain removers. Revolutionary stuff.

"People have been finding the ads within AI Overviews helpful because they can quickly connect with relevant businesses, products and services to take the next step at the exact moment they need them," Shashi Thakur, vice president of Google Ads, wrote in the blog post.

Perhaps signaling its commitment to weaving its search engine with AI tech most of all, the company is also rolling out a separate product for mobile users called AI-organized Search results pages, which will be full-pages — right now limited to recipe searches — that are entirely populated with content curated by an AI.

Here Comes the Sludge

The move is all well and good for the company's investors. But for others, this is just introducing more AI slop that's watering down an increasingly less useful search engine.

Like AI chatbots in general, Google's AI Overviews have earned a reputation for being unreliable and making up facts. Notable gaffes include recommending putting glue on pizza and smearing poop on a balloon — and its bad rep is no doubt heightened by the fact that the AI summaries are forced to the top of a search engine that practically everyone uses.

And while this will protect Google's revenue stream, it does little for the websites who are losing clicks because their content is being mediated through an AI model. A Google spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg that the company won't share ad money with publishers whose material is cited in the AI overviews.

As a small concession, however, Google will start including inline links to those sources. Rhiannon Bell, Google Search's VP of user experience, claims that tests showed that compared to the old design, which relegated links to the bottom of the summaries, this new one sends more traffic to the cited websites, per Bloomberg.

In any case, it's looking like Google is in the AI search game for the long haul.

More on Google: Google Paid $2.7 Billion to Get a Single AI Researcher Back

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Vast Majority of CEOs Ready to Make Remote Workers’ Lives As Miserable As Possible

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

The battle over remote work continues — and it looks like CEOs are overwhelmingly willing to take extreme measures to get folks back to the office.

Giving an Edge

The battle over remote work continues — and it looks like chief executives are overwhelmingly willing to take extreme measures to get folks back to the office.

A recent report from the global research and accounting firm KPMG shows that 89 percent of corporate CEOs at US companies are willing to dangle incentives like "favorable assignments, raises, and promotions" for employees who head back to the office full-time.

As Inc and Axios point out, that overwhelming figure suggests that CEOs may also be willing to withhold those same benefits from employees who choose to stay home. In other words, folks who are willing or able to get back into the office will likely have a serious advantage over those who don't want to be back in the office — or, perhaps more importantly, can't due to location, health, or family reasons.

It's a staggering figure, and one that comes at a tumultuous moment in the ongoing battle between remote or hybrid workforces and C-suite executives insisting that it's time for employees to get back to the office full-time — despite overwhelming evidence that remote work doesn't affect productivity.

RTO Cullings

The KPMG report also found that 79 percent of CEOs expect that within three years, corporate roles ceded to remote setups during the pandemic will once again be in the office full-time. Per the report, just a few short months ago, only 34 percent of CEOs predicted a mass return-to-office shift.

On that note, the report's findings come after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced last month that employees must return to the office for all five days a week, or otherwise risk being sacked. And while Jassy's decision might have some chief executives feeling inspired, it's worth noting that the decision was met with outrage from much of Amazon's workforce.

Many of them have since looked for work elsewhere.

"At first, I didn't quite believe it," one such Amazon employee, a mother who says she was hired with the understanding that there would be no full-time return-to-office mandate, recently told Fortune. "I've been updating my resume and portfolio, and rage applying to new jobs on LinkedIn."

Some CEOs have admitted to using return-to-office mandates as a guise for layoffs, expecting the decision to lead to some degree of a voluntary exodus.

Whether the executives' gambit to attract workers to come back to the office will pay off in the long run remains to be seen. If there's one certainty, it's that a mandate likely won't go over easy.

More on the future of work: CEO Alarmed to Discover That Laying Off 1,500 Workers Had Consequences

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Scientists Gene Hack Bacteria That Breaks Down Plastic Waste

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Danzig

The scientists edited to the bacteria to prove which enzyme it used to degrade PET plastics into bioavailable carbon.

Bottom Feeders

We may have a way of literally eating away at our planet's pollution crisis.

As part of a new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, researchers have shed additional light on a possibly game-changing bacteria that grows on common polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics, confirming that it can break down and eat the polymers that make up the waste.

Scientists have long been interested in the plastic-decomposing abilities of the bacteria, Comamonas testosteroni. But this is the first time that the mechanisms behind that process have been fully documented, according to study senior author Ludmilla Aristilde.

"The machinery in environmental microbes is still a largely untapped potential for uncovering sustainable solutions we can exploit," Aristilde, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University in Illinois, told The Washington Post.

Enzyme or Reason

To observe its plastic-devouring ability, the researchers isolated a bacterium sample, grew it on shards of PET plastics, and then used advanced microscopic imaging to look for changes inside the microbe, in the plastic, and in the surrounding water.

Later, they identified the specific enzyme that helped break down the plastic. To prove it was the one, they edited the genes of the bacteria so that it wouldn't secrete the enzyme and found that without it, the bacteria's plastic degrading abilities were markedly diminished.

That gene-hacking trick formed a full picture of what goes on. First, the bacteria more or less chews on the plastic to break it into microscopic particles. Then, they use the enzyme to degrade the tiny pieces into their monomer building blocks, which provide a bioavailable source of carbon.

"It is amazing that this bacterium can perform that entire process, and we identified a key enzyme responsible for breaking down the plastic materials," Aristilde said in a statement about the work. "This could be optimized and exploited to help get rid of plastics in the environment."

PET Project

PET plastics, which are often used in water bottles, account for 12 percent of global solid waste, the researchers said. It also accounts for up to 50 percent of the microplastics found in wastewater.

That happens to be the environment that C. testosteroni thrives in, opening up the possibility of tailoring the bacteria to clean up our sewage before it's dumped into the ocean, for example.

But we'll need to understand more about the bacteria before that can happen.

"There's a lot of different kinds of plastic, and there are just as many potential solutions to reducing the environmental harm of plastic pollution," Timothy Hollein, a professor of biology at Loyola University Chicago who was not involved with the study, told WaPo. "We're best positioned to pursue all options at the same time."

More on pollution: A Shocking Percentage of Our Brains Are Made of Microplastics, Scientists Find

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